Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hatake Kakashi dies alone in the ravaged ruins of a village he'd never quite considered home. He dies pinned between two slabs of crumbling concrete, blood and ash soaking his mask and making it hard to breathe. He dies of sheer exhaustion as he gives up the last threads of his strength in a last-ditch effort to save the only other person with the critical knowledge to stop Pein from destroying everyone.

Shinsou Hitoshi is born in a tiny hospital room to a mother who hadn't wanted a child and a father who was too high to care that his wife was in labor. Hitoshi is born with a shock of white hair and a single blood-red eye.

The maternity ward is a place of joyful parents and the celebration of new life. Hitoshi's mother looks at her baby, a child who refuses to cry and stares listlessly at the ceiling, and wishes she were anywhere but here.

--

Hitoshi knows there's something wrong with himself before he's even old enough to have a sense of self. He looks at his reflection and knows that the infant looking back at him isn't what he should be seeing.

His dreams are a maelstrom of grief and fear, his mind overwhelmed with a lifetime of emotions his brain isn't developed enough to comprehend. There's an ingrained instinct blaring that everything is wrong wrong wrong.

He's completely dependent on two people who spend most of their time screaming at each other and passing out in drunken stupors.

He spends hours in silence with nothing but the faint sounds of the neighbors to keep him company. Their faucet drips sluggishly, lights flickering from an overtaxed electrical system. Floorboards creak with age and a lack of care. Their apartment is little more than two tiny rooms and a bathroom, all with paper-thin walls.

Hitoshi is two and a half years old when he finally starts to understand why nothing in the world makes sense. He knows, in a distant sense, that he'd died. He understands that in another lifetime, in another reality, he'd been known as Hatake Kakashi and death had been more welcomed than feared.

So why is he here, in a place filled with chimera-like hybrids of humans, animals and technology so wildly different from everything he'd ever known?

There's no one to ask. Even if there was, he knows there wouldn't be any good answer.

--

Hitoshi is three years old when the full extent of his memories finally sinks in. Realistically, he knows the slow trickle of knowledge is because his brain had to develop enough to be capable of processing everything. More emotionally, he's realizing it's been three years since he died and left his friends and students to fight for their lives against an opponent with almost no weaknesses. They'd been losing, overwhelmingly so.

He hopes against hope that his dying actions helped turn the tide of the war, but he knows better than to believe it. The odds had been stacked so heavily against them it was a wonder they'd lasted as long as they had.

He wonders what Obito would think, if he could see him now. He'd probably laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. The great copy-nin of Konoha, a man begrudgingly elected as next-in-line to become Hokage, now reduced to a powerless toddler.

The side of himself that still thinks of himself as Kakashi wishes he could laugh. Instead he closes his eyes and sees Chouza lifeless on the ground, Chouza's son - a boy barely into adolescence - sobbing inconsolably as he clutches his father's bloody jacket. Kakashi sees countless shinobi with empty gazes and broken bodies, men and women he'd fought side by side with for over two decades who'd all taken their last breath on the battlefield their home had turned into. He sees the village he'd once sworn to protect reduced to chunks of concrete and charred wood.

Kakashi should still be there with them. He'd be honored to be counted among the dead, to become nothing more than another name carved into the Memorial Stone for making the ultimate sacrifice for his people.

He should have finally been able to pass into the afterlife, where most of his important people were waiting for him. He'd seen them, right after he'd died. They'd been smiling with hands outstretched to welcome him.

But then.

Then.

Something went wrong. He's not sure what. There's a gap in his memories, between that barest touch of his hand to Rin's and the moment he'd woken up here.

He's not naive enough to think he's going to find a way back. Even in the unlikely event he does find a way to return, he'd be faced with the grim reality that there might not be anything (or anyone) left to make it back to.

Kakashi forces himself to start to accept this new reality, at least for the time being. He can't live like this, with a fractured mind divided between a twenty-nine-year-old war veteran and a child not even old enough to go to school yet. He adapts. He lets go of the name Hatake Kakashi and takes on the name Shinsou Hitoshi instead. He convinces himself it's like taking on a long-term undercover mission.

For Konoha. For his students.

--

This world is mind-blowingly bizarre. People walk around with animal or mechanical features that aren't the result of human experimentation, unperturbed by the strange appearances of the others around them. For them, it's a way of life, nothing unusual. Others hold special abilities reminiscent of jutsu Hitoshi once used as easily as he breathed, with electricity sparking at fingertips and fire being conjured from nothingness.

There's no such thing as chakra here, at least not in a form familiar to Hitoshi. The focal points in his body and the energy stored within them that he'd always taken for granted - that in another world he'd once exhausted to the point of death - are gone, leaving a hollow ache in his body that feels like a phantom limb. His sharingan spins idly, somehow always activated despite the lack of power source to draw from. Hitoshi keeps it closed most of the time anyway - while it doesn't tire him out like it used to, it gives him killer migraines when exposed for too long.

Instead of chakra, this place has something called quirks, unique abilities typically developed by children by the time they're four years old. They remind him somewhat of the bloodline limits in his own world, especially given the genetic factor here. Children's quirks are often passed down from or manifest as a blend of their parents' quirks. Instead of those with abilities being considered special, it's rarer to receive no quirk at all, enough so that there's a stigma against those deemed "quirkless."

Hitoshi's mother, Shinsou Kasumi, has a quirk that allows her to disrupt the thoughts of the people around her with her voice. She doesn't use it often and Hitoshi's not certain he's identified it correctly. But he's experienced firsthand the disorienting effect of having his thoughts entirely derailed without warning, left blinking and trying to reorganize his thoughts. A part of his mind instantly goes on alert every time she speaks, just in case, but he'd take her quirk any day over his father's.

Shinsou Yoichi's quirk gives him the ability to alter the emotional state of anyone within a certain radius of himself. Hitoshi estimates the range is only around three meters, though it's hard to know for certain. Regardless, its effects linger even after escaping its direct influence. Based off his experiences at the receiving end of that vile quirk, he's pretty sure it works by manipulating the hormonal balance within the body, therefore explaining the time needed to restore a natural equilibrium after being caught in its crosshairs.

Hitoshi isn't sure whether or not he'll develop a quirk, or if his sharingan will take the place of it. If he does, it'll likely be something mind-based like theirs, though if he had a choice he would have opted for a quirk that allowed him to use jutsu again. There's not much purpose in dwelling on it in the end. His sharingan is powerful enough in its own right; while he hasn't had the chance to extensively test it, it appears to be about the same as it always was. Better, in fact - it's not draining his energy like it always had, though it's gained a tendency to give him splitting migraines instead.

This world is so much larger than anything Hitoshi has ever considered possible. The population of Tokyo alone, the capital of the island country he lives in, is easily a hundred times larger than the entire shinobi world. Even harder to comprehend is the fact that Japan is only a tiny segment of the planet.

The moment he can get his hands on them, he starts reading every book he can find. The written language is similar enough to his own that he has little difficulty adapting to it. When he's finished the meager selection in his own apartment, he teaches himself how to use the tiny mobile devices his parents carry around with them and is stunned by the sheer amount of information now at his disposal. It's all freely available for anyone to find, with detailed records of just about anything he could imagine published out in the open.

He doesn't understand it at all.

He's used to secretly recorded scrolls hidden away and marked as classified, only those with clearance allowed to look at them. The history of the shinobi villages is murky and fraught with inaccuracies despite being only a couple hundred years old - the history here stretches back thousands of years. It's hard to understand how all these countries are okay with sharing so much information, though he's sure there's plenty still locked down out of sight.

Advancements in technology, science and most other areas of study are much more pronounced here. Hitoshi reads of the development of cars and phones. He learns about flying machines called airplanes that can carry hundreds of people at a time across oceans, of televisions and the subway. He learns about the origins of quirks - a history far more recent than he would have expected - and how it's shaped the way society works. He reads of a vast universe outside of Earth, of other planets and that the sun is just one of countless stars, of theories of space travel and the possibility of life on other planets.

It's staggering, just how much he can read and read and never even come close to reaching the end of all the information out there. He's not sure he could ever grow tired of this constant influx of knowledge.

As far as Hitoshi can tell, shinobi don't exist here, not in any sort of modern capacity. The only references to them are in Japan's ancient history. It makes him briefly wonder if he hadn't changed worlds at all but merely been reincarnated centuries in the future, but given the lack of even the slightest mention of anything he can remember he's inclined to believe he's found himself in more of an alternate dimension or timeline. The lack of chakra or other natural energies he used to be able to use supports that hypothesis as well.

Instead, modern society here is built on a system of "heroes." The crime rate has dropped significantly since the ascension of the current number one hero All Might a couple years before Hitoshi's birth, but even with his presence the number of villains is strangely high. It seems like every news station is constantly reporting on another villain attack and the multitude of heroes who run to society's rescue daily. It's almost a miracle that Hitoshi hasn't witnessed any firsthand yet.

Their role in the spotlight instead of the shadows is completely at odds with Hitoshi's past and leaves a sour taste in his mouth. Maybe some of these heroes do it because they genuinely want to do good in the world, but with the way these so-called heroes are constantly vying for attention he'd guess they're a minority. He far prefers the system of quiet recognition or none at all, doing what's right not for recognition but merely because it's right.

Not that Hitoshi has ever considered himself to be a good person. At best he could call himself morally gray, but he's not naive. He knows some of the things he was ordered to do during his time in Anbu would make some call him evil. He can't fault that.

No, he wants nothing to do with this realm of heroes. He's not sure what he'll do with his life as he gets older, but he can already rule that out as a potential career path. He's spent a lifetime at war, and frankly, he's tired. He has no desire to jump back into yet another life of bloodshed and death.

--

"There's something wrong with that kid," Kasumi hisses, waving a box of medical masks frenetically. She's standing in the corner of Hitoshi's vision where she seems to think he can't see her, but he doesn't need to look at her to know what expression she's wearing.

Eyebrows drawn tightly together, chewing at the corner of her lip where the skin has cracked and bleeds, dark shadows under her eyes accentuated by a darting gaze and shifting feet. The older Hitoshi gets the worse it seems to get. She almost never looks directly at him, and it's not hard to know why.

She's terrified of him.

Where everyone else sees him as the three-year-old child he appears to be on the surface, she sees something else.

"Not this again," Yoichi groans. He scrubs a hand over bloodshot eyes and slouches further in his seat. A mostly empty bottle dangles loosely from his fingers. "What the hell do I care if that brat wants to wear masks? Let him wear the damn things if it keeps him quiet."

"It's not normal. I don't know why you refuse to see it," she snaps, the side of the box crumpling under her tightening grip. "He won't play with other kids. One of the workers at the daycare told me she caught him taking apart their radio while reading an instruction manual. He's three! He almost never talks. He doesn't smile, he won't laugh, he won't cry, he doesn't show emotions, and you don't find that even a little disturbing?"

"Don't talk to me like that. Just wait, it'll end up being something about his quirk and then you're gonna feel real bright, aren't you?" His face is stormy, body tense. The mood of the room tangibly plummets as his eyes glimmer with the usage of his quirk.

Hitoshi has been through two major wars. He graduated and became a legal adult at five years old and had killed his first man before he'd turned six. He'd lost two fathers by the time he was fourteen, his biological one through suicide and an all-but-adoptive one in self-sacrifice. He'd watched one teammate be crushed before his eyes and accidentally stabbed the other through the heart, his own jutsu turned against himself.

Hitoshi is not scared of Shinsou Yoichi. The man is a coward who takes his anger out on those weaker than himself, twisting their emotions to manipulate their actions and stop them from fighting back. Hitoshi has faced men so much worse than this pitiful excuse for a father.

His heart starts beating rapidly anyway, a pit of fear growing in his throat and behind his eyes as he beats a hasty retreat from the room. It's the effect of a quirk and not a reflection of his true feelings. But there's something viscerally terrifying in the loss of control over his own emotions, a facet of himself he's always kept locked down with almost obsessive fervor.

No, Hitoshi isn't scared of him.

He hides a knife and razor blades in tiny corners of the apartment where they won't find them anyway, just in case.

--

Hitoshi is four years old when his quirk appears. No one else realizes.

He can feel it in his mouth and throat, a buzzing sensation every time he utters a word. It's like static electricity in his voice that only he can hear, and naturally, he immediately gets the urge to put it to the test.

He doesn't dare.

Both of his parents' quirks deal with the mind. It stands to reason that his will too, but he has no way of knowing what exactly that would entail. It could be a copy of one of their quirks, but what if it's not? What could he end up doing to someone else's mind if he blindly puts it to the test?

In the privacy of their tiny bathroom, he tries to test it on himself. He speaks and focuses on his words and feels the way his quirk fizzles out with no target to latch onto. Whatever it is, it seems it needs a secondary target to have any sort of effect.

He resigns himself to leaving it unknown. It burns at his mind to have an ability he can't explore, but while his parents are hardly good people, they aren't the sort of evil that he'd feel okay with experimenting on them. Not like this.

Hitoshi's fifth birthday passes, and people start exchanging worried looks when they think he isn't paying attention. His preschool teachers whisper words of concern amongst themselves. When he turns six and he still hasn't shown any visible signs of a quirk, those whispers change. Maybe his single red eye is a minor mutation quirk. Maybe he has some sort of special eyesight. The school tests his vision and he lets them believe the color is the only thing "special" about it.

They start tossing a label around that no other child in this world would want to hear:

Quirkless.

It doesn't bother him. It's an advantage, one none of these people seem to understand - the advantage of obscurity. There are so many facets of power that don't involve quirks. Rather, many people with powerful quirks seem to suffer from the weakness of over-reliance and fail to develop skills such as martial arts or actual strategy.

No, Hitoshi would have been content to remain quirkless in the sight of the rest of the world. He has nothing to prove to anyone who would tie a person's worth to the existence of a quirk.

So the day he finally learns what his quirk is, it's thanks to an accident. A crack in his sanity, the exhaustion of listening to fights and battling a constantly gyrating cycle of emotional turmoil at the hands of a man without any desire to control his quirk.

His parents have just reached the tail end of another one of their fights. It's a near-daily occurrence now and even from the other side of the room, he can feel his adrenaline spiking. His palms sweat and his heart races, breathing resting on the edge of hyperventilation.

He's sick of this. Of living in an environment that's constantly manipulating his emotional state.

Yoichi is saying something to Hitoshi now, waving an empty bottle in the air frenetically. To be honest, Hitoshi isn't listening. He doesn't really care what useless things this man has to say today.

The oppressive atmosphere seems to lift for just a moment before growing even heavier than before, and

that's

it.

"Would you just quit it for once in your life?" Hitoshi says, words sparking with annoyance and the buzzing tendrils of an unknown power. He intends to reel it in and control his quirk like he always has. He really does.

Okay, he mostly intends to reel it in.

Yoichi's eyes flare in fury. "Who the hell do you..." he starts to spit out. Instead of flying into a blind rage like expected, though, his voice trails off. Hitoshi stares in disbelief as the man's eyes glaze over and the tension seeps out of his body, even the heaviness in the air starting to recede.

What the hell?

"Turn off your quirk," he says, glancing at Kasumi. He hadn't heard her talk. Her quirk shouldn't be active right now and it had never before resulted in such a lasting, unsettling blankness.

The oppressive atmosphere disappears entirely.

Hitoshi's eyes narrow. No, this wasn't her quirk. This was something else entirely. There's a charged undercurrent linking himself and his father right now, one that grows more pronounced as he focuses inward on it.

"Move away from me," he instructs. He watches impassively as Yoichi turns and walks sluggishly to the other side of the room. He doesn't turn around after the command has been executed; he just stares blankly at the wall inches in front of his face as if in a trance.

Kasumi lets out a choked laugh, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. "I should have known you'd end up with a villain's quirk," she says.

Hitoshi doesn't refute it.

She locks herself in the bathroom and turns on the faucet to muffle any sounds. He's left alone with the unnaturally still form of his father and contemplates his new dilemma - he's not entirely sure how to release his quirk's effects. Not that he really wants it to stop working right this second. He can only imagine the level of fury he'll be treated to as soon as it wears off. Instead he focuses on the tenuous mental thread he can feel between them, keeping it whole and unbroken for as long as he can.

A quirk that allows him to control minds isn't exactly what he'd expected when he'd considered what quirks he could have. With the maternal bias he's noticed in quirk development he'd assumed his would end up similar to his mother's. In a way, he supposes it's not all that different, though his appears to be much more pervasive and long-lasting.

At least now he has a rudimentary idea of what his quirk entails. He'd start experimenting further, but he doubts it would be taken well if he were caught doing so. He'll have to be careful how he moves forward with this, if he intends to use his quirk in the future.

A short while later Kasumi reemerges from the bathroom. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she avoids meeting Hitoshi's gaze, carefully looking everywhere but at him or at Yoichi.

"Come on," she murmurs, motioning impatiently for him to follow without any explanation.

"Where are we going?" he asks.

"To see a quirk specialist," she says. "We need to figure... this... out. Before you do it again." To me is left unsaid.

--

The visit to the specialist is short and filled with people who make no effort to hide that they want nothing to do with Hitoshi. His quirk is given the name "brainwashing" and determined to be activated by people responding to his questions.

Hitoshi doesn't correct the assumption it has to be a question for the quirk to work. Even the staff won't answer him if he asks something after they've come to that conclusion and he has no doubt it would only get worse if he suggested general statements may work as well, though he hasn't had a chance to test it for sure one way or another. It's a potential advantage he'll keep to himself.

The secretary calls him a little villain and disguises it behind a sugary-sweet tone. No one calls her out on it; it's obvious in the apprehensive glances he keeps getting that she's not alone in her prediction of his future.

This is not the first time Hitoshi has been treated with suspicion and disdain for something outside of his control. He's already lived a childhood of distrust because of the actions of a father he barely remembers. No, this is nothing new.

His tenuous grip on his quirk had long dissipated by the time they make their way back to the apartment. He endures Yoichi's rage and lets himself be locked into the bedroom, muscles trembling with the lingering effects of forcibly induced adrenaline. He presses a hand over his mask to muffle his breathing while his parents speak in low, hissing voices just out of earshot.

Hitoshi doesn't think he can stand to take twelve more years of this charade, pretending to be a child as his body grows but his mind stagnates. By this time in his last life he'd already graduated and been promoted to chuunin, legally considered an adult and expected to take care of himself. He'd been a prodigy who'd excelled far beyond his peers with a one-track mind and sheer determination in the face of those who doubted him.

Here, in this body, he's a disorienting mess of remembered reflexes without the muscle memory to back it up. And he's sick of it.

When he'd first recovered his memories, he'd decided he didn't want to lead another life of fighting. That sentiment hadn't changed, but he'll be damned if he lets himself stay like this. 

Chapter Text

School isn't remotely what Hitoshi was expecting when he finally gets to go. 

For one, there's no fighting. Their "physical education" is nothing but a joke, where they do little more than jog on a tiny track a couple of times (to the wails of some of the less enthusiastic students) and play around with a ball for a while with constant encouragements to "play nicely" if anyone gets too competitive. "Everyone's a winner," they say, where no child is allowed to use their quirk or outshine each other. It's the closest thing to instruction he's going to get for the foreseeable future, though, so he grits his teeth and uses the time as efficiently as he can to relearn the current limits of his body.

There's no expectation of children to grow up early. They don't learn politics or anything more than a sugarcoated version of the world's history, where wars are described as if they were schoolyard fights and everything is painted in shades of pure black and white. 

He spends most of his time in classes reading when he can get away with it. He's leagues above the other children in virtually every subject. At first he's optimistic of his chances to be allowed to skip grades and move ahead early, but that hope is dashed quickly as he realizes there's no system for early advancement in Japan. Instead he's eyed with suspicion by teachers who assume he's somehow using his quirk to cheat.

It doesn't help that no one really understands how his quirk works. Unlike most of the other kids, who are encouraged to learn how to use and control their quirks safely in their quirk safety class, Hitoshi's "training" focuses on ensuring he's not controlling the people around him. They tell him that under no circumstances can he use it on others and remind him of the consequences if he does. The teacher bans him from asking questions for "safety purposes" and tells him to focus on learning how to communicate with people without phrasing things as a question.

He wonders if they would ban him from speaking entirely, like his parents have at home, if they knew it didn't require asking a question to work.

Although he's managed to keep the nature of his quirk a secret, the other students aren't ignorant to the way most adults look at Hitoshi. Most of them avoid him or just ignore him entirely, just like they did the first time he ever went to school. Really, he hasn't known anything different. He's always been an outcast, and getting a "fresh start" in an entirely new world doesn't seem like it's going to change that facet of his life.

His mind flashes, just for a moment, to a boy with a bowl-cut who'd given everything he had to befriend him, in another life. Hitoshi forces himself to abandon that train of thought.

Hitoshi's presence is like that of a ghost. He wanders from place to place on silent feet. He doesn't speak in class and avoids instructors and students alike whenever possible. He's never seen without a mask, a lone element of familiarity he hasn't been willing to let go of from his previous life. He carries heavy books with him wherever he goes, back bending under the strain, the straps of his bag digging painfully into narrow shoulders. He's smaller than most of his classmates and stays in the back behind the tall ones, as invisible as he can make himself on a daily basis.

His saving grace comes in the form of after-school clubs. It's a tough choice between the judo and karate clubs; neither offers the scope of practical fighting techniques Hitoshi would have liked, but in the end he goes with karate. Relearning how to strike with his much shorter reach will be more useful in the long run. He's already got over two decades of experience he can apply to his technique once he's relearned enough to use that experience properly.

The club runs after school every day, though many students only come some days. He doesn't miss a day, often the first to arrive and always the last to leave. The head teacher, Sakurai, seems surprised by his drive, inquiring if he's hoping to become a hero in the future. Hitoshi gives him a non-answer. Better they think he's interested in heroism than the opposite.

The club quickly becomes his favorite place to be. On top of offering him a place to finally start relearning his physical skills, Sakurai is one of the few adults who doesn't seem too concerned with the implications of Hitoshi's quirk. He doesn't ban questions and doesn't shy away from him, even opting to spar with Hitoshi himself when it becomes clear he's leagues above the other children in terms of skill. Hitoshi suspects the man has an "undesirable" quirk himself or someone close to him does, but he doesn't ask and Sakurai doesn't say.

He advances at a much faster pace than the other kids his age, unsurprisingly, though the first month is far rougher than he'd expected it to be. He overestimates his reach and falls short of targets, his mind still accustomed to fighting in a body more than twice the height of this one. It earns him strange looks from the instructors, especially after he instinctively attempts a move far more advanced than he should be. It fails, and Sakurai gives him a disappointed look.

"Don't try to copy moves you see on TV," he says, crouched down so he's the same height as Hitoshi. "You've only been training for a few weeks. It's dangerous to try advanced stunts like that without mastering the basics first. If I catch you doing that again, I'm going to suspend you from training for the rest of the week, or longer."

He's a good teacher, Hitoshi decides, even if the limitation grates on his nerves. There's no way he can explain that he was, once upon a time, far beyond the skill level of even the most advanced instructor here. He'd probably be banned entirely if he tried.

His parents don't seem to notice him coming home hours after school ended. Half the time they're not even home when he arrives and he lets himself in with the spare key they hide outside. Their disinterest suits him just fine. He wouldn't put it past them to bar him from the club if they knew about it, especially given their stance on his quirk and future.

Despite the horribly boring classes and the daily isolation, Hitoshi finds that he doesn't mind school all that much with the addition of the club. A couple of the teachers have started to let him work on other things after he's finished his class assignments, and one has even given him a pass to go to the library whenever he wants. He teaches himself how to read and speak English, then starts learning Mandarin. The introduction of other languages opens up an entirely new facet of the internet, to the point where what's available in Japanese starts to look almost limited in comparison.

He pores over heavy books every chance he gets. He pickpockets enough cash to get a cheap phone and scrolls through articles on technology and history unnoticed.

School is starting to become tolerable.

Of course, that's when everything goes to hell.

--

Shinsou Hitoshi is seven years old the first time he kills someone.

It's not a particularly traumatizing event. Hatake Kakashi had killed at least a dozen by this age the last time around, and by the time of his death had a kill count numbering in the thousands. It's high enough that he can't recall the exact number, not that he really wants to know. It's not a fact he's proud of. 

Hatake Kakashi's first kill was seen as inevitable, a step every ninja must take at some point in their lives. Shinsou Hitoshi's first kill is treated like a horrific event, even though the victim is a villain.

He would have done things differently, had he the choice and time to find another solution. But with the villain bearing down on him and his classmates, children who really were only seven years old and who all had bright futures ahead of them, Hitoshi does what he has to do to keep them alive.

It's painfully easy, when it comes down to it. The villain isn't expecting a group of children to put up any sort of fight, not as the walls crumble around them and panic spreads like a contagion. He rushes at them, vicious claws extended and saliva dripping from a sadistic smile.

Hitoshi uses a metal chair leg and the villain's momentum to his advantage. He's thrown back by the sheer force of the attack, slamming into a table hard enough to break it in half. His grip on the metal pipe is steady even as blood soaks his hands. 

The villain stares at him, eyes wide with disbelief as he reaches down to feel where the pipe has gone straight through his chest. Before he can process the injury and launch a potential counterattack, Hitoshi yanks the impromptu weapon out. The villain lets out a wet cough and slowly keels over, landing with a heavy, echoing thud.

Hitoshi takes a deep breath, wrinkling his nose at the sharp tang of blood in the air, and lets the chair leg fall to the ground. He stares at the body of the man he just killed and feels no regrets.

Within minutes a couple heroes arrive, the police following soon after. Hitoshi doesn't miss the way his teacher eyes him with disgust, steering the other children away from him. Most of them are crying. He trails after them, shoulders hunching as he eyes his uniform. It's completely destroyed, and there's no way his parents are going to pay for a new one.

One of the ridiculously clothed heroes rushes up to him, clearly alarmed by the amount of blood staining his clothing. "It's going to be okay," she says in what he suspects is meant to be a soothing voice. She sounds frantic instead as she pulls back his sleeves, searching him for injuries.

He bites back a scoff. The worst injuries he got were bruises, but she doesn't know that. She shouldn't be assuring him of something that she's not sure is even true, because there's no way she could know if he was going to be okay or not.

"It's not his blood," his homeroom teacher says shakily, gesturing vaguely back towards the mostly destroyed school. She looks like she's going to be sick. "It's the villain's. That boy... that boy killed him."

--

The next few hours pass in a haze of disquieted faces and white walls as he's taken first to a hospital, then a police station. He's left alone for a while in a small room with bolted down furniture and a full-wall one-way mirror. He has no doubt someone's observing him on the other side of the glass. His skin prickles uncomfortably as he chooses to sit in the furthest corner from the door, resting his chin on his knees. Every muscle in his body is tense, ready to move, ready to defend himself if it comes to it, even as he knows his options are limited.

It takes them around an hour to come back. Two officers come in, a feline-faced man and another who looks like an ordinary human. The angles to his face are severe. Hitoshi reluctantly joins them by the table, head barely tall enough to look over the edge at them as they introduce themselves as Tamakawa and Matsuda respectively.

"Can you tell us what happened?" Tamakawa asks, handing him a styrofoam cup of tea. He looks soft, kind in a way most of the other officers haven't, though it's hard to tell what he's really thinking. Hitoshi isn't particularly adept at reading the emotions of cats, much less those of a feline-human mutant.

Despite himself, he's wary of this situation he's landed himself in. He's not sure what answer they're looking for. Do they want him to cry? To apologize? To tell them his reasoning? His apparent age is the only solace he can take right now - it's very unlikely they would incarcerate a seven-year-old child for killing in self-defense.

In the end, he decides to go with the truth. 

He recounts his reasoning in short, precise sentences, the way he would have reported on any other mission. The blankness on the feline officer's face helps, makes it easier to fall into the familiar habit instead of being put on edge by disgusted or angry expressions. He explains the way the villain had attacked the foundations of the school, the way the villain had screamed his hatred for the world, how he'd instantly zeroed in on children as his primary targets. Hitoshi had evaluated the situation and done what he had to to minimize the damage, at the cost of the villain's life.

Hitoshi doesn't say that he would do it again, if he had to. He may not be interested in a hero career, but he can't sit by and watch others die without stepping in to do something about it. He'd never be able to face his loved ones in the afterlife if he did.

"Do you understand that what you did was wrong?" Matsuda asks.

Hitoshi stares at him, internally berating himself for being even a little surprised that they'd act like his actions were in the wrong. "I stopped anyone else from getting hurt. I didn't even use my quirk - I didn't break the quirk-usage law."

The corners of Matsuda's mouth turn down in a grimace. "We have an eyewitness who tells us that you used your quirk to make the villain kill himself."

The bottom of Hitoshi's stomach drops out, ice creeping through his veins. He has no idea whether this 'eyewitness' was making things up or truly believed Hitoshi had used his quirk. If asked, most of the others would probably go along with the story or not remember at all. Of course they'd take the bystander's word over that of a child with a dangerous quirk.

He has no way to disprove it. No one on his side.

"You can't be playing hero like this," Matsuda is saying, eyeing Hitoshi severely. "Unauthorized quirk usage is banned for a reason. You aren't trained on how to handle situations like this, especially with other people around you who could have gotten hurt. You should have left it up to the heroes. They were just outside, and they could have taken care of it without anyone dying."

That's a lie. It had taken at least two more minutes before any of those heroes had shown up on the scene, at which point any number of children could have already been murdered. He doesn't try to argue. There wouldn't be any point, not against people like this. He swallows down the bitterness that floods his mouth and wishes he were anywhere but here. 

--

They tell him he's not going to be going home for a while and bring him to a tall gray building with bars on the windows. It looks more like a prison than the child guidance center it claims to be, crammed with dozens of children all wearing the same dead-eyed stares and bowed shoulders. He's forced to change into new clothes and mourns the loss of the shiv he'd hidden in his shoe and of his phone, which they confiscate immediately. They tell him he's not allowed to talk and that he'll be punished if he steps out of line. Quirk usage is banned under all circumstances.

They didn't tell him why he's not going back to the Shinsous, but they don't really have to. It's obvious it's a result of his actions, probably bolstered by his lack of visible reaction afterwards, but he has no idea if it was a decision made by the government or if he was voluntarily given up. It's not like it matters, in the end.

There's a good chance he'll never see the people he'd called his parents for the last seven years again. There's no pang of loss at the realization. He's indifferent, his only regret the fact that it's going to be harder to run away from here if it comes down to it. He'd just as well never see those two again.

The fact that he'd had a second shot at having parents and had it turn out even more poorly than the first time is a bitter pill to swallow, though. He'd spent decades despising his first father for abandoning a mission and then for abandoning his son by killing himself. He'd thought no one could ever fill that role again, that he'd been left completely alone in the world, until Minato and Kushina.

They'd given him a family when he had nothing. They were still newlyweds when they'd taken him into their fold, full of love and happiness that they'd shared unconditionally even when he'd rebuffed them. It had taken well over a year for him to reciprocate even in the smallest of ways, to learn to trust someone other than himself, to see that they weren't going to leave him behind or change their minds about him.

He found out years later, long after they were killed, that they'd wanted to adopt him. That they'd been fighting with the council for years for the right to make everything official, against clan law and against the outrage spawned by the mere idea that the Hokage would want to adopt a disgraced orphan like Kakashi. He wonders what he would have said, if they'd asked him if he wanted them to become his parents in all ways but through blood. If he would have said yes.

He'll never know, not anymore. That time came and went, cut short by the attack that had taken the lives of nearly a quarter of the village.

It had taken him years to even begin to recover from the loss. The years after their deaths is a blur in his mind, a murky mess of mission after mission for Anbu, facing the worst humankind had to offer and wondering each time if this was going to be the one to finally put him out of his misery.

Three years was considered an average length of time in special ops. Old members, usually captains, sometimes lasted five years. But most either retired or died long before then. It wasn't a department anyone was meant to stay in long, not with the types of things they had to see - or do. Those who spent that many years never left without scars.

Kakashi spent ten years in Anbu.

He'd only left because he was forcibly retired. Sarutobi had claimed it was because he wanted him to teach, but he knew the truth. He knew it was to prevent him from becoming another Itachi, another prodigy with a broken mind and homicidal desires. They were afraid he was going to snap.

Sometimes, here in this world in a body that is and isn't his own, he wonders if he did. If this is somehow all a fever dream with no escape.

There's a disconnect between himself and his physical presence here, one that fluctuates in its intensity. Sometimes it feels like he's floating, watching himself move without controlling what he's doing. It's like the universe is pushing back against his presence, against an unknown who doesn't belong, attempting to reject him to make things right again. But it could just as well be the cracks in his own mind, widening a millimeter at a time under the strain of everything that's happened to him both in the last life and this one. An inability or unwillingness to accept this as real, himself as real.

Chapter Text

Shouta is starting to regret accepting that teaching job at U.A.

It's not really the job itself. The students have been at least somewhat tolerable so far, though he's expelled three of them in the month since the term began. They call him a slave driver when they think he's not listening and seem to assume his harshness is because he takes some kind of sadistic pleasure in pushing them to their limits. Not that he cares what they think about him. His whole purpose for being there, the reason he reluctantly agreed to give it a try at Nemuri's insistence, is to give them the skill-set they'll need to survive in a world that's a lot harsher than any of these sheltered kids seem to comprehend.

No, he doesn't care if they hate him. He's not there to be liked, he's there to prepare them for a world that would destroy them if given the opportunity. He’s there to prevent a tragedy like the one his class went through.

But while he's used to sleep deprivation, this has taken it to a whole new level. Shouta gets up at seven in the morning, barely giving himself enough time to suck down a jelly pack and some coffee before trudging to class. He tries to wrangle seventeen unruly fifteen-year-olds until three in the afternoon, when he can finally go home. He grades papers, revises lessons and almost falls asleep in whatever takeout Hizashi brought home before collapsing into bed by six. At eleven his alarm goes off and he drags himself out to start his patrol. He rarely gets back home until five or six in the morning so he can shower and tend to any injuries, maybe get another hour of sleep if he's lucky, before starting the entire cycle over again.

So after carting in his latest arrest, a mugger who looks more like a knockoff Spiderman than anyone actually dangerous, he slumps into a hard-backed office chair at the police station without an ounce of decorum. No one gives him a second glance. His eyelids feel like they're grating against his eyes as he closes them. A styrofoam cup of sludgy coffee is pressed into his hands a minute later and he cracks an eye open, giving detective Tsukauchi Naomasa a tiny nod in appreciation.

"There have been some rumors floating around that we might have a new vigilante gaining traction here in Musutafu," Tsukauchi says, leaning against a desk with a cup of his own. "You hear anything about that?"

"Not much," Shouta murmurs, taking a sip of his coffee and reveling in the scalding heat. "I've been busy with that trafficking ring lately. Haven't been out on the streets much to hear talk of that sort of thing."

"Thank you for your work on that case, by the way. There's no way we could have gotten as many of them as we did without your help."

"It's my job. No need to thank me." Shouta absently runs a hand through his hair and grimaces as he accidentally pulls at a knot. "What’s going on with this vigilante, then? A copycat of that trio in Naruhata?"

"We're not sure," Tsukauchi admits. "No one seems to know much about them, even our more reliable informants. Whoever they are, they're remarkably good at staying under the radar. We only picked up on their M.O. recently, though it’s not consistent enough to know if there’s more than one person involved."

“You don’t think there’s a chance it’s inter-villain conflict of some kind? Do you know what they look like?”

Tsukauchi taps something on his phone before handing it to Shouta. “They’re pretty good at staying out of sight. We’ve had a rash of cameras destroyed lately too.”

Shouta taps the video on the phone, narrowing his eyes as he tries to make out the blurry footage. It's a fight, he realizes after a few moments. A hulking figure towers over a much smaller one whose features are hidden under a hood. It only lasts a few seconds before the larger one is on the ground. The winner appears to do something to restrain the alleged criminal before stepping back and away, melting into the shadows as if they were never there to begin with. It might just be the footage, but Shouta has a feeling they'd be just as indistinct in person as they are on camera, no identifying features other than a short stature and baggy black clothing.

He hands the phone back to the detective. "That's not much to go off of. Is that all you have?"

"So far it’s the clearest footage we’ve found. They seem to target petty criminals, mostly burglars, muggers and the like. They're all restrained in some way with wire or other things, and most of the time they're pretty dazed and unresponsive at first. But the real kicker is - sometimes there's a note pointing us to where we can get evidence to convict them, like where we can find camera footage of their crime or names of witnesses who could identify them. And it's in the criminal's handwriting."

Shouta raises an eyebrow. "They indict themselves?"

"We think it's related to the vigilante's quirk," Tsukauchi says. "At first I thought they had a handwriting quirk, one that lets them copy others' writing, but now I'm not so sure. All the criminals that are willing to talk say the same thing, that their memories went blank when the vigilante talked to them."

That's... concerning, to say the least. "I'll keep my eye out for them," Shouta says with a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face in annoyance. He'd only just gotten done dealing with those troublesome vigilantes back in Naruhata. He'd hoped to be done with that whole business now that he'd changed cities.

There's no denying the deep flaws within the current hero system. Shouta would be the first to admit it. He's seen firsthand the way glorification of flashy quirks leads to a dangerous sort of arrogance in so-called “heroes,” to the point where they're almost closer to villains in their treatment of those around them. So many street level criminals get away free because there isn't enough glory in taking them down, especially with a ranking system that directly influences the salary of heroes. Being an underground hero is hardly rewarding monetarily.

But vigilantes just worsen the problem by exacting their own form of justice, one outside of the laws intended to keep order. It's all too easy to take it too far, to start determining who deserves to live and who should die based on the opinions of an individual. They put themselves and others at risk through their own arrogance in believing they know better than law enforcement. Without any sort of external control to help prevent abuse of power, that line between justice and unreasonable punishment gets blurred all too easily.

A vigilante isn't at the top of his priority list, but he won't hesitate to take them down if they cross paths.

--

Hitoshi didn't exactly set out with the intention of becoming a vigilante. Honest.

Really, all he'd been looking to do was further his training. It's not his fault the martial arts clubs at his school aren't advanced enough anymore to be useful outside of offering him a sanctioned place to exercise for an hour a day.

It's just not enough. He's used to hours daily being spent on physical training alone, honing every muscle to precision, not to mention the lack of weaponry practice. He still has the eye for it, but the muscle memory no longer exists. Finding the sorts of weapons he used to favor proves to be exceedingly difficult, too, and he's left to subpar mimicries for the time being. They're unbalanced and often dotted with imperfections right from the start. Sometimes they're even visibly crooked and completely unsuited for a real fight. The blacksmiths in Konoha would have been outraged.

He really does intend to give his young body the rest it needs. He never plans to skip sleep for the sake of training. But he rarely sleeps more than a couple of hours without being jolted awake with a scream caught in his throat and adrenaline flooding his body, pressing a hand over his mouth to stifle his hitching gasps until he can remember how to breathe properly. His left eye throbs with phantom pain.

So he starts wandering the streets, late at night when most of the city is asleep. Logically he knows it would be healthier to stay in bed even if he's not actively sleeping, to try to at least doze or rest as much as is possible without actually losing consciousness, but no one ever accused him of being good at self-preservation. He trains instead, until his hands are bloody and his feet have blisters. He wraps the wounds and keeps going.

He learns more about the mechanics behind his quirk by testing it on low-level criminals, the sort who rob convenience stores and mug civilians on the streets. He gets good at his phrasing to make them almost invariably respond and practices vocal imitation to disguise his voice and trick them into talking. When he can, he takes them down physically before ever using his quirk or sharingan, just for the practice. Most of them he leaves tied up for the police or nearby heroes, but the truly vile ones he executes.

When he knows where evidence of a crime can be found, he leaves notes for police by telling brainwashed criminals exactly what to write. He'd do it himself, but, well. Handwriting had never been his forte. As a child he’d never seen the point, and as an adult he’d had a reputation for shirking writing his mission reports whenever he could.

It doesn't take long for Hitoshi to realize he can exude killing intent, strong enough to paralyze his opponents. Whether it's a remnant of his past life or a secondary quirk inherited from Shinsou Yoichi is impossible to know, but he doesn't hesitate to take advantage of the technique. It's particularly effective in this world, where few have fortified their minds to withstand a wave of overwhelming terror induced by it.

His sharingan proves itself to be just as capable as it had been in his previous life. He’s careful not to rely too heavily on it, but without chakra or access to the hundreds of techniques he’d once utilized in fights, it proves to be an invaluable tool in dealing with the wide range of quirks he encounters. Kamui is no longer limited by his chakra stores but leaves him drained and with intense migraines when he overuses it. It’s nothing he can’t deal with. Pain has always been a constant in his life. He limits his usage of it anyway.

Over time he memorizes the streets with all their little corners, where the cameras are located and how to stay out of sight, what doors are likely to be unlocked and what days the dumpsters are safe to hide in. When he comes across someone with a useful weapon he confiscates it for his own use, hiding most of them in an abandoned building out of sight of any scavengers or squatters. Sometimes he takes their phones if the last one he'd "borrowed" had broken or otherwise proven to be too dangerous to keep around.

His actions don't go unnoticed, of course. Whispers of a vigilante with a mental quirk start spreading through the underworld in the areas he frequents, though he purposely doesn't stay consistent enough for anyone to easily predict his movements. With his mask and a black hood pulled tightly over his head to cover his distinctive hair, he blends into the shadows and avoids easy identification. On the occasions he hears details about himself the physical description is rarely something useful, the only commonality being his small stature and higher voice. Most seem to believe he's a woman.

Every once and a while he encounters an underground hero, though he does his best to stay out of their way. There aren't many of them, but they're far more dangerous than most of the low-lives Hitoshi targets. He'd prefer to stay off their radar entirely if he can, and the last thing he wants to do is interfere with their work. Out of all the heroes in this world they're the ones who've earned his highest respect.

No, he didn't intend to become a vigilante. But if he manages to take down a few low-lives and save a few people along the way, he's not complaining.

--

Hitoshi is nine years old when he first meets Eraserhead.

He's heard of the pro before, naturally. Eraserhead is infamous as one of the more dangerous underground heroes currently active, with a quirk capable of erasing another's quirk just by looking at them and cloth bindings he manipulates as smoothly as his own body. He's the sort of opponent most street criminals dread encountering, for good reason, and the ones aware of him have been on high alert since his recent relocation to the city. There aren't many heroes with such a high success rate and low collateral damage.

Few outside of the underworld would recognize the name, but Hitoshi listens for the whispered warnings that get passed around whenever Eraserhead is spotted - and actually recognized, which is apparently harder than one would think - in the general vicinity. Given their mutual tendency to frequent the same district of Musutafu that's more common than Hitoshi would have liked, but he doesn't have the means to travel to another district with any sort of regularity to stay out of the hero's way.

But when Eraserhead starts prowling the streets nearby, it's time to leave.

This time he doesn't get the chance. He's mid-fight with a would-be burglar with a temperature manipulation quirk, the air around them so frigid it hurts to breathe. It's not a difficult fight, even considering his opponent has clearly had some form of martial arts training in the past.

He’s mid-strike when he spots white bands snaking through the air towards them, fast enough that without his sharingan he might not have noticed them in time. Battle-honed reflexes spring into action and he abandons his attack to jump backwards and avoid getting ensnared. His opponent isn’t so lucky.

The air temperature is dispersing into its surroundings, bringing it to a more tolerable equilibrium as Hitoshi glances down the alley at a man he’d rather hoped he wouldn’t end up running into. The man's eyes are hidden behind a pair of yellow glasses, hair swirling up around his shoulders. His hands tighten around his capture weapon as he stares in Hitoshi's direction.

"You're that vigilante I've heard rumors about," Eraserhead says, posture tense. Hitoshi is ready to dodge at a moment's notice, but there's no attack immediately forthcoming. His eyes narrow as he recognizes why.

Eraserhead is wary of him. He's clearly not the sort of person to underestimate his opponent, much to Hitoshi's current detriment. He grimaces internally; it would have been too optimistic to hope he'd stayed completely off the radar of even the underground heroes.

Though Hitoshi's skill in combat has increased exponentially since he started street fighting, he has no desire to test his skills against Eraserhead. He turns and darts away in the opposite direction, ignoring a shout for him to stop and relying on the cover of darkness and his quiet steps to keep him hidden. He doesn't have to go far; Eraserhead doesn’t try to follow him.

They don't run into each other frequently after that, though there are a couple of close calls. Hitoshi keeps himself out of sight after that first encounter.

Until he makes a mistake.

It's already nearing three in the morning as he slowly makes his way back towards the institution, eyes heavy with exhaustion. At this rate he'll be able to get around four hours of sleep before he has to get up for school. It's not nearly enough, not for a child of his age, but sleep is a luxury that's hard to come by these days. His mind screams of enemy territory while he lies in bed, and when he does manage to fall asleep it's haunted by the memories of those he left behind. Those he failed. He closes his eyes and sees death.

Something prickles at the back of Hitoshi’s neck and he glances around, eyes narrowing as he spots a girl crumpled on the ground. He hadn't heard any signs of a struggle, but as a man crouches over her, intent clear in his eyes, Hitoshi doesn't waste time trying to figure out the details. He doesn't even try to fight first, not when the girl's still at risk of getting hurt if anything goes wrong. Not when his limbs are already shaky from a sore lack of rest.

"Do you need any help?" he asks.

"What?" the man says reflexively, the bewilderment clear on his face as he turns, only for it to slacken into the familiar dazed expression of those ensnared by Hitoshi's quirk.

"Stand up and walk over to me," Hitoshi says. He reaches for his wire restraints as the man dazedly follows his instructions.

He doesn't hear the second person approaching, doesn't notice anything is wrong until the silence behind him seems just a little too empty. He instinctively leaps away, a blade skating along his ribs and arm as he narrowly avoids getting stabbed in the heart. He grunts as pain ripples out from the wound, mind racing as he tries to figure out how he could have possibly failed to notice the second assailant.

There's a gap in his hearing where the man is standing, a pocket of absolute silence several feet wide that doesn't lift even as the newcomer gives his friend a hard knock over the head. An auditory quirk, then. He hadn't heard the villain because there was literally no sound to be heard. There's a wicked-looking dagger clutched in his hand, wetness glistening along its length where Hitoshi's blood has stained it.

Hitoshi presses a hand to his chest, eyes watering at the searing sting when his fingers meet bone. It won’t be fatal, but combined with the fatigue weighing down his body he can’t afford to let this fight drag out.

The first man rushes at him. Time seems to move in slow motion as Hitoshi’s sharingan spins to life, a thousand possible futures unfolding in his mind. Their eyes meet.

The man freezes, gaze unfocusing as the sharingan’s illusion ensnares him.

A headache instantly sets in like a blunted dagger digging into Hitoshi’s skull. He staggers under the force, then snatches a kunai from his belt and throws it the moment he can see straight again. Even in his exhausted, injured state, his aim is steady, the deadly accuracy he was renowned for in another life landing it right in the man's neck.

At least, it would have if a familiar white cloth hadn't intercepted it.

Eraserhead drops right into the middle of the fray, landing on top of the man with the auditory-quirk and slamming his head into the ground. He doesn't let up his hold of the man as he shoots his other hand out towards Hitoshi and the villain he'd been fighting, capture weapon flowing like a blade of water with the movement. It twists around and wraps around both both of them. The pressure on the wound offered by the wrapping helps stem the flow somewhat, way better than Hitoshi's hand had been managing. But his limbs instinctively thrash against the overwhelming pain that pulses through his chest, a strangled shout ripping its way out of his throat. 

Eraserhead drops down next to Hitoshi, pulling his goggles away from his bloodshot eyes as he seems to notice the blood staining the fabric red. His irises are glowing faintly, hair still waving weightlessly in the air. Even against a seemingly incapacitated opponent, he's not taking any chances. 

"How bad is it?" he grunts, already pulling out a dented phone and rapidly tapping out a message.

Hitoshi almost doesn't answer. But considering this man's capture weapon is keeping him from losing more blood than he already has and the fact that he doesn't have a lot of other options right now, he gives in. "It's about five inches long across the ribs. No organ damage, but it hit bone."

Eraserhead almost drops his phone, fumbling awkwardly with it as he stares disbelievingly at Hitoshi. His hair settles messily over his shoulders. "You're a kid."

"That's not really relevant right now," Hitoshi says, irritated despite himself. "I have gauze in my belt. If you want to make yourself useful, help me wrap this so I don't bleed out as soon as you let go of me with your capture weapon." It's an exaggeration - he's hardly going to bleed out from a wound like this. If it had nicked an artery he’d already be dead. But he needs to get out of here, and it would be way easier to do so with at least bare minimum medical attention. There's no way he's going to a hospital, after all.

"What the hell are you doing out on the streets like this?" Eraserhead asks, immediately moving to grab bandages and gauze out of his own supplies. "You can't be older than thirteen." Hitoshi doesn't respond to that, staying silent as the scarf shifts, still restraining his arms and legs while the bottom of his shirt is pulled up to expose the injury. Eraserhead sucks in a breath at the sight. "You're awfully calm about this."

"I've had worse," Hitoshi says dismissively, mostly to try to get him to shut up. He's pretty sure he's blown his cover at this point anyway - with the resources heroes likely have access to, he'd be surprised if he wasn't discovered eventually. As long as he can maintain enough reasonable doubt to prevent them from moving in on him, though, he's not too concerned. He's been careful to avoid having anyone he's killed connected to his vigilante identity for that reason.

Eraserhead's practiced movements falter briefly at the nonchalant statement before pressing a large sterile pad against the injury along with a couple wraps of gauze to hold it in place. "That's not comforting."

Hitoshi just shrugs, wincing as the movement pulls at the edges of the cut.

Eraserhead starts talking again, stilted like he has no idea what to say. "This isn't the way to become a hero, kid. Vigilantism is closer to villainy than heroism, and you could be in a lot of trouble if you get caught, even at your age. You almost killed a man tonight - that's not the actions of a hero, not unless it's absolutely necessary. There are programs out there, schools that can help you become a hero the right way." He tears the end of the gauze and tucks it into the wrapping, the capture weapon loosening slightly as he finishes up. The sirens are getting louder, quickly approaching their location. It's time to leave, before Eraserhead decides to reactivate his quirk.

"No one would want a hero like me," Hitoshi says.

"You don't know that," Eraserhead starts to respond, and that's all it takes. A ball of guilt sits heavily in Hitoshi's stomach as he traps him in his quirk, easily slipping free from the scarf now that the hero can't do anything about it but stare glassily at the wall.

"Sorry," he says, and he really means it. "Thanks for your help. You're a good man, Eraserhead."

And with that, Hitoshi disappears into the night, less than a minute before paramedics burst onto the scene. He stitches the gash shut in an abandoned building and hates himself for tricking one of the few people in this world who's ever tried to offer him a helping hand. 

Chapter Text

The vigilante is a child. 

A child. Not the sort that's only a minor by the legal definition, either. This isn't a seventeen-year-old on the cusp of adulthood, it's a kid whose voice screams prepubescent. And that literal child is out there right now with a knife wound deep enough to hit bone, probably trying to hide it to avoid getting caught. How the hell did someone that young manage to do everything they were without being detected? Where were his parents? 

"He's a kid," Shouta says, digging his fingers into his scalp as he hunches over the table. Hizashi clunks down two mugs of tea, hovering anxiously over him. "That vigilante is a child. I doubt he’s even in his teens, Hizashi! What am I supposed to do?"

"You put out an alert at hospitals to watch out for a boy with a chest injury, right?" Hizashi reminds him. He drags a chair up next to Shouta's and wraps an arm around his back comfortingly. "He can't take care of something like that on his own. We'll find him again and we can figure out what to do from there, yeah?"

"You didn't see him," Shouta says, shaking his head. "I'd honestly be surprised if he goes to a hospital." A terrifying thought enters his mind and he whirls on Hizashi. "What if he's the son of a villain? He fought like he has training, the professional kind. He almost killed those villains."

"First off, it's completely possible he didn't actually intend to kill the guy, just... got lucky with his aim," Hizashi says, though there's a thread of doubt in his voice. "And that's just conjecture, you shouldn't get yourself too worked up over it. Besides, at least then he might be getting medical treatment, right? Just not through the legal channels."

"I fell for his quirk. I knew it had something to do with his voice and I fell for it, like an amateur. I didn't even get his name or a look at his face."

"No, stop it with that self-deprecating B-S. You're smarter than that." He shakes Shouta's shoulders just a little too spastically. "You had more important things on your mind right then. Anyone else would have fallen for it too."

"I know," Shouta says heavily. But it's hard not to blame himself when there's a badly injured kid out there, who may be all on his own trying to keep himself alive. He might be a runaway. He might be unconscious somewhere with no one to help him - he might even be dead. And Shouta let him go. He'd let his guard down. 

"Look, just because he escaped for now doesn't mean you'll never find him again," Hizashi reassures. "Now that we know something more than just conjecture about him, we can try to find him in the quirk database. Think about it. We know he's male and young, probably between the ages of eight and thirteen. His quirk is voice-activated and can paralyze you. He has heterochromia and no obvious physical mutations. Given what he said to you, there's a decent chance there's some sort of history of abuse that might be in official reports. Highly intelligent, might be in a martial arts club at his school, probably has antisocial tendencies. How many kids would fit a profile like that?" 

"Not many," Shouta admits, letting out a slow breath. His hands are still shaking a little with the sheer tension thrumming through his body and he forces himself to relax. He slumps against Hizashi, breathing in the scent of his way-too-expensive bodywash and letting the familiarity of his husband's presence calm him down. "Thanks."

"Of course!" Hizashi yells, just loud enough to make Shouta wince. "I'll help you look, naturally. We could ask Nemuri to keep an eye out, too. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to help."

"No. Let's... let's just keep this between us, for now," Shouta says. "I doubt he understands the ramifications of what he's doing. It's possible he's being forced into it, as some sort of test or something. It might be some form of training he's being pushed into. Until we get a chance to talk to him, I'd rather keep this under the radar."

It feels hypocritical, to have his entire opinion on the situation change so drastically just by discovering the age of the person they're dealing with. But there's something in that kid that reminds him of himself. What Shouta could have become if he'd chosen a different path to heroism.

He'll decide what to do after they track the kid down.

--

Hitoshi doesn't go out on the streets again for a while.

It's too risky, with his injury limiting his movements and the simple reality that Eraserhead is almost guaranteed to be actively searching for him. He sleeps fitfully and grits his teeth during his PE classes to avoid giving away the fact that every sudden movement pulls painfully at the gruesome-looking stitches holding the cut closed.

Though he'd done his best to clean it with the limited supplies he had, it gets infected five days later. His chest is a sickly, mottled mess of blues and yellows, broken up by angry red skin and black thread. 

Fever burns under his skin. He can't stop shaking and he feels dizzy, the ibuprofen he's taking to help lower his temperature only taking off the edge. His mask hides the worst of his flushed skin, but at this rate it’s only a matter of time before they catch on and take him to a hospital. Yeah, no thanks. His hatred of hospitals hasn't changed from his last lifetime, and right now there's the additional fact that he'd almost definitely be found out if they saw his injury. They'll be looking for someone matching his description, even now, almost two weeks after the fact. 

It's not that he's so concerned about keeping his life here. This childhood has managed to be just as shitty as the last one he'd had, and here he doesn't even have the reprieve of a job where his age hadn't mattered as long as he was proficient. But the identity of Shinsou Hitoshi is fully documented, registered in the system as if he really were just an ordinary citizen and he's loathe to throw that away if it's not necessary. As Kakashi he'd taken part in deep cover missions that had required extensive and expensive fake documentation, and here it's just been handed to him for free. This world's system is infinitely more complex than any other he'd ever encountered, and setting up a separate identity would be more challenging than he really wants to tackle. He really doesn't care for the idea of living an undocumented life fully outside the law, anyway. 

Hitoshi had known all along that this vigilante stint would be temporary. That eventually he’d find himself in a situation he couldn’t get himself back out of. He’d imagined it would come in the form of a fight and that he'd be able to last a little longer than this, but, well. Here he is. 

He'll give it another few days. He has contingency plans set up if worst comes to worst - while he doesn't want to toss away Shinsou Hitoshi's identity, he isn't so attached that he'll allow himself to go to prison or whatever equivalent they have for juvenile offenders. He has a couple stashes of money, clothes, weapons, and even makeup to help change his appearance hidden around the city in case he needs them. Worst comes to worst, he'll get out of the city - dye his hair, temporarily ditch the mask if he needs to, and find an alternative source of income. 

Maybe he'll just bite the bullet and go to the hospital. He can almost hear Obito laughing at him for getting so sick over something like this. Besides, the sharingan would make an escape from any cell easy enough to pull off if it becomes necessary. It's not like they know to guard against it. 

-- 

It takes Shouta twelve days to finally get the security approvals to let him search the Japan's database of quirks-holders. It's the nature of bureaucracy, he's well aware of that fact, but as each day ticks by with no further sightings of the vigilante and no news from any hospitals, the choking worry he might be too late grows.

The search of the database is even shorter than he'd expected. With the addition of an age range alone, the potential matches for the vigilante's identity after entering what he knows about the quirk drops from ninety to seven. Filtering by sex brings the number down to three. Only one of the three has heterochromia - one violet eye, one blood red. 

Shinsou Hitoshi.

Ten years old, currently lives in a nearby childcare institution, placed there voluntarily by his parents. There's a small picture included with the file, taken when he was six and first manifested his quirk. Normally these photos feature brightly smiling children, all thrilled to have finally discovered their quirk, but Hitoshi isn't smiling. There's a tiredness in his face that doesn't belong on a child, eyes more reminiscent of a war veteran than that of a boy who would barely be in elementary school.

It's unsettling.

Shouta doesn't waste time. He texts Hizashi and Tsukauchi what he'd found and heads out to the institution. 

It's obvious even in the lobby that this place is run down, probably filled past capacity and understaffed. Despite All Might's influence on decreasing the number of fatal villain attacks, there's been a surge in the last couple of decades in the number of children who no longer have families to care for them. It's a vicious cycle that leads to many of these children going into villainous careers themselves, angry at the world and the system for their misfortune. 

They take him to a small room full of brightly colored toys and a short table. He'd requested Hitoshi's file as well and spends a few minutes flipping through the surprisingly thick folder while he waits for them to bring the kid in.

It paints a bleak landscape of the life Hitoshi's lived up until now, as impersonal as most of the documents are. Everything from school reports to psychological assessments to police reports fits together to create the profile of an exceptionally intelligent child who's had the entire deck of cards stacked against him since his birth.

Every sentence he reads bolsters his surety: Hitoshi is the vigilante he's been searching for.

It's not so surprising he'd turned to a less-than-legal form of justice, with this context. Part of Shouta wonders if Hitoshi has ever been taught a moral code or if it's something he's had to figure out for himself.

His eyes narrow as he reads the details of a police report detailing an incident at a school with a villain attack three years ago. He vaguely remembers hearing something about this particular attack, though it takes him a moment to recall why. That's right. It had drawn a lot of attention not because of the villain himself, but because an undisclosed child had reportedly been the one to incapacitate the villain - permanently.

Shouta had assumed the child had had a violent quirk, probably a powerful one, and that it had been an accident borne out of self defense. He'd clearly been wrong about that. The details and eyewitness accounts don't quite line up, though. The officer writing the report had noted the incongruities but hadn't dug too deeply into it due to the lack of any official charges.

And then they'd dumped the kid here.

There's so much potential. With his skill set, that incredible fighting prowess and reflexes at such an unprecedented age, not to mention the potential a quirk like his has, he would make an underground hero the likes of which few could hope to achieve. If someone is willing to mentor him, to help him fill the holes in his morality and guide him towards a more legal method of helping people...

Well. It could make the difference between a future as a hero or a villain.

Eventually the door opens and a woman enters, half dragging a white-haired boy that Shouta recognizes from that grainy photo as Hitoshi. He's older now, obviously, and looks about ready to collapse. Most of his face is hidden behind something black, something that looks suspiciously like... a muzzle.

"Why is he wearing that?" he asks, struggling to keep the sheer venom surging in his body out of his voice. It almost feels like this has to be some kind of joke, even though he knows it's not.

The woman immediately shrinks away from him, worrying her lip. She glances at the boy with something akin to guilt. "It's a safety precaution, for us and the other children," she explains, as if an excuse like that would make their blatant child abuse any better. "He was using his quirk to force other children to break the rules, you see."

There are laws in place that allow certain measures - within limits - to be taken to help minimize the danger posed by a child's quirk, in cases where it's decided there's no other option. That's not a secret, as much as people don't like to talk about it. And in some cases there really isn't any other way around it, usually in the case of volatile and uncontrollable quirks that could have fatal consequences. It's designed only for the most serious situations. Shouta is all too familiar with that specific law. He's also all too familiar with the people who take it too far, who use it as an excuse to restrain a child's quirk just because they fear it, even if it isn't truly dangerous.

"Take it off. Now," he says, low tone brokering no argument. He digs his fingers into his thighs to stop himself from punching her in the jaw for ever thinking he'd just sit by and be okay with something like this happening. It feels like a slap in the face of his profession. They knew he was a hero and still paraded a child in here wearing a contraption that's more like a torture device than anything someone could claim is a "reasonable precaution."

She complies, hurriedly pulling off the device and escaping from the room almost immediately. Shouta can see marks where the strap had dug into Hitoshi's skin and flushed cheeks before the boy pulls on a medical mask. He moves sluggishly like he's only half awake as he slumps into the chair across the table, looking way younger than ten. It's hard to imagine him being capable of half the things Shouta's observed in the vigilante. 

"You don't look too good," Shouta says. Hitoshi stares at him with glazed, unfocused eyes, and Shouta's mouth flattens into a thin line. Had no one at this wretched place even looked at this kid to see if he was in any shape to meet with someone? Had they even taken him to a doctor? "They should have told me to come back later if you're sick."

"It's nothing," Hitoshi rasps, clearly lying. "Who are you?"

It sounds genuine, if with an edge of wariness to it. Shouta isn't fooled, but he takes pity on the kid anyway and hopes he won't regret his honesty later. "Aizawa Shouta. Have you been to a doctor at all lately? You look like you should be in bed."

"It's not serious. I'll be fine in a couple of days." At least Hitoshi doesn't seem delirious, sharp eyes watching Shouta closely as if to say drop it.

Reluctantly, he stops pushing it. There are plenty of other questions burning on his mind, and as low as it feels to take advantage of a child's sickness, it may be one of his few chances to get more straightforward answers. His mind jumps back to that muzzle and he's careful to regulate his tone before asking about it; the last thing he wants to do is push too hard and have the kid retaliate by using his quirk to escape the situation. "Do they make you wear that thing all the time?"

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow at the question, studying Shouta like he's trying to determine why he cares. "It's for the safety of the caretakers and other children," he recites as if he's reading a textbook. He doesn't sound like he cares. It's indirect, but it's as good as an affirmation. Shouta wonders if this is all there is to it, if Hitoshi's the only child being abused here. He wonders if the muzzle's really the worst of it.

Do they think you'll kill them like you killed that villain?

"Do they... do they hurt you at all? Hit you, or say cruel things to you? Do you feel unsafe here?"

Hitoshi looks genuinely flummoxed by the questions, like he doesn't know what to make of it. Considering he probably expected Shouta to jump straight to the reason he'd even come in the first place he can understand some confusion, but the total bewilderment that Shouta would care in the slightest about his current living situation is the opposite of encouraging. 

"What difference does it make?" Hitoshi asks. There's a wariness to his gaze that wasn't there before, though his eyes are starting to lose focus. One of Hitoshi's arms is tucked carefully around his chest. Given what he's read about Hitoshi's past Shouta doubts he would have asked for help, not to mention his growing suspicion the wound is infected. It would explain the signs of fever and fatigue.

As much as he wants to push it, it's not the time. He hasn't even gotten to the subject of his visit, but that's not his main concern anymore. He's seconds from calling a doctor and dragging this kid along with him if he has to. "I wanted to hear what you had to say about it, that's all. I'm not going to make you talk if you don't want to." 

"If you say so," Hitoshi says, closing his eyes. His words are slurring a little and he's starting to lean dangerously far to the side. Shouta can't restrain himself anymore and he leans over the table to get a feel for just how bad this fever is.

Hitoshi's skin is searing under his fingers. The kid jerks back, startled by the touch, but it's clear he's not exactly mentally present anymore. "That's more than just a regular fever," Shouta hisses. He can feel the heat even without direct contact. Hitoshi needed to be in a hospital long before now. "What the hell is wrong with this place? You should be in a hospital right now, not sitting here talking to me."

He can ask his damn questions later. This fever is way too high to go untreated, especially if it's from an injury infection. How had he managed to avoid getting hospitalized for this long? It's been almost two weeks. He picks Hitoshi up without any decorum, unbothered by the minimal resistance put up at the gesture. He's not wasting time trying to see if this idiot child can walk, he can deal with being carried around for a few minutes.

It feels like he's barely carrying anything at all. Hitoshi is small, shorter than the average kid his age, and way too thin. There are deep shadows under his eyes. His breathing is faintly wheezy and he lets out a small groan when the manhandling presses against his chest before just going completely boneless.

"You'd better not die of a damn infection," Shouta growls, shoving the door open and striding out in the way Hizashi has affectionately dubbed his "murder strut." He hopes the murder part of that phrase is coming through especially potently right now, because he's about ready to tear this place to shreds. There's no way they didn't notice something was wrong with Hitoshi before now. The sheer negligence that would require...

The woman who'd brought Hitoshi in immediately starts protesting as he storms past her. "Hey, what are you doing?! You can't just take him like that, what - "

"Shut up," he snarls. "This kid needs immediate medical attention. I'm taking him to the hospital."

"We'll take care of it, it's a breach of protocol to let you - "

That does it. He whirls on her, using his height to his advantage as he towers menacingly over her. "Screw your protocol. I don't trust you people at all after what I've seen today. I'm taking him, and you can have fun explaining how you let a child in your care get to this state without any treatment. If he dies, I'm holding you all responsible."

She doesn't try to stop him again. 

Chapter Text

A steady beeping and the sharp stench of antiseptic is what greets Hitoshi as he slowly drags himself into awareness. Stiff sheets grate under his fingertips.

He's in a hospital.

He tries to force his eyes open, raising a hand to wipe at the crustiness making his eyelids stick together. His mouth and nose are cold, and he can hear the heart monitor speed up as he realizes his mask is gone. He starts to sit up but firm hands push him back down onto the bed.

"Easy," a deep voice murmurs. "Calm down. You're safe."

"My mask," Hitoshi says, his voice like sandpaper in his throat. He swallows futilely. "Give it back. Please."

"Shit - I mean, crap. Hold on a second." There's the sound of something being knocked to the ground before a medical mask is pulled over his face. "Is that better?"

"Thank you," he mutters, annoyed with himself but too relieved with the familiar feeling of a mask to care all that much about his eccentricities. The fog in his mind grows stronger as the initial panic wears away, and he's drifting off again before he can get a firm grasp on consciousness. 

--

When he wakes up again, he just feels bone-tired, like he's suffering from chakra exhaustion after overusing his Sharingan.

His mind still feels sluggish, fuzzy memories reminding him of why he's here and who he's here with. The fever's broken. Now that he's looking for it he can feel a tight wrapping around his chest and the barely-there sensation of an IV inserted into his arm. Guess it was too much to hope they'd somehow miss the huge gash.

His sickness could work in his favor, make him look like someone to be pitied instead of dangerous, but he's not counting on it. Not after he used his quirk on a hero.

Speaking of heroes, Aizawa is still sitting by the hospital bed. It doesn't look like he's moved much since he arrived, still dressed in his costume like he'd never bothered to go home to change, though it could be he doesn't really wear anything else in the first place. Noticing that Hitoshi's awake, he reaches over and presses a button without a word.

Aizawa waits a couple minutes as a nurse comes into the room. She fusses over Hitoshi, checking his temperature and other vitals before administering another dose of antibiotics and having him drink some water. Aizawa slouches in his seat looking all but dead to the world while she works. His eyes are half-lidded and appear unfocused, but Hitoshi isn't fooled - he's watching him very closely.

Hitoshi doesn't say anything to fill the silence, content to postpone their inevitable confrontation as long as possible. There's still an edge of grogginess to his mind that isn't normally there, likely a result of whatever drugs they've given him since he was taken here. Finally, when the nurse leaves, Aizawa breaks the silence.

"Shinsou Hitoshi," he says slowly, as if he's reading from a file. "Ten years old. Quirk, brainwashing. Capable of controlling the minds of anyone who responds to one of your questions. But it's not limited to that, is it?" He leans back in his seat, crossing his arms as he stares emotionlessly at Hitoshi through his hair. "You were able to get control over me with a statement, not a question."

"What are you talking about?" Hitoshi asks in a small voice, not that he thinks anyone's going to buy it.

Sure enough, Aizawa's quirk flares up, hair sweeping up off his shoulders in precaution as he answers. "That knife wound on your chest made it pretty obvious who you are, kid. It's a little late to feign innocence now."

Hitoshi sighs, closing his eyes but keeping his senses alert. Even in his weakened state he's ready to move at a moment's notice. "And if I keep denying it? Are you going to arrest me?"

Frustration thrums through his muscles, hands fisting the sheets. He'd barely made it two years undercover before getting caught, thanks to a minor injury of all things. The fact that the villains he'd gone up against had ended up being high-level doesn't matter. He's supposed to be the best of the best, yet here he is, letting weakness get the better of him. All the training he'd done once upon a time, all the jutsu he'd learned, useless. His body has been reduced to the limitations of a civilian child and it's never been more clear how badly it's affected him. It doesn't matter that his sharingan can get him right back out of whatever place they decide to stick him in. He'd failed.

"Back in that alley," Aizawa says instead of answering Hitoshi's question, "you said no one would want you as a hero. Do you really believe that or were you lying to get me to respond?"

"It's the truth, isn't it?" He rubs at his eyes. It's not a truth he would have believed in if he were still in Konoha, where a skill like his might have been valued or at least seen as potentially useful. But this world has an idealized image of what a hero is supposed to be, putting people with "good" quirks on a pedestal and fearing those with abilities much less desirable. The way the world views his quirk doesn't really upset him. It's not like it's something he can change, so he might as well find a use for it or ways to compensate. Feeling sorry for himself would be a waste of time and energy. He's not sure that’s the answer Aizawa is looking for here, though. "Brainwashing is the sort of quirk everyone associates with villainy. Even becoming an underground hero would be hard at this point, especially since most schools aren't going to want me. It would look bad to have a kid with delinquency issues enrolled in their program. And it's almost impossible to get a hero license if you didn't go through a training program."

"Your file says you've been expelled from three schools." Aizawa is still a blank slate, so neutral it's impossible to get a read on his thoughts. "They all say it was for quirk misusage, that you compelled other students to commit crimes or break rules. Is that true?"

Hitoshi shrugs, the action pain-free for the first time in weeks. That realization doesn't make him feel any better. "Does it matter?"

"It does to me."

"Then, no, it's not true," he says. "I would have to be stupid to use my quirk like that in the first place. I didn't even have anything to gain out of making them do the things they said I forced them to do."

"It's quite the assortment of claims," Aizawa acknowledges with a hum. "Everything from making someone skip class to forcing a boy to attack another student. There's no proof outside of the students’ claims, either. It's not very rational."

It's not rational at all, but irrationality in the face of fear seems to be a common theme in every world. Fear makes people treat each other in ways they would have considered abhorrent at any other time, makes them see what they're expecting to see and overlook anything that doesn't fit that mold.

In another world, he'd watched as an entire village shunned a child from his infancy for something he couldn't control because they feared the monster bound within him. Instead of treating him well and making him feel indebted to them, strengthening themselves by ensuring he'd feel loyal towards them, they'd treated him like a plague. They'd chased him out of their shops and told their children to stay away. It was a miracle Naruto had felt any sense of loyalty towards them.

It's not that different here. Hitoshi doesn't have a demon sealed inside himself, but he's unmistakably other, an outcast of his own making. He has no experience with how a normal young child should behave to model from, and though he doubts anyone realizes why, he has a feeling they can sense the abnormality of his existence. Combined with their discomfort with his quirk, the innate terror of losing autonomy over their own minds, he's not surprised at all that they believed those children without further investigation.

In their eyes, he's little more than a villain in the making.

"I scare them," Hitoshi says in way of an explanation. "They don't understand how my quirk works. Most of them seem to think I could make them do anything at all."

"Could you?"

"Of course not. It's limited to simple commands, and it's obvious when I'm using it on someone." There's a small pang at giving up the advantage of obscurity, but then, Aizawa appears to have unrestricted access to his file. It's not like he's revealing anything that's not already documented. Really, his quirk isn't all that powerful, not unless he augments it with his sharingan's capabilities. Idly, he wonders if Eraserhead's quirk would also stop his sharingan, or if that falls outside the bounds of what this universe considers a "quirk." 

He's pretty much resigned at this point that he's been discovered and is all but destined to be placed in a juvenile correction facility. The fact that Eraserhead is keeping watch over him like this suggests they're intent on preventing any escape attempts. Not that it'll stop him any longer than he allows it to.

Maybe he should be proud that he's managed to become formidable enough at this point to require a full-time pro hero guard. It's what he wanted, right? To regain some of his previous strength.

But he's just tired. Tired of being here, of their arbitrary restrictions, of living in a world that hates his very existence, of the way his mind doesn't seem to work right anymore, of whatever deity cursed him with a second life when he'd been ready to accept the end of his first. He's sick of being alive when for all he knows, everyone he loved is long dead because he hadn't been strong enough to defend them. He's sick of being alone.

"What's going to happen to me?" Hitoshi asks, even as he knows the likely outcome. He's still too exhausted to use his sharingan, so he's stuck for at least another day or two until he can recover enough to escape.

Aizawa sighs. He looks just as exhausted as Hitoshi feels, though he's starting to suspect that's the man's default state of being. His shoulders bow as he stares at the ground instead of at Hitoshi. "I don't know, kid. I don't know."

-- 

They sit in silence after that, when Hitoshi lets himself drift off again to avoid answering more questions. He doesn't truly fall asleep, lingering in that space between consciousness and unconsciousness. There's no way he can let himself fall any deeper, not when a lingering cloud of danger continues to hover over him. He can be awake and moving at a moment's notice if he has to be.

At some point a couple more people enter the room, carefully closing the door behind them. Hitoshi doesn't open his eyes, doesn't react in any way to the new arrivals, in case the heart monitor would pick up on the action and alert them that he's more aware than he's letting on.

"Thanks for coming, Tsukauchi-san," Aizawa says quietly. His chair creaks as he stands up in greeting.

"Of course," someone, presumably Tsukauchi, replies. They move away from the bed, speaking in low enough voices that Hitoshi has to strain to hear them. "I wish you'd called me sooner, though. Are you really sure he's the vigilante, Aizawa-san? He's awfully young. It seems highly unlikely, even given the nature of his quirk."

Aizawa's reply is unintelligible, but it sounds like an affirmative.

A third, unfamiliar voice chimes in, louder than the other two. "What are you going to do with him? He's still under the age of accountability, isn't he?"

Tsukauchi lowers his voice and Hitoshi only catches part of what he responds with. "...unprecedented, Yamada-san. The whole station's in an uproar... doubt any charges will be filed, but... probably be placed in a correctional facility, especially given his history."

"I think the expulsions were unjustified," Aizawa says, voice rising slightly. "I believe him when he says he didn't use his quirk against his classmates. There's no evidence outside of individual accounts; the fact that they jumped straight to expulsion only taking those into consideration without further proof is ridiculous. But that's not really the point here. He's clearly being mistreated in those facilities, and sending him to an even stricter one is just going to make things worse. His infection was bad enough that it could have been life-threatening without immediate medical care, and he couldn't even ask for help because of their so-called 'safety precautions.' There's no way a place like that can offer the kind of support he needs."

Tsukauchi sounds apologetic. "I can ask his caseworker to look into foster homes, but you know how bad the shortages are. It's going to be very difficult to find a couple willing to take in a child with his type of history, let alone his quirk. With the special considerations he'd need..."

"What about us?" Aizawa asks, and Hitoshi barely manages to keep his heart rate from spiking. His mind races, trying to understand what the man's ploy is. He must want something. It's too much of a jump - people don't just offer to take in a kid like him, without even knowing anything about him.

(He remembers a man with a smile of sunshine, a woman with a personality as fiery as her hair. He remembers being asked if he'd like to stay with them, only days after Sakumo's suicide and barely a week after he'd become Minato's student. Minato had only been sixteen, and already willing to upend his whole life just to help a kid he barely knew.

He wishes he'd said yes, that he hadn't rejected them for so many years. He wonders if things would have turned out differently if he had.)

"Us?" Yamada whisper-shouts, cutting himself off with a yelp as something thwaps him. "I mean - yeah, us!"

Tsukauchi sounds startled. "You two?"

"It's only rational," Aizawa says, almost sullenly. "We both have foster licenses - it's required for teachers at U.A. We're both pro heroes and my quirk would allow me to cancel out Hitoshi's if necessary. Our schedules would need to be adjusted a little, but generally speaking, one of us could be home whenever school isn't in session. It's a logical conclusion to come to."

"I - well, you'll have to talk to his caseworker. That's not within the police's jurisdiction."

"We'll do that."

"Good luck. I'll check on the status of the case for now - we'll need to interview him about all of this, but I'll talk to my supervisors to see if we can avoid needing to go to court over it. They'll probably go along with it, especially if there's a stable home that's willing to take custody. For the record, I think you'd do a good job." 

"Thanks."

"Make sure you two talk about it with each other first, though," Tsukauchi says pointedly. "It's a big commitment to make, so you should both be on board with it."

"Yeah. I know.”

The door opens and closes, a few seconds of silence passing before Yamada breaks it.

"Shouta, are you sure about this? I know we talked about taking in a kid at some point, but this is really sudden."

Aizawa sighs tiredly. "You didn't see him, Hizashi. I don't think anyone's ever really cared about that kid. He wants to be a hero but doesn't think he'll ever be able to, and with the way he's been carrying on he'll probably end up in over his head and get himself killed, or caught up in crime. I can't just sit by and do nothing, you know that." 

Yamada is quiet for a moment. When he talks again, his voice is gentle. "He looks a lot like Shirakumo, doesn't he? I know you still blame yourself for what happened, but it wasn't -" 

Aizawa cuts him off. "This has nothing to do with him.”

"...Right."

"I'm sorry for bringing it up without asking you first. I shouldn't have done that. If you're not ready -"

"No, you shouldn't have," Yamada says pointedly, though his voice softens quickly. "Look, let's sleep on it, yeah? We can talk about it again tomorrow and decide what would be best, for all of us. But I'm not opposed. From what you've said, he sounds like he's not a bad kid. He's got a lot of potential, as you would say."

Hitoshi tunes them out. There's something lodged in his throat that's making it hard to breathe and he's pretty sure he's going to give himself away if he listens in on their conversation any more than he already has.

-- 

Yamada, Hitoshi learns, is Aizawa's over-excitable husband. Their previous conversations while they thought Hitoshi was sleeping make a lot more sense with that context. He seems to have very little volume control and an extremely exuberant personality, shouting half of everything he says and using his arms to talk just as much as his voice. It takes Hitoshi a couple minutes to recognize some of the movements as sign language and he files away that tidbit of information for later.

If it wasn't for his drastically different appearance, Hitoshi would think Yamada was a clone of Gai. He half expects the man to start screaming "I challenge you!" and start listing ridiculous punishments for himself should he lose said challenge. But instead of a black bowl-cut and sharply defined muscles, this man has long blond hair and limbs so skinny it looks like a breeze could knock him over. 

"I brought dango!" Yamada chirps, prancing into the hospital lobby with a dangerously overfilled shopping bag where Aizawa's filling out the last of the discharge paperwork. "I didn't know what kind you like, Hitoshi-kun, so I got some of all of them!"

Aizawa gives him an unimpressed look as he hands the papers to the receptionist. "You were supposed to be getting him a change of clothes," he says reproachfully, shoving his hands in his pockets and ambling over.

"I did, I did, don't worry," Yamada says. He passes a second bag over to Hitoshi, who eyes it dubiously, praying that the man at least doesn't share Gai's fashion sense. He'd rather wear the hospital gown than a green leotard if it comes down to it.

"Thanks," he says, ducking into the restroom to change before Yamada can try to foist any of the dango off onto him. The room is empty, much to his relief. This hospital stay has offered more time alone than he almost ever gets outside of his nighttime escapades, but he's itching to finally leave the stench of antiseptic and death behind. He's always despised these places. 

The last 72 hours have been a whirlwind of uncomfortable conversations, interrogations and questions Hitoshi didn't want to answer. He'd kept his answers and motives simple for the police, banking on his physical age to make it seem more like the actions of a naïve ten-year-old than anything else. His caseworker had expressed her horror over everything that had happened and seemed genuine enough in her remorse. He doesn't hold her culpable. It's not like he'd ever told her anything. 

The worst part of it all was the moment Aizawa sat down and asked him if he'd like to come live with them. The answer was obvious. Logical. It shouldn't have been a difficult decision to make. The strategic part of his mind reminded him of the benefits of living in a single family unit versus a huge correctional facility. Heroes or not, they won't be able to stop him if he decides he needs to leave, so there's no harm in giving this a try before jumping to drastic measures.

But the emotional part of himself, that part that clings to the memories of another life, wanted to say no. It feels like he's betraying the memories of Minato and Kushina, of all the friends he'd made (and those he'd lost) along the way, by agreeing. He knows what they'd say, if he could ask them. They'd want him to find new people of his own, not to linger on the past and things that can't be changed.

He'll make a memorial for them when he gets the chance. Hopefully the visual, tangible reminder that they existed will help ease some of the guilt turning his insides to lead.

Luckily, the clothing in the bag looks relatively normal, though still too bright for Hitoshi's taste. The yellow sweatshirt is a bit overbearing, a large decal of headphones and the words Put Your Hands Up Radio emblazoned across the front, but the lining inside of it is incredibly soft. He fingers the material and lets out a deep breath, staring at himself in the mirror. It'll be okay.

He'll be okay.

Shouta takes one look at his sweatshirt and groans when Hitoshi exits the bathroom. "You got him stuff from your gift shop? Really?"

"I had to stop in to let them know I was taking the night off! It was faster to just get something while I was there anyway!" Yamada gestures wildly, a piece of dango flying off his stick across the room and unceremoniously splatting against a wall.

The receptionist stands up with a disgruntled expression on her face and they beat a quick retreat out of the building.

"It's fine," Hitoshi says as they leave. "It's comfortable."

"Of course it is," Yamada says, grinning widely as he ruffles Hitoshi's hair. Hitoshi resists his instinctual urge to flinch away from the move and begrudgingly lets the guy make his already chaotic hair even more wild. (And he'd thought it was bad before he'd been reborn here.) "I specifically chose the softest material for them I could find with Shouta in mind, but he still refuses to wear any of it," he adds with an exaggerated pout.

Aizawa is completely unrepentant. "I like my regular clothes. I don't need more."

"You're no fun at all, Shouta. Your regular clothes are the same as your hero clothes. You wound me. Oh, right!" Yamada fumbles with the bag of dango, holding it out to Hitoshi. "Want any? I've got plain, pink, green..." 

Hitoshi grimaces behind his mask. "I don't like sweets."

Yamada falters, though he quickly masks his disappointment. "Oh! Sorry. I guess I should have asked you first."

"You didn't know. It's not your fault," Hitoshi says. He eyes the man, feeling guilty despite himself. It was a kind gesture, obviously an attempt to try to make Hitoshi feel welcome under the circumstances. He sighs and holds out a hand. "Could I have one of the plain ones?"

Yamada's brow creases. "You don't have to eat it if you don't like it, you know. I'm not upset with you."

"I changed my mind, that's all. One of the plain ones, please." He stares expectantly at Yamada until he complies and hands a stick over, practically swallowing the first ball whole the moment neither of them are looking at him. It's just as tacky as he remembers them being in Konoha, but he forces himself to eat the rest of them anyway. 

They take a subway to a decent part of the city that's a few neighborhoods over from the seedier districts Hitoshi used to wander. They walk a few minutes and stop at a fairly nondescript, older apartment complex. It's seen better days but isn't in horrible shape, about as average as an apartment could get.

"It's not too big, I hope that's okay," Yamada says as they enter one of the apartments on the second floor. It's furnished nicely, simpler than Hitoshi would have expected given who lives there. It's probably Aizawa's influence preventing it from being a maelstrom of color, though tasteful paintings and brown-orange cushions on the chairs add a lot of warmth to the space. A few dishes are stacked in the sink in the modest kitchen, a small living room sitting just beyond it. Several binders are stacked on the table, notes written in the margins in red ink. A cat tower sits in the corner, a black ball of fluff with only one ear and a crooked tail slumbering on top. An overweight tabby weaves itself around Aizawa's legs, eyeing Hitoshi suspiciously. There are a couple screen doors that presumably lead to a bedroom and a bathroom, maybe a closet. It looks lived in, in a way none of Hitoshi's homes ever have.

"It's nice," he says, noting the exits, windows, the knives in the kitchen, the way the front door creaks a little as it closes and where Aizawa hangs his key.

"You'll be staying in the tatami room off the living room," Aizawa says, gesturing towards it. He grabs a couple glasses and fills them with water, handing one to Hitoshi. "We picked up your stuff earlier. They only gave us a few clothes and your school books - is that all of it or is there more we should go back for?"

"No, that's it," Hitoshi says. Most of the other children did own a couple of toys or stuffed animals at least, but he hadn't exactly had much interest in those sorts of things. He's always lived his life with little more than the bare essentials. His cache of weaponry was kept elsewhere, anyway, and he'll find a time to retrieve those later on his own once they've let their guard down a little. He'll have to find a new place to hide them, somewhere outside the apartment. He doubts he'd be able to hide them from two pro heroes and he's certain they're going to be monitoring him closely, especially at first. 

"We can go out shopping tomorrow," Yamada says. His smile looks a little strained for reasons Hitoshi can't quite parse. "Just you and me, since Shouta has to go back to work! I've been working up till now while he's been off so now it's my turn to get to hang out with you."

"I'm worried about what I'll come back to if I wait any longer," Aizawa grumbles. "Be glad you're not a homeroom teacher, Hizashi. It's a pain in the ass. I don't know what Nedzu was thinking when he made me one."

"That you'd do great, obviously!" Yamada claps his shoulder, jostling him as he talks, voice gradually rising. "We've got a futon and stuff already that you can use, Hitoshi, but we gotta get you some actual fun stuff. We're gonna have a blast!"

"Shut up before the neighbors submit another noise complaint," Aizawa snaps, though there's no heat behind the words. It sounds like something he's had to say a hundred times already.

Hitoshi clutches his water glass with a vice-like grip. It feels like there's a hand squeezing his lungs, making it hard to breathe, as he watches their domestic squabble continue. Forget comparing Yamada to Gai - like this, the two of them together, it feels like Hitoshi is a young Kakashi again, observing Minato and Kushina not-fight in that casual way they always had. Aizawa's a bit (okay, a lot) more sullen, Yamada a little less hot-headed, but it sends pangs of melancholy down his spine.

Yet it doesn't hurt as badly as he'd thought it would. He's long-since accepted the emotional upheaval this body has presented him with, bringing all those repressed emotions back up to the surface and wrecking any of the progress he thought he'd made after retiring from Anbu. It's forced him to recognize that he's never truly dealt with the trauma he's experience in his life, simply ignored it and pretended it no longer existed.

He pushes aside the comparison and forces himself to look, to really look, at Yamada and Aizawa, and accept that they're different. They aren't Minato or Kushina. They aren't Gai, or any others from Hitoshi's past that he could try comparing them to. He has a chance, here, to move forward, to let the past be the past.

Easier said than done, but if he's going to have any chance of making this work, he'll have to find a way to do it anyway. 

Chapter Text

Hitoshi doesn't sleep much that night. He had plenty of rest at the hospital, and the unfamiliarity of his surroundings doesn't help any. But it's quiet here, the only sounds being the occasional car driving by, peaceful in a way his nights haven't been for years. He's grown accustomed to the sounds of children crying quietly over nightmares, snoring, constant creaking of beds and sick kids coughing. He rests in a light doze, his default state of sleep when he's not in a place he's designated as truly safe. 

Logically, he knows Aizawa and Yamada are very unlikely to try to hurt him, but they're still unfamiliar. Aizawa is still categorized as a potential threat in his mind due to their altercations on the streets and that's not something that will change immediately. It'll take time to be able to let his guard down. The fact that every couple of hours Aizawa had near-silently opened the door to check if Hitoshi was still there doesn't help matters, even if it's a logical course of action for the hero to take. Hitoshi dutifully does not attempt to leave the apartment that night.

He's pretty much accepted that he'll no longer be able to continue his late night escapades, at least not in the way he used to. It's something he's acknowledged since he started going out, that if he was ever caught he'd have to stop. Now that they're aware of his identity and watching him far more closely it's pretty much inevitable that any attempts to continue would end in failure, unless he wants to spend years on the streets as a runaway. He'd really rather not. Living on your own when everyone thinks you're a young child is a pain.

Maybe it's cold to admit, but his vigilantism was never really about justice or heroics in the first place. 

With two pro heroes acting as his foster parents, there's a possibility he might be able to get into a hero program after all. He still doesn't have any aspirations to become a hero, when it comes down to it. The way the system is set up, it glorifies the wrong qualities and essentially punishes anyone outside of their special program for ever helping their fellow human beings with their quirks. He's watched far too many people simply ignore an active crime even if their quirk might have been able to help resolve the situation because the law would punish them for daring to intervene.

It's disgusting. He doesn't want anything to do with a system like that. But he knows there are heroes out there who've essentially retired, who still hold a license but don't actively work in the field or make a living out of it. It might be nice to at least have the license, so no one could contest his right to step in if a situation arose. Hitoshi has saved lives without a license, yet the only reason he hasn't been prosecuted for it is because they believe he's a child who can't be held responsible for his "illegal actions."

The fact that he still doesn't truly have any purpose in this world is another factor. His time as a vigilante, brief as it was in the large scale of things, was fulfilling in a way all the research and learning in this world hasn't been. Maybe it's because fighting and war are all he's ever known. Maybe it's because he was once raised as a child soldier and taught that the good of his village was the only thing that should ever matter to him, even at the cost of his own life. He's already paid the ultimate sacrifice. There's no village to pledge his allegiance to. This system, broken and different as it is, offers a sense of familiarity that's hard to write off completely.

It doesn't make any sense. It's completely contradictory. Yet here he is, contemplating joining an organization he despises, just because he needs some sort of anchor to avoid crashing right back into the despair he's only recently started to pull himself back out of. It's the easy path for someone like him, a soldier without purpose.

Aizawa leaves for work, leaving Hitoshi alone with Yamada. His emotions are torn between relief that Eraserhead is no longer watching him and apprehension at spending an extended period of time with someone so similar to Gai in exuberance. He'd deeply cared about Gai, he really had - but the man had been exhausting to hang out with. 

He decides to wear the sweatshirt he'd been given yesterday. It's comfortable and new, unlike the majority of the clothes he owns. Most of his clothing needs to be washed anyway. Yamada absolutely beams upon seeing it.

The man chatters incessantly the entire time they spend walking to the nearest shopping mall. He's the hero Present Mic, apparently, and the host of the radio show featured on the sweatshirt. He just became a teacher at U.A. this year along with Shouta, where they both graduated from. How he manages to have this much energy while working three jobs is beyond Hitoshi; by all rights he should be more like Aizawa in demeanor with the sleep deprivation he must be experiencing. It isn't a surprise at all to learn that Yamada's quirk is voice-related.

"You should totally apply at U.A. when you're older," Yamada says. "I bet you'd be a great hero! That's what you want to do, right?"

"Maybe," Hitoshi says noncommittally, eyeing Yamada guardedly. The real answer is no, he has little interest in becoming what their society calls a "hero", but he's not sure how they'd take it if he told them as much. For all he knows they're only interested in him because they believe he wants to join the same career as them, or they'd misunderstand and think he's considering a life in crime. Whether or not he decides to pursue a hero license just for the freedom of action it would offer him is still up for debate, anyway, so it's not really lying. And to be honest, the physical component to the education is attractive. It would be far more beneficial than wasting all his time in classes on material he mostly already knows, at least. 

Their first stop is at a cell phone store, where Yamada picks out one of the mid-range phones for Hitoshi. "Just in case you ever need to get ahold of us," he explains, rapidly typing something into the device as they leave the store. "I added my number and Shouta's for you, as well as the numbers of a couple of our friends just in case something happens! You'll probably meet them soon - Shouta told them they couldn't come over yesterday because we didn't want to overwhelm you but they're dying to meet you!" 

It's a little late to avoid overwhelming him, but Hitoshi doesn't say that much. The last few days have been a lot, though high levels of stress isn't exactly a new thing to deal with. "Sounds interesting," he says neutrally.

Yamada finishes and hands the phone to him. "You should keep this with you at all times, even at school. Just in case!"

It'll be nice to have a legal phone again, one he can actually take with him instead of hiding. He pockets it with a quiet thank you, feeling slightly uncomfortable over the financial hit the couple is taking for him when it's not like he has no money of his own. He has a decent amount of cash saved up that he'd liberated from petty criminals over the last few months, but he's pretty sure that little detail would not be welcome from either Yamada or Aizawa.

They stop at a few clothing stores, all of them far more high-end than Hitoshi would have chosen himself. Yamada is having a field day rummaging through all the items, though he doesn't try to impose any on Hitoshi, saying that he should pick out whatever he likes.

He keeps it minimal, with enough to last around a week in between washes. Almost everything he chooses is black, with some gray and one dark green shirt to mix it up just a little. The material is high quality and feels durable, the upside of a more expensive outlet. Most of the items have ample pockets. That anyone would want to wear those infernal skinny jeans with virtually no pocket space is unfathomable; where the hell is he supposed to store his weaponry and tools if there's nowhere to put them?

Yamada takes one look at the selection and laughs. "I swear, you're just like Shouta! What is it with you two and the color black?"

"I like practical," Hitoshi says.

"Aw, but you can be colorful and still practical!" Yamada holds up a neon green jacket which, to its credit, does have decent pocket space. That's the only positive thing about it. "What do you think?" 

"Pass." 

"Eh, yeah, you're probably right. It's kind of an outdated style anyway." He sticks the jacket back on the rack and blessedly doesn't try to suggest anything else. 

Yamada seems to have way too much fun buying him some extra sheets, a couple pairs of sneakers and a few other assorted necessities. He lets Hitoshi pick out a few books on Python programming strategies and Korean, but rushes them back out of the bookstore with a strained expression when he catches Hitoshi eyeing the erotic fiction section. 

By the time they finally make it back to the apartment, laden down with way more bags than he would have wanted, it's already nearing evening. Aizawa is dead to the world in the bedroom, getting a few hours of sleep before his nightly patrol. 

Yamada quietly heats up some stir fry, asks about Hitoshi's favorite foods for future reference, and almost hugs him before bed. He must read the mood and switches to ruffling Hitoshi's hair at the last second. He says he's happy Hitoshi agreed to stay with them and actually looks like he means it. 

Hitoshi doesn't know what he's supposed to say in response, so he just nods. 

-- 

Life with Aizawa and Yamada is good. Surprisingly good. Hitoshi had expected the living arrangement to be more like a prison sentence than an actual home, and while his movements are far more restricted than they had been in the past he can't even feel upset about it. They clearly care, way more than he'd expected. 

He starts at a new school, one closer to where they live. It's not great, but it could be worse - by now, most of the students seem more wary than truly afraid of his quirk. The first time someone tries to blame their wrongdoings on Hitoshi, Aizawa comes blazing into the school with a quiet rage similar to the one he'd had during their first meeting, and shuts the situation down very, very quickly. Most students just give Hitoshi a wide berth after that, which suits him just fine.

His knowledge of English gets even stronger with Yamada around. He starts studying Korean and JSL as well. Though the sign language he'd learned in Anbu is different than the sign language here, he finds there's more overlap than he's expected. Yamada is thrilled when he finds out Hitoshi's been studying sign, and wastes no time teaching him further. They start holding entire conversations in English and sign. Because he's able to complete the coursework at school so easily, a couple of his classes are replaced (at Aizawa's strongly-worded suggestion) with independent study periods. He uses the time to practice programming and starts improving his atrocious handwriting, as he's grudgingly come to realize that it's far too important of a skill in this world to ignore. 

It hadn't taken long for Aizawa to notice the restlessness and insomnia plaguing Hitoshi, and he quickly adjusted his schedule so they'd be able to coincide their exercise regimens. He's a skilled fighter, one with a lot of practical experience and dirty tricks, and Hitoshi loves the opportunities to spar against an opponent like him. With his knowledge of Hitoshi's fighting prowess Aizawa doesn't underestimate him, constantly adjusting his own tactics to take advantage of their size difference and any openings Hitoshi leaves. It makes Hitoshi realize just how frequently he'd come to rely on his quirk now that it's out of the equation. 

Hitoshi even starts being late to things, which if you asked him, is a sign that he's definitely improving mentally. If you asked anyone else, they would emphatically disagree. 

-- 

Hitoshi's starting to test boundaries. Shouta has yet to decide if that's a good thing or not.

On one hand, it might mean he's starting to trust them more, and is finally starting to behave like a normal kid by testing authority figures to see what they'll do and what he can get away with. On the other hand, it's a pain in the ass to deal with.

Shouta had found a damn erotic novel in the apartment last week, just sitting on the couch as if it was perfectly innocent reading material. It was such a sharp contrast to the academic books Hitoshi seemed to favor that he'd actually gone and asked Hizashi if it was his, even though he'd never once shown any interest in poorly-written smutty romance novels. Hizashi promptly informs him that he'd never be so irresponsible by leaving that kind of literature somewhere where a kid could see it, and that actually now that he thought about it, he'd seen Hitoshi eyeing those types of books when they'd gone out shopping that first day. 

The conversation with Hitoshi over it had been one of the most mortifying Shouta had ever had to deal with. Hitoshi hadn't seemed at all regretful over the book itself, though he'd definitely seemed to regret it when they tried to have a talk about sex with him. Given his less than normal background, they weren't sure if anyone ever had. He'd refused to even look at them for two days after that one.

But the tardiness. Good heavens, the tardiness. Everything was fine for the first few weeks, but after that? Hitoshi seemed to make it his life goal to be late to everything he feasibly could be. He'd be late getting to school. He'd be late coming back home. If he was asked to go buy some things from the convenience store one block away, it would easily be an hour before they'd see him again.

Shouta even followed him one time to see what the delay was and if he was getting himself into trouble. He'd spent almost eighty minutes watching a kid wander about like he had nowhere to be, stop on the street to try to entice a dog closer, study the packages of what seemed like literally everything in the store as if they were the most fascinating things he'd ever seen, before ambling back to the apartment at the world's slowest pace.

He seems to run on a schedule of his own without any regard for the schedules of those around him, and acts surprised every time he's called out for it, giving increasingly weird excuses that don't seem to have much basis in reality. Hizashi thinks it's hilarious. It's driving Shouta up the wall, because he can't find any sort of logic behind it or, heaven forbid, a way to make him stop.

"You're late," he says calmly as Hitoshi walks into the apartment three hours after school ended.

The kid looks at him like he's sizing him up, then shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. "There was a crow staring at me while I was walking home, so I had to find another way."

What.

"This is the third time this week," Shouta says, because he doesn't have a response for whatever the hell that excuse was. "Where were you?"

"Walking home," Hitoshi repeats. He seems perfectly calm and unconcerned by the confrontation, posture loose as he toes off his shoes and drops his backpack by the kitchen table.

"For three hours."

"I took the scenic route."

Shouta stares at him. Hitoshi stares back.

This isn't working. Time to switch tactics. "Look, I'm not mad at you. You just have to understand that it's concerning for us when you disappear for hours at a time where you can't be accounted for, and when you won't tell us where you've been." He wishes Hizashi was here. He's so much better at talking to kids and getting them to open up. But he's off at the radio station and won't be back until later that night - Shouta's on his own for this one. He tries to keep his voice calm, unaccusing, to avoid putting Hitoshi on the defensive. "Is there anything going on that we should know about?"

He knows the kid is aware of what he's referring to. What he's worried about. He can't see any visible wounds or evidence of a fight on Hitoshi or his clothing, but to assume that means he hasn't been out searching for trouble would be naïve. He's been paying attention at his job and online for any mention of Hitoshi's vigilante identity since the encounter that led to all this. Tsukauchi put out a notice at the precinct for the same thing, and so far there's been nothing.

But Hitoshi's wickedly smart. This is a boy who'd started fighting on the streets at only eight or nine years of age against fully grown adults, with only a mental quirk and some martial arts training under his belt, and not only survived the experience but also managed to keep it completely under wraps for over a year. He’s one of the most independent, self-sufficient kids Shouta’s ever encountered. He tends to be slow to respond in conversations and doesn't speak much, but has demonstrated critical thinking skills way beyond his age on more than one occasion. If he's out there again, he'll have done his best to make himself unrecognizable.

And what if there’s something more going on underneath? There’s no way Hitoshi is completely self-taught. His strategies and movements are way too professional for that. He fights like he's been doing it since infancy. He'd denied it when asked, but Shouta's been wondering if an underground organization had gotten their hands on this kid without any adults to interfere before now. If that's where Hitoshi disappears to. 

He can feel his heart rate ratcheting up at the thought. Not for the first time, he wonders if he’s made a grave mistake, if he’s set both himself and Hizashi up for another tragedy. 

Maybe some of his internal conflict shows up on his face, because Hitoshi’s shoulders droop and his expression softens. “There’s a dog,” he admits. “A stray one. Back on the other side of Musutafu. I used to feed it sometimes, before… before everything, and I wanted to go check on it. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

That’s it? It’s almost too convenient to be believable. But there’s no sign of a lie in the kid’s face - he almost looks sheepish, like he’s embarrassed to admit it. “Why didn’t you just tell me that, instead of trying to give me the run-around?”

Hitoshi shrugs, not meeting Shouta’s gaze. “I didn’t want you to say I couldn’t go.”

Right. Serious trust issues. He's not a hundred percent convinced that it's the full truth, but there's no real evidence it's not true and pushing matters will probably only cause more harm than good.

"I'm not going to say you can't go," Shouta says, choosing his words carefully. "I'm asking that you let us know where you are, if you're going to be somewhere we don't expect. That you don't lie about it when we ask. Do you understand why we're worried?" 

"Yeah. I get it." 

"Good. Then will you promise not to disappear on us like this? That you'll tell us where you are when we ask, and be honest about it?" 

Hitoshi looks at him and nods. "I promise." 

--

Hitoshi hadn't been lying when he said there was a dog. There was, and he'd even stopped by to see it and given it a couple fish cakes he'd bought at a convenience store. He'd just exaggerated the amount of time he actually spent with it.

His visits to the dog took a grand total of twenty minutes each time. The rest of the time over the past week had been dedicated to retrieving his various stashes of items and moving them closer to his new residence. He'd brought a few of the easier-to-hide weapons and two of his stolen phones back with him, since he wasn't about to use the phone Hizashi'd bought him for his less legal pursuits. He'd honestly be surprised if they didn't have something installed in it to help monitor his activities on it.

He'd also spent time searching for the perfect rock. It couldn't be too big or he'd never be able to keep it inconspicuous, but if it's too small there won't be room for all the names he needs to etch into it. He ends up buying one from a gardening store a couple kilometers away. It's pentagonal in shape, smooth and black with a blue tint in the light, and around six inches long. He's a little worried the weight of it will tear right through his backpack, but it holds up long enough for him to get it safely into his bedroom.

There's no way he'll be able to fit every Konoha ninja's names on it. It's not nearly big enough for that many names, and that's assuming he would even be able to remember all of them. Instead, he sticks to the names of his important people, the ones he'd been close enough to to feel a true sense of loss over. His father. Team Minato and Kushina. His own students. Gai. Tenzou. A few others, until there's only space for one more name. There he etches in the kanji for Konohagakure.

Hitoshi rocks back on his heels and stares at the makeshift memorial. He feels... not really any better. But he doesn’t feel any worse, either. More just… empty. Adrift. 

He tucks it in the corner of his closet under an old shirt. He’s not too worried about Aizawa or Yamada finding it. They won’t know what it means anyway. 

-- 

The longer Hitoshi has been staying with them, the more Hizashi starts to think Shouta's theory of an organization training child soldiers might actually have some weight to it.

He hadn't really believed it at first. Not that he doubted Shouta, but it just seemed like an awfully far-fetched idea, especially after meeting the kid. Hitoshi slouches most of the time and moves at a slow pace, nothing at all like Hizashi would expect out of a soldier. Hitoshi's eyes are half-lidded, a seemingly permanent expression of boredom visible even through that mask he always wears. He doesn't seem particularly interested in the world around him and while he seems to have some trouble with empathy, he also doesn't display any true villainous tendencies.

Plus, he has the wildest excuses Hizashi has ever heard a kid try to pull. He's constantly late and comes in with an apology even weirder than the last one. Yesterday he'd gotten a call from Hitoshi's school complaining that he'd been over two hours late to class, and Hitoshi had given him one of those "innocent" eye-smiles and said, without an ounce of shame, "Sorry I was late. I got brainwashed by my own quirk."

Shouta's eyes had looked like they were about to come straight out of their sockets with how hard he rolled them. 

It takes Hizashi a couple months to really catch on to the other side of things, the facet of Hitoshi's behavior that hints towards something much darker than just the sad life of a child stuck in the foster system. It's in the way he carries out instructions to military precision and in the realization that Hitoshi never complains about anything, not even in the face of unfairness. It's his habit of subtly scanning every room he enters, casing corners, picking out the entry-points and positioning himself strategically so no one can sneak up on him. He tenses at unexpected movements, keeps the lower half of his face covered even while he's sleeping, eats so fast Hizashi's pretty sure he doesn't chew his food, and almost always wears clothing that will let him blend into the background. The first time Hizashi burst into the apartment at top speed without announcing himself, he'd been greeted by the sight of Hitoshi already poised to fight, though he'd relaxed after he'd identified the "intruder" as Hizashi. He'd nearly gotten himself punched! He's a little more careful to broadcast his presence after that.

By far the most disturbing symptom, though, is the way Hitoshi hoards weaponry. He's incredibly subtle about it, stashing them in places they wouldn't be easily discovered. Hizashi's pretty sure he never would have realized it was happening in the first place if it hadn't been for the aforementioned scare. Hitoshi had hidden it quickly, but Hizashi hadn't missed the blade he'd been holding when the door opened.

He brings it up with Shouta, of course, because he can't exactly ignore the fact that the ten-year-old they'd taken in has a penchant for deadly weaponry. They scour the apartment while Hitoshi's at school one day and find no fewer than ten sharp objects hidden throughout the place, at least one in each room. Hizashi pulls out a switchblade tucked into the lining of a sweatshirt, while Shouta finds a collection of throwing stars hidden under the slightly-raised edge of a frayed tatami mat. He cuts his finger on the edge of a razor blade when he picks up one of Hitoshi's sneakers, and a close examination reveals at least one blade pressed into the rubber soles of all of Hitoshi's shoes, almost invisible with only a few millimeters of each blade sticking out. 

He's pretty sure they didn't find everything, either. With the way they'd been hidden, they'd probably have to literally tear apart everything in the apartment to be sure they'd succeeded in purging their apartment of weaponry.

Okay, he's still a bit freaked out by that. He's positive Hitoshi wouldn't hurt them on purpose, but there's more baggage to unpack here than Hizashi takes with him on business trips. 

Shouta says he's been paying attention for any rumors of other children doing anything remotely similar to what Hitoshi had, or even just for noteworthy vigilantes in general. So far, he hasn't heard of anything out of the ordinary. None of the other kids at the facility Hitoshi had stayed in seemed to be showing any signs of professional training. He'd even looked into Hitoshi's birth parents, but he says he hadn't found anything useful there either. 

One of the saddest things, though, is Hitoshi's lack of any friends. When Hizashi had been Hitoshi's age, he'd had dozens of friends! Even Shouta had had childhood friends, even if he hadn't stayed in contact with most of them after high school. But this kid doesn't even seem interested. It makes Hizashi want to cry. And that got Hitoshi all flustered and he'd tried to comfort Hizashi over his own friendless status. It was completely backwards! 

Hitoshi must notice that most of his hidden weaponry was confiscated, but he never says anything about it. And he either gives up at stashing weapons in the apartment, or he gets better at hiding it. 

-- 

Without nightly vigilante activities to keep him busy and satisfy his need to feel useful, Hitoshi starts turning his attention online instead. 

From what the public at large can see, there isn't much dissent on the existence of heroes and how they operate in the world. Most media attention is overwhelmingly positive, hyping up heroes as paradigms of perfection and presenting public opinion as if everyone sees heroes in that light. Those who don't dig deeper into it can go about their lives blindly believing everyone around them buys into this narrative.

For most, it's not untrue. Children are raised to see heroism as the ultimate career. Heroes are praised for their actions at every turn, the more visible and flashy the better. Most popular heroes deal with only the most attention-grabbing cases, the ones that cast them in a positive light and improve their media image. Popularity has become synonymous with a high salary, while low-ranking heroes typically have to take on second jobs and exhaust themselves in the process. He's seen heroes turn a blind eye to villainous activity because they don't think their quirk is suitable enough to be worth intervening, even in cases where lives are at stake.

This is your job, he wants to scream. This is what you signed up for. It feels like spitting in the face of all the Konoha ninja who'd stood their ground against impossible odds. So many who'd given their lives for the sakes of the village and people they'd promised to protect, no matter the cost.

But in certain corners of the internet, he can find people who disagree with the popular narrative. People who see things like he does, or who at least seem to understand that the hero system is broken. A lot of the forums are very exclusive, slow to trust anyone new and keeping most of their (often illegally obtained) information very private. Villain-watching boards provide enough pieces of information that a dedicated individual could put together entire profiles of criminals and their habits, and even make relatively accurate predictions on their schedules or planned activities. A board for aspiring villains, while largely useless and filled with teenagers, offers a way to keep an eye on major underground shifts, movements and organizations. 

Hitoshi participates just enough to be considered "trustworthy" enough to enter these groups, slowly gaining a reputation of his own for his ability to get information normally only accessible to police and a very limited number of heroes, such as police reports or otherwise classified data. In return, he collects whatever data he can from them that might prove to be useful in the future, and keeps it stored on a second device no one else knows he owns. 

It's not his fault a huge number of people fail to use secure passwords for their accounts. It's also not his fault that most of them don't turn on second-factor authentication, or that they post the answers to their security questions - pets, spouses, past schools - openly on their social media accounts without a second thought. And it's not like he leaks anything that could end up hurting anyone innocent. He doesn't test his luck by accessing either Aizawa's or Yamada's accounts or files, and almost never touches the cases they work on unless he finds information neither of them were privy to.

He has a feeling Aizawa trawls these sites as well. It doesn't hurt to be extra cautious, in any case. He doesn't plan on getting himself caught a second time. 

On days when he knows he has some time he can spend unaccounted for, he targets the scum of the earth, the ones who've more than proven themselves to be truly irredeemable but manage to stay out of the police's hands on technicalities or corruption. He puts together profiles and plans everything out meticulously in his mind, never writing it down to make it as difficult as possible to trace back to him. Once upon a time, he'd been famed for his assassination techniques. He puts them to practice now. Combined with the sharingan's ability to warp his target's perception of reality, he becomes little more than a shadow, in and out before they even know someone was there. 

Hitoshi doesn't bother with fighting out there anymore. He doesn't turn it into a training exercise, because that carries too many risks of being caught or injured, and he manages to get in a decent amount of training with Aizawa anyway. This is about doing what needs to be done when society fails to purge the worst it has to offer from its ranks on its own. He's just picking up the slack. 

He keeps it infrequent enough that interested parties would have a hard time picking up on a pattern. He never uses his documented quirk, and doesn't touch his mangekyo. The stakes are too high here. He can't afford to do anything that could trace back to Shinsou Hitoshi. 

-- 

All Might is missing. 

The media is strangely silent about it. The Number One hero in Japan hasn't been seen in over a month, and not a single article has been published about it. 

Something big happened. Something serious enough to place a gag order on the news to keep it from leaking out to the public. Even the forums have nothing but conjecture without any sort of proof to back up their suggestions. So far the more popular theories are all over the place, ranging from the hero's death to a secret tryst with an unknown lover. 

Hitoshi's reasonably certain All Might is still alive. It's doubtful they would try to hide his death for this long. More than likely he's been injured, probably pretty badly, to keep him out of the spotlight for such a long time. Hopefully he'd taken whatever villain he'd been fighting down with him. The idea of someone strong enough to take down the country's top hero isn't one he wants to see roaming free. 

-- 

Two months later All Might reappears, looking perfectly healthy and normal. The media never comments on his unannounced three-month absence, and everything seems to return to normal. 

Hitoshi doesn't miss the way he seems to favor his left side, though. 

Chapter Text

Aizawa and Yamada's friends are coming over tonight. Hitoshi has no idea what to expect.

With the polar opposite personality types his foster parents have, it’s hard to know if their friends would fall somewhere in the extremes, or if they'll temper the pair out by falling somewhere in the middle. With Hitoshi's luck, they'll probably be just as eccentric in completely different ways.

"They can be a lot, just so you're prepared," Aizawa informs him before they arrive. "They mean well, but Nemuri especially... well, she gets very enthusiastic. If it's overwhelming or you're uncomfortable, you can leave. None of us will be mad at you if you need some space."

The pair that comes through the door look surprisingly normal. The woman is tall and very attractive, with black hair, pink glasses and a very trendy outfit. The man is much more average in appearance, with a friendly smile and weirdly-shaped elbows hidden under a plaid button-up. 

“You must be Hitoshi-chan!” the woman says, clapping her hands together. "Oh my gosh, you're so tiny! You looked older in the pictures Hizashi sent."

His eye twitches at the suffix. "And you are?" 

"You can call me Kayama!" She looks like she's just barely holding herself back from hugging him, and he preemptively takes a step back just in case she decides to go for it. 

"You're a pro hero, right?" Are all pro heroes this unconventional? It wouldn't surprise him. It had been the same way with most of the shinobi upper ranks. 

"Did Shouta or Hizashi tell you that, or did you just make a lucky guess? I'll leave it up to you to figure out my hero name, though," Kayama says with a wink.

He just stares at her. She doesn't look particularly intimidating, her posture full of openings he could exploit, but he knows better than to take that at face value. He eyes the way she fiddles at the collar of her turtleneck, the way her hand is poised to pull open the zipper running down the front at a moment's notice, how she posits herself as if it's nothing but an absent habit.

No. She's not defenseless.

He used to do the same thing, back when he was still known as Kakashi. Even with his formidable reputation countless shinobi had underestimated him because of casual tricks like that - open posture, hand in pocket, flipping through erotic novels as if he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. Even those who recognized him would often assume his reputation was overstated, and in the case of his enemies, would frequently pay the price for that assumption.

“What, no guesses?” she asks with a pout. “Ah, well. You’re probably a bit young to know about me, anyway.”

The man next to her puts a hand on her arm and turns to face Hitoshi. "It's nice to meet you," he says with a warm smile. "I'm Iida Tensei, but you can call me whatever you'd like. We've heard a lot about you."

"I've heard almost nothing about you," Hitoshi says, just to be contrary and to try to redirect some of the attention onto Yamada. Discomfort thrums through his muscles with all the focus being placed squarely on him. He hates being the center of attention. 

"Slander!" Yamada cries. "I've told you plenty about them! They're Midnight and Ingenium, I was literally talking about them two hours ago!"

Hitoshi shrugs, quirking an eyebrow. "Hmm. Not ringing a bell."

Yamada wails and Iida laughs. Kayama looks enamored. 

"You didn't tell me he was so cute, Shouta!" she shrieks, spinning to grab Aizawa's shoulders. "He's like a mini-you!"

He smacks her hand away. "Nemuri, please calm down." 

"I know, I know," she says. "Hey, Hitoshi, I brought some grilled eggplant! You like that, right?”

He’s not sure he trusts anything she has to offer. He glances at Aizawa warily. 

“Maybe later,” Aizawa says, coming to Hitoshi’s rescue. “Hizashi was thinking we could put on a movie.”

“YEAH!” Yamada cheers. In one fluid movement he pushes Kayama onto the couch and deposits one of the cats on her lap, effectively preventing her from moving. “Let’s keep things low-key! Anyone have any preferences?”

“I think I’ll just leave you all to it,” Hitoshi says, because this interaction has more than exceeded his energy quota for the day already. Yamada has already occupied his tolerance for loudmouths in his life - a second one is just excessive. Iida seems okay and Hitoshi wouldn't mind having the guy around, but everything altogether is turning out to be just a bit too much, especially if the option to leave is available. It's the same reason he'd always avoided joining Gai and all his friends at their get-togethers between missions. 

"You're leaving already? But we just got here!" Kayama says, clearly disappointed. 

Yeah. That's the point. "I'm tired and it's loud," Hitoshi says instead. "Have fun watching whatever. It was nice to meet you, Iida-san." 

He knows they didn't miss his cold shoulder towards Kayama. He backs off to his bedroom, the second cat - Sashimi - trailing after him before he slides the door shut. He side-eyes her and she blinks back innocently, as if she hadn't purposely pushed his water glass off the table the other day just for the hell of it. 

"Good job, you scared him off," Iida mutters, the thin walls doing nothing to muffle his voice. 

"Hey, I toned things way down! I even brought one of his favorite foods!" 

"What did I tell you before I agreed you could come?" Aizawa says. 

She huffs. "No innuendos, don't get loud, and keep a distance from the little vigilante child."

"And how many of those three rules did you break within the first five minutes of meeting him?" 

"Okay, okay, I get it. I'm sorry. You know I get ahead of myself sometimes." 

"Next time please take it seriously, or this is going to cause problems moving forward. He's not used to you the way I am." 

Hitoshi might feel just a little bad for ditching them so quickly. Not enough to actually go back out, though. He turns on his phone and starts scrolling instead, begrudgingly allowing Sashimi to sprawl across his legs. 

-- 

Hitoshi's twelve when he finally reaches the average height for his age. He proceeds to shoot up right past the average and into the tall-for-his-age category by the time he's thirteen. His voice drops like a rock, though it's still prone to cracking in the middle of sentences. 

Even with near-daily training and exercise, it takes time to adjust to the mess of gangly limbs he's become while he waits for his muscle growth to catch up. He'd adjusted to utilizing his small size to his advantage, but now his reach is long enough that he doesn't have to resort to those tricks. 

Yamada bemoans the changes, wailing about his "favorite listener" growing up too quickly, but at the same time seems to have way too much fun buying stylish clothing he thinks might still fall enough under the practical category for Hitoshi to find them acceptable, now that children's clothing aren't the only options. 

Hitoshi's surprised they've stuck with him this long, if he's being honest. He'd half expected them to give up after a few months and call it quits. They're only in their mid-twenties, and he's well aware he's basically the definition of a difficult child. Hitoshi's wildly independent, only listens to direct orders, alternates between lying out of his ass and being offensively candid with the truth, continues to be chronically late unless they're explicit that he can't be, and doesn't like to be touched. He tolerates it from Yamada but never initiates it, and isn't good about expressing any sort of gratitude for the sacrifices they've made for him, either. They should have gotten sick of dealing with him ages ago. 

Aizawa's taken to calling Hitoshi his problem child, though it doesn't sound malicious. It sounds more like an attempt at an affectionate nickname and is pretty fitting coming from a guy with such an abrasive personality. Aizawa tells it like it is, and he expects the same from the people around him. 

But not once do they ever insinuate that they regret taking him into their home. Instead it's the opposite - they learn how to respect his boundaries and usually don't try to push past them. Yamada jokes that Hitoshi must secretly be a hybrid of them, with Yamada's voice quirk and Aizawa's personality. Aizawa offers to start teaching Hitoshi how to use his capture weapon as a birthday gift when he turns twelve. Yamada throws a celebration when they hit the one-year anniversary of Hitoshi coming to stay with them, and while he invites Kayama and Iida join them, they're respectfully calm and don't try to crowd him. 

They must have talked to Kayama after their first meeting, because she never comes on quite as strongly as she did then. She starts letting him set the terms of their interactions, and things go much more smoothly after that. Both she and Iida even offer to spar with him on occasion, which was probably Aizawa's suggestion, but it definitely helps Hitoshi warm up to the pair. 

He would be the first to admit he has issues connecting with people. He always has. He doesn't fit in and doesn't even try to hide that, not to mention how little he has in common with others his age. He's been burned enough times by loss to make it daunting to try again, especially with pro heroes whose chances of dying at a young age are astronomically high compared to the national average for civilians. Aizawa's landed himself in the hospital multiple times within the last year. 

Hitoshi didn't want to let them become important to him. That point of no return passed a long time ago, though. 

--

Hitoshi can tell there's something on Aizawa's mind. He's been shooting contemplative looks at Hitoshi for close to a week now, and hasn't been trying to hide it. 

Hitoshi waits. He knows Aizawa will either find whatever it is he's looking for on his own, or he'll say something whenever he's ready to. 

It takes eight days before he finally sits Hitoshi down and broaches the topic. 

"I'm going to ask a serious question, and I expect a serious answer," Aizawa says. "Do you want to be a hero? Is that something you want, and not something you’ve just been going along with because you think Hizashi and I expect it from you?"

Hitoshi hums, finger tapping against the table. "I guess it depends on your definition of a hero."

"I'd like to hear how you'd define it."

"A hero's someone who will give everything they have to defend what they made a promise to protect, including their life," Hitoshi says. "They don't look for glory or recognition, and they don't do it for the money, but because it's the right thing to do."

His left eye burns, and he idly brushes a hand over it. Obito's words are familiar in his mouth, even more than a decade after he'd last spoken them. "A hero isn't afraid to get their hands dirty to protect their people, even if it means breaking society's rules. The rules are there for a reason, and those who break them may be trash, but anyone who would desert their friends is even worse than trash."

It was a lesson that he’d needed years to truly understand in his first life. He'd condemned Sakumo along with the rest of the village for choosing the lives of his teammates over the mission, because he hadn't understood there are more important things in the world than the system and the rules. He'd promised his father's grave that he would never be like him, that he would always leave the mission as the top priority and disregard everything else.

Obito had changed that. He'd changed everything. Kakashi was nine years old and bitter, just promoted to jounin, hateful towards the world and the people he should have treasured. He'd been so sure that he was right and that Obito was wrong, right up to their final mission. He'd been ready to leave Rin to die to ensure the success of their mission, and he has no doubt he would have continued on that path if Obito hadn't stopped him.

And then Obito died. He stayed true to his ideals right to the end, sacrificing everything to save Kakashi's life. He'd even given up his sharingan, accepting the agony of the procedure even in the midst of what must have been unbelievable pain just to replace Kakashi's destroyed eye. Protecting Rin was the only thing he'd asked for in return.

Yeah. Saying it hadn’t gone too well would be an understatement.

Obito had been a hero through-and-through. Hitoshi would never be able to live up to that ideal, not completely.

Aizawa studies him, expression unreadable. “You’ve mentioned underground heroism as something you’re interested in, but how much do you truly know about it? Being underground as a hero is brutal. It’s thankless. You see the worst of humanity, and you get next to nothing in return. If you die doing it, and most of us do, no one will care. Like it or not, heroism has become a business, and idealistically redefining the term isn’t going to change that. So, why do you want to do it? What motivates you?”

And that’s really the crux of it, isn’t it? Hitoshi’s lived his life up till now in this world without a clear direction. He’d spent the entirety of his first life with a path already laid out for him, the major choices all set in stone with only the how in question. He’d become a shinobi because that was expected of him, right from his birth. He’d advanced through the ranks by excelling at following orders, by doing exactly what he was told to. He’d been prepared to accept the role as Hokage if Tsunade died because there was no one else to do it. Right from childhood, he’d known his death would likely be an early one and that he would die for his village. That was the reality of a shinobi’s existence, and it had been a reality he’d accepted without complaint.

As Hitoshi, everything is different. There’s no set path for him to follow, no definite end in sight for him to expect. He can be anything he wants. Choose any path he wants to take. His future is a blank slate just waiting for him to fill it. Everything would be so much easier if Aizawa would just tell him what to do and eliminate the uncertainty plaguing his thoughts, but it’s clear that’s not going to happen.

What does he want to do?

He wants to fight.

He wants to stop fighting.

He wants to hold up Obito’s legacy. Show him a world where he’s working to make it a better place.

He wants to go home.

He must have been cursed with the memories of his past life for a reason - would he be a coward to ignore it to live a life of mediocrity?

Hitoshi averts his gaze, rubbing the back of his neck. “I lost a friend, when I was younger. Before I met you,” he says quietly. He picks his words carefully, because Aizawa deserves the truth, but the truth is the hardest thing Hitoshi could possibly admit to. “He died because of me. He saved my life, and I… I wasn’t able to save his. I don’t want to sit back and let that happen again to the people I care about. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what I went through.”

Aizawa is silent. His posture is stiff, shoulders hunching up before he lets out a long breath and the tension eases out of his body. He looks like he’s come to a decision of some kind. “One of my best friends died when I was a kid, too,” he admits. “It was… It’s one of the worst memories of my life. And I’m really sorry you had to go through that. I wish I could take that pain away.” 

Hitoshi nods. His sharingan burns with threatened tears, and he presses the heel of his palm against it to stave it off. He hasn’t talked about Obito to anyone, not since Sasuke. He hates the way it makes the memories bubble back up to the surface with a renewed vengeance, like it’s punishment for keeping it locked down so tightly. “I’m sorry about your friend, too.”

“Yeah.” Aizawa scrubs a hand over his face and sighs. “You can say no, but… is it all right if I gave you a hug? Feels like we could both use one right now.”

Hitoshi shrugs, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on his hands. Aizawa must take it as agreement, because a second later his arms wrap around him.

Hitoshi doesn’t reach up to return the hug, but he doesn’t pull away. Aizawa smells like aftershave and sweat, the faintest tinge of blood still lingering in his clothing.

He feels safe. 

--

“Aizawa-san, come in. I’ve been expecting you.” Nedzu waves Aizawa towards the sofa in his office, already pouring a couple cups of tea.

“Thanks,” Aizawa mutters, accepting the cup as he sits down.

“So? You wanted to talk to me about something?” Nedzu questions. “What’s on your mind?”

Aizawa takes a deep breath, fingers tightening around the ceramic. “I’d like to submit a student recommendation for this upcoming year.” 

Nedzu smiles. 

--

"So," Yamada says, almost vibrating in his seat, his box of takeout sitting ignored in front of him, "entrance exams are coming up soon, huh?"

Hitoshi already knows where this is going. "Yup."

"Have you already decided where you want to go?"

He makes a show of looking up at the ceiling as if he's mulling over the question, before shrugging. "Maybe Ketsubutsu?"

Yamada squawks. "Ketsubutsu?! Seriously?! I mean -- not that it's a bad school! But you'll at least try applying at U.A., right? It's one of the best schools in the area, even the general education department is really strong if you decide you don't want to do heroics, there's no harm in just trying and seeing what happens, we would even be able to commute together and that would be SO convenient - "

"Yes, I'm going to apply to U.A.," Hitoshi interrupts, raising an eyebrow. "I'm applying to all the local schools, and that's the closest one to us in the first place. It would be petty to exclude it just because I think it's overrated."

“Excuse you, it’s a great school, deserving of its reputation as Number One!” Yamada points his chopsticks accusingly. “I’m sure you’ll do great in the entrance exam! It’ll be tough, but you’re a brilliant kid so I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out a way to go PLUS ULTRA!”

“Actually,” Aizawa says calmly, “if he decides to apply he’ll be doing the recommendation entrance exam." 

Yamada and Hitoshi both stare at him as he takes a bite of rice, seemingly unconcerned with the bomb he'd just dropped. Yamada breaks the silence first. "He got a recommendation?! Do you know who put it in?!" 

Aizawa shrugs. "Nedzu just wanted me to let him know. As long as Hitoshi does well in the written and physical exam, he said U.A. is willing to consider overlooking the expulsions on his record. He'll have to undergo a more extensive interview process as part of that condition as well. I know you're not one for the dramatics of a place like U.A., kid, but that's not an exception most schools are going to be willing to make, even with Hizashi and I in the picture." 

Hitoshi is well aware. Under other circumstances he wouldn't bother with applying to local public schools, but he knows that while his grades and intellect are high enough to pass almost any exam a high school could throw at him, he has too many black marks in his past to reasonably expect he'll be accepted at most of the prestigious ones. Aizawa dodged the question, but he's nearly certain the only reason U.A. will even look at him is Aizawa and Yamada's influence. 

Is it an unfair advantage? Absolutely. But he'd be a fool to turn it down just because of that. His entire life could be considered an unfair advantage if he wanted to go down that route, anyway. 

"Why would I be taking the recommendation exam if they're so on-edge about admitting me as a student?" Hitoshi asks. "Shouldn't I be taking the standard entrance exam, plus whatever additional criteria they want to add?" 

"Doesn't change the fact that you still got a recommendation from a pro," Aizawa points out. "U.A. takes recommendations seriously, and they expect us pros to do the same. Ordinarily schools still allow you to take the general entrance exam if you fail the recommendation exam, but U.A. doesn't. It's supposed to remind heroes to only recommend students if they truly believe they have a chance, especially since the number of students who can be admitted by recommendation is limited to six per year. It's a high bar, so please take this seriously." 

"I'll try not to screw it up," Hitoshi says. The last thing he wants to do is end up stuck in a shitty public school for the next three years. He'd be bored out of his mind within a week. 

-- 

The written exam is a breeze. Hitoshi doesn't need to wait for his score to come in to know that he aced it, or at least got extremely close. 

He'd hazard a guess and say that it was the same for probably around a third of the other 47 students taking the recommendation exam. This isn't an exam open to just anyone - most of these students are the best from their schools, with top grades and powerful quirks commendable enough to receive a recommendation from a pro hero. 

Still, it's doubtful most of them will be able to pass all three tests. Even with impressive backgrounds, most of these students are only here because they had connections. Some might have garnered a recommendation as a favor. Others have relatives that were heroes themselves. Almost all of them have influential parents of some kind, whether through money or heroism. 

When asked, Aizawa had outright admitted U.A. has no restrictions on parents submitting recommendations for their children. It's good publicity for the school, he'd explained, if the students are talented enough to pass. He'd also stated that only one in thirty of those kids usually had enough talent to actually be accepted, and that it usually becomes clear very quickly whether a recommendation was legitimate or not. 

The energy in the air is serious. Students stand rigidly in rows of six, clutching numbers designating them to a group, eyeing each other uncertainly. Hitoshi stands at the end of his row, slouching with his hands in his pockets as he waits. 

The first group of candidates takes off, leaving a cloud of dust and ash in their wake. He studies their routes and strategies whenever they're in sight, trying to get a better feel for the course. Less than eight minutes later, the round is over. 

The next group is sent off, a boy with red and white hair leaving massive spikes of ice in his wake. Half of the students are left struggling not to slip as they futilely attempt to catch up, and it takes nearly twenty minutes for the last of them to finish. 

With every round, the students left over seem to get even more nervous. The others in Hitoshi's group don't seem like anything too impressive, but he knows better than to assume they're incompetent. 

He adjusts his mask a little, taking a deep breath as his group lines up. 

The signal goes out and Hitoshi takes off. 

The course is rough. It's not designed for people like him with mental quirks. Two of the students speed ahead, one moving quickly enough that he's out of sight in seconds. The other, a bulky boy with a mutation quirk and the number 31 taped to his back, disappears within a minute. 

He tears up the first steep hill, sidestepping the potholes designed to trip them up. He silently thanks his shinobi background when he reaches the narrow path circling a cliffside. It's slowing down 31; he's still running but it's obvious he's struggling to keep his balance. 

Hitoshi gains fast. He calculates 31's steps and determines he can probably slip under his legs if he times it right - 

The rock crumbles under the kid's foot. He loses his balance, scrabbling at the sheer rock for a grip, but there's nothing there. 

It's at least 15 meters to the bottom of the cliff. 

Hitoshi doesn't stop to think. He dives forward and grabs 31's wrist, hooking his other arm around a jagged piece of rock and stomping his cleated boots into the ground. 

The boy jerks to a halt. Hitoshi's arm pops out of its socket. 

"Shit," he gasps, his fingers loosening against his will. The rock tears open the skin on his other arm as he's dragged forward by the guy's weight. 

31 manages to get a grip on the rock and strains to pull himself up, shaking off Hitoshi's hold. He's clearly shaken, staring at Hitoshi with something akin to panic in his eyes. "Oh shit. Are you -" 

"I'm fine," Hitoshi says, his voice steady as he shoves his dislocated arm into his jacket to keep it still and ignoring the way his shoulder screams at the movement. He staggers back to his feet and takes off down the path again, now that the immediate danger is over. He doesn't hear the boy follow him. 

It's not till later, as one of the teachers overseeing the exam helps push his arm back into place while Yamada does a terrible job at disguising his anxiety from a distance, that he remembers U.A. probably had safeguards in place to keep students from being seriously injured in accidents, and he probably just cost himself a good minute on his score for nothing. 

He's 3rd in his group but scores 28th overall for timing. 

-- 

The interview goes about as well as expected. That is to say, Hitoshi sits there and tries to answer questions in ways that don't make him sound like an unstable delinquent lacking a moral compass, and he's pretty sure he moderately succeeds. Probably. 

It's not that he doesn't have morals. They just don't align very well with this world's standard of right and wrong. 

Nedzu grills him about everything. He asks about Hitoshi's birth parents, the institutions afterwards, and his home life with Aizawa and Yamada. He asks where Hitoshi got his training, what happened when he killed that villain in elementary school and why he did what he did. There's question after question about his vigilantism - how did he get started, why did he get started, did he ever kill anyone intentionally, how did he use his quirk in the field, had he stopped those activities after he went to stay with his foster parents. 

Hitoshi weaves truths and occasional lies together to disguise the worst of it and to add an element of childishness to some of his earlier choices. He sticks to the truth as much as possible; Aizawa had warned him that Nedzu was an unparalleled genius and unlikely to be fooled by much. It's clear from Nedzu's questions that he'd probably already talked with Aizawa and Yamada ahead of time, and half of this interview is designed to compare Hitoshi's answers to theirs. 

Nedzu smiles through most of their session. He doesn't seem phased at all by any of Hitoshi's responses, a short tea break the only interruption during his relentless interrogation. Maybe it's because he's an animal of some sort, but Hitoshi isn't able to get a read on the principal's thoughts at all. 

"You didn't score too well on the practical," Nedzu notes, near the end of the interview. "I admit, I rather expected Eraserhead and Present Mic's ward to at least land in the top ten, but you didn't even make it into the top half. What went wrong?" 

"Someone needed help," Hitoshi says flatly. "If your school is so focused on numbers that you expect me to prioritize my score over someone about to fall off a cliff, then your heroics system is even more broken than I thought. Do you have any other questions?" 

"No, I think that's all," Nedzu says brightly. "This has been very enlightening. Thank you for your time, Shinsou-san." 

-- 

"You dislocated your ARM!" 

"I'm fine, Yamada, seriously. It's nothing to fret over. It doesn't even hurt anymore." 

 "It doesn't matter that it doesn't hurt anymore, what were you - oh CRAP, why is your other arm covered in bandages, what did you DO -" 

-- 

A few days later, Hitoshi receives a letter from Seijin High stating that while his exam results had been exemplary, they were regretful to inform him that his background check did not meet their requirements for admittance. The letters from Ketsubutsu and Shiketsu don't say it in as many words, but the end result is the same. It doesn't come as a surprise.

It's still disappointing.

Yamada stops asking how it went after the fourth rejection letter comes in. He's still insistent that Hitoshi wait to hear back from U.A. before giving it up as a possibility, but it's clear he'd hoped for positive results from other schools too. In fact, he seems more crushed than anyone else over the rejections.

"We’ll support you no matter where you end up going,” he says, giving Hitoshi a wobbly attempt at a smile. “And if you do well in high school and don’t get more marks against you, you should be able to make it into a good university without much trouble! Or if you still wanted to pursue a hero license, we’ll see what we can do to get you the chance to take the provisional exam even without a hero education -”

“We’ll figure that out if it comes to it,” Aizawa interrupts. “There’s no need to get ahead of ourselves. A few rejections aren’t the end of the world.”

“It’s nothing I didn’t expect,” Hitoshi says. “I all but failed the physical exam for U.A., though, and the interview… uh, it could have gone better.”

Aizawa suddenly looks exhausted. “What the hell did you say in the interview?”

Hitoshi rubs the back of his neck. “I may or may not have insinuated that U.A.’s heroics program is trash.”

Yamada looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm. “Kid. Buddy. My son in all but name. Please tell me this is one of your bad attempts at a joke and that you didn’t actually insult the school to its principal’s face.”

Hitoshi’s silence speaks volumes.

“Great! Okay!” Yamada’s voice is bordering on hysterical. “Sometimes that brutal honesty of yours is just a little too honest, just so you’re aware!”

“Hitoshi’s got a point, though,” Aizawa says, scratching his chin and squinting his eyes in thought. “U.A.’s entrance exams are unfair towards mental quirks and other quirks that -”

Yamada points at him. “You, my dear, are not helping. You’re where Hitoshi learned this from, and look where it’s got us now! Time and place! An interview for enrollment is neither the time NOR the place!”  

"Well, there's no point in worrying over it," Hitoshi says. "Either I'll be accepted or I won't. Public school will be a drag, but I've been through worse. I'll just see if I can arrange for free study periods or something." 

"I'm going to worry no matter what you say," Yamada moans. "You're going to give me gray hair before I'm thirty." 

--

"The letter from U.A. arrived," Aizawa says impassively, holding up a stack of mail as he ambles into the living room a week later. Yamada jerks to his feet but almost immediately sits back down, looking about ready to vibrate right out of his seat. Hitoshi eyes Aizawa from his comfortable spot on the couch, but like always, the man is remarkably good at hiding whatever he's thinking. It’s hard to tell if he already knows what it says. He'd been open about the fact that neither he nor Yamada were allowed to have any involvement with student admittance decisions this year due to Hitoshi's application.

Hitoshi doesn't bother retreating to his room to open it. He breaks the bright red seal and pulls out the cream letter inside, scanning the text quickly.

“Well?” Aizawa prompts.

“I passed,” Hitoshi says blankly. “I scored fourth out of the overall recommended applicants. There were hidden rescue points during the race that counted towards my total.”

The hidden rescue points remind him vaguely of the test he used to put hopeful genins through, back when he'd been a teacher himself. This test, somewhat like his own, had been designed to pit students against each other, meaning any rescue points earned would be legitimate and not just applicants looking to earn points. He has a feeling there are some frustrated applicants out there right now, probably kicking themselves for not realizing there could be a hidden component to the exam - if those who didn’t pass were ever told at all about those points. It’s just as likely that they only inform those who passed, to limit the spread of information and prevent it from getting out online. 

It looked like U.A.'s entrance exam actually did have some merit to it, after all. 

"I knew you could do it!" Yamada shrieks, just about blowing Hitoshi's eardrums as he throws his arms around him. “Way to go PLUS ULTRA!"

Aizawa ruffles Hitoshi's hair. "Good job, kid. I had a feeling you'd do well."

"Thanks," Hitoshi says, not sure what to do with their praise. He’s never been very good at knowing how to respond. 

"Just as a heads up, you've been placed in my homeroom class," Aizawa says, confirming Hitoshi's suspicion that he'd already known the exam results. "Normally we wouldn't inform you of that in advance, but Principle Nedzu made an exception due to our unique circumstances so we can work things out ahead of time." 

"They put me in your class?" Hitoshi asks, genuinely surprised. He'd assumed they'd intentionally avoid putting him there.

"Like I said," Aizawa says, "unique circumstances. Nedzu was the one who made that decision, in any case, and I don't pretend to understand the way that principal thinks. Don't expect any special treatment, though. The fact that Hizashi and I are married is a secret, and your relation to us would be too. As far as everyone else is concerned, you'd be nothing more than another student to me."

Hitoshi rubs the back of his neck in thought. "I'll keep that in mind." 

He completes his acceptance to U.A. that night. 

Chapter Text

Hero Blitzfire dies, becomes 38th victim of Hero Killer Stain. 

Hitoshi scrolls through his feed, most news outlets all reporting the same thing. Another hero murdered, targeted by a villain who'd seemingly come out of nowhere and quickly gained prominence over the last year. With every hero killed or left with permanently debilitating injuries, the public fear grows.

Not one of the news articles mention Stain's motives. They don't even raise the question, not a single journalist asking why he's murdering heroes when there doesn't appear to be any monetary gain or other benefit to his actions.

On underground forums, it's a completely different story. Threads hundreds of pages long examine every detail members can find about the villain, from his former identity as the vigilante Stendhal to his dropping out from a hero school to the deaths of his parents. Transcriptions of his manifesto, carefully pieced together from videos and victim statements, spread through forums and are just as quickly deleted. Private groups so tightly monitored it's almost impossible to get an invite in swap videos of Stain. They analyze his fighting style and try to identify how his quirk operates, all members under strict orders not to post the video outside of their groups lest they incur the unwanted attention of the government.

With each hero's death or permanent retirement at Stain's hands, the villain's underground following grows. There's a steadily increasing number of people who agree with his ideology, even if they condemn his methodology. The hero system is flawed, many of them argue. Too many heroes will stand by or fail to respond altogether to a villain attack simply because they don't feel they're compatible enough. They tell themselves another hero with a suitable quirk will come to help the people in need. They accuse popular heroes of ignoring poorer, crime-ridden districts in favor of protecting the affluent. Something needs to change, most posters agree, and some of them even cheer Stain on.

At the same time, whispers of an organized group of villains start circulating, quietly enough that they largely go unnoticed. Most people seem to assume organized crime is a thing of the past with All Might standing against it, but the reality is more sobering. It's not gone. It's just changed forms. This group is bolder than most, dropping recruitment posts that are typically swiftly deleted, but so far they don't seem to be anything more than a handful of second rate petty criminals.

There's an air of discontent slowly starting to grow like rot. Cracks are appearing in the surface and Hitoshi knows it's only a matter of time before the foundations of the current system will be too weakened to stay standing. 

--

He hasn't even stepped foot on U.A.'s campus the first day of school before he starts to regret not coming in late.

Aizawa had all but dragged him most of the way there, glaring daggers at his head the whole way there and growling that if he doesn’t get to be late, neither does Hitoshi. They'd separated around half a kilometer before they reached campus, but not before he'd made Hitoshi promise to be there a few minutes early.

There’s a hoard of reporters hounding students outside the gate, blocking them from getting through the gates and repeating the same questions over and over. He slips through the crowd, attempting to go unnoticed, but with his shock of white hair and uniform it's a lost cause.

"How do you feel about having All Might teaching at U.A. this year?" a reporter practically shouts, shoving her microphone in his face. He neatly sidesteps her and continues on his way, pulling out a cheap novel he'd purchased expressly for this purpose and holds it up as if he's intently reading. He'd chosen the one with the tackiest cover in the store, which loudly promises a "forbidden romance of the ages" between some hero and a villain with a tragic backstory. Honestly, he's lost interest by the third page, but the cheaply made, dramatic photo edit of the two protagonists on the cover makes it worth it. There's no mistaking what type of book it is. Too bad it doesn't hold a candle to any of Jiraiya's novels. 

Most of them take one look at the book and leave him alone. He ignores the ones that insist on bothering him anyway and escapes onto school property unscathed.

The door to Class 1-A's room is just as ostentatious as the rest of the campus. Like he’d promised Aizawa he’s a few minutes early, around seven seats still empty. He glances at the seating chart and makes his way towards the back, sitting in front of a serious-looking girl and next to a boy with the head of a crow. Neither of them seem particularly inclined to start a conversation, much to his relief.

It takes all but two minutes before two of the other students get into a heated argument, a boy with spiky blond hair putting his feet on the desk while a tall boy with glasses yells something at him about U.A.'s honor. Hitoshi rests his head on his hand as he scrolls through his feed on his phone, only half listening to what the other kids are saying.

"I hope this isn't what the entire year is going to be like," the girl behind him mutters.

Hitoshi hums in agreement.

The argument is interrupted by the arrival of a boy with green curls and an overly bubbly girl, then by Aizawa, who drags his sleeping bag into the room with him and somehow looks even more exhausted than usual. "Welcome to U.A.'s hero course," he says - or, well, mumbles. His eyes skate over the class. "I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Put on these gym clothes and meet me outside." 

Students share confused looks with each other, hesitating before they finally get up to change as requested. Hitoshi waits for them to file out before throwing on the gym uniform in the classroom, away from prying eyes. A couple of the students eye him a little oddly when he joins them outside at the field, but he ignores them. 

Aizawa doesn't pay any attention to Hitoshi, eyes sliding over him like he's just another student. Hitoshi ignores Aizawa in turn. Apparently he and Yamada have successfully managed to keep their relationship under wraps from pretty much everyone outside of close friends and a few other staff members and would prefer to keep it that way. It's understandable, especially given Aizawa's underground status - the fame that would come with being publicly outed as Present Mic's husband could hinder his career and ability to remain underground.

"The one with the lowest score will be expelled," Aizawa announces. A low, nervous murmur breaks out throughout the crowd as they try to determine if he's serious or not. They should be worried. Hitoshi's heard enough about his foster father's previous classes to know it's not an idle threat: and it may not be just one student that ends up expelled, if he believes it's necessary.

Despite not having a quirk that would give him an advantage, Hitoshi isn't worried. He's been honing his body for physical activity for nearly ten years now, combining new muscle memory with the innate knowledge and combat understanding he'd carried along with him from his last life.

He doesn't score first in any category, but performs well enough anyway to end up in the top half of the class. Safely low enough to avoid drawing any unwanted attention, but well enough not to risk getting expelled. He has no doubt Aizawa will be just as harsh, if not harsher, with Hitoshi compared to the other students. Favoritism isn't going to be an issue.

Many of the students start talking amongst themselves while they're waiting for their turns. Hitoshi stands apart from most of them, not particularly interested in socializing, but he pays attention as they introduce themselves to each other, some of them listing their quirks - even some of their weaknesses in some especially oblivious cases - as well. He mentally starts forming strategies to work with them or to combat them.

It never hurts to be prepared, after all.

It's while that boy Midoriya is getting lectured by Aizawa that Hitoshi feels his instincts snap to attention, screaming that they're being watched. He furtively scans the area, keeping his posture loose and unworried. The odds of U.A. being infiltrated without any sort of alarm being raised is minimal, but he'd rather not alert a potential enemy if he's wrong.

And then he spots All Might of all people peering around the corner of a nearby building, trademark smile looking more like a nervous grimace as he spies on them. Midoriya goes for his second ball throw attempt and All Might practically lurches forward in anticipation. He's not even being subtle about it, his presence easily noticed by anyone who's paying attention to their surroundings.

The ball blasts into the distance with a small but powerful shockwave. The number one hero in all of Japan is staring at that kid like he's the most impressive thing he's ever seen, like he's only just holding back a loud cheer.

Interesting.

All Might doesn't seem to notice he'd been spotted as he disappears behind the building again, apparently having seen whatever he was looking for. The rest of the students are oblivious to the fact that they were being watched, too focused on the drama now happening between Bakugou and Midoriya. There was clearly a history of sorts between those two, the kind that would probably cause problems later, which is just great. Bakugou's claim that Midoriya is quirkless catches Hitoshi's attention, though it's clearly inaccurate. A late bloomer?

Most of the students seem to be around genin level, by Hitoshi's estimates. It's around what he'd expected to see, most of them with a good amount of potential and a lot of raw power. A couple - Bakugou, Endeavor's son, and the girl who sits behind Hitoshi - might be closer to chuunin level.

Aizawa meets Hitoshi's gaze before flicking his eyes over to the building All Might had disappeared behind. He tilts his head slightly in a question.

Did you see him?

Hitoshi nods almost imperceptibly and Aizawa's mouth quirks up.

Their exchange goes predictably unnoticed. They'll have to work on that, Hitoshi decides, because this lack of awareness of their surroundings could get these kids killed someday. He might not have much of a desire to be sociable with a group of teenagers, but he's hardly going to stand by and watch them fail to build the skills they'll need once they end up in a real fight.

Class ends. Hitoshi scores sixth overall on the tests. No one gets expelled.

--

Hitoshi knows it's going to be one of those nights before he even gets into bed. 

Tension runs through his muscles, every heartbeat audible in his chest. His brain's stuck on the feeling of being watched, skipping like a broken record until he has to get up and check all the windows and doors to make absolutely sure they're all locked properly. 

All the locks are fine, like he knew they would be. This is the fourth time he's checked. 

It's stupid. He knows he's fine, that the locks are fine, and that there's no one watching them in their apartment. All Might hadn't even been a malicious figure - he was a pro hero and a teacher at the school, not to mention the top hero of Japan, and not someone who should be eyed with suspicion. Hitoshi shouldn't be getting hung up on this. It's probably just the trauma talking, as Yamada would say, but no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that everything is okay, he's just not quite able to. 

A few years ago, he wouldn't have even tried to sleep tonight. He would have gone out on the streets and pushed himself to the brink of exhaustion, adrenaline thrumming through his veins like a drug and making him feel alive, until he'd be able to pass out without the risk of dreams. He would have buried guilt and self-hatred under the guise of his old self, as if taking out a couple of street thugs would give his life purpose and make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

Aizawa and Yamada seem to understand, at least to a point. They don't try to punish him or force him to go to bed if he staunchly refuses.

"Both of us deal with insomnia," Yamada admitted one night, not long after Hitoshi started living with them. "We're not going to force you to try to sleep if you're having a rough night."  

Hitoshi ends up sitting at the table with a cup of oversteeped tea and works on all the homework U.A. assigned for the next two weeks. Aizawa gets a pinched look on his face when he comes home from patrol and sees Hitoshi still up, but instead of reprimanding him he gets himself a mug of coffee, sits down at the other end of the table and starts working through paperwork of his own. He ends up falling asleep in his seat, coffee forgotten and cold, and two hours before they need to leave for class Hitoshi finally follows suit and dozes off as well. 

-- 

"You're late," Aizawa growls as Hitoshi ambles into the classroom twenty minutes after class started.

"Sorry," Hitoshi says with an apologetic eye-smile, rubbing the back of his neck as if he means it. "I got lost on the road of life."

Almost everyone in the class gapes at him like he'd just sprouted a second head. Aizawa rolls his eyes hard, way too used to Hitoshi's flimsy excuses to be caught off guard. "Don't let it happen again. Go sit down before I expel you for not taking this course seriously."

"What kind of excuse is that?" one of the students whispers to another as Hitoshi walks by, taking his seat without creating a further disturbance. He'll no doubt get to hear it later at home, but for now Aizawa just continues on with his lecture. Aizawa knows why he was late, anyway. 

Hitoshi rests his head on his hand, discreetly pressing his left eye shut. 

--

He spends most of his classes staring out the window, paying little attention to the material. He already knows most of what's being taught, even the trick question Yamada tries throwing at him in English.

Things finally get a little more interesting after lunch. 

All Might is their Heroics teacher, unsurprisingly. He slams the door open and yells his arrival in a way too dramatic display, cape billowing behind him, and naturally most of the students eat it up.

"Combat training," All Might explains, as he starts outlining what they will be doing. They'll even get to wear their hero costumes for this.

Hitoshi should feel excited, or at least a bit of anticipation. Every component of his hero costume was carefully specified back when he'd been given the form, all of the features he's sorely missed over the last fifteen years listed and designed as a more streamlined version of his old jounin uniform. He's been looking forward to this ever since he'd found out they got a say in the design. Instead he just feels tired. 

In the locker room, he stands as far apart from the rest of them as he can in a meager attempt to avoid awkward questions. He's well aware his body draws attention, scars from knife slashes and quirks he hadn't been quick enough to avoid snaking around his arms and torso. Most of them are silvery and stretched with age, jagged from a lack of proper treatment and pulling at the edges when he flexes. The deep one across his chest has stayed vivid and ugly even five years later. Yesterday he'd managed to escape their notice, most of them too focused on themselves to notice he hadn't changed with them, but today it seems he isn't quite so lucky.

"Woah, what happened to you?" Kirishima asks, staring wide-eyed as Hitoshi quickly pulls the black tank top-and-mask combination over his head. It's a little late, though, since now half the class is staring at him with curiosity burning in their gazes.

Hitoshi just shrugs, turning into the corner to pull off his everyday mask and replace it with his uniform one, his face safely hidden from sight. "Training," he says noncommittally.

A beat passes. The answer seems to have caught Todoroki's attention; he studies Hitoshi with a blank face.

"Seriously?" Kaminari gapes. "What kind of training causes scars like that?" 

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow. "I didn't read the safety manual that tells you not to run with knives."

For the second time that day, he's met with a line of disbelieving looks. He ignores them, pulling on his black sweatshirt and dark gray combat vest, hiding the last of his scars from view. 

"You're really weird," Kaminari snorts. "Not in a bad way, just... you're not what I expected, I guess? You were all silent and mysterious and cool yesterday, with that mask and stuff." 

Hitoshi hums noncommittally as he straps guards over his shins and forearms, tugging on his fingerless gloves and tightening his utility belt. It fits well, almost perfectly matching his specifications down to the fabric types. The mask is breathable and light, almost just like his original ones. The compartments on his belt hold a small variety of weaponry and other assorted tools he'd requested, and unlike the collection he'd amassed over the years these are brand new and much higher quality. The Support Department really is impressive. "Shouji wears a mask, too. What's so special about mine?" 

"You're both mysterious and cool," Kirishima says. "Are you two, like, twins or something? White hair, masks, quiet personalities..." 

"We're not related," Shouji and Hitoshi say simultaneously. They both eye each other uncomfortably. 

"Sure," Kaminari says, clearly unconvinced. "If you say so." 

Everyone finishes getting their costumes on and they head out to the arena, a line of overly bright colors and bizarre design choices. Hitoshi is one of few who've chosen a more stealthy design.

They're split into pairs and designated as heroes or villains. Hitoshi is paired with Yaoyorozu and designated as the villain team. Midoriya and the Infinity Girl - Uraraka? - face off against Bakugou and Iida.

This is going to end in disaster. 

Sure enough, Bakugou loses his mind, hellbent on whatever form of revenge he's seeking and completely missing the point of the exercise. No one can say he doesn't embrace the role of a villain, though it doesn't look like it's an act. Arrogance seeps from his pores with every move, failing to consider the most effective strategies for the exercise itself in favor of attacking Midoriya. His raw talent is evident as he adapts to the fight, but his team loses a match they easily could have won if they'd simply worked together. 

Midoriya, on the other hand, is a bit of an enigma. He avoids using his quirk until his hand is forced, suffering serious injuries from the blowback like he's unaccustomed to using it. He acts like someone trying to adjust to an unfamiliar power rather than someone who's had it most of their life. Even if his quirk is self-destructive, he should have been given training to help control its output from the start, not left until high school to figure it out himself. It's either that or his quirk only manifested recently, which is rare but not unheard of. 

Even putting that aside, his similarities to All Might are way too obvious. It's clear they're pretending not to know each other, but All Might doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word 'subtlety.' He sneaks looks at Midoriya before the match even starts and spends far more time watching him on the monitors than any of the other students. Midoriya's quirk is eerily reminiscent of All Might's in terms of its sheer power and application, even if All Might's has never been shown to damage his body. He even screamed Detroit Smash during the match, mouthing the words clearly enough that it's easy to make them out even without any sound in the monitors, like he's just begging for people to start comparing them. They look nothing alike, but Hitoshi wouldn't be surprised at all to learn they're related. In fact, he'd be more surprised to learn there isn't any blood relation between the two of them. 

Well, he's not going to pry. It's not a secret Hitoshi has any need to know, and they're clearly trying to keep it hidden.

He tunes back into the post-match discussion happening around him. Yaoyorozu's analysis of the battle is well thought out, far more astute than Hitoshi would have expected from someone who presumably doesn't have battle experience. She's one of the other students admitted on recommendation, if he's remembering correctly. She'll be a valuable ally once it's their turn to fight.

The rest of the matches progress smoothly, nothing especially noteworthy occurring outside of Todoroki and Shouji's overwhelming win. Finally, it's Hitoshi and Yaoyorozu's turn.

"I'm going to block off the entrance," Yaoyorozu says as a metal beam starts growing out of her stomach. She sets it down and creates another, and another, slowly amassing a stack of them as Hitoshi watches. "I don't think either Kaminari or Jirou have quirks that increase their strength, but if they're smart about their strategy this will only hold them for a few minutes. We need to come up with a good counterstrategy. What's your quirk?"

"Brainwashing," Hitoshi says simply, noting the way her movements pause for a split second before she recovers. He moves to help her start stacking the beams in front of the door, impressed as he notices she'd had the foresight to make the beams interlocking with latches to prevent them from being easily knocked over. But her skin looks a bit more sallow than it had earlier, and he's pretty sure she's a little thinner than before. "I'll use it if we're in a bind, but we should be able to win easily enough without it." 

Yaoyorozu narrows her eyes, studying him intently as they set down another beam. "Why wouldn't you use it right away?"

He laughs, putting on a self-conscious air as he rubs the back of his head. Keeping his quirk ambiguous is more fun, but it's not fair to her. "I need them to vocally respond to me for it to work, so it's not the best thing to rely on in the middle of a fight. Plus it's the kind of quirk that puts people on edge, you know? So I usually try to avoid using it unless it's necessary. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell others about it." 

"You're going to have a hard time in this class if you refuse to use your quirk," she says, a touch of disapproval in her tone. "If you're determined to make things difficult for us, you'd better have some other tricks up your sleeve. I'd rather not have a dead-weight partner for this exercise. I'm okay in a fight, but hand-to-hand isn't really my forte." 

"Don't worry," Hitoshi says. "I'm sure we'll do fine. Ah, are you able to create rubber, by chance?"

--

It takes less than three minutes for Jirou and Kaminari to track them down.

Hitoshi isn't too worried about Kaminari. The kid had openly blurted out an explanation of his quirk and even told people that he fries his own brain if he uses too much electricity, as if it was funny and not a major weakness he'd just revealed to the entire class. It's a quirk with a lot of potential, but it's doubtful he'll be too creative with its usage in this exercise. Unless Jirou tells him to do otherwise, he'll likely rely on its unrefined power alone and leave it at that. 

Jirou, on the other hand, is an unknown. All he's been able to glean from her so far is that her quirk is sound-based, stemming from those flexible probes growing from her ears. When other students had been discussing their quirks in detail, she'd just listened, and she hadn't used her quirk much during the tests either. Out of the two, the lack of details regarding her quirk makes her more dangerous.

The beams vibrate violently, the walls cracking slightly from the pressure. Yaoyorozu stumbles under the pressure, instinctively clamping her hands over her ears as if she could block it out. Their earplugs are useless against this sort of assault. 

The wall of beams slams to the ground, Jirou and Kaminari leaping through immediately to take advantage of the concrete dust obscuring the air. Their quirks are active, electricity sparking from Kaminari's hands and Jirou's ear jacks snaking towards the ground to launch another attack. 

Their feet meet rubber, Kaminari's electricity fizzles, and Hitoshi moves.

He has the capture tape wrapped around Jirou before she's even registered his attack. Kaminari spins around at her startled shout, reactivating his electricity as Hitoshi grabs his arms, eyes widening when nothing happens. The tape wraps around Kaminari's wrists.

It's over in less than ten seconds.

Both of them stare slack-jawed at him as All Might calls the match, declaring Hitoshi and Yaoyorozu as the winners. Jirou is the first to recover, looking only vaguely disappointed over their defeat as she pulls off the tape. "I had a feeling you two would win," she admits with a sigh. "Congratulations."

"What the hell?" Kaminari yelps, tearing the tape off his arms. He points at Hitoshi. "You should have gotten shocked! What happened?! And how did you move so fast? Is that your quirk?"

Hitoshi eye-smiles and holds up his hands, showing off thick rubber gloves. "Yaoyorozu-san's quirk really is amazing," he says.

It really is. Even if his ambush had failed, the thread-thin wires stretching around the missile would have held them off for a couple more minutes, not to mention all the other tricks she'd planted around the room and missile to further delay or even trap them. She's going to make a formidable hero someday.

--

Later that day after school, Hitoshi spots Midoriya talking with a tall, skeletally-thin man with a shock of blond hair and oversized clothing. He stares up at the man with the same starry-eyed adoration he gives All Might. Hitoshi's too far away to hear what they're talking about, but it looks like it's a serious conversation.

The man looks familiar in a weird, disconnected way, even though Hitoshi's pretty sure he's never seen him before. The two long yellow strands of hair, that abnormal height, the bright baggy clothes with a bright blue cape that looks just like...

Oh. Shit. 

So that's what happened to All Might.

He makes a quick retreat before they notice he's there. Forget All Might and Midoriya's secret probably-blood-relation - this is a secret he's definitely not supposed to know.

Chapter Text

"Soooo," Yamada says, poking at the fish in the frying pan with his spatula, "How're classes so far?" 

Hitoshi shrugs. He pushes a pile of chopped carrots and onions over to add to the pan. "It's only been two days. There's not really anything to say." 

"Sure there is!" Yamada gestures vaguely. "Like, have you made any friends yet?" 

"No. I don't have any interest in making friends." 

Yamada wails piteously, eyes widening like he can't believe what he's hearing. "Come on!! You gotta make at least ONE friend! They look like an eccentric bunch, I bet they're just as weird as you are!" 

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow. 

"Okay, maybe not quite as weird," Yamada amends. "BUT! You're in high school now, and in order to even get into U.A.'s hero course they've gotta have both the brains and the brawn, so you'll probably like them if you give them a chance! At least try before you go off on your loner goth aesthetic I'm too cool for friends schtick." 

"My what?" 

"Pretty much all your socialization has been a group of pro heroes, of course it's gonna be a challenge at first to get used to actually interacting with kids your age," Yamada continues as if Hitoshi hadn't spoken. He flips over the fish. "But you have to start sometime! Step out of your comfort zone! You're a lot like Shouta was at your age, you know. And look where he is now!" 

"Married to you and only willingly talks to two other people outside our family," Hitoshi says, unimpressed. 

"HARSH! But at least we're all his age, that counts for something! You're at least fifteen years younger than the rest of us," Yamada points out. "I stopped nagging at you about it a while ago, but you haven't once had a single person over or even mentioned any friends from school. It really might do you some good, even if it's just one person! At least think about being friendly with your classmates? For me?" 

Hitoshi tips his head back to stare at the ceiling and groans. "I'll think about it. But no promises." 

"That's all I ask for, my favorite listener." He reaches out and ruffles Hitoshi's hair before he can duck away. "Go set the table, yeah? And get a box so Shouta can have some of this when he wakes up for patrol." 

-- 

It's the third day of classes, and the number of reporters gathered outside the school every morning and afternoon hasn't diminished at all. If anything, it's grown. They pester nearly every person trying to get to the campus entrance; Hitoshi spots Aizawa trying to wave a couple of them off where they're blocking him from getting through. 

In homeroom, Aizawa announces that the task of the day is to choose a class president. Predictably, the room erupts into chaos, Aizawa retreating into the corner with his sleeping bag as everyone yells their self-nominations. 

Hitoshi stares out the window with half-lidded eyes as they start working things out amongst themselves. It's tempting to follow Aizawa's example, get a few minutes of sleep while he can if only to help slow the growing pressure behind his eyes. But everything feels just a little too loud, a little too bright, all blending together into a hazy ambiance of discomfort until a slip of paper is dropped in front of him and he snaps back to attention.

He must stare blankly at it for a moment too long because the boy sitting next to him with a crow-head leans over and informs him he's supposed to write down the name of whoever he wants for class president. He scrawls Yaoyorozu's name down before burying his face in his arms to block out some of the light.

Yaoyorozu and Midoriya tie for votes. The arguing starts back up until they finally settle on a coin toss, which Midoriya wins. He doesn't sound too excited about it.

Pity. She would have been a good fit for the role. 

--

Between classes and after-school work they haven't had much time to interact with each other, but most of the students have already started to develop friendships, branching off into small groups to get to know each other better. Hitoshi doesn't really intend to integrate with them, despite his "promise" to Yamada. He's never exactly fit in with others his physical age, most of them sensing his other-ness and rightfully deciding to steer clear. The last couple of days he's been left alone for the most part and enjoyed a peaceful lunch away from most of the chaotic members of his class.

So it comes as a surprise when Yaoyorozu and Jirou approach his otherwise empty table and ask if they can join him. Yaoyorozu is holding a tray with enough food to feed five people and has an uncertain expression like she's expecting him to say no, her eyes looking somewhere off to the right instead of at him. He discreetly follows her gaze and spots the pink-skinned girl waving some kind of encouragement at them. He doesn't really have a good reason to turn them away so he nods and motions at the empty seats, curious. 

"You both did a really good job during the battle training exercise yesterday," Jirou says. "I already knew Yaoyorozu was strong since she did so well during the quirk tests, but I had no idea what to expect from you, Shinsou. I didn't even see you until you'd already captured me." 

Hitoshi doesn't think his performance was all that impressive. He's tempted to say so, but from past experience he knows that's a surefire way to come across like he's looking down on them. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "Thanks. Most of it was Yaoyorozu, though. I didn't do much."

"You're the one who actually got the tape around them," Yaoyorozu points out. "All I did was make the material. I don't think I would have been fast enough to pull that stunt off on my own. You're one of the other recommended students, right? I saw you at the entrance exam." 

Jirou's eyes widen. "You guys are both recommended students? No wonder your team won so easily. We didn't even stand a chance."

He hums. "You could have won, if you'd picked a different strategy. You relied too heavily on Kaminari's quirk, and he'd already told us what his quirk was before the exercise even started. That meant Yaoyorozu and I were able to safeguard ourselves against it. We didn't know much about yours - if you'd stayed behind and out of sight, we would have been more cautious in our defense since we wouldn't know what you were planning. Continuing your sound attack while Kaminari came in would have kept us off balance and given him a chance to notice the rubber and get off it, especially since we couldn't cover the entire floor with it."

She groans. "I wish you'd been on my team. Did you even have to use your quirk?" 

"Not this time," he says. "I have some experience fighting already, though, so don't feel bad about it."

"Fighting experience?"

"Sparring," he clarifies. "Good technique can even beat some of the more powerful quirks out there, if you know what you're doing, and it's doubly important if your quirk doesn't give you any physical augmentations. I recommend starting martial arts training if you haven't already." 

"When did you start?" Yaoyorozu asks. 

Hitoshi thinks for a moment. "I think... I was three, maybe? Could have been two." 

Jirou stares at him. "Holy shit." 

Yaoyorozu nods, not looking surprised in the slightest. "That's just a little earlier than my parents had me start, though my training was mostly studying since my quirk is so dependent on my understanding of material compositions. I wish they'd started my combat training sooner, but -" 

An alarm suddenly goes off and cuts her off. Most of the students in the cafeteria freeze for a couple shocked seconds, then start yelling as they all hurry towards the doors at the same time. Yaoyorozu and Jirou share an uncertain look as they get up to join the fray. Hitoshi gives his miso soup a mournful look before joining them, though he's not as concerned as most of the students seem to be. 

He can hear shouts that the alarm means there are trespassers on U.A. property. But considering most of the staff consists of pro heroes, it's extremely doubtful the situation would escalate to a point warranting this sort of reaction. With a bottleneck forming in the halls, students are starting to get more aggressive, shoving their way through the crowds and risking trampling each other. Yaoyorozu and Jirou quickly end up disappearing from sight.

That's fine. Hitoshi has no plans to follow the students to wherever they're going.

The crowd starts thinning as most of them pass through. He strolls in the opposite direction, listening for any sign of a fight or anything to indicate this trespassing scenario is truly dangerous. A quick glance out the window answers that question easily.

There's a crowd of reporters out there, waving their microphones and cameras like they hadn't just broken onto school property and incited a mass panic amongst the student population. It's incredible that they believe this will work, that they'd think anyone would be inclined to answer their questions under these circumstances.

And it's strange. It doesn't make sense that they'd be capable of breaking in when U.A. is renowned for its high-end security systems. While it's possible someone had a quirk that could subvert those systems, it doesn't feel right - it feels like a distraction.

This is the sort of strategy Hitoshi would use, if he needed stealth in a highly visible area. A seemingly innocuous situation that causes chaos and confusion, drawing the attention of everyone in the vicinity, while the real mission takes place in the background unnoticed. He used to use this tactic especially for information gathering or theft missions, long gone by the time anyone realized something else had happened - if they ever even found out.

A school like this would have files not only on current students, but past ones as well. Real names of current heroes, details on their quirks, their families. Several top heroes with countless enemies attended this school. In the wrong hands, that information could compromise or kill people. He picks up his pace.

By the time he enters the administrative wing, the alarm has stopped and left a deafening silence in its wake. He keeps his footsteps light, soundlessly moving down the hall towards the teacher's lounge. There's a smaller room connecting off of it that should be the location of most administrative files, as long as the map he'd "borrowed" from Yamada and memorized - the more detailed version with rooms not labelled on the student map - is accurate.

The rooms are empty, the file cabinets all closed, but the door is cracked open as he enters. Small grayish particles create a faint, almost unnoticeable trail to the file room; closer examination suggests it's tiny bits of concrete. He studies the drawer locks, practiced eyes immediately zeroing in on the scratches tarnishing one of them.

It's not much to go off of. If anyone was here, they were cautious, any trace of their presence kept to a careful minimum. Some might think he's overly paranoid and reading too much into it.

But Hitoshi has years of firsthand experience with this. He's been on both sides of the game and had to use fewer indicators to pinpoint the presence of an enemy. He's spent decades honing the sort of paranoia that's kept him alive through situations that would have killed anyone else. He knows someone was here, and that they got into the files unnoticed by anyone else.

Breaking into the file cabinet himself seems like a step too far. It's one thing to observe that their files were accessed, but a whole other thing to follow suit and do the same thing. Then again: when has that ever stopped him?

It's way too easy to pick the lock; he should tell Aizawa the school needs to invest in better ones. He flicks through folders, not paying much attention to the actual contents of the files. He finds what he's looking for towards the back of the stack - a couple concrete particles wedged at the bottom of the folder, and faint gray fingerprints marring the edges of the pages.

Later, as he leaves campus, he catalogues the way the entrance has been reduced to rubble, crumbled pieces scattered all over the pavement. At home, he picks a piece of concrete out from the sole of his shoe and compares it to the piece he'd taken from the teacher's lounge.

It's a match. 

--  

"What do you mean, the reporters were nothing but a distraction?" Aizawa stares impassively at Hitoshi, only the faintest hint of surprise flickering in his eyes. His boots lie temporarily forgotten next to him where he'd been getting ready for his nightly patrol.

"Exactly what I said," Hitoshi says evenly, folding his arms as he leans against the door frame. "You'd already realized that, right? It wasn't the reporters who destroyed the entrance. And someone was in the teacher's lounge looking for confidential files."

"Do I want to know how you know that?" Aizawa sighs. "You shouldn't even know where we keep those files."

"Probably not," Hitoshi says faux cheerily.

Aizawa scrubs a hand over his face. "I had my suspicions, but I was hoping I was wrong. Do you know what exactly they were looking for? Did you see them?"

"I didn't see them. They were gone by the time I got there. At first I thought they were searching for graduate student records, but I was wrong. They were after Class 1-A's itinerary." 

Aizawa's voice goes flat. "Are you sure? How do you know?" 

"I'm sure. I looked at it myself. It had everything there - our training plans, our schedule for the semester, what teachers are going to be there, when we're going to be off campus..." 

"Please don't tell me you broke into U.A.'s files too." 

Hitoshi rolls his eyes. "Then I won't tell you. Look, I don't think it's about us students. I could be wrong, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say this is about All Might. Maybe you, or it could be that there's a student they're interested in, but odds are it'll be connected to him. And with his injury, I don't think we can afford to be careless." 

"Wait, wait, wait, stop. All Might's injury?" Now Aizawa looks upset for an entirely different reason. "What the hell are you talking about?" 

Seriously? Hitoshi stares at Aizawa disbelievingly. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? He's not exactly subtle about it. I've seen the thinner version of him all over campus. He pays way too much attention to Midoriya, just for starters - both of him do. His hair is the same, just droopier. He walks around in the same suit. And don't try to tell me it's a coincidence. He was literally wearing his hero uniform yesterday, cape and all, while out in the hall in that... deflated form of his. I've seen the way he favors his side when he's in fights on TV, too. A few years ago, he disappeared for months and the media didn't comment on it at all, almost like they'd been told to stay quiet. Anyone could put it together." 

Aizawa rubs his eyes, looking exhausted. "Did you tell anyone else?"

"Of course not." 

"Good. Make sure it stays that way. That's highly classified information - even some of the school staff doesn't know about this." 

"I know how to keep a secret." Hitoshi folds his arms and leans back against the kitchen counter. "You should consider changing the class schedule. Switch everything around, and keep the new schedule under tight control. Or better yet, encode it or don't write it down at all. This wasn't a group of amateurs. It's too dangerous to ignore it and put everyone in the class at risk." 

"I'll talk to the staff about it," Aizawa mutters. "And you need to stay out of it. Don't even try to act like you just happened to stumble across this, I know it wasn't an accident."

"Understood." It must not be convincing enough, because his foster father's eyes immediately turn to red steel.

"I'm dead serious, Hitoshi. We've talked about this before - you're not a pro. You're a student and fifteen, even if you're advanced for your age. There will be serious consequences if you start intentionally putting yourself in danger."

The again doesn't need to be said.

"I know, I know," Hitoshi says, holding his hands up placatingly. It rankles, being treated like a child, even if he knows that's not the intention and that he's only looking out for Hitoshi's safety like any parent should. Aizawa knows very well that Hitoshi isn't someone to be coddled or protected. But it's not like he can refute the reasons for keeping him out of it, not without getting into his past. And that's not a subject he wants to touch with a ten meter pole. "I'll leave it up to you." 

-- 

Class 1-A doesn't meet in their normal classroom the next day. Snipe sits in the corner of the room, grading papers and acting like his presence is completely normal and unnoteworthy. 

"Is something going on?" Ashido asks, when Aizawa finally slouches into the room less than a minute before class is set to start. 

"I felt like a change of pace," he says, running a hand through his hair. His eyes are even more bloodshot than normal, dark shadows more prominent than ever. He doesn't look at Snipe and the other hero doesn't acknowledge him, either. "It's good to not get too comfortable in one place. It'll make you complacent." 

Hitoshi knows they were scheduled to go to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint facility that day with All Might and Thirteen, as a way to ease them into the hero business by starting with natural disasters. He'd seen it on their class itinerary. The teachers don't say anything about it, and classes continue like normal, like there had never been any plans to leave the building that day. 

All Might never shows up for Foundational Hero Studies. 

They don't go to USJ. 

-- 

Yagi sidles into the teacher's lounge over an hour after school ended. His shoulders are hunched and he looks exhausted, but Shouta’s not in the mood to cater towards whatever Yagi has going on in his life right now.

"Where were you?" he asks coolly.

Yagi jumps, startled, and spins around. "Aizawa-san! I didn't see you there!"

Shouta ignores him. "You were scheduled to teach 1-A today, you know. You were supposed to take them out to USJ for natural disaster training. So, where were you?"

Yagi droops. "Nedzu told me the trip had been cancelled. I overused my quirk today before I got to school anyway, so I figured -"

"Not good enough." Shouta stands up, staring down the top hero in Japan with the full force of his disappointment. He hopes Yagi can read his expression loud and clear. "Did he tell you why we cancelled the USJ trip? Why Kan, Nedzu and I just spent all night completely revamping the schedules of every class in U.A.?"

"Because villains broke into campus yesterday... and they were looking for our class schedule." And there's the moment of realization. 

"That's right. Villains. On campus. With all of us in the building, and they were good enough that none of us pros noticed they were here. A student is the one who figured it out. I don't care why you decided to use all the time you had for your quirk before you even reached the school. Keeping the kids here safe should be your top priority, and you weren't here. What if something had happened?"

Yagi looks devastated. "I didn't think..." 

"Well, you need to start. You're a teacher now, Yagi-san, and you made a commitment towards this school and your students. That means you have a responsibility towards them and their wellbeing. You don't have the luxury of not thinking, or of using up your quirk before you even get here. I don't care that you're the top hero - your top priority is now these kids. Do better next time."

Sure, nothing had happened today. Shouta doesn't want to rely on that luck in the future. By changing the schedule they would hopefully be able to avoid walking into any traps, but without knowing exactly who the intruder's target was, what they had planned or even who they were, they couldn't afford to behave recklessly. Hitoshi hadn’t been wrong - odds were, this was related to All Might. He’d shudder to think what could happen if a villain powerful enough to challenge All Might caught the school off guard and the hero wasn’t there to do anything about it. 

He'd watched the news broadcasts. There had been other heroes on sight that could have handled the majority of those cases. All Might had been a helpful but unnecessary intervention, and in the process left his students vulnerable.  

"I understand." Yagi sits down in his seat, staring at his hands. He looks crushed enough that Shouta almost feels bad. Almost. “I apologize for letting you and the class down. It won’t happen again.”

That’s a tall promise, and not one Shouta’s inclined to believe wholeheartedly yet. He's not entirely sure why Yagi even agreed to become a teacher in the first place, and he clearly hasn't adapted to his new responsibilities within the role. Time and experience will help, but he can't just sit back and let him learn those lessons naturally if there's any chance the students are at risk. 

Shouta shoves his hands in his pockets as he gets up to leave. "One more thing, before I forget." He raises his eyebrows. "It took a grand total of two days for one of the 1-A students to figure out that not only are Yagi Toshinori and All Might the same person, but also that you've been hiding a serious injury. Please try to conceal it better moving forward." 

Yagi chokes, a few drops of blood dripping down his chin. "Are you serious?! Who figured it out?! Please wait, Aizawa-san, you can't just say that and leave without explaining -" 

Shouta shuts the door. 

-- 

Two days later, when Class 1-B arrives at USJ for disaster training, they find half the lights in the building burned out and the central fountain pumping water out across the plaza floor, a massive chunk of its concrete border disintegrated into rubble. They check the security cameras set up throughout the building and find that they'd all stopped recording a couple days earlier, the same afternoon Class 1-A was scheduled to be there. 

Chapter Text

"U.A.'s annual sports festival is coming up," Aizawa declares at the start of class. "This is your opportunity to establish yourselves as up and coming heroes, both to the public and to the rest of hero society. You may only be first years, but there are going to be a lot of people watching you. Your performance will directly impact your ability to get decent internships with pros afterwards. Please take this seriously." 

The whispering among students starts up almost immediately. Uraraka looks alarmingly pumped up, practically radiating determination.

Hitoshi's well-acquainted with U.A.'s sports festival. Yamada and Aizawa attend every year, though only one of them gets excited about it. Last year even Hitoshi had come. He'd stayed sequestered up in the announcer's booth with Yamada for most of it while Aizawa was out on the field monitoring the matches and erasing quirks when necessary. The thought of being pressed into a huge crowd with all those spectators for an extended period of time sounded miserable. And while Yamada continued to be piercingly loud, he was at least familiar. 

The idea of showcasing all these prospective heroes' quirks before they've even had a chance to debut rankles him, but it's not an unfamiliar practice. The chuunin exams in his previous life had fulfilled a very similar purpose. It's a power play of sorts, a way to motivate and encourage their own side while also serving as a show of strength to any enemies watching. And it hadn't been without consequence there, either - talented newly-minted chuunin faced a higher risk of being targeted during missions in an underhanded attempt to hurt their villages by killing promising shinobi before they reached their full potential. It was a distasteful and somewhat uncommon practice. Still, Hitoshi, back when he was still known as Kakashi, had faced more than one attempt on his life during his chuunin and early jounin years for that very reason. 

It's also the reason he has no intention of actually doing well in the sports festival. 

He doesn't plan to completely throw it. An average performance draws less attention than an abysmal one, and he'd prefer to slide under the radar as much as possible. If he times it right, he can skate just under the cutoff for entering the second round and blame it on his lack of a physical quirk. 

-- 

U.A.'s grounds are beautiful. Acres of forestry sprawl around glass-and-steel buildings, dense and large enough that he can go minutes without seeing the border fence or any manmade structures. There isn’t much wildlife within the boundaries, but he spots birds, squirrels and the occasional rabbit as he passes through.

Early in the morning, long before most of the other students arrive, Hitoshi jogs through the grounds. He keeps his course inconsistent, using it as an opportunity to get familiar with the layout and any quirks the campus has. 

It's peaceful out in the forest, nostalgia putting his mind at ease in a way he hasn't felt in a long time. He's had few chances to leave the city over the course of his life here. The trees in this world aren't anything like the ones from Konoha, the scents just a little off, but there are enough similarities to make it feel like he's walking through a remnant of the past all the same. 

With the sports festival on everyone’s mind, he starts seeing more familiar faces during his runs. He sees Bakugou jogging along the perimeter a few times and ignores the scowls he gets on the rare occasions their paths cross. Occasionally he can hear Iida weaving through trees and inevitably causing at least a few loud cracks as he hits smaller trees or branches. He takes care to stay out of their way wherever he can.

Occasionally he runs across a camera hidden in various places across the grounds. The first one he found, a small solar camera nestled in a tiny tree grove, he ended up confiscating and partially dismantling before noticing the U.A. sticker on its base and realizing it belongs to the school. He notes the location of them from then on, staying out of their field of vision out of habit, but he doesn't destroy them. Neither Aizawa or Yamada say anything about it, so either U.A.'s security team thinks the camera's demise was accidental or they don't know he's the one responsible. 

He doesn't bring it up. He's already skirting the limits of what their security policies will tolerate after his breaking-and-entering stunt into their files. He'd rather not inform them of additional property theft and damage. 

--

It starts with Midoriya. 

He turns in his seat while they're waiting on Ectoplasm to start mathematics, a dented and well-used notebook flipped open to a page with Hitoshi's name on it and a rough sketch of his hero uniform, pen clutched in hand, and asks with earnest eyes, "Shinsou-san, what's your quirk?"

Hitoshi looks at the book that reminds him too much of the bingo books back in Konoha and knows with steadfast certainty that he's not going to answer that question. "Why do you want to know?"

"I love learning about quirks and analyzing them," Midoriya says enthusiastically. "It's one of my hobbies, sort of. I've already made entries for almost everyone in class, and I'd love to learn about yours, if you're okay with it! I haven't seen you use it yet."

"Interesting," Hitoshi says, mildly impressed. He hadn't really expected a kid with a brute strength quirk like Midoriya's to show much interest in quirk analysis; it's both a welcome and unwelcome surprise. He holds out a hand. "Can I see it?" 

Hitoshi doesn't really expect any resistance. Instead of handing it over without hesitation, though, Midoriya's grip on the book tightens and his smile becomes a little more forced. Several long seconds pass before he passes it over, long enough that Hitoshi almost thinks he's going to say no. "I guess it's fine if you wanted to see! It's kind of embarrassing... I've been analyzing heroes' quirks ever since I was a kid." 

Most of the pages are already filled, notes scrawled in every available space with research, observations and questions about the quirks, strategies, uniforms and other details. Most of the earlier pages are filled with assorted pro heroes, while the later ones includes most of their classmates in alphabetical order. Bakugou is notably not listed. 

He pauses, just for a moment, at Aizawa's entry. He notes the way strengths and weaknesses are outlined, some speculations off the mark and others almost spot on. In just a few days, Midoriya's identified out the way Aizawa's hair rises when his quirk is active, given a reasonably accurate estimate of how long Erasure lasts before he has to blink, and noted his dry eye (and a prediction that the time between blinks will decrease the longer a fight goes on). For a more public hero, none of these would be revolutionary notes. But Aizawa is a hero whose biggest strength lies in being unknown and keeping his quirk veiled in a layer of obscurity to make it difficult to defend against. He'd chosen the underground path for a reason. 

"That's a dangerous notebook you've made," Hitoshi says as he hands it back. 

Midoriya looks startled. "You think so? It's just random thoughts and observations though. It's not really anything impressive." 

"You're selling your observations short. Popular pro heroes are one thing, but novice and underground heroes benefit a lot when people don't know how their quirks work and you've got a lot of them outlined in there. I'd be careful not to leave that lying around." 

"I-I guess I hadn't thought about it like that," Midoriya says, staring at the notebook. "I can tear out your page if you don't want me to write anything about you, Shinsou-san. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." 

Hitoshi waves a hand. "It's fine. It was just a thought." A lie. He cares, but it's not worth raising a stink over. If he ever feels like too much of his skillset has been written down he can just burn the thing anyway. 

"Oh." Midoriya fidgets, eyeing Hitoshi from the corner of his eye. "I'm still curious about your quirk, if it's okay to ask. I won't even write it down." 

A terrible idea hits him. "Sure," he says, leaning forward a little like he's about to share a secret. "You should write it down. Mine's kind of a fun one. You see, once a day I can pick a person and learn a secret they're trying to hide. Want to know yours?" 

Midoriya's eyes get huge. He's frozen in his seat, hand clenching his pencil so hard he's almost breaking it. "I - I mean - did you already - " 

"Not yet," Hitoshi says. He's beyond tempted to say yes and really sell this with what he's observed between Midoriya and All Might, but he's not quite ready to inform them he figured out they’re related. He'd rather not catch the attention of Japan's Number One Hero. "It would be fun if you let me, though. I'm good at keeping secrets." 

"No!" Midoriya yelps. "I - not that I don't trust you Shinsou-san, but I don't even know you really, so I guess I don't trust you yet, no offense, I'd just prefer you didn't! You understand, right?!" 

Hitoshi grins. "With that kind of reaction I bet you have a really good secret on your mind. Well, I'll be right here if you ever change your mind." 

"Yeah," Midoriya says faintly. "You'll be right behind me. Great." 

The moment Ectoplasm dismisses them for lunch, Midoriya is out of his seat and out of the room in seconds. Iida Tensei's younger brother and Uraraka trade glances before taking off after him. 

Tokoyami leans over in his seat towards Hitoshi, feathers looking a bit ruffled. "Figuring out people's secrets... is that really your quirk?" 

"Nah," Hitoshi says calmly. "My real quirk is doing spot-on voice impressions. You should hear my Wash impersonation sometime. Midoriya will figure out I was just joking eventually."

He can see both Yaoyorozu and Todoroki staring at him impassively from the corner of his vision. He ignores them. 

"I see," Tokoyami says. "Somehow, I don’t believe that is your quirk either, but it doesn’t matter. If you would prefer not to say, I won’t press the matter." 

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow. "You're not curious?" 

Tokoyami shrugs. "More than one of us have faced judgement from others because of our quirks. If you're not ready to say, we would understand." 

That… makes Hitoshi feel just the slightest bit shitty for giving the class the runaround on his quirk.

Not enough to make him stop, though.

-- 

“He’s sitting alone again,” Kirishima stage whispers, elbowing Denki’s side.

Denki follows his gaze. Sure enough, Shinsou’s alone at the far end of a table in the corner of the cafeteria. He vaguely remembers a couple of the girls sitting with him a couple of times, but right now they’re nowhere to be seen. “I can ask if he wants to come sit over here,” he says.

Ojirou frowns as he dips a few soba noodles in sauce. “Maybe he prefers to sit on his own. He doesn’t seem very interested in talking to any of us.”

“Or maybe he’s just shy,” Kirishima counters. “He seems nice when you actually talk to him! A little weird, but that’s not a bad thing. He’s friendlier than Todoroki, at least.”

“I wonder what’s up with the mask,” Sero says. “He’s already eaten half his food and I haven’t seen him take it off once. Do you think his quirk makes his face look funny?”

Denki squints. Now that he’s thinking about it, he’s pretty sure Shinsou hadn’t used a quirk during the Battle Trials either, and he’d dodged Denki’s question about his quirk too. “Dunno. What’s his quirk anyway?”

“Uh… he told Midoriya it was something to do with learning secrets, but right afterwards he told Tokoyami it was voice impressions,” Sero says. “So he was probably lying about both.”

“Why would he lie about his quirk?” Kirishima asks.

“He lied about his scars too,” Ojirou points out. “He’s probably a habitual liar or something.”

Sero swallows a bite of rice. “He said the scars came from training. How do you know that’s a lie?”

“Um, because he immediately followed that up by saying he didn’t read the safety manuals for knives? Besides, what kind of training causes scars like that?”

The table gets uncomfortably quiet. Denki’s pretty sure he just lost his appetite.

He clears his throat. “Well, in any case, it doesn’t hurt to ask if he wants to join us. I’ll be right back.”

He grabs his tray and heads over. Shinsou doesn’t seem to notice him coming, hunched over his phone and looking like he’s busy reading something.

“Yo, Shinsou,” Denki says, nudging at Shinsou’s chair with his foot. “What are you doing sitting all alone back in the corner here all the time at lunch? You should come sit with the rest of us! Well – not all of us, but we’ve got – “

“Thanks for the invitation,” Shinsou cuts him off, not bothering to look up from his phone, “but I’ll pass.”

Denki pouts, disappointed by the quick rejection. “Aw, come on. Why not?”

“It’s more peaceful over here.”

“Oh, you’re a guy who likes your space! I get that,” Denki says, dropping his lunch tray with a loud clatter onto the table across from Shinsou. Some of his miso sloshes out the side of the bowl. He scrambles for something to say, some sort of topic to get this guy actually interested. “You watch Edgeshot’s fight last night on the news?”

Shinsou glances wearily up at him through his lashes. “No, I didn’t.”

“What?! Oh man dude, you’ve gotta check it out,” Denki gushes, ignoring Shinsou’s halfhearted attempt at blowing him off. He punches the air, miming swinging a sword. “He was up against these villains who had this whole samurai motif going on – it was like, whoosh, wham, and this guy’s sword burst into flames, and then he pierced right through them and knocked them out like it was nothing! It was sick. You’re an Edgeshot fan, right?”

“He’s not too bad,” Shinsou says with a sigh, pocketing his phone. He doesn’t look too happy about it, but Denki’s counting it as a win. He’s making progress!  

Or maybe he’s just trying to keep his phone away from the broth on the table, but Denki likes to think of himself as more of a glass-half-full type of guy.

“Not too bad? Bro, he’s number 5 on the pro hero rankings! I see through your cool kid act, you’re a total Edgeshot nerd. You’ve even got the mask and everything. I bet you’re aiming to join his agency after you graduate, right?”

“No thanks.”

“Come on, you don’t have to fake it! We’re all hero fans here! I wonder if you could get an internship with him later or something. That would be pretty cool.”

“I’m planning on going the underground hero route,” Shinsou says. “Getting an internship with a Top 10 hero would draw too much attention.”

Oh, hell yes. That actually sounded like a serious statement and not another fakeout! Denki’s totally getting him to warm up! “Like Aizawa-sensei, right? That’s sick! I wonder if you could intern with him and learn the ropes!”

“Maybe,” Shinsou says, his voice sounding a little funny. “He seems pretty capable.”

“Wait… is he even able to take on one of us as an intern considering he’s our teacher?” Denki asks, not really expecting an answer. “Well, I bet he has connections even if he can’t have an intern. He’s kind of intimidating, but I bet he’d help you out if you asked.”

“I’d probably be grouchy too if I had to try to teach a class like ours,” Shinsou says.

“Aw, come on! I think our class is pretty cool. There’s a lot of really interesting quirks in our group.” Denki leans forward, knowing he’s not being all that subtle but not really caring either. “By the way, what’s your quirk? I don’t think you ever said.”

“Didn’t I?”  

“Nope, you definitely didn’t. You gotta tell me, dude, I’m super curious.”

Shinsou sighs. “Fine, fine. Promise you’ll stop bugging me if I tell you?”

Denki nods vehemently.

Shinsou glances around, then leans forward. “My quirk is called Dolphin. It lets me hold my breath underwater for up to two minutes, like a dolphin can.”

“Woah, cool,” Denki says. That… doesn’t sound right, actually, but if he’s telling the truth it would be kind of mean to call him a liar.

Shinsou picks up a piece of eggplant, raising it towards his masked face, and Denki tries to be discreet about his anticipation of seeing what Shinsou’s face looks like. Does he have shark teeth – or, uh, dolphin teeth? Joker lips?

Glass shatters a few meters away as a girl accidentally drops her glass, and when Denki looks back a few seconds later Shinsou’s already finished eating the rest of the food on his plate. Damn.

--

“Dolphin?”

“That’s what he called it.”

“Bro… dolphins can hold their breath for more like ten minutes. He was totally bullshitting you. Also, two minutes isn’t even that impressive. That’s just normal.”

“Aw, seriously?!”

--

Hitoshi’s barely sat down in the classroom after lunch before he’s being approached again, this time by Jirou. He’s feeling weirdly popular today, not really in a good way. This much social interaction is draining. At least he likes her – she’s not as rambunctious as most of the others in the class, and seems reasonably intelligent and level-headed as well.

"I was wondering if you would show me some of the moves you used during the Battle Trial," Jirou says, fidgeting with one of her ear jacks. "I know I don't stand much of a chance of making it into the final rounds where I'd actually be in a one-on-one fight, but it would be smart to know at least some of the basics just in case." 

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow. "You want me to teach you how to fight?" 

"You can say no," Jirou says quickly. "I totally get it if you're too busy training for the tournament. I just figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, you know?" 

Hitoshi leans back in his seat, considering. “Am I really the best person to ask? There are a lot of talented students in the class who'd probably be happy to train with you." 

“You said you’ve been training since you were, like, a toddler,” she points out. “So you have a lot of experience, and you seemed to know what you were doing during our fight. It makes sense to ask someone good enough to get into U.A. on recommendation, y’know?”

Hitoshi’s not convinced nepotism didn’t play a role in his recommendation, but he’s hardly about to get into that discussion here. In any case, she’s not wrong about his level of combat expertise. “It won’t be easy. Sure you’re up for it?”

Her expression brightens and she nods.  “I’ve gotta start somewhere, especially if I’m going to become a pro hero. Better now than later, right? I can do it.”

“Okay,” he says. He hadn’t really had any intention of getting into the teaching business ever again, but she has a point. While many of the students in this class are already relatively skilled, they haven’t faced the kind of danger that would put the reality of their future into perspective yet. He’d never stop regretting it if he rejected her here and found out later she’d died in the field. “Meet me at the P.E. grounds after school and we’ll go from there.”

All Might bursts into the classroom a few seconds later, though he seems a little more subdued than usual. Throughout Foundational Hero Studies, he keeps eyeing the class like he's looking for something, studying each student intently every time he seems to think he's not being watched. 

Hitoshi pretends not to notice and is careful not to do anything to draw attention to himself. He doesn’t know what All Might is searching for, but he doesn’t want those eyes lingering on him.

Chapter Text

Endeavor's son has been watching Hitoshi.  

The kid never says anything, just stares at him whenever he seems to think it would go unnoticed. Soon it's not just limited to that. Hitoshi starts deliberately meeting his gaze, and Todoroki just stares back unflinchingly.  

He's not the only one to notice, either. Some of the other students have been sneaking glances between Todoroki and Hitoshi like they're trying to puzzle out what's going on.  

"Did something happen between you and Todoroki?" Jirou asks quietly as the class gets up to leave for lunch.  

"I don't know," Hitoshi says. "If he has a problem with me, he hasn't said anything to me about it."  

“Maybe he likes you,” Kaminari butts in, slinging his arm around Hitoshi’s shoulders. Well, he tries to. Hitoshi’s already moved out of touching range.  

He gives Kaminari a withering look. “Doubtful.”  

Kaminari doesn’t look phased at all by the rejection. “I mean, sure, but it’s funny to think about. He’s probably planning to announce a rivalry between you guys for the number one spot in the class, or something.”  

“Sounds like a pain. I’m not even at the top of the class.” Hitoshi’s dealt with enough rivalries to last multiple lifetimes. If Todoroki’s looking for a fight, he’s going to be sorely disappointed.  

--  

Hitoshi is not a teacher.  

He’d held the title in a different life, sure. But no one had ever accused him of being good at it. It had fallen into shambles before any of his students had even hit chuunin. Sakura and Naruto had had the right idea when they took off with their respective sannin instructors. Sasuke... had been Sasuke. He’d genuinely tried with him, too, but look what happened there.  

He knows he’s not suited to the role. He was someone who hadn’t had to struggle to understand the basics. Sasuke (and Sakura, to some degree) had made things easy for him by being geniuses in their own right. A single explanation had typically been enough, and after some experimentation and practice they’d grasped concepts with enough understanding to apply it in the real world.  

Naruto was not a genius. He wasn’t stupid, but he had a tendency to rely on brute force to make up for his weaknesses in knowledge and technique.  Kakashi had never figured out an effective way to teach Naruto. Things just made  sense  to Kakashi in a way they didn’t to Naruto, and trying to explain concepts he’d never had to struggle to learn to someone who didn’t grasp it immediately... well, it had led to a lot of mutual frustration and not a whole lot of learning.  

Making Kakashi their teacher had not been the Third Hokage’s wisest moves. Sasuke made sense. As two of the only three known people in the world with sharingans, it was no surprise they'd be paired together. But Naruto? He’d never understood that decision.  

If Hitoshi shows up an hour late, maybe Jirou will have gone home and he won’t have to do anything at all. She doesn’t leave the classroom to wait for him outside, though, and just stands in the doorway typing something on her phone while she waits for him to get up.  

Wonderful. He should not have agreed to this.  

He finally accepts his fate and ambles past her without speaking. She puts away her phone and trails after him as he heads out to the P.E. grounds and stops in the middle of a boundary-marked field.  

She looks as uncertain as he feels, standing awkwardly in the field staring at him. She absently taps her jacks together, clearly waiting for him to say something.  

“So,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels. “What exactly are you hoping to get out of this?”  

“Learn something I can use in the Sports Festival if I make it to the later rounds,” she says. She grimaces. “I’m decent with some kinds of weaponry and my quirk has some power behind it when I’m using my support gear, but without anything to amplify or direct it, it’s not very useful in a fight.”  

“Hm… so, you’re wanting to learn some techniques to help you win in a fight where you have nothing you can use to your advantage?”  

“I don't expect to win, but I want to do good enough to get at least one internship offer.”  

Well, it’s not an unreasonable goal at least. Quirks like hers or his don’t stand much of a chance at making it far into the third round, if they even get past the second. They’re not the ones this festival is designed for. It’s a showcase for big, flashy quirks that stand a good chance of someday landing in top hero rankings.  

The only reason he’d have a shot at a good ranking if he were interested in winning is because none of his potential opponents outside of Yaoyorozu know what his quirk does. They wouldn’t know how to guard against it, not at first.  

(And that’s not even considering the sharingan. He’s not giving up that secret for something as trivial as this, of course.)  

“Let’s start with this, then,” he says. He gestures at the small field they’re standing in. “Knock me out of bounds. Anywhere outside of the lines around this field. If I step one foot out of the circle, you win. That’s your challenge.”  

Hitoshi has more than twenty centimeters on her. He’s easily twice her weight. Even excluding any combat abilities he has, he’s going to be relatively difficult for her to force out of bounds just thanks to their size difference alone. And he’s not an outlier. He’s taller than average, but he’s far from the tallest or heaviest in the class. She’s going to have to figure out strategies and techniques to force him to move if she wants to stand a chance at winning, and maneuver the fight close enough to the border that she could actually knock him out of bounds.  

First impressions of the fight: she’s an amateur. Little to no real-world experience. She’s not clueless; she has a decent sense of spatial awareness and a handle on some intermediate techniques, but it’s clear she’s never been in a real fight. Her training’s been limited to, well, training. Her hands hover awkwardly in front of her chest like she’s used to holding a weapon of some kind and isn’t entirely sure what to do without it.  

The ground trembles, thin fissures spiderwebbing out from the point she jammed her jack into it. Hitoshi orients himself to the tremors and drives a palm strike into her chest. She lets out a grunt as the air in her lungs is forcefully expelled and lands hard on her back.  

Hitoshi pauses for the few seconds it takes her to get back up, scuffing the dirt with his shoe in thought. There’s power behind her quirk, but it’s spreading itself too thinly through the ground when she sends vibrations through it. With the proper support gear, she could probably tear the ground apart and knock him off his feet.  

It’s too bad support gear isn’t allowed for hero course students in the festival.  

“Have you ever used those on a person?” he asks, gesturing at her jacks. “Directly, I mean. Not just on the ground they’re standing on.”  

Jirou pauses and frowns. “Sort of? If someone’s being a dick I’ve used my quirk to give them a mild shock before. Nothing too intense.”  

“Try it on me, then,” he says.  

She hesitates. “That seems dangerous. Couldn’t that really hurt you?”  

“Well, don’t use it at full power or you might burst my organs and kill me. Just try to put a little more power into it than a mild shock and we’ll go from there. But they have a nurse on campus, right? She did a pretty good job fixing up Midoriya’s shattered limbs the other day, if anything goes wrong,” he says. “I’m not going to stand here and just let you do it, anyway. You’ll have to work for it.”  

“I can try, I guess,” she says, clearly uncertain. “If you’re sure.”  

She goes on the offensive again, this time aiming her jacks at him rather than trying to push enough vibrations into the ground to unbalance him. The first few strikes are easy to deflect, but to her credit she doesn’t look discouraged by the lack of immediate results.  

Hitoshi raises his arm to smack one of the jacks away as it shoots towards him, like he’s done a few dozen times already at this point. His forearm makes contact, the wire-like muscle bouncing harmlessly away.  

The tip twists at the last second. He doesn’t pull away quickly enough. It pierces his skin.  

Vibrations slam into him like a truck. He grabs the jack and rips it out, but he can barely register the touch. His bones feel like they want to shake out of place, like his skeleton is seconds away from collapsing like a house of cards, and a violent wave of nausea overwhelms him the moment he’s started to compartmentalize the sensations.  

He turns his head away from Jirou, tugs down his mask and empties the contents of his stomach into the dirt. His heart feels like it’s beating an uneven staccato rhythm.  

He’s close to the boundary line. If she tries to unbalance him, she has a chance of getting him to step out of it. He’s regained his equilibrium enough that he would have been back into the fight a few seconds ago if this had been a serious one, but instead he takes a moment to calm the tremors still running through his arm and body and to see if she’ll take advantage of the moment.  

She hesitates, just for a second, before something steels in her eyes and she strikes out with a kick at his hip.  

He pivots out of the way and away from the border. “Good try,” he says approvingly.  

Her jacks have almost completely retracted back into her ears. He can see the skin around the one he’d grabbed already starting to turn dark purple. “Are you okay?” she asks.  

“I’m fine,” Hitoshi says. “Next time, press your advantage right away. You shouldn’t give me a chance to recover.”  

She nods. “Right.”  

--  

The effects of Jirou’s quirk get easier to handle now that Hitoshi knows what to expect. He has a feeling she’s restraining the intensity of the vibrations more than she had the first time around, too. Regardless, he’s much more wary of her jacks and takes extra care to keep them away from his skin when he can. He may have prompted the attack, but he’d still prefer to avoid a repeat performance.  

The spot on his forearm where her probe had pierced him that first time looks hideous. There’s a spiderweb spreading out in both directions from the tiny hole it had left in his skin, a patchmark of deep reds and blacks where his blood vessels had exploded from the intensity of her vibrations. He hasn’t taken off his shirt to get a good look, but he has a feeling the marks cover his entire arm, if not more.  

“You should try talking to Yamada-sensei tomorrow,” he suggests, when they’ve been going long enough that she’s losing focus and energy. “Your quirk has some similarities to his, and he’s done well for himself in the pro field. Maybe he’s got some tips for the festival that’ll help you out.”  

She sighs, sprawled out on the ground as she tries to catch her breath. “I didn’t even manage to knock you out of bounds once.”  

He waves dismissively. “Don’t compare yourself to me. I’m what you’d call a ‘special case.’ Most of the ones at the top of the class are.”  

“Special case?”  

“Mm. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I started training young. You heard what Yaoyorozu said about her training. Todoroki and Iida both come from hero lineages – their families probably started their training as soon as their quirks developed. Maybe even younger. It’s natural there’s going to be a gap, especially early on.”  

“I know,” she says a little wistfully.  

“But,” he says, holding up an index finger, “I can try to teach you something that’ll be more useful both in the festival and long term than a couple fancy moves would be.”  

She pauses, eyeing him with interest. “And what’s that?”  

He eye-smiles at her. “Quirk analysis.”  

--  

“So, Hitoshi,” Aizawa says, early in the morning before they’ve left for school the next day. “I’ve been hearing some rumors about your quirk going around the class.”  

“Is that so,” Hitoshi says in a monotone voice.  

“Seems there’s some confusion over what exactly your quirk is.”  

“Really. I had no idea.”  

“Definitely some interesting theories they’ve got going on.”  

“Sounds fascinating.”  

“You don’t happen to know the source of those ideas, would you?”  

“No clue.”  

Aizawa pinches the bridge of his nose. “Hitoshi, please. These are supposed to be your classmates. Your teammates for the foreseeable future. Ultrasonic jaywalking? Apocalips?  Really?”   

Hitoshi fights a fond grin at the memory. “I told Yaoyorozu what my quirk was,” he says, like it justifies the rest. “The rest of them are developing teamwork and observational skills by working together to figure it out.”  

“And you’re ostracizing yourself in the process.” Aizawa drags his palm down over his face. “I know the nature of your quirk can make relationships… challenging sometimes. But this isn’t going to help anything.”  

Hitoshi shrugs. “It’s not like I’m going to drag this on forever. If they haven’t figured it out by the time the Sports Festival is over, I’ll stop messing around with it.”  

“Hmph. I’ll hold you to that, problem child.” Aizawa grabs a jelly pack out of the fridge and pauses. “This wouldn’t be some sort of strategy to improve your odds of performing well in said festival, would it?”  

Hitoshi shrugs. It’s easier if Aizawa assumes that’s his true motivation behind hiding his quirk. Aizawa would probably be on his case over Hitoshi’s status as a recommended student if he knew he planned on losing.  

--  

“Waitwaitwait back up, say that one again! I’ve gotta write it down!”  

“Hizashi, what the hell are you doing?”  

“Listen, these are hilarious! This would make a brilliant segment on  Put Your Hands Up Radio!  Just imagine: a contest for the best fake quirk. The winner gets some merch and a shout-out on the show. Maybe we could even make some merch  for  the fake quirk. The audience would love it!”  

“Why are you like this?”  

Hitoshi leans against the wall of his bedroom as he catches a part of their conversation a couple rooms over and huffs out a quiet laugh.  

Maybe he'll buy a coffee mug or something with the winning quirk if the idea goes through.  

--  

“Today we’ll be doing something a little different for hero fundamentals,” Aizawa says. A ripple of muttering and questions starts up from the students, but he doesn’t acknowledge them. “We’ll be taking a bus to an offsite location where we’ll be getting some hands-on experience with rescue training.”  

Aizawa doesn’t name it, but Hitoshi remembers what this place had been called in their schedule. The Unforeseen Simulation Joint. They’d originally been scheduled to go a week earlier. It seems like today was the day their new schedule had set it for.  

They’re given the choice of whether or not to wear their hero uniforms. It makes sense – by now they’ve gotten to try out the uniforms a couple of times, and doubtless some students have run into issues where their flashy designs didn’t work so well in practice.  

Hitoshi chooses to wear his, of course. He’d designed it with practicality in mind right from the start, no bells and whistles that might hinder him when he moves. He’d had enough experience with uniforms in the past to know exactly what he wanted.  

The rest of the class is buzzing with anticipation, likely from a combination of getting to leave school grounds and over the subject of the upcoming training session. It’s one of the most significant ones they’ve had since the semester started.  

Hitoshi sits across from the bus's emergency exit where the doors are fully visible, ignoring Iida's attempts to organize their seating order.  

Todoroki sits down next to him.  

Hitoshi raises an eyebrow, curious, but Todoroki doesn’t look at him and doesn’t say anything. Well. That’s fine. He prefers to sit in silence anyway.  

Kaminari looks between Hitoshi and Todoroki and gives him a thumbs up and an exaggerated wink. Hitoshi pointedly turns away and focuses on his phone instead as the bus lurches into motion.   

He scrolls through an article on Stain, half-listening to the conversations happening around him. Asui seems to have picked up on the connection between Midoriya and All Might as well, at least in reference to the similarity of their quirks. Midoriya's flustered denial is the opposite of convincing. There's no way a kid who obviously idolizes the man wouldn't jump in excitement at the comparison unless he's trying to hide their connection.  

“I have a question for you,” Todoroki says, more than ten minutes after they’d started driving. His voice is low, barely more than a murmur, not loud enough for anyone else to hear him. “Alone. Not here.”  

Hitoshi doesn’t respond, but Todoroki stands up and moves to sit somewhere else without elaborating or even checking for a confirmation. He’s either confident Hitoshi will follow him or doesn’t care whether he bothers.  

Interesting.  

--  

USJ.  

The stadium is massive, easily the size of a small town. Several smaller domes have been built inside the main dome, presumably containing carefully controlled rescue environments, while the rest of the structure is filled with a large lake, a patch of ruined and partially collapsed buildings, a mountainous range and dense forests. A flimsy temporary tent of some kind is set up in the center, blocking off whatever’s there from sight.  

“Today is all about rescue training,” Aizawa mumbles, scratching at the corner of his eye. “Pro hero Thirteen will be taking the lead. Make sure to listen carefully and take this seriously. During your careers as heroes, this is something all of you will encounter on a regular basis in one form or another. Learning safe practices now could make the difference between life and death for a civilian entrusting themselves into your hands.”  

Kirishima raises his hand. “Where’s All Might? Wasn’t he supposed to come with us?”  

“He had a scheduling conflict,” Aizawa says. “He’ll be teaching this class tomorrow, but for today you’ll have to settle for me and Thirteen.”  

A few of the students look disappointed, but it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. If he’s being honest, Hitoshi’s more surprised these scheduling conflicts don’t happen more often. It’s surprising All Might has found the time to be a teacher at all, much less show up for class semi-regularly.  

Thirteen introduces herself and USJ, listing off some of the features of the training grounds before starting on a small lecture about the potential for both harm and good within all types of quirks.  

Hitoshi tunes it out. It’s nothing he’s not intimately aware of, even if his experience with the topic was gained more from the use and misuse of jutsu than quirks. It’s the same concept when it comes down to it.  

As Thirteen’s speech comes to an end, he noticed Aizawa’s gaze lingering on him just a moment longer than normal. His mouth is pressed into a flat line, eyebrows furrowed a little more than usual, and he's slow to look away even when he notices Hitoshi’s attention.  

There’s something on his mind. Whatever it is, if Hitoshi needs to know, he’ll be told soon enough.  

“Let’s start with the rescue training!” Thirteen announces excitedly. “Follow me this way. For our first exercise, you’ll be working in rescue groups with four students per group. Most of you will take a turn acting as an injured student at the bottom of the chasm in sets of three. One of them will be unconscious, the other will have an injured leg and the last will be in emotional distress. We’ll be choosing the groups for you. For the first round, the injured students will be Midoriya, Uraraka...”  

--  

Shinsou’s different from the rest of them.  

Not in the way most of the others would describe him. His little stunt with the fake quirks has half the class in an uproar. It’s actually kind of impressive how much he’s riled them up in only a few days.  

But Shouto’s not so easily distracted. It doesn’t matter what Shinsou’s quirk is. The real question no one’s bothering to ask is: what’s his motive for hiding it?  

The answer: Shinsou’s the son of a hero. Probably a well known one. Actually, he’s pretty certain it’s Edgeshot. He didn’t know Edgeshot had kids, but it’s pretty common for heroes to keep their home lives secret.  

He’s hiding his quirk for a reason. It’s probably a quirk just like Edgeshot’s (or like another pro hero’s, if Shouto’s theory turns out to be wrong). He might be hiding it to protect the secret of his lineage. Maybe he’s refusing to use his quirk for the same reason Shouto won’t touch his fire.  

The longer he watches, the more obvious it becomes. It’s not just the appearance (and that alone is pretty telling: white hair? Always wearing a mask? That ninja-themed hero costume? It’s not a hard connection to make).  

Shinsou’s a recommended student. Not just anyone can get a recommendation in the first place, much less do well enough to get a spot in U.A.’s hero course. He has a connection somewhere in the hero industry, probably a familial one like himself or a lot of the other recommended applicants.  

It’s those thin, silvery scars snaking across skin, most of them stretched with age. It’s the way they’re old enough that Shinsou probably hadn’t even been a teenager yet when he’d gotten them. They were too chaotic to come from a single attack or from self harm, but too consistent to be purely an accident.  

Shinsou had openly admitted the scars came from training, even if the "running with knives” excuse had been bullshit. That sort of pattern didn’t come from a single attack. Edgeshot’s quirk could easily leave marks like that.  

If you don’t want to get hurt, then learn how to dodge properly.   

Slow.   

Weak.   

Pathetic.   

Shinsou’s the same as Shouto. He knows it.  

Over by the cliff’s edge, Sero braces himself against a boulder while Shinsou gives his tape a hard yank. Seemingly satisfied, Asui wraps some of the tape around herself and Shinsou and Kirishima start lowering her into the ravine.  

Shinsou still hasn’t used his quirk. He’s clearly strong and holds his own with Kirishima as they strain to pull Kouda up the cliffside, but it’s not quirk-level strength. Maybe it’s not useful for this kind of exercise. Maybe he just doesn’t want to give up the truth.  

He only looks over at Shouto once, just for a couple lingering seconds after they successfully pull Aoyama up. His expression doesn’t change, and he looks back at his team like the eye contact had been entirely unintentional and inconsequential.  

(Maybe that red eye has something to do with his quirk. There’s something unsettling about the pattern in it.)  

Shinsou would understand him. He’d believe him if Shouto told him about his father. He’s sure of it.  

He kind of hopes he’s wrong. Bad enough that there’s one abusive parent in the top ten heroes. A second one would paint their hero society in a pretty depressing light. Plus, he likes – liked – Edgeshot. He’d seemed nice the couple of times Shouto had met him. Not that his public persona means much in the end. Appearances can be deceiving.  

“Wonderful job, all of you,” Thirteen congratulates, clapping her hands together as the last group finishes their rescue. “Let’s move on to the next exercise! We’ll be moving over to the urban zone for this one. All but four of you will have eight minutes to spread out and hide wherever you want in the zone, and eight of you will not be able to speak. The four students I select will be the rescuers. You need to find and rescue as many of your classmates as you can within the time limit.”  

Shouto is not selected as one of the rescuers. Shinsou isn’t either. As soon as they’re told to spread out, Shouto takes off, searching for a spot where he’s unlikely to be found quickly.  

Honestly, he wasn’t sure Shinsou would bother to follow him. He can’t hear anyone following him, and Shinsou doesn’t really seem like the type to obey orders if he doesn’t want to.  

But within a minute of settling into his chosen hiding spot for the exercise, Shinsou appears next to him in the small room.  

He takes a deep breath. Now that they’re here, he’s… not quite sure what to say. How to say it. Should he try to lead up to it? Ask leading questions and hope Shinsou gives something away? Maybe if he tells Shinsou about his father, Shinsou will open up in turn.  

Ah, shit. Shinsou’s staring at him, waiting for him to say something, and Shouto’s just standing here like an idiot. Maybe he should have planned out exactly what he was going to say a little better.  

“Your parents are pro heroes, aren’t they?” Shouto’s mouth says before his brain has fully caught up.  

Okay. We’re just diving right into it then. He can work with this.  

His conviction falters when Shinsou’s expression turns into one of sheer bafflement. “What on earth led you to that conclusion?” he asks.  

No. He’s been hiding things and lying the whole time he’s been in their class. Shouto can’t back down now.  

“Your training scars,” Shouto points out. It’s the most damning piece of evidence. Even now, with almost all his skin covered by his hero uniform, Shouto can make out the edges of those pale marks on Shinsou's forearms where his sleeves are rolled up a few inches.  

Shinsou’s fingers twitch. He’s probably thinking the same thing Shouto is right now, but he doesn’t roll down his sleeves like Shouto thought  he would.  

“The… scars?” Shinsou says slowly.  

 “You don’t have to hide it,” Shouto says. He can’t be wrong about this. He can’t be. He swallows around the lump in his throat. His mouth feels dry. “My father… Endeavor, just in case you didn’t already know… he’s the same way.”  

Shinsou’s expression is like a stone wall. He’s giving nothing away. The mask he never takes off makes it even harder to read what he’s thinking. Maybe that’s why he wears it.  

“Have you ever heard of quirk marriages?” Shouto asks.  

Shinsou tips his head back slightly, mismatched eyes boring into Shouto’s. Appraising him. Reevaluating him. “I’ve heard of them.”  

“My father… he’s been obsessed with becoming the number one hero since before I was born,” Shouto says. His jaw hurts from how hard he’s clenching it. “But he’s never been able to surpass All Might in the rankings. There’s just too big of a gap between them. So he decided… if  he  couldn’t beat All Might, he’d make sure he had a kid who could.”  

“I take it you’re not interested in doing what he wants you to,” Shinsou says.  

“Like hell I care about their stupid rivalry,” Shouto hisses. His skin burns under the surface, quirk bubbling up in response to his emotions. He takes a deep breath. Another one. “He forced my mother into a marriage she never wanted by using his money and status against her and her family. He kept having kids until he finally got the perfect blend of his and my mother’s quirk that he’d been looking for. Ever since my quirk developed, he’s been training me for the singular goal of becoming the number one hero. He didn’t care what it took. What it did to me. To our family. I’ll become a hero. I’ll even become the number one hero. And I’ll do it all without using that man’s quirk.”  

Shinsou raises an eyebrow. “That’s why you only use ice?”  

“Yeah.” Shouto shakes his head and huffs out a small laugh. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? That our parents... the ones society calls heroes... they’re not much better than the villains. How can they justify it to themselves?”  

Shinsou’s posture is still relaxed, but there’s an undercurrent of tension that hadn’t been there before. “Why are you telling me this?”  

“Because you're like me,” Shouto says.  

Shinsou shakes his head. “No. I’m not.”  

“You are. I can tell. That’s why you don’t use your quirk, isn’t it? It’s why you’ve been lying about it to everyone. Because it reminds you of them.”  

“You’re projecting your own experiences onto me,” Shinsou says. “You’re assigning motives to my actions when you don't know me at all.”  

He’s lying again. He has to be. “Then why are you hiding your quirk?” Shouto counters. “What’s your excuse for the scars? Don’t bullshit me and try to say you gave them to yourself. I’m not an idiot.”  

Shinsou rubs the back of his neck and turns his gaze towards the window. “If I tell you, will you promise to leave me alone?”  

Shouto doesn’t want to agree, but he’s pretty sure it’s the only way he’ll get anything at all. “I promise.”  

“Fine.” Shinsou lets his hand drop to his side. “I don’t live with my biological parents anymore. Haven’t for years. The details aren’t important, but I’m sure you can figure out at least part of it yourself. They weren’t heroes in action or in name. Is that what you wanted to hear?”  

Since day one of class, Shinsou has been an enigma. There’s something wrong with him, something almost unnatural about the way he behaves. He doesn’t fit in with their classmates, and Shouto had chalked it up to trauma. To missing out on a childhood for the sake of training.  

In some ways, he wasn’t wrong. There’s probably a metric ton of trauma buried behind his habitual lies and weird ways of interacting with others, like he doesn’t know how to relate to them and isn’t interested in trying.  

But he’s not the same as Shouto. If this isn’t another one of his lies (and Shouto’s pretty sure it’s not), he’s not in U.A.’s program to fulfill the expectations of a hero parent. He’s here because he wants to be, because he’d worked for it of his own volition, not because it was a path predetermined on his behalf.  

Emotions clash in Shouto’s mind, a cataclysmic mess of feelings he’s not sure how to parse. Disappointment. Relief. Anger. Embarrassment. Resentment.  

He’s never felt less like a hero than in this moment, looking at a boy who’d just admitted to being abused as a kid and wishing it had been a different kind of abuse. He’s glad his suspicions about Edgeshot weren’t true. He’s frustrated that it’s not true. He...  

He just wants someone who’d understand. Who’d  get  it. He’d really hoped he’d finally found someone who would.  

What does Shinsou see when he looks at Shouto?  

“So...”  

“So?”  

“You’re not Edgeshot’s son?”  

Shinsou levels him with a look that leaves Shouto feeling deeply judged. “Really? First Shouji, now Edgeshot? Masks aren’t genetic, just in case that was up for debate.”  

“I just thought...” Shouto gestures vaguely at Shinsou’s... everything. “Never mind.”  

The world’s most awkward silence descends onto the room.  

Shinsou’s eyes twitch in what looks like a poorly masked grimace. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not that I didn’t deal with expectations for my future being placed on me. Sounds like everyone’s expected you to become a hero. People expected me to become a villain. If it’s not your dream to become a hero, if that’s not something you want... this is a world that’s supposed to let you choose. You might as well take advantage of that.”  

“You don’t sound like you believe it.”  

“Hm. Maybe not. Freedom of choice isn’t a privilege granted to all of us. You probably understand that better than a lot of others.”  

Shinsou says it in the same bland, disinterested tone he uses for everything. He could say  looks like it’s going to be sunny out today  and it would sound the same as him saying  my parents treated me like their own personal punching bag.  He doesn’t sound like he cares about anything. Maybe he doesn’t.  

“How... did you get out?”  

Shinsou stares at him for a long moment. “By doing something inadvisable.”  

That’s ominously vague. “Do you regret it?”  

“No.” There’s no uncertainty in his voice. “If you want to get out, tell Aizawa-sensei what’s going on. Or one of the other teachers, if you don’t feel comfortable enough with him. They can help you get away from him, if that’s what you want to do.”  

Shouto shakes his head. “What could they possibly do against the number two hero?”  

“Then do nothing and wait till you’re eighteen,” Shinsou says. “It’s your life. I’m not going to interfere.”  

“You’re not going to tell anyone?”  

“Hm... I probably should. I can if you want me to.” Shinsou rubs the back of his neck. “But I’m not a mandated reporter, and the political fallout will probably be a pain to deal with for everyone involved. I’m not exactly jumping at the opportunity.”  

Shouto hadn’t exactly anticipated Shinsou to be very empathetic, but that was even blunter than he’d expected. It doesn't seem like the whole “hero personality” thing comes naturally to him at all.  

It’s the same way for Shouto, though. The only thing he’s good at is fighting. It’s yet another thing about himself that digs its claws into his mind, reminding him that maybe his mother’s words were right. That maybe he really does have more of Endeavor inside himself than he wants to admit.  

He opens his mouth to say something. He’s not sure what. Shinsou’s offered to step in, to talk to the teachers and take the choice out of Shouto’s hands. To speak up on his behalf and let the staff take care of the rest. He’s not sure he knows what his answer will be, even as it rests on the tip of his tongue.  

But the words never come out. There’s something wrong.  

Shouto can feel it in the air. An unnatural stillness, a silence that doesn’t feel quite right. Shinsou’s posture is rigid, shoulders squared, eyes slowly scanning the room. There’s something glinting in his hand, a sense of danger emanating from him that hadn’t been there a few seconds ago.  

A drizzle of concrete pebbles. A faint scuffing noise echoes from somewhere Shouto can’t pinpoint.  

The wall behind Shinsou explodes.  

Chapter Text

If Hitoshi had known what Todoroki wanted, what he’d approached him to talk about, he wouldn’t have followed him.  

Scratch that, he wouldn’t have come to USJ in the first place. He would have conveniently been just late enough to not be worth waiting for, enjoyed a nice, quiet afternoon on his own, and faced the consequences from Aizawa and Yamada later for it.  

Instead he’s stuck standing here, in the lopsided ruins of a dilapidated building, wondering where he went wrong to warrant this kind of attention from Todoroki.  

He’s out of his depth. He doesn’t have the personality to handle situations like this. He feels like a genin trying to navigate a minefield. Just look at how his intervention with Sasuke had gone. There’s a similar sort of bitterness in Todoroki’s eyes. He’s still expressing a desire to be a hero, to become better than his father, but it’s hard to tell how dedicated to that conviction he truly is. If it’s a passion he really holds or nothing more than part of a revenge fantasy.  

Todoroki’s circumstances aren’t comparable to Hitoshi’s. He’s the son of the second highest ranking hero in all of Japan. There’s a significant number of people with stakes here outside of the Todoroki family that will get involved if any allegations of abuse surface, whether they turn out to be true or not. The Hero Public Safety Commission has a vested interest in protecting Endeavor’s public appearance – they can’t afford to have such serious accusations come out publicly against him. Endeavor likely has powerful connections who will help shield him if it came down to it, too. The news might leap on the story like rabid animals, or they might ignore it in hopes of keeping their connections within the hero industry intact.  

The hero Endeavor is supposed to be larger than life. Something separate from the rest of humanity, placed on a pedestal and treated like a figurehead of the power and ideals of Japan. He’s not number one, but his status as number two is nothing to scoff at. Tearing him off that pedestal will undoubtedly lead to unrest and seed distrust in an institution that touts selflessness and perfection.  

In the middle of it, Todoroki will have any sense of privacy he has left stripped away. His life will be plastered across headlines and the internet, where it will be scrutinized and criticized and hang like a shadow on his prospective career forever. Maybe that’s what he wants. Or maybe his desire for revenge against his father has made him dismiss that part of the situation as an acceptable necessity. Whether or not it’s worth it is something only he can determine.  

He could tell Aizawa or Yamada what’s going on. He could talk to them. Let them handle the situation and take it out of his hands. He can’t do anything about this. He’s fifteen years old when it comes down to it - legally still a minor.  

He doesn’t know the details of the situation, but the evidence is permanently painted across Todoroki’s face. It’s not a fresh scar.  

And would it even matter? Even if Todoroki succeeds in getting himself removed from his home, the amount of control Endeavor would continue to hold over his life would more likely than not doom him to three years in institutional care before he ages out. Is that really any better?  

Todoroki stands there with pinched brows and wide eyes. His expression is difficult to decipher, emotions flashing across his face too quickly to categorize.  

Hitoshi never gets an answer to his offer to report the situation to the teachers. There’s a knife in his hands before his mind catches up to his instincts, Todoroki suddenly the last thing he’s focused on.    

Something isn’t right. It’s not clear what. The room hasn’t changed. There are no audible footsteps, no shouts from the searching students.  

But Todoroki’s sensed it too. His gaze searches the room with the same intensity Hitoshi’s does. Their eyes meet.  

The wall behind him explodes.  

“Having a heart-to-heart in the middle of a training exercise? How youthful!”  

Unfamiliar voice. A huge, hulking figure standing right behind him, a hand large enough to crush his head stretching out towards them. Hitoshi hadn’t heard him approaching.  

His sharingan activates. A flick of his wrist and there’s a knife in his hand, driving it forward into that palm reaching out to grab him. It’s only because of the sharingan that he sees the hand move out of the way of his strike, faster than his body can respond to try to dodge. He twists his wrist and feels the blade enter muscle.  

In the span of a breath, he’s been expertly pinned to the ground. His arms are twisted behind him at an angle too awkward to get any leverage. Powerful fingers pry open his grip and send his knife clattering to the ground. From this position, he can’t get his eyes on the intruder. A few drops of blood soak through his shirt from the intruder.  

Ice shoots past his line of vision, close enough to his head that he can feel the air cooling when he breathes it in. Something shatters above him, frigid shards raining down on his skin. Todoroki lets out a grunt and there’s the sound of a body hitting the wall.  

“Calm down, you two,” that distorted voice says.  

“Who are you?” Hitoshi growls. His quirk buzzes in his throat.  

“All Might. There’s nothing to...”  

Hitoshi activates his quirk. The massive figure claiming to be All Might freezes in place.  

“Let go of me.” The moment those hands loosen their hold, Hitoshi shoots to his feet and puts space between them, backing up to stand next to Todoroki. His classmate glances at him, expression grim, before turning back towards the intruder, still in a fighting stance.  

The physical build is similar to All Might’s, but the costume’s all wrong. Instead of bright reds and blues he’s wearing dark green pants and a black shirt, shoulders covered in armor with massive spikes. His head is hidden under a helmet resembling a spiked gas mask that completely disguises his face and hair.  

“Take off your helmet,” he directs. The man obeys without resistance. All Might’s blank, expressionless face comes into view. He’s not smiling like this, and it’s... unsettling.  

“It really is him,” Todoroki says, a faint trace of surprise in his voice. His arms lower a fraction. “Why is he dressed like that?”  

“I don’t know.” Hitoshi studies him closely, trying to spot any inconsistencies in All Might’s appearance, anything to suggest he’s not who he’s claiming to be. It doesn’t make any sense. Even ignoring the costume, why would he burst through the wall like that, masked and unrecognizable, before subduing them and then claiming to be their teacher? He steps closer to All Might and takes the helmet from his unresisting hands, turning it over as if it holds the answers to the situation.  

Todoroki frowns. “What did you do to him?”  

“I brainwashed him,” Hitoshi says.  

Todoroki mulls this over for a moment. “That’s a pretty useful quirk.”  

“Only if you’re not expecting it.”  

“…How long will it last?”  

“Until I either let go or he gets jolted back into awareness,” Hitoshi says. The time to lie about the nature of his quirk is long gone. “It doesn’t take much; a firm bump would be enough.” 

“I see,” Todoroki says. They stand there in silence for a few moments. All Might’s lifeless face stares blankly back at them. “...Are you going to let him go?”  

Hitoshi lets out a breath. “I can’t exactly keep him here indefinitely, especially if he’s the real deal. Just... be ready, just in case.”  

Todoroki nods. His palm glimmers with small ice crystals as he shifts into a defensive position.  

Hitoshi lets go.  

All Might jerks back to life, blinking as he takes a moment to reorient himself. He looks at the helmet in Hitoshi's hands and grimaces. “My apologies. I’d hoped to explain myself before getting caught in that quirk of yours!”  

That manner of speaking... “Why did you respond to me if you knew what I was going to do?”  

All Might laughs. “I told you my name right up front. I was rather hoping it would be enough to stay your hand just long enough for me to explain.”  

“Approaching with your face uncovered might help with that next time,” Hitoshi says, unimpressed. He tosses that hideous helmet back to the pro. “What’s with the sudden makeover?”   

“I’m setting up a small villain demonstration,” All Might says. He settles the helmet under his arm instead of putting it back on. “I admit, I came here looking for young Todoroki – I didn’t expect to find you here too, young Shinsou. Ah, adolescent friendship! Such a wonderful thing. But the point of this exercise was to spread out, not congregate to chat.”  

“I –“ Todoroki starts.  

“In a real-world rescue scenario, finding multiple survivors together is common and has its own sets of challenges that are important to consider,” Hitoshi interjects quickly, like that had been their intention all along.  

All Might barks out a laugh. “A commendable thought! But if that was your goal, you should try to find a hiding spot that would make rescuing both of you more difficult!”  

Hitoshi eye-smiles and clasps his hands together behind his back. “Thank you for your insight.”  

“Where was I… ah, yes. As you two may already know, it’s not uncommon for villains to try to take advantage of disasters for their own purposes, if they weren’t the cause of it to begin with. It was suggested we stage an attack in the middle of the rescue scenario to give the class some valuable experience, and I was going to ask young Todoroki if he’d be willing to assist me. Shinsou, since you’re here, I’ll ask for your assistance as well!”  

Todoroki doesn’t glare, but the furrow in his brow deepens in confusion. “You... wanted my help? What do you want me to do?”  

--  

Hitoshi stumbles into the street, clutching his shoulder tightly enough his fingertips turn white under the pressure. His arm hangs limply at his side. Blood oozes down his forehead from a cut created by his own knife. He blinks rapidly as it paints his eyelashes red, trying to keep his vision clear.  

He can see the moment Midoriya spots him. “Shinsou!” he calls, before his eyebrows draw together in confusion that quickly morphs into concern. “Shinsou? What happened? Are you okay?”  

Hitoshi takes a shaky step forward, eyes listing to the side like he hasn’t registered Midoriya’s presence before he lets himself focus. “Todoroki,” he gasps, choking on the name with a rattling cough.  

“What happened to Todoroki?” he asks, voice tight with poorly hidden urgency. “We heard a crash a few minutes ago. Did one of the buildings collapse?”  

“No,” Hitoshi says through gritted teeth. “There’s a – a villain broke in. He has Todoroki. I – shit, I couldn’t stop him.”  

His knee buckles. Iida and Ojirou are suddenly there, carefully supporting his upper body and helping him lean up against the hollow shell of a burnt-out car.  

“I’ll go get Aizawa-sensei,” Iida says grimly. He takes a step back and activates his quirk, disappearing into a cloud of dust.  

“He kidnapped Todoroki?” Midoriya asks, voice cracking on the question.  

“Deku? Shinsou?” Uraraka cries, running towards them. He can see Jirou and Kaminari trailing behind her. “What’s going on?”  

“A villain broke in,” Ojirou says. “Apparently he took Todoroki.”  

“We have to get everyone out of here,” Hitoshi murmurs. His eyes drift shut. He can feel vibrations in the ground.  

They’re here.  

The mask hides the way the corner of his mouth curls up.  

All Might is silent, standing in the center of the city square like he’s surveying them. Todoroki hangs limply in his grasp, seemingly unconscious.  

Yelling. There’s more students coming out of the buildings. Bakugou lets out a howl as he launches himself at the “villain” and Todoroki.  

“Everyone!” Yaoyorozu shouts. “Run away! Aizawa-sensei and Thirteen are on their way!”  

“Where did they go?!” Kaminari yells. “They were monitoring us just a couple minutes ago! What if they’re dead?!”  

“You won’t escape,” All Might booms. He slams a foot on the ground and upheaves the entire street.  

Hitoshi knows All Might is powerful. He’s the number one hero in Japan. He’s someone considered so overwhelmingly strong that he’d singlehandedly managed to lower the crime rate across the nation and all but eliminated organized crime. But witnessing it firsthand, in a scenario where he’s going easy on them to prevent any serious injuries...  

One hit and all the surrounding buildings were blown away. What used to be a downtown city center now looks like the epicenter of a bomb, debris and concrete slabs surrounding the area like a barrier.  

Devastating power and the ability to control it so thoroughly that no one’s gotten more than scrapes and bruises. 

“Ojirou, you have to get Shinsou out of here,” Midoriya says. The tremble in his voice is gone, despite the glassy fear clear in his eyes.  

“What about you?” Ojirou hisses. “We don’t have licenses to fight villains yet!”  

“I can't leave Todoroki behind,” Midoriya says.  

“And you want me to run away while you fight?! You can’t be serious! The pros should be here any second!”  

“Shinsou needs help too. I don’t think he’ll be able to get out of here on his own.”  

"We’re first years,” Ojirou stresses. “Midoriya, please, we need to leave this to the teachers and focus on getting everyone we can out of here.”  

“And that includes Todoroki,” Midoriya says grimly.  

All Might swings Todoroki to the side out of the way of Bakugou’s lunge. Midoriya surges forward. Ojirou curses, lunging forward like he’d be able to stop him, but Midoriya's already gone.  

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mutters, throwing Hitoshi’s arm over his shoulders and grunting as he pulls him to his feet. “You’re way heavier than you look.”  

Hitoshi doesn’t deign that with a response. He drags his feet along the ground to slow down their pace. Midoriya, Kaminari and Uraraka race towards All Might. Jirou hesitates before following them. Ojirou’s grip on him is tense as they move away from the quickly-escalating fight.  

Another wave of overwhelming force hits them and they’re blown back to the ground. Ojirou turns them so he hits the asphalt-turned-gravel first, Hitoshi landing on top of him. Ojirou doesn’t seem to notice as the skin on his arms is shredded as he scrambles back to his feet, half-dragging Hitoshi with even more urgency than before. 

Tokoyami appears next to them. “Allow me to assist," he says, Dark Shadow stretching out to take most of Hitoshi’s weight.  

Ojirou steps back gratefully. “Where are the teachers?”  

“Iida is still searching for them,” Tokoyami says grimly. “It would seem they have vanished.”  

Ojirou grimaces, glancing back over his shoulder at the fight. “Can you get Shinsou out of here? I need to check if anyone else is incapacitated.”  

Hitoshi can see Midoriya’s fingers grab the fringe of Todoroki’s shirt before he’s blown back by All Might. Bakugou immediately goes in for another attack, managing to evade several of the pseudo-villain's strikes before he’s finally sent flying. He’s back on his feet in moments and rushing in again.  

Yaoyorozu yanks a pair of headphones over her head as she steadies a cannon, while Jirou jams her jacks into the ground to try to unsteady All Might. There’s too much chaos to follow everything on the field, but their disjointed attacks are slowly morphing into more coordinated strategies. They’re figuring out teamwork.  

“Go,” Tokoyami says. “I’ll aid Shinsou.”  

Another shockwave. Dark Shadow blocks Hitoshi and Tokoyami from the worst of it. Hitoshi feels his feet leave the ground and then they’re moving, racing away as fast as Tokoyami can run. It seems Dark Shadow is significantly stronger than he would have expected from a shadow if Tokoyami is able to move as if he’s not carrying anything at all.  

Out of the corner of his vision, Hitoshi sees Midoriya successfully pull Todoroki away.  

Less than a minute later, it’s over. Todoroki stands up and dusts himself off and Hitoshi straightens up and lets his unfocused expression shift back to his normal neutral look, as All Might pulls off his mask to reveal his identity and the whole class goes dead silent.  

“What,” Bakugou says, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, “the fuck just happened?”  

Tokoyami lets Hitoshi back down to the ground, looking bemused. “I take it you were part of this? Care to enlighten us?”  

Hitoshi grins. “The real rescue training.”  

--  

The students perform admirably. Yagi finds himself pleasantly impressed by their quick response and determination. It may be their first fight against a “real” villain, but they give it everything they have.  

They even succeed in getting him to drop Todoroki to block a hit, young Midoriya immediately blasting in to pull the “unconscious” student to safety.  

It’s a shame Shinsou was alerted to the exercise. It wasn’t an issue of experience. He was clearly well-trained: while he may hold only a mental quirk, he’d still managed to injure Yagi, as minor as the wound was. Yagi may have been holding back to avoid hurting him, but it was an admirable feat nonetheless. Both he and Todoroki were skilled combatants.  

However, when agreeing to allow this exercise, Aizawa had expressed the desire to push Shinsou into using his quirk in defense of the class. According to him, Shinsou had developed a habit of lying about the nature of his quirk to his classmates and suspected their approval could alleviate a fear of rejection Shinsou might secretly be holding.  

It had not gone quite as intended, but it was not a total loss. Todoroki is also relatively isolated from the rest of the class. If nothing else, perhaps Shinsou’s quirk usage and their partnership today will help them find some camaraderie together.  

As it turns out, Shinsou is Aizawa’s foster child. Several pieces of information slot into place, namely the identity of the student who’d figured out Yagi’s identity and thwarted the intended villain attack at USJ. It also explains Shinsou’s personality to some degree.  

On that note, what happened to Shinsou between leaving Yagi and Todoroki and their appearance on the field?! Surely Yagi hadn’t hurt him that badly when he’d pinned him! He’d almost broken cover for a moment when he’d come onto the field and seen him lying on the ground with a bloodstained face. He can already hear Aizawa’s wrath when he sees his protégé injured, even if Shinsou had been exaggerating the extent of his injuries. That blood had still been very real.  

He even asks Todoroki, who squints in thought and replies that he hadn’t noticed Shinsou bleeding while they’d been talking.  

Yagi will apologize to Shinsou – and Aizawa, just to be safe – once he can catch them alone. Right now Shinsou’s surrounded by his classmates as they get ready to leave, and he does not want to interrupt his chance to connect with them.  

--  

The bus ride back to campus is a quiet one. Half the students look dazed. The other half bounced back quickly, but there’s a hush over them that wasn’t there on the way over.  

“You guys really went all out,” Kaminari says. He turns in his seat to look at Hitoshi. “Dude, I legit thought you’d gotten your ass kicked! Was that fake blood? All Might didn’t actually beat you up, right?”  

“Ah, no, it was real,” Hitoshi says, scratching the side of his head near the now-bandaged cut. “Had to make it convincing, you know? Not all of it was mine, though.”  

Kaminari frowns. “Then whose was it?”  

Hitoshi grimaces. “I... may have stabbed All Might. Just a little. I promise I didn’t know it was him at the time.”  

The class erupts.  

--  

“Hi-to-shi,” Yamada sings, slamming open their sliding door with way too much fervor. “I've been looking for you!”  

That tone doesn’t bode well. Hitoshi turns off his phone screen and glances up at Yamada from his spot in the corner of their balcony. “What is it?”  

Yamada sprawls out next to him and slings an arm over his shoulder, pulling him into a side hug. He must have washed out the excess product in his hair after getting home, because it’s pulled back in a relaxed side ponytail instead of the cockatoo-like style he’d been sporting earlier at school. “Do I need a reason to want to hang out with you?”  

Hitoshi hums and doesn’t pull away. “Maybe not. But you have something on your mind, don’t you?”  

“Well, I did want to check in on you,” Yamada concedes. “How’re you doing after today? I hear you were one of the students who helped All Might out.”  

“I'm fine,” Hitoshi says. “I really didn’t do much. My role was just to play up the situation to make it more convincing.”  

“So I heard,” Yamada says, his voice deceptively light. His arm tightens a little around Hitoshi’s shoulders. “And I even heard from Recovery Girl that you hurt yourself to ‘sell the act’?”  

Ah. So that’s what this is about. “You think they’d buy it if I came stumbling over looking completely fine outside of a little dust? It was all completely superficial. It’s all done and healed, no harm done.”  

“It’s not ‘no harm done’!” Yamada yelps, then clears his throat and lowers his voice back down to a normal level. “Look, I admire the dedication, but please never do that again. You almost gave All Might a heart attack when he first saw you out there! He thought he’d accidentally done that to you! I know hero work is dangerous and I’ll be worrying about you no matter what, but give me the peace of mind that I at least don’t have to worry about you hurting yourself?”  

Hitoshi chews on the inside of his cheek, considering, before sighing. “I won’t do it again. Sorry for worrying you.”  

Yamada lets out a breath of relief and lets go of Hitoshi, ruffling his hair as he pushes himself back up to his feet. “Thanks, favorite listener. That’s one thing off my mind!”  

Hitoshi tries to comb his wild curls back into place. “Hey, did you ever figure out who broke onto campus?”  

Yamada’s smile disappears. “I probably shouldn’t be talking about this, but it’s not like you don’t already know about the situation... no, we never figured it out. As far as we can tell, they haven’t tried again.”  

“They’ll be back.” It’s not a question.  

Yamada wants to disagree. It’s written all over his face. But he knows just as well as Hitoshi that hindering them once isn’t going to deter them forever. “We’ll see,” he says instead. “But you let us worry about that, yeah? Try to have some fun while you’re still young. You know, Jirou came to talk to me a couple days ago about her quirk. She said you’ve been helping her out with festival prep. Keep that energy up! I know you can do it if you put your mind to it.”  

--  

It’s Friday. The Sports Festival takes place in three days.  

Hitoshi sits outside for lunch. Most of his class tends to stay inside, clustered together in their quickly-solidifying social groups that he has little interest in participating in. The courtyard is big enough that even with the nice weather he can eat in relative peace, far away from prying eyes trying to get a look at his face.  

And then Todoroki sits down next to him.  

Hitoshi waits for him to say something. Anything. Explain why he decided to seek him out. Is he here to ask more personal questions? To try to continue the conversation All Might had interrupted the day before?  

But Todoroki doesn’t say anything. He unwraps his chopsticks and takes a bite of curry rice like this is a completely normal occurrence.  

“Why are you here?” It’s blunt, perhaps a bit rude, but Hitoshi’s never been known for his politeness.  

Todoroki doesn’t look up from his lunch. “Do you want me to leave?”  

That’s not... Hitoshi lets out a breath. “I don’t care what you do.”  

“Then there shouldn’t be a problem.”  

Hitoshi does not have the energy to try to parse Todoroki’s intentions if he’s not being annoying and prying into his personal business. At least he doesn’t seem like much of a talker. Well, when he’s not trauma-dumping, at least. If he tries that again, Hitoshi’s leaving.  

--  

That afternoon Hitoshi comes home to Iida Tensei sitting on their couch with a can of Yamada’s strawberry chuhai. Aizawa is slumped over in his favorite chair, scrawling something in red pen at the top of what looks like a student’s quiz answers.  

“Was the drink worth the three-hour trip?” Hitoshi asks, toeing off his shoes. Tempura weaves between his legs and he has to move carefully to avoid accidentally stepping on her.  

Iida looks up at him and grins, giving him a small wave. “Hitoshi! I was hoping I’d catch you before I headed out again. I’m actually up here to see Tenya. He asked if I could stop by over the weekend for some last-minute training before the festival, especially since I can’t be there during the festival itself.”  

“You should have brought Inugenium with you,” Hitoshi says.  

“And terrorize your cats by bringing an unfamiliar dog into their house?”  

“They have it coming.”  

“Aizawa would kill me,” Iida snorts.  

Aizawa doesn’t look up from his stack of papers. “I’d let Hizashi take care of that.”  

“You should come out one of these weekends instead,” Iida suggests. “It’s been a while since you last got to see her, and I think she misses you.”  

Hitoshi hums. Tensei’s dog Inugenium is old enough that he may not have many more chances to see her. “Maybe I’ll take you up on it sometime soon.”  

"How's U.A. treating you so far?"  

"It's fine."  

Iida laughs. "Just fine? You're at the most prestigious school in Japan and it's just 'fine'?"  

Hitoshi shrugs. "I could call it overrated, if you'd prefer. It's a school."  

"I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else from you," Iida says, still grinning. "Is it weird having Aizawa as your homeroom teacher? Have the other students figured it out yet?"  

"Give us a little more credit," Aizawa says irritably. "When we're at U.A., we're nothing more than teacher and student. No one's going to figure it out, at least not from either of us."  

"I'm thinking about Tenya, actually," Iida says. "I still think you should have let me tell him about you all. I know he's never met Hitoshi so he doesn't know what he looks like, but it's not like I kept it a secret in the past that you'd taken in a foster son with his first name. It's probably only the different surname stopping him from making the connection."  

Aizawa huffs. "Forgive me for not trusting a teenager who follows the letter of the law more than the spirit of it. He's a nice kid, but I don't want to field an interrogation into my personal life or my ability to separate said personal life from my job and I don't know him well enough to be able to judge how he'll react. If he asks about it, you can tell him so he doesn't start spreading things to his classmates, but until then leave it alone."  

"It's your funeral," Iida says. He turns to Hitoshi. "Speaking of Tenya, how's he doing? Does he seem to be getting along with everyone okay?" 

"You're assuming I'm paying attention to the social connections the other students are making," Hitoshi says, raising an eyebrow. He is paying attention, of course. He may not have much interest in engaging with them or understand them, but it's valuable information to be aware of the relationships and social circles around him. He pauses for a moment before adding, "He's been making friends with a few others in class. I think he's doing okay. He's pretty overbearing compared to you, though."  

Iida grimaces. "He's got a strong personality. I promise he's a really nice guy, he just gets hung up on the rules a little too much."  

Yeah, Hitoshi's intimately familiar with that particular character flaw. At least the younger Iida actually seems interested in teamwork and his classmates instead of shunning them for not meeting his standards, like Hitoshi had in his first childhood.  

"Stain was spotted in Hosu recently, wasn't he?" Aizawa asks.  

Iida nods, the shadows under his eyes seeming to deepen. "Yeah. He killed Miyake from the agency across from mine a few days ago. I didn't know him very well, but we'd worked together a few times. He was a nice guy - he didn't deserve what happened to him."  

"Lucky that you haven't run into Stain yet," Hitoshi says. "Is the Hero Commission making you go out in groups now, or are you still doing solo patrols?"  

"They've just warned us to be on guard. I've been tracking him for around a week now, actually, and I think I'm starting to figure out his patrol pattern," Iida says.  

Aizawa glances up from his lesson plan. "Are you sure that's wise?"  

"Do I really have a choice?" Iida shoots back, expression grim. "He's killed over a dozen heroes and permanently crippled even more in only a few months. Some of them were my friends. I can't just sit back as he goes around terrorizing the city I promised to protect. I wouldn’t be able to call myself a hero."  

"I get it," Aizawa says quietly. "Just be careful out there. I'd rather not see your name in the headlines as another victim."  

A shadow passes over Iida’s face, something akin to guilt in his expression. Aizawa’s fingers are white as he clenches his pen. There’s a story there, a history Hitoshi isn’t privy to.  

( One of my best friends died when I was a kid, Aizawa had told him once. Hitoshi wonders if Iida had known that friend too, or if he’d just known about them.)  

Stain is dangerous. He’s an extremist with backwards priorities and an obsession with forcing his own moral standards on the world even if it hurts innocent people in the process.  

Hitoshi has no room to condemn Stain for choosing to exercise his own ideal of justice. He can’t even judge the choice to kill outside of the confines of the law as unforgivable.  

His own hands are permanently stained with blood. A thousand faces are etched into the perfect recall of his sharingan, twisted in their moments of death. Many of them had been heinous people. Many of them hadn’t been.  

Once upon a time, he wouldn’t have had any interest in pursuing Stain. If he’d run into him, he would have left him alone. While he doesn’t believe Stain’s approach is right, he knows Stain is doing what he believes is necessary to fix the problems he sees in their society. Radical actions have the potential to incite change much faster than more measured, reasonable approaches.  

Hitoshi has lived here for fifteen years now, but in some ways he’s still an outsider in this world. He’ll never fully integrate into their culture. He’ll never fully accept their ideals and morals, and they’ll never accept his. He’s a puzzle piece that’s been shoved into a space it doesn’t belong. He knows his own choices and actions would be condemned by society the same way they condemn Stain’s, even if he’s not running around killing their heroes.  

No, he wouldn’t have interfered. He would have left them to sort out their own problems with their society. But now... now he has people who mean something to him. Who matter. He has Aizawa and Yamada. There’s Iida and his classmates, even if he wouldn't consider himself close to any of them.  

If he runs into Stain today, Hitoshi would kill him without a second thought. Without remorse.  

Hitoshi fidgets with the edge of his mask. "You're not going out looking for him alone, are you?"  

"Depends on the day," Iida admits. "A lot of the local heroes don't really want to get involved if they don't have to, not that I can blame them."  

"Are you out searching every night for him?"  

"Most nights, yeah."  

"Have you narrowed down what part of Hosu he spends the most time in?"  

Aizawa holds up a hand in warning. "Don't answer that, Tensei. Hitoshi, mind clarifying why you're asking?"  

"I'm practicing my conversational skills," Hitoshi claims. "Yamada's always on my case about showing interest in other people."  

Aizawa clearly doesn't buy it. "Even if I believed you, those are the wrong kinds of questions to be asking to 'show interest in people' and you know it. Don't even think about going to Hosu - that's an order. If I find out you've been anywhere near there without my or Hizashi's express permission, you're going to be in a world of trouble. And trust me when I say we will know. Am I clear?"  

"Of course," Hitoshi says, rolling his eyes.  

“Well, thanks for your concern,” Iida says. He catches Hitoshi’s eye before clapping a hand on his shoulder, offering him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”  

The words are empty. Hollow. Iida knows it just as much as Hitoshi does.  

That’s not a promise he can make. 

Chapter Text

“I’m heading out early,” Yamada says jauntily, the lone beacon of sunshine in their dreary kitchen. He peers into the reflective surface of their fridge and slicks up a stray strand of hair, patting it in place with the rest of his extravagant updo. He’s fully decked out in his hero uniform.

“It’s barely six in the morning,” Aizawa groans, glaring at the coffee machine like it’ll make it brew faster. “Stop being so unreasonably cheery and get out.”

“Aww, Shouta, don’t be like that,” Yamada says, leaning in to poke Aizawa’s nose before pressing a kiss to his hair. Aizawa swats his hand away. “You’re the one who chose to do your regular patrol last night even with the festival today! Don’t blame me for your bad decisions and fatigue!”

“I’ll sneak a couple naps in during downtime,” Aizawa says, not turning away from the coffee machine. “Now go. Hitoshi and I won’t be far behind.”

“Ey? You’re going together?”

“He’ll get there early even if I have to drag him the whole way there,” Aizawa says. There’s not a trace of humor in his voice.  

Hitoshi drops his head on the table in resignation.

Yamada laughs and ruffles Hitoshi’s hair as he walks past him. “Stop being late and he won’t get on your case about it! Anyway, I’m off to go help get some last-minute stuff for the festival set up. See you soon!”

The door hasn’t even closed behind Yamada yet when Aizawa speaks up. “Don’t even think about failing in the first round.”  

Hitoshi furrows his brow. “What, do you think I’d fail on purpose?”

“I know you,” Aizawa says, scratching the side of his face as he pulls a mug out of the cabinet. “And I also know what you’re capable of. You might be planning on going the underground route, but that doesn’t give you a pass to throw the school’s competitions. Even I gave it my all back when I was a student.”

“I don’t get why my performance is such a big deal,” Hitoshi says, rolling his eyes.

“You’re a recommended student, for starters. That reputation doesn’t go away just because you’re not flaunting it. You’d embarrass your classmates and your school if you have a trash performance.” Aizawa pours himself some coffee and downs it almost immediately. “Besides, it’s in your best interest to catch the eye of at least one pro for future internships and work studies. That is, unless you’re fine with ending up as the intern of someone like Mt. Lady.”

Hitoshi blanches.

--

There’s an air of nervousness in the crowd.

Most of the students in Hitoshi’s class stand clustered together at the starting point for the first round of the festival, an obstacle course. It looks like the other classes have grouped themselves together similarly. Their expressions are serious, determined, as they wait for the signal to go off.

“Good luck, man,” Kaminari says, bumping a fist against Hitoshi’s arm as he pushes his way past to get a better starting position. Hitoshi nods in response.

“Let the race begin!” Yamada’s voice screeches through the speakers. The starting signal blares, and everyone in the crowd takes off.  

Hitoshi doesn’t race ahead like most of his class does, but he doesn’t straggle behind either. He paces himself as the crowd of students moves through the course to keep himself roughly in the middle of the pack.

Todoroki sends a massive wave of ice at the robots blocking their path. Despite himself, Hitoshi can’t help but gape as he takes in the sheer scale of the quirk’s ability. Todoroki may hold a grudge against his father’s quirk marriage and training methods, but the power he’d received as a result…

Several of the robots topple over in slow motion, sending pieces of metal and ice flying across the field. Hitoshi raises a forearm to protect his face and dodges out of the way of an exceptionally large shard of a robot’s plating.  

Todoroki’s attack has painted the ground in a thin layer of ice that many students struggle to run across. The gap between the hero classes and the rest of the school widens exponentially. Hitoshi suspects many of the students from the other courses have already given up.

His cleated boots give him traction on the ice’s surface and he moves forward without much trouble. It’s already clear Aizawa was right – he’s not going to be able to pass off failing in the first round. Nearly every student from both hero classes, even the ones without physically augmenting quirks, have surged ahead on the track. He’d be one of few to miss the cutoff if he lags behind any more than he already has.

The tightropes are almost laughably easy. He tests their give before jogging across them, and catches the back of a small-statured boy’s shirt before the kid almost stumbles right off the edge of one of the platforms. The boy looks startled by the interference and opens his mouth to say something, but Hitoshi has zero interest in talking and moves over the next rope with a little extra burst of speed.

The minefield is similarly easy – with the sharingan’s vision, spotting the small mounds where the mines are buried doesn’t take much straining. He moves past Midoriya, who’s... digging up the mines with a scrap piece of metal and heaping them into a pile?

Whatever that kid’s doing, he doesn’t want to be anywhere nearby. Everything he’s seen of Midoriya’s impulsiveness and risk-taking screams Walking Trouble Magnet. He takes a detour to the left to stay far out of Midoriya’s way, and appreciates his decision thirty seconds later when a massive explosion detonates from Midoriya’s location and sends the boy streaking through the air towards the finish line at top speed.

There’s another explosion way up ahead when Midoriya lands, then a series of pops and the sudden glint of ice forming as Bakugou and Todoroki redouble their efforts to hold onto the lead.

Seconds later, Yamada screams out that Midoriya has finished in first place. It looks like that reckless stunt of his actually paid off.

Hitoshi finishes somewhere in the middle of the group. High enough to move on to the next round, but nothing remarkable enough to warrant any attention.

Most of the students look relatively unwinded, though a few are rubbing at minor scrapes or burns they got from the course. Aizawa and Vlad King are standing nearby, monitoring the crowd.

They’re only given a few minutes as the last of the students trickle past the finish line before Midnight announces the second round’s challenge.

A cavalry battle. Internally, Hitoshi curses. Team fights make his original plan to fail the second round difficult. He has no qualms with allowing himself to fail, but he can’t in good conscience sabotage his team. Even if he doesn’t care, this festival and their performances in it are a huge deal for most of his classmates.

But most of the class doesn’t know what his quirk is, and he hasn’t made himself particularly likable. They’ll gravitate towards individuals they believe will help them win. If he ends up on a team with underachievers, he may be able to lose naturally without setting off any radars.

Todoroki appears next to Hitoshi and instantly destroys that thought. “Team up with me,” he says.

Hitoshi eyes Todoroki critically and considers just outright declining. “Do you really think I’m your best choice here?”

“I have a plan,” Todoroki says. He tilts his head towards Yaoyorozu, who places a hand on her hip as she nods at them both. “She already agreed to join us.”

“Why not,” Hitoshi says with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck and resigning himself to making it to the third round. “I don’t have a good reason to say no. Have you found a fourth member yet?”

“Todoroki,” Iida says, walking up to them. “Have you already decided on your team?”

Todoroki glances at Hitoshi and Yaoyorozu before looking back at Iida. “You can be our fourth.”

Iida starts, seeming to register who Todoroki had been standing with for the first time. “You teamed up with Shinsou? Yaoyorozu I can understand, but… Oh – but I mean no disrespect! Every person in our class is a valued member of U.A., of course!”

“His quirk’s our trump card,” Yaoyorozu explains. “I can create support items for all of us, but the focus is going to be on you and Todoroki. The other groups will be expecting us to rely on your speed and his ice and fire.”

“Only my ice,” Todoroki interrupts. “I will never use my left side in battle.” He glares at the spectator stands, where Hitoshi can see Endeavor standing.

Damn. That really is an intense grudge. Not that Hitoshi can truly blame him, given that massive burn scar discoloring half his face. Still, what a waste.

Yaoyorozu sighs. “It’s hard to understand why two of the school’s recommended students are hesitant to use the full extent of their quirks, but we’ll make it work. Shinsou, do you want to explain your quirk to Iida, or should I?”

“I can take control of someone’s mind if they respond to one of my questions,” Hitoshi says reluctantly. “I can make them follow simple commands. The effect ends when I want it to or when they get jostled out of it.”

“Is that your real quirk or another fake one?” Iida asks suspiciously, putting a hand on his chin and narrowing his eyes. “Hold on, brainwashing? Why does that sound so familiar? And – hold on again, you’re one of the recommended students? Did you use your quirk to somehow manipulate the results?!”

Hitoshi shrugs and changes the subject. Dealing with Iida is going to give him a headache. How did someone as easygoing as Iida Tensei end up with a little brother like Iida Tenya? “So, what’s our team formation?”

“Iida will be in front as our main source of mobility and physical defense,” Todoroki starts. He never gets to finish.

A portal opens up in the middle of the arena.

--

“I think we’re gearing up for an exciting second match,” a young announcer says to the camera. “With All Might on U.A.’s roster this year, there’s a lot of expectations for the first-years’ performances. Not to mention some of the illustrious students who have enrolled. Endeavor’s youngest son is one of the recommended students this year, as well as the daughter of the distinguished Yaoyorozu family –“

Her voice trails off as the crowd around her starts murmuring restlessly. The camera pans away from her and zooms in on the arena as several figures step out of a deep purple fog. “Hold on, it appears something is happening down in the stadium…”

--

“What’s going on?” Fuyumi asks, squinting at the TV.

Natsuo shrugs, picking at the edge of his fingernail. “I dunno. Maybe it’s one of the students messing around with their quirk? It’s the first-years, right? They’re probably trying to draw attention to themselves.”

“No, there’s something wrong,” she says nervously. “Look, there’s a group of people coming out of that portal.”

A loud bang echoes from the speakers and the camera’s view whites out.

They sit in silence for a few moments. “Are… are they being attacked?”

--

Villains.

Hitoshi’s hand twitches down to his side, but he’s in U.A.’s gym uniform. He doesn’t have any of his weaponry on him. From the corner of his vision he can see Aizawa grab his capture scarf, but before anyone has a chance to move everything goes blindingly white. His eyes instinctively close against too much too bright and when he blinks them open again, he can only make out the barest blurs of movement behind the strong afterimages.

“As soon as you can see where you’re going, get out of here!” Aizawa shouts over the quickly escalating noise. “Let the pros handle this!”

“How do you plan to handle us without your eyesight, Eraserhead?” a raspy voice mocks. “Now, where’s All Might? Won’t he come down to greet us? After we went to all this trouble to meet him, too.”

“Who are you?” Aizawa growls.

Hitoshi knows what he’s trying to do. He’s stalling. All Might should be here any moment, not to mention the pros who’d come to watch the festival. He tries to blink away the afterimages burned into his retinas, but whatever quirk caused it is making it linger longer than normal.

“We’re the League of Villains,” the voice says. The figure of a man covered in disembodied hands slowly comes into Hitoshi’s focus, arms outstretched. “And we’re going to be the ones to kill your Symbol of Peace, All Might.”

The ground trembles as All Might slams into the concrete between them. “I am here!” he shouts.

“And you’re already too late,” the man says gleefully. “Kurogiri, get those kids out of here. Let’s destroy his pride as a teacher before we kill him.”

The villain who’d opened the portal is behind them in an instant. Hitoshi is enveloped in deep violet fog before he can blink, frigid wind whipping around him and completely obscuring the limited vision he’d gotten back.

The ground gives way under his feet and suddenly he's in free-fall. He twists his body and hits the ground in a rolling crouch. His eyesight is still marred by the afterimages of whatever quirk had caused that blinding flash.

There's a scuffing sound behind him, a split-second warning of an ambush. A man with a bear-like mutation unhinges his jaw as he lunges at Hitoshi faster than he could possibly escape from. He twists backwards and feels the man’s teeth graze his arm.

Iida slams into Hitoshi at full speed, knocking them both out of the way. His ribcage bends inwards dangerously. He wheezes as the air in his lungs is forcefully expelled and grabs Iida’s arm to steady himself as Iida skids to a stop a short distance away, Yaoyorozu and Todoroki both stumbling to a stop on Iida’s other side where he’d grabbed them too. Yaoyorozu drops to one knee, coughing harshly, while Todoroki shoves himself away from Iida’s hold.

Hitoshi recognizes this place. They’re in one of U.A.’s gyms.

There’s a whole group of villains here. They’d been lying in wait for them. That man with the warp quirk had planned to send them here, right to this spot. Several others step up to join the bear-like mutant, most of them smiling. Predatory. They’re aiming to kill.

Todoroki plants a foot on the ground and a massive wave of ice shoots out towards the villains as they lunge to attack. Most of them are stopped in their tracks, everything but their heads encased in thick ice.

A couple of them manage to dodge out of the way. A woman with razor-sharp talons swipes at Hitoshi. He ducks under her reach and grabs her wrist, yanking down and toppling her to the ground. He can hear the other villain hit the ground hard behind him, and the crackling of ice a moment later.

He plants a knee in the small of the villain’s back and twists her arm up and back until she yells at the pressure on her joint.

“Yaoyorozu,” Hitoshi says. “Make some weaponry. You and I need something to fight with.”

She catches her breath. “What kind do you want?”

“Anything. Whatever’s fastest. Something sharp, if you’re willing.” He uses his free hand to grab the woman’s chin to force her to meet his gaze. “Who’s the leader of this ‘League of Villains’?”

“Like I’d tell a hero brat like you anything,” she sneers with false bravado. Her eyes dart nervously over to her trapped companions.

“It’s in your best interest to cooperate,” Hitoshi says. He twists the villain’s arm further back, stopping just short of its breaking point, and lets a hint of his killing intent out into the air. “Think through your situation carefully and decide. Are you going to talk, or am I going to have to force it out of you?”

“Stop, stop, it’s going to break,” the villain gasps, sounding panicked.

“Shinsou, you’re taking it too far,” Iida warns, clapping a hand down on Hitoshi’s shoulder.

“Iida’s right,” Yaoyorozu says. “We need to focus on getting out of here and to safety. There are a lot of heroes around for the festival – I’m sure they’re handling everything.”

Hitoshi exhales harshly and shares a look with Todoroki, who just watches him silently. “Fine. Todoroki can freeze her like he did the rest of them and we’ll leave. But I wonder… how long does it take for hypothermia to set in? It might take authorities a while to get around to checking this place.”

Todoroki narrows his eyes. A thin layer of frost crystallizes on his hand. “I’ve never left someone encased in ice long enough to find out. But even just a few minutes is enough to cause ice burns. The cells in your body, slowly dying the longer you’re trapped there… it’s a cruelty I’d rather avoid as a future hero. I hope they don’t give me a reason to see how long it takes.”

Iida looks scandalized. The villain’s face is pale as she stares at Todoroki, then flicks her eyes back to Hitoshi like she’s trying to gauge how serious they are about this.

Hitoshi lets the sharingan flare to life as he stares into her eyes. Her body trapped, immovable. Inescapable cold. Slowly melting water seeping into her clothing, the burning agony of freezing skin, the loss of sensation as her body is pushed past its limits. A rescue, too little, too late, limbs blackened beyond saving.

Hours pass in the space of seconds. Tears stream down her face, but she doesn’t blink. And then all at once she heaves, eyes rolling wildly in their sockets, trying to break free with a last burst of sheer desperation even as it threatens to snap her arm.

“His name’s Shigaraki!” she shouts. “He hired us!”

Hitoshi loosens his hold just enough to keep her from actually breaking something, unflinching as the edges of her talons scrape his arm. “What is your organization’s plan?”

“Kill All Might and as many of his students as we can,” she sobs. “He wants to destroy the people’s trust in hero society. We were just supposed to take care of you guys while they dealt with All Might and the homeroom teachers!”

He narrows his eyes, his fingers digging into her skin. “Why the homeroom teachers?”

“Because they figured out the plan to take care of All Might at that USJ place,” she gasps, wincing. “He – he wanted revenge.”

“How do they expect to be able to kill All Might?”

“They – they have these – these things they called Noumu. I don’t know what they are, just that… they’re not human. But they’re – they’re supposed to be as strong as All Might. That’s all I know. I swear! I’m just hired muscle, that’s it!”

“Thank you.” He glances over at Yaoyorozu. “Can you make some handcuffs? Something sturdy enough that she won’t break out of them.”

“She gave in surprisingly easily,” Iida mutters, though he doesn’t look happy about it.

“They’re nothing but a ragtag group of thugs,” Todoroki scoffs. “They underestimated us. The really dangerous ones are probably all still back at the stadium. It’s not surprising she caved under a little pressure.”

Yaoyorozu fits heavy-duty restraints over the villain’s arms and legs, and Hitoshi finally stands up and steps away. “What about the others?” she asks.

Hitoshi waves a hand. “Do whatever you want with them. This place will be swarming with authorities in not too long anyway – it’s doubtful any of them will suffer permanent injuries.”

She nods slowly.

“Hold on a second,” Iida says, and recognition blooms on his face. He points at Hitoshi, chopping the air. “You’re… you’re that Hitoshi! The one my brother talks about, with the mind control quirk!”

“Congratulations,” Hitoshi says. “It took you that long to figure it out?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been a little preoccupied! Besides, he said you wanted to be a florist!” Iida shouts. “Why would I expect to meet you in U.A.’s hero course?!”

Hitoshi grimaces. “I say a lot of things.”

“He told me you were skilled in martial arts, but he never said anything about how – how brutish you are,” Iida says accusingly. “Your conduct today – and Todoroki’s too, I saw perfectly clearly how he assisted you with that little stunt – was entirely unbecoming of a hero!”

“I’ve made it no secret that I plan to go underground,” Hitoshi grunts, turning his attention to his phone. He’s done wasting time with this conversation. “Aizawa-sensei’s an underground hero, right? If you really care so much, go bother him over what he thinks about my conduct. Or go talk to your brother. He knows all about me.”

He checks his texts and calls. There’s nothing from Aizawa. Nothing from Yamada, either. He swallows down a wave of panic and opens a browser to see if U.A. is still livestreaming at the stadium.

They’re not. They likely cut the feed as soon as the attack started. He closes the tab and pulls up a search for any news station still broadcasting, tapping the first one that pops up.

(Underneath the top result, he sees a headline mentioning Ingenium. But he won’t – can’t – look at that now. He has to see if Aizawa got out of the stadium.)

“Almost every hero who’s approached the fight in the arena has disappeared to an unknown location,” a reporter says to the camera urgently. He’s standing in one of the spectator sections, not moving to run even as panicked civilians shove their way past him to get out of the area. Hitoshi can hear Yamada’s voice echoing in the background, attempting to direct people through their evacuation procedures. “We don’t know the number of casualties so far. Right now we have no update on the status of the missing students or heroes –”

A grinning woman appears behind the reporter, cable-like hair shooting towards him. He lets out a panicked shout as the tendrils wrap around his neck, microphone tumbling out of his hands. A hero Hitoshi doesn’t recognize slams into her from behind, knocking her out of the frame. Her hair lets go moments before the camera goes dark. The live feed ends.  

Hitoshi curses and backs out of the news site, tapping the next one down in the list. But this one is focused on the streams of people running out of the stadium, not showing what’s going on inside.  

Yaoyorozu has a hand over her mouth as she stares at her phone. “All Might,” she breathes.

He looks over her shoulder. Todoroki and Iida crowd closer too. She’d found one broadcasting from a helicopter, zoomed in on the fight in the center of the arena.

All Might... is struggling. His hulking form looks almost small compared against two of those creatures the villains had called a Noumu, brains exposed and faces twisted into mindless smiles. Even within a world full of mutants, they barely look human.

The corners of All Might’s normally exuberant smile are strained. His muscles bulge as he and one of the Noumu exchange a barrage of blows too fast for the camera to pick up. The other Noumu leaps at him from behind, and All Might’s punches slow as he twists to kick it away.

“You don’t think their plan will work, right? All Might will be fine, right?” Yaoyorozu’s voice is faint. Nervous.

It’s doubtful they’ll succeed, he wants to say. They’re overestimating themselves. But… he can’t be sure that’s true. Even if they’d underestimated the skill of U.A.’s hero students, this hadn’t been an impulsive plan. They’d thought this through – they'd even planned for Aizawa’s quirk with that flashbang.

It’s like Pein's attack all over again. A planned, pointed assault, one primary target at the center while creating diversions and destruction in multiple places. They'd spread out the students to prevent them from retaliating with a united front. They’d likely planned to use surprise against them to overwhelm them before they could get their bearings.

Do they know about All Might’s injury? Are they the ones who’d injured him in the first place?

How much will it take to kill the Symbol of Peace?

One of the Noumu suddenly lunges at All Might from behind through a portal. The camera shakes wildly as it tries to track them, losing sight of All Might and his fight before recovering and focusing back on them. Hitoshi’s lungs turn to ice.

For just a moment, he’d seen Aizawa. He’s still in the stadium.

He’d been standing between a few students and a third Noumu.

(Hitoshi thinks of Pein. Of giving everything he had for a fight he knew he had no chance of winning. Of dying for those he'd sworn to protect. He knows Aizawa wouldn't hesitate to give his life under the same circumstances.)

Internally, he pleads for the camera to turn back. To let him see Aizawa. Figure out what state he’s in. But he knows they won’t. They don’t care about Aizawa, about a random hero they’ve never even heard of. The audience wants to see All Might.

There’s a small pile of weaponry nearby. It must be what Yaoyorozu created. It feels like he’s walking underwater as he steps over to it, grabbing whatever he thinks he can secure to himself safely. They’re well-made. Sharp. Deadly, in the right hands.

Iida, despite all his bluster and obnoxious yelling, seems to have recognized that something’s changed. He grabs Hitoshi’s hand before he can pull away and tries to pry the knife back out of it, settling for holding his wrist when he fails. “Shinsou,” he hisses, eyes darting over to Yaoyorozu and Todoroki like he’s checking they won’t overhear him. “It’s Aizawa-sensei, isn’t it? Your father?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hitoshi says without inflection. “Let go of me before I make you let go.”

Iida tightens his grip instead. “Despite what you seem to think, I’m not an idiot! I know how to put two and two together. He wouldn’t want you to rush back into that carnage for him. You heard that villain earlier. They’re out to kill us. You could die. Please, think this through rationally.”

“I already have,” Hitoshi says coolly. He twists his wrist out of Iida’s hold and slides the knife into his waistband. Iida’s not going to let him leave easily. Hitoshi doesn’t want to use his quirk on a classmate, but he can feel himself rapidly approaching that point of no return. Cruel words bubble up in his throat. Vitriol poisons his tongue.

Maybe Iida sees it in his expression, because his eyes widen and he takes a step back.

Hitoshi takes a deep breath and reigns it in. Pulls it back. There’s killing intent leaking out of him with every exhale. But Iida… he doesn’t deserve that. He doesn’t understand. No one could understand, because Hitoshi’s told them nothing. “Iida,” he says.

Iida stands at attention, mouth pursing.

Hitoshi can’t look at him. He stares off to the side. At the door. “I saw your brother’s name in the news. I didn’t look closely at the headline, but you should probably double check if he’s okay. Call your family and let them know you’re okay.”

Iida stares at him. Frozen.

He doesn’t stop Hitoshi when he sprints past him for the exit. Hitoshi can hear Yaoyorozu shout after him, but he doesn’t look back. He can’t waste time dealing with them right now.

He has to get to Aizawa. At all costs.

--

There’s people everywhere. Crowds of spectators crying and wandering aimlessly, bloody bandages and the stench of burnt hair, police cars scattered around with their lights flashing and officers and heroes trying to control the area. An ambulance screams past him. An officer tries to stop him as he ducks under their tape, but he sidesteps their reach and runs.

His feet hit the pavement in a steady rhythm. Tar gives way to grass, then to concrete. He paces his breaths to his steps.

The closer Hitoshi gets, the denser the crowds are. He shoves his way past them. A couple of them yell at him, but he barely hears them over the pandemonium. He can taste blood and ash on his tongue, even through the mask.

“No,” he mutters as he skids to a stop in the hall leading to the main arena’s gateway. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

It’s sealed shut. It’s a giant steel door with no latch. Hitoshi slams a fist into the metal, taking a couple seconds to scan for some sort of unlocking mechanism and coming up blank. Should he use Kamui to make an opening? But he has no way to know what’s on the other side. He doesn’t know how thick this door is, how much he’d have to warp away to get through. His limits with Kamui aren’t that high – he hasn’t exercised it enough to be able to use it carelessly. He may not have chakra for it to drain, but he doesn’t know what it’ll do to his brain if he takes it too far.

He turns around and pushes his way through the crowd towards the staircases to the spectator seating levels. The stairs are mostly clear of people at this point, most of the stadium having been evacuated. The arena comes into view.

All Might is still locked in a fight with one of the Noumu. The second one he’d been fighting against earlier has disappeared. He can’t see Aizawa.

The villain who’d warped them all away is still there, body amorphous under the cloud of dark mist. He’s no doubt watching out for anyone trying to approach.

Hitoshi vaults over a row of seats to a lower section closer to the railing. Did Aizawa get out? But – no, Midoriya is still here, launching himself at that villain covered in hands while All Might blocks a strike from the Noumu. Vlad King is unmoving on the ground next to chunks of uprooted cement. Aizawa wouldn’t have left without them. But the rest of the students that had been here earlier are gone. Did they run away?

The Noumu Aizawa had been facing off against earlier is meandering slowly across the arena. It comes to a stop a short distance away from the ongoing fight, tilting its head at a pile of concrete. There’s a small black lump mostly hidden behind it.

Aizawa.

The creature reaches down to grab him.

Hitoshi’s mangekyo spins to life. The Noumu’s chest ripples and warps, twisting inwards into an expanding black spiral. The air around it distorts.

The spike of pain in his head flares into a migraine so severe he can barely keep standing, his right eye closing against the agonizing brightness of the afternoon sun. He grips the spectator railing and keeps his left eye open as the last remnants of the Noumu twists beyond recognition, until there’s nothing left but a void where it had once been standing. There’s wetness on his face. He presses a hand against the sharingan and his fingers come away red.

He hasn’t used Kamui on anything that big since… no, he can’t even remember a time.

He can’t do that again, not if he wants to stay conscious. He’ll have to trust All Might to take care of the last one. He forces his eyes back open and stares down at the six-meter drop to the arena’s floor. It’s too far down. He won’t be able to land safely if he jumps.

“I can create a slope for us to get down,” Todoroki’s voice says from directly behind him.

Hitoshi stiffens and barely stops himself from instinctively punching him. Todoroki must have followed him while he wasn’t paying attention. Hitoshi doesn’t look over at him. “Do it,” he says.

Todoroki sweeps out his right arm, an icy ramp crystallizing in front of them. The moment it’s stable enough that Hitoshi doesn’t think he’d fall, he vaults over the railing and slides down to the ground. He can hear Todoroki sliding down behind him, but he doesn’t wait for him to catch up.

Aizawa isn’t moving. He’s half-buried under concrete. There’s blood everywhere. Vlad King doesn’t look much better. But – Aizawa’s chest is still rising.

He’s not dead. Not yet.

“This is all wrong,” the man covered in hands seethes. His fingers dig into his scalp, scratching violently at the sides of his neck. “What NPC dared to mess with my Noumu?! No one was supposed to be able to touch them but All Might!”

“Give up,” All Might says. Steam rises in thin tendrils from his skin. He stands unmoving between the villains and the teachers. “One of these creatures won’t be enough to defeat me. You’ve already lost.”

Aizawa’s right there. He’s so close. But Hitoshi can feel the malice burning in the stadium, an intensity he hasn’t felt in all his years since reincarnating into this world almost shimmering in the air around him. He can’t afford to draw too much attention to Aizawa, not when he’s already injured.

Wild eyes turn to look at Hitoshi. “Was it one of you? Come to rescue your precious teachers? I’m afraid you might be too late.” He laughs, a strangled, maniacal sound. “Whatever. Even without your death, you’ll have a hard time recovering from this, dear Symbol of Peace. Have fun explaining to the world how you failed to save both your colleagues and your students.”

He steps back, and suddenly he and the last Noumu disappear into the warp villain’s mist. Seconds later, the mist is gone without a trace too.

Their absence is deafening. Charged. The back of Hitoshi’s mind screams that this can’t be it, that they’ll surely be back any moment with a surprise attack, but seconds stretch on without anything more happening.

"Don't come any closer," Aizawa groans. His arm is twisted up and back, dangling limply at an unnatural angle. Blood streams down his face, dripping over his eyelashes as his eyes try and fail to focus properly. "Get out of here."

Hitoshi ignores the command and drops to his knees next to Aizawa. He pushes some of Aizawa’s hair back and off his face to get a better look at the damage. He’s not ready to look lower down.

Todoroki skids to a stop on his left side.

“Shinsou,” Todoroki says, voice low. “What happened to your eye?”

“Nothing that won’t heal,” Hitoshi says.

Aizawa’s breath hitches. His voice is a demand, not a question. “What’s wrong with his eye.”

Hitoshi is saved from answering by Midoriya, who's sprinting towards them at breakneck pace. His arms are mottled reds and purples, fingers flopping jointlessly as he waves frantically behind him. His expression is panicked. “Todoroki! You need to create a dome around All Might, one no one will be able to see through!”

“What?” Todoroki asks, bewildered.

“Hurry!” Midoriya yelps.

The steam rolling off All Might is growing in intensity. His smile is fraying at the edges. He isn’t moving towards them to check on them or trying to help like Hitoshi had expected him to.

Whatever. He can’t worry about whatever’s going on with All Might right now. He swallows down bile and scans Aizawa’s body for any visible injuries. His arm is shattered. There’s significant damage to the right side of his face and when Hitoshi holds up a couple fingers in front of his eyes, Aizawa doesn’t track them like he should. Almost every inch of visible skin is bruising. His leg and hip is pinned under concrete.

Hitoshi knows – knows – it’s a stupid idea. But Obito is seared on the insides of his eyelids. It’s too similar. He can’t sit here and do nothing. If they come back, he needs to be able to move Aizawa out of here. He can’t rely on All Might right now, or Midoriya who’s already destroyed his limbs with that monstrously strong quirk of his, or Todoroki who’s focused on helping them.

 He activates Kamui. The concrete holding Aizawa down twists out of existence.

Hitoshi’s brain feels like it’s splitting apart. White-hot agony flares with every shout, every noise around them. It’s too bright, but he can't close his eyes.

And suddenly there’s people all around them. There’s hands on Hitoshi’s arms, trying to pull him back and away from Aizawa, but he can’t leave, he just got here, and Aizawa needs help, they need to get him out of here –

“-toshi! Hitoshi!”  Hands grab his wrist and chin, turning his face away from Aizawa. There’s another face only inches away from his, piercing green eyes boring into his with panic etched into every line, and –

“Yamada,” he breathes. “Aizawa’s –”

“I know. I know. Just let the paramedics handle it,” Yamada says. Deceptively strong arms wrap around him in a tight hug, pulling him up to his feet and to a spot a few meters away from the scene. Yamada pushes a sweaty hand through Hitoshi’s hair and steps back to look at him. His brows pinch together, chin wobbling, as he wipes away some of the blood under Hitoshi’s eye. The sharingan slides closed against his will. “We need to get that looked at.”

Hitoshi looks back where Aizawa had been. He’s already been moved away, no longer anywhere in sight. He can see a stretcher with Vlad King being taken out of the stadium.

There’s a massive ice dome taking up the center of the arena. Todoroki and Midoriya are standing next to it, intercepting anyone getting too close. All Might is presumably inside, no longer visible to the prying eyes of onlookers and news cameras.

There’s so much blood.

“Come on,” Yamada says, voice unusually subdued. He gently puts an arm around Hitoshi’s shoulders and starts guiding him towards the now-open gateway. “Let’s go figure out where they took Shouta, yeah? And we’ll get you treated too. Just keep your mind here with me. We’ll get this all sorted out.”

Chapter Text

Breathe.

One.

Two.

Hizashi’s been moving on autopilot for… he’s not sure how long it’s been. It’s been one chaotic scene after another, an unending stream of people and emergency vehicles everywhere he looks.

Hitoshi’s shoulder is warm under his hand. Hizashi hasn’t let go of him since finding him by Shouta’s side. He’s alive. Safe. Injured, but it’s not nearly as bad as it could have been. Hitoshi doesn’t try to shrug away from Hizashi’s grip. He’s scanning the crowd, looking as alert of his surroundings as he usually is, but it’s hard to tell if he’s actually processing what he’s seeing or not.

Medical personnel give Hitoshi a gauze pad for his eye and tell Hizashi to get him to the hospital for further examination. The injury isn’t serious enough that they can spare an ambulance to get him there right now. They don’t say it explicitly, but Hizashi knows Hitoshi’s considered low priority.

Low priority. His child’s bleeding eye and probable head injury are low priority. And the worst part is, under these circumstances, he would make the same judgement call.   

It was a nightmare come to life. His kid had gone missing. Hizashi had been stuck on the other side of the stadium, the only one in the announcer’s booth to try to coordinate the evacuation with as few casualties as possible, as Shouta faced off against one of those… those creatures. Beings of a caliber to give All Might a hard time.

Those hadn’t been normal people with mutation quirks. There was something wrong with them. They didn’t seem to respond to pain, moving on pure instinct without intelligent thought behind them. Hitoshi had called them Noumu, though he hadn’t said where he’d heard the term. One hit from them was enough to take out most of the people they managed to reach. 

Shouta took three hits before he finally stopped getting up.

In all the chaos, it takes a while to figure out which hospital they’d taken Shouta to. There’s no way Hizashi’s going to be able to drive his car with all the streets closed off, so they leave on foot.

Hitoshi doesn’t say much. Hizashi doesn’t either. For once, he feels at a loss for words.

When they arrive at the hospital they’re ushered into a small room away from the public waiting rooms, out of what Hizashi suspects is consideration for his very recognizable hero status. He hasn’t had time to dress down, after all, and his presence in a public waiting room would probably be more trouble than it’s worth.

Hitoshi’s still in his gym clothes. Dried blood has ruined the fabric beyond repair. They’ll have to replace them. Hitoshi hasn’t commented on it, but Hizashi texts one of his assistants at the radio station to ask for a couple changes of clothes anyway. He gets a confirmation almost immediately, though it’ll take time for them to actually get here.

None of their students died, thank the heavens. There were some serious injuries – Midoriya being in the worst shape, followed by an assortment of broken bones, burns, gashes and even a bite wound in one case – but they’re alive. They’ll heal quickly under Recovery Girl’s assistance. She said she’d stop by later to help with Hitoshi, once she’s helped the victims who were more seriously injured.

Most of the heroes who’d disappeared were located within minutes. Apparently the majority of them had been dumped into the ocean outside Fukuoka, hours away from Musutafu. Even heroes with speed-enhancing quirks would have struggled to make it back before the attack was over.

It had all been carefully planned. Calculated. U.A. had been blindsided by the sheer scale of the attack. That man with the warp quirk had been their ace in the hole. He’s most likely how they got onto the campus a couple weeks ago, too. Hizashi had never heard of anyone like him before, but it’ll only be a matter of time before his identity is uncovered. His quirk is too rare and distinctive to stay under the radar.

There’s a knock at the door, and Hizashi startles to attention. Ayane, one of the interns from his radio show, opens the door, holding up a couple bags of fabric along with a bag of some kind of takeout. She hands it over quietly with a quick glance over at Hitoshi and leaves before Hizashi can say anything more than thank you. Maybe she didn’t want to disturb them any longer than necessary.

Hizashi sets the bag with the food by the door. The smell is making his stomach roil unpleasantly. He gently nudges Hitoshi with one of the bags of clothing.

Hitoshi accepts it without complaint. There’s no eye rolling or wry comments, not even a longsuffering look at the branding on the clothing. He disappears into the restroom to change, leaving Hizashi alone in the waiting room.

The scene is achingly familiar. Fifteen-year-old Hitoshi overlays ten-year-old Hitoshi in his memory. He’d been so small, with dead eyes that didn’t belong on a child and the resigned acceptance of a boy who’d stopped caring what happened to him.

He’s grown so much since then, and not just physically.

Both Hitoshi and Shouta are quiet in their love. Hizashi can feel Hitoshi’s affection every time he comes home from a late shift to his favorite foods boxed up and waiting for him in the fridge (too well-made to have been cooked by Aizawa cooking-is-a-waste-of-time Shouta), and when he complains about Hizashi’s branded clothing but wears it anyway. Sometimes, late at night when Hizashi’s radio show is taking calls from listeners and he’s feeling extra tired, it’s Hitoshi’s voice drawling on the other end with some inane question or remark Hizashi knows is meant to lift his spirits.

Hizashi takes his turn in the restroom after Hitoshi comes back out, taking an extra couple minutes to wash out most of the gel from his hair in the sink.

The cold water helps him to refocus. This isn’t the first time Shouta’s been badly injured. This is one of the worst cases, but he’s like a cockroach – incredibly hard to kill. If he was going to die, he would have gone and done it already. He’s too stubborn to die hours after the fact.

Shouta’s in the hands of the hospital staff. There’s nothing Hizashi can do for him. He’ll have time to focus on himself and work through his emotions later, but right now, Hitoshi needs him.

He doesn’t have a towel, so he wrings out as much water out of his hair as he can before pulling it back into a low ponytail. He takes a couple deep breaths before turning and walking back to the waiting room.

Hitoshi doesn’t acknowledge him as he enters the room and sits down next to him. His one visible eye is blank. Distant, in a way Hizashi hasn’t seen from him in years.

Talk to me, Hizashi wants to plead. Tell me what you’re feeling. Yell at me. Throw all the hurt at me, I can take it. Anything at all, whatever you need. But Hitoshi’s not like that, and pushing him to talk will only make him clam up harder. He’s so much like Shouta in that regard.

Hizashi’s phone buzzes again. It’s barely stopped since the festival. He’d been dismissed from damage control and other public meetings for now given Shouta’s condition, but it’s just a matter of time before he’ll need to compartmentalize and step back up to the Present Mic role.

He picks it up, scrolling through the long string of unread texts. There are several new ones from Nemuri. One from Nedzu requesting an update on Shouta once there’s more information. Even his parents have sent several texts each despite their time difference from Musutafu – it must be around one in the morning over at their home in L.A.

There’s nothing from Tensei, and another tendril of dread forms in Hizashi’s stomach. He tells himself not to read too deeply into it; even at top speed, Tensei wouldn’t have been able to make it over to U.A. until the attack had already ended. He’s probably just focused on his brother and doesn’t even realize Shouta’s hurt.

He should leave his phone on and keep in touch with the others, but instead he silences it and promises himself he’ll answer texts when Hitoshi falls asleep. If he falls asleep.

“The media’s tearing U.A. to shreds,” Hitoshi says, interrupting Hizashi’s thoughts. He sounds calm, no inflection in his voice. “They say the school – and All Might – should have been able to stop this from happening in the first place. They’ll probably start digging into the rest of the heroes there soon too, especially the ones that were on the ground.”

Shouta’s name hangs in the air between them, heavy and unspoken. Hizashi closes his eyes and lets his phone drop into his lap. “It’s probably best to stay away from the news for a little while, Hitoshi.”

The number of heroes on the scene had kept most serious injuries to a minimum, but there had been a couple of fatalities. Villains had been planted in the audience ahead of time in addition to the countermeasures deployed against the heroes on the ground. This had been carefully planned and coordinated.

Hitoshi hums and keeps scrolling through his phone. “I talked with one of the villains that tried to kill us after we were teleported away. She said the homeroom teachers were secondary targets.”

Hizashi’s breath catches. He doesn’t have the energy to get worked up over this right now. His eyes feel heavy. Every muscle in his body feels wrung out, even though he hadn’t been one of the heroes in active combat. “By talked with, you mean you interrogated them.”

Hitoshi shrugs.

Fuck. “We’re going to talk about that later, just so you know. Once Shouta’s awake.” Because he will wake up. “Did she say why they were targeting them?”

“Because they figured out the plan to attack at USJ a couple weeks ago,” Hitoshi says, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling, and Hizashi’s brain stutters to a stop after he pieces together what Hitoshi’s implying.

“Hitoshi,” he says urgently, leaning forward to try to catch Hitoshi’s gaze. “Don’t you dare start blaming yourself for what happened here. This is not your fault.”

“Okay,” Hitoshi says.

Hizashi shakes his head. “No, look at me.” He waits until Hitoshi rolls his head to the side, finally meeting his gaze for the first time since the stadium. “I’m serious. Think about it. If it was this bad at the festival with over a dozen heroes there, imagine how it would have turned out if it had just been a class of first-years and a couple of teachers. All Might didn’t even show up for class at all that day. They would have killed all of you. This is… this was bad, but we’re still alive. You’re not helping anyone by blaming yourself over something out of your control.”

Hitoshi looks away again, fiddling with his phone. Hizashi leans back in his seat with a tired exhale. It’s hard to tell if he got through to him or not, but pushing it further isn’t going to help much.

“I lied,” Hitoshi says suddenly. “About what happened to that Noumu.”

“What,” Hizashi rasps. He drags a hand down his face and holds up three fingers. “What could you have possibly lied about? All Might punched one of them right out of the stadium, the second disappeared into a portal during the fight, and the third one went back with the other villains. I saw all three of them and I’m sure all of it was caught on video too.”

“The second one,” Hitoshi says. “I told you I just saw it disappear from a distance, but I know what happened to it. I’m the one who made it disappear.”

Hizashi frowns. “You’re not making any sense. How could you have made it disappear?”

“I’m - I don’t know where to start.” Hitoshi’s brow is pinched, an uncharacteristic expression of frustration on his face. He touches the edge of his mask before dropping his hand.

“We don’t have to do this now,” Hizashi says. He’s not sure he’s ready to do this now, alone, without Shouta by his side to help field whatever it is Hitoshi’s trying to tell them. “We can wait until Shouta’s awake.”

Hitoshi shakes his head. “You deserve answers,” he says. He reaches up and pulls off the gauze covering his eye, letting it fall onto his lap. “If I don’t say it now, I probably never will.”

His left eye opens, meeting Hizashi’s gaze, intense and searching. It’s the same eye Hitoshi’s always had. Hizashi had never thought much about it. It’s a minor physical mutation that had never been particularly notable in a world full of mutations.

Three black tomoe in a red iris. The sclera is bloodshot, blood flecks still crusted along the edges, the skin around the eye slowly turning a dark red as it bruises. Hizashi feels rooted to the spot.

“I have a secondary quirk,” Hitoshi says, getting straight to the point. “It’s my left eye. I call it a sharingan. I don’t know how it happened or why I have it, but it… well, it can do a weird mix of things. Like give me perfect recall of everything it sees, and the ability to copy physical maneuvers after seeing it once. When it’s active, I can predict how people are going to move because I can see their muscles tensing right before they act. And it can also warp some things out of existence, at a cost to my health. It took me a long time to work out how to do that, though.”

Hizashi’s initial thought is it’s another one of Hitoshi’s fake quirks. It feels like a joke with horrible timing. But it’s not the first time he’s tried to disguise elements of his actual quirk, is it? Before they’d met him, the quirk registry stated brainwashing could only be activated by a question. Hitoshi still claims that’s how it works when asked, despite using a statement to brainwash Shouta during their first meeting.

That warp villain’s portals were composed of purple mist, but that mist wasn’t there when that second Noumu disappeared. There’d been an uprooted piece of concrete by Shouta and Hitoshi before Hizashi’d managed to get to them, and that had inexplicably disappeared too.

Hitoshi has had an unnatural ability to fight from a young age. He picked up Shouta’s fighting techniques after only a couple spars and managed to hold his own for several minutes against someone as fast as Tensei. Hizashi had never needed to show him a JSL sign more than once before Hitoshi could mimic it perfectly.

Hizashi’s head is spinning. Hitoshi had always seemed unusually capable for his age, but this is beyond anything Hizashi could have predicted. And at the same time, a small voice in his head screams at him, asking why he hadn’t questioned this sooner. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why – did you not trust us? Did you think it would...”

“I...” Hitoshi’s eyebrows draw together. “...My mo – Kasumi told me people would try to steal my eye if they found out about it. I don’t know if she was telling the truth or not. She was paranoid about a lot of things.”

Hizashi met Kasumi once, back when he and Shouta were trying to get custody of Hitoshi. Hitoshi’s father had consented to the placement immediately without any questions, but Kasumi had wanted to meet them before agreeing.

“Hitoshi’s not right in the head,” she’d told them, voice hushed but tinged with a sense of urgency. “You have to understand that, or he’ll drive you mad. You have to – you have to understand that.”

She hadn’t looked right in the head herself. Her eyes had dark shadows under them, her gaze flickering to the side then back at them. Her nails had been bitten down to nothing, even the skin around them shredded. When Hizashi had reached up to put a hand on Shouta’s arm, trying to calm a potential explosion before it happened, she’d narrowed in on the movement like a cornered animal.

Paranoid is a good word to describe her.

“And you believed her,” Hizashi says quietly. Of course he'd believed her. Hitoshi had probably only been around five or six years old when she’d burned that fear into his mind. He runs a hand down his face and breathes out slowly.

Hitoshi’s always kept his cards close to his chest, and with this new context it’s not hard to understand why he’d neglected to share this earlier. He.. he would have hoped Hitoshi would have trusted them with it sooner, but the fact that Hitoshi’s told him at all is a step forward.

But it doesn’t make sense. His eye's capabilities don’t have anything in common with his brainwashing quirk. And what connection does a warping power have with heightened perception? He’s missing something; some piece of the puzzle he doesn’t have. It’s possible not even Hitoshi knows the answer.

Hizashi closes his eyes for a moment. He can worry about all that later. He doesn’t need to figure everything out right now. They’ll get through this like they’ve gotten through everything else.

They have to.

He opens his eyes again and reaches over, pulling Hitoshi into a hug. He feels Hitoshi stiffen.

“Thank you for telling me,” Hizashi says. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy. We’ll talk with Shouta about everything later, yeah? We’ll get everything sorted out.”

It’s a promise to himself too.

Hitoshi doesn’t say anything, but after a few seconds one of his arms wraps loosely around Hizashi.

--

Aizawa is out of surgery a couple hours later and given a private room. Yamada is asleep in the chair he’d pulled up next to the bed, limbs folded awkwardly into the small space and head tipped to the side in a way that’s definitely going to give him neck pain when he wakes up.

Hitoshi doesn’t fall asleep. He wouldn’t be able to even if he wanted to in a place like this. The stench of chemicals and iron permeates his mask, the hospital’s background noises unfamiliar and grating. His head and eye pound with a migraine he hasn’t been able to fully kick even with painkillers. A nurse enters the room at least once an hour to check in on Aizawa’s condition, each disturbance putting his senses on full alert.

He wants to pace. He wants to pick at the edge of his nails until they bleed, scratch through his skin to let out the nervous energy thrumming through his body. He slouches in his seat with crossed arms and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling, forced calm keeping himself still.

Aizawa’s vitals are holding steady. His left arm and right leg are in casts, thick bandages wrapped around his upper chest and other scattered spots where he’d gotten cut up or lost patches of skin. The right side of his face is covered in gauze that stretches under his chin and across his nose, eye taped shut. Right now it’s unknown how much the fracture may have impacted his vision. Because his pupils responded to light, the doctor said there’s a good chance he won’t suffer permanent vision impairment from the orbital fracture. They’ll have to wait for him to wake up before they can know for sure, but it’s a promising sign. 

All Might hasn’t made any public statements about what happened. There’s a press conference scheduled to happen in a couple days, but the fact that All Might’s not able to do it now, even with the world screaming for answers…

Something had gone wrong. Something big enough for All Might to fail to protect everyone in his vicinity and to disappear afterwards. Those Noumu had been incredibly dangerous. That whole organization is: the self-proclaimed League of Villains.

Logically, Hitoshi understands this. He knows All Might is only one man, and placing the burden of the country on his shoulders is unfair. No one can save everyone every single time. Hitoshi has had to face that reality several times before.

But the part of him that’s fifteen years old and sitting next to his foster father’s hospital bed wants to blame him. All Might had been right there. Aizawa and Vlad King had been beaten into the ground only meters away, and All Might didn’t stop it from happening. Isn’t he the number one hero in Japan? Isn’t he supposed to be able to save everyone? Why did Aizawa have to be the one who suffered when All Might finally failed?

And then there’s Iida Tensei.

Hitoshi had looked up his name hours ago while they were still on the way to the hospital. He must have found Stain – or Stain had found him. The news didn’t disclose which hospital he’d been brought to or what condition he was in, but if this was anything like Stain’s previous attacks…

He opens up their text history. Tensei had sent him a picture of his dog Inugenium along with a quick “good luck!” early that morning before the festival. Before everything fell apart.

Hitoshi had texted Tensei a few hours ago asking what his status was. He hadn’t really expected a response, not so soon. Not when Tensei might be dead. Despite that, the restless feeling of helplessness doubles as he sees the small marker indicating the text still hasn’t been read.

Aizawa is here. Hitoshi can see him and confirm that he’s still alive. He can get updates from doctors on his condition and has monitors constantly reporting his vitals. Aizawa is still unconscious, but he’s out of the worst of the danger zone.

He has no idea how Tensei’s doing. He doesn’t have Tenya’s number to ask, and even if he did, he doubts he’d actually contact him.

There’s an ugly ball of emotions festering in his stomach. Tenya hadn’t deserved to find out about his brother the way he had. Hitoshi had taken away his chance to learn the news from his family, who could have delivered it in the kindest way possible.

Hitoshi had weaponized Tensei against his own brother.

He doesn’t know if Yamada’s aware of Tensei’s status yet. He’s not sure when he should tell him, or if he should tell him at all. Someone else would be able to drop the news on him more gently than Hitoshi could. He’d already shown to himself just how much he could screw something like that up.

--

Normal visitation hours start at eight in the morning. At two minutes past eight, there’s a soft knock on the door before a tall, skeletal figure in a too-big suit steps through, Recovery Girl right behind him.

All Might’s true form, Hitoshi reminds himself. It had been a more believable connection when he’d only seen the man from a distance.

There’s no sign of his seemingly permanent smile. His hair looks scraggly and unhealthy and there’s a sickly pallor to his skin. His muscles have completely vanished, leaving behind stick-thin limbs, and his shoulders are hunched in awkwardly like he’s self-conscious about the space he’s taking up. He’s clutching a bouquet in each bandaged hand.

Yamada jolts awake at the sound of the door opening, grimacing as he rubs his neck. “All M… Yagi-san? Recovery Girl?”

Recovery Girl clicks her tongue, though there’s no heat behind it. “You stayed here all night, didn’t you? You’re not going to get any rest sleeping in these chairs.”

Yamada smiles weakly in response. “You know how it is.”

Yagi – it’s hard to see this man as All Might – gives Yamada a small bow in greeting, attempting a smile when he looks at Hitoshi. “Sorry to bother you two. We came to drop off some well wishes from the U.A. staff and class 1-A.” He shuffles over to the side table next to Aizawa’s bed and sets down one of the bouquets, then turns and hands the other to Hitoshi.

Hitoshi frowns at it. “Why’d they bother getting me one? I’m barely injured.”

Yagi presses his index fingers together. “All we’d been told was that you’d sustained injuries to your head and eye. Perhaps it sounded worse than it was.”

Recovery Girl motions at Hitoshi’s head. “Take the bandage off so I can take a look, Hon.”

He obediently removes the gauze and leans over so she can reach his face, averting his gaze. This isn’t the first time she’s treated his injuries, but the close physical proximity still puts him on edge.

“I’m going to touch you. Tell me if anything hurts,” she informs him, waiting for his nod before reaching up and lightly pressing along the bruise. She carefully pulls the edge of his mask down, though not enough to expose his face. She hums. “It doesn’t feel like anything’s fractured, which is good. Any changes with your vision? Dark spots, light sensitivity, blurriness that wasn’t there before?”

“Light sensitivity and headaches,” he says. “I think it’s just strained.”

“How is Aizawa-san doing?” Yagi asks Yamada.

Recovery Girl gives Hitoshi a healing kiss. The lingering migraine and pain in his eye fade away into exhaustion. His eyes feel heavy and the sun coming in through the window suddenly feels too bright for a different reason than before.

“He’s not in great shape, but he’s stable,” Yamada says, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and stretching. “I didn’t expect you to stop by, Yagi-san.”

“I, well,” Yagi stammers, shooting a look at Hitoshi. “Young Shinsou, I have to ask, do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?”

Hitoshi glances at Yamada, who looks resigned more than anything. He nods tiredly at Hitoshi.

“I’m aware,” Hitoshi says carefully.

Yagi wheezes. A few drops of blood drip out of the corner of his mouth. “I had a suspicion it was you who figured it out.”

Hitoshi stiffens. “Are you okay?”

Yagi fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his mouth, waving off Hitoshi’s concern. “I’m fine. This is nothing new.”

Nothing new. He can’t be serious. He’s been holding the number one spot with an injury that severe? Hitoshi looks back at Yamada again, but Yamada doesn’t look surprised by the situation.

Recovery Girl huffs and hands Yagi another handkerchief. “Don’t push yourself. There are a few other injured patients I need to go attend to, but I’ll be back in a few hours. I’d like to check on Aizawa if he’s awake by then.”

She leaves, and silence fills the room until Yagi takes a sharp breath and bows deeply at them. “Yamada-san. Young Shinsou. I sincerely apologize for failing to prevent Aizawa-san’s injuries. He and you have suffered greatly because of my weakness.”

Yamada jumps to his feet, gently pushing Yagi’s shoulders up out of the bow. “Woah, woah, no, you have nothing to apologize for! I already said this to Hitoshi and I’m saying it to you too – what happened is not your fault, ya hear? I got a better view of what happened than most people. Shouta was doing his job as a hero, same as you. It’s a hazard of the profession, yeah?”

“But my presence is what lured them to attack-”

“Nope, no buts about it. Shouta’ll be pissed if you try apologizing to him, so just drop it now while he’s still asleep,” Yamada says.

“I - I see,” Yagi says. He fidgets uncomfortably, looking like he’s not quite sure what else to say, and Hitoshi is struck by his just how little self-confidence he shows in this form. “I can’t stay long – Nedzu-san wants most of the faculty to meet to put together a plan of action. If you have any thoughts, Yamada-san, he says you’re welcome to message him. Midnight wanted me to tell you she’ll help keep you updated as well.”

“Thanks. Let me know if you need me for anything,” Yamada says, smiling brightly like nothing is wrong until Yagi quietly exits again with another small bow. The moment he’s gone Yamada’s smile drops and he drops back into his chair.  

--

Aizawa wakes up an hour after Yagi leaves. He blinks blearily at them for a few seconds and mumbles something incomprehensible, then slides back into unconsciousness before the nurse makes it back into the room.

The second time he wakes up, he stays conscious long enough for Recovery Girl to check on him.

“You’re way too exhausted for me to heal you completely,” she declares. “But we’ll take care of the very worst of it for now, and I’ll come back later once you’ve had a chance to get some of your stamina back.”

Aizawa raises his right hand to stop her from kissing him. “Hizashi and Hitoshi?” he mumbles.

“We’re both fine,” Yamada says. “Both of us are here.”

“The students?”

“Some injuries, but they’ll be okay too. They’re all alive.”

The tension bleeds out of Aizawa and he drops his hand, unresisting as Recovery Girl kisses his cheek. The visible bruising discolors to an ugly mix of yellows and purples as the healing process accelerates, and he’s unconscious again in seconds.

“Call me when he’s awake and alert enough for me to do more,” Recovery Girl says. She sighs. “You two should go home and get some rest too. He’ll be out for a while.”

--

Within two days, Aizawa is awake and disgruntled enough to demand to be discharged against medical advice.

“Recovery Girl can speed up the recovery process after school,” he growls. He maneuvers himself to his feet and is halfway across the room on crutches before the nurse can stop him. Hitoshi stands a short distance away, ready to step in if Aizawa suddenly collapses. “I’m not staying here. I’d get better rest at home.”

An unimpressed Yamada blocks the doorway. “You're not planning on going back to work right away, right?” he says.

Aizawa scoffs. “What, and leave All Might to fill in as a substitute? Everyone else is going back tomorrow. Of course I’m going to be there.” 

“All Might brought you a very nice bouquet as a gift, just so you know,” Yamada says. He crosses his arms. “You have to promise you at least won’t try to go out on patrol until Recovery Girl clears you for duty, then.”

“If she’s reasonable about it, fine.”

“Your definition of reasonable is very different from mine, Shou.”

“Just let him go,” Hitoshi says. He’d be a hypocrite if he tried to make Aizawa stay here. “I want to get out of here too. Besides, the cats miss him. They’ve been stuck alone with Kayama-san for too long already.”

Yamada throws up his hands in exasperation. There’s a tinge of something else in his expression too, something Hitoshi suspects is a mix of fondness and relief. “You’re no help at all, Hitoshi! You’re supposed to be on my side here!”

“If he was the one stuck in that bed for days on end he would have jumped out the window by now,” Aizawa points out grouchily.

Hitoshi doesn’t try to deny it. He’s ready to crawl out of his skin to escape the hospital, and he’s not even the patient.

But the thought of going home is accompanied by an edge of uneasiness he can’t quite shake. Yamada hasn’t brought up the sharingan again. He knows Yamada hasn’t talked to Aizawa about it yet, but it’s only a matter of time before he does. There’s no way they’ll be satisfied leaving it where it is now.

Hitoshi had promised answers, but he hadn’t really told Yamada anything at all. The sharingan is barely a fraction of the whole truth, and he’d lied about the reasons for his secrecy. Even now he’s not sure it was the right decision bringing up the sharingan in the first place.

Kakashi’s name had been on the tip of his tongue. It would have been easier to say it with only one expectant face staring back at him instead of two, but Hitoshi had swallowed it back.

How can he explain the amalgamation that is his existence? His sense of self? Where does Kakashi end and Hitoshi begin? Was there ever a line at all? He’s...

He’s Hatake Kakashi.  He’s Shinsou Hitoshi. He’s twenty-nine and fifteen years old. He’s a jounin of Konoha and a student at U.A.

He’d told himself for years that Hitoshi was just a mask, a façade he took on for convenience, but the older he gets the more he wonders if that’s really true. If Hitoshi is really just a second name, or if he’s someone else entirely.

Kakashi’s shadow hangs over his shoulders like a wraith. He’s always present in Hitoshi’s mind, shaping his choices and thoughts, a man frozen in time.

If Hitoshi dug out his sharingan, destroyed it once and for all, would there be anything left of Kakashi at all? Would Hitoshi even remember him?

Who is Hitoshi, really?

It’s easier not to think about it, even as the question presses more and more insistently in his mind. He’s not really sure he wants to know the answer.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi knows the moment Yamada tells Aizawa about the sharingan.

Voices rise in their bedroom before abruptly going silent, indicating they’ve switched to sign language to keep Hitoshi from listening in.

Hitoshi sits on the couch as he waits for the inevitable fallout. There’s no point in hiding in his room. He’d rather have the confrontation out here where there are more doors and windows. Sashimi is curled up next to him, pressed up against his thigh.

He doesn’t want to be here, but leaving would only delay the inevitable. It doesn’t matter if opening up to Yamada was the right decision. He can’t take back what’s already been said. At this point, it’s just a matter of what else he’s willing to divulge.

Hitoshi already knows he won’t tell them about Kakashi. Some part of him wants to. It might help him let go and move on. Maybe it would help quiet the growing disjointedness in his mind.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. It could make it worse. He doesn’t know, and the odds of getting guidance for the mess in his mind are next to zero. He’s never found any evidence of anyone else like him out there.

Did you not trust us? Yamada had asked when Hitoshi told him about the sharingan.

He does trust them, more than anyone else in this world.  They’re good people. True heroes, both in this world’s definition and his own definition.

And that’s exactly why he can’t tell them. He’s killed more people than he can count, and most of them he doesn’t regret. He’s done horrible things without hesitation because he was ordered to. He was a child soldier, and he went on to train child soldiers himself. He is the monster Aizawa has been trying to hunt.

So, he does what he does best. He folds his uncertainties and fears into a neat little box in his mind and stashes it away with a flimsy promise to himself to address it later. He is Shinsou Hitoshi. He is fifteen years old. He is a student at U.A. and a hero in training. Aizawa and Yamada are his guardians. He has a secondary ocular quirk, and he can’t explain why.

That is Shinsou Hitoshi.

The bedroom door slams open and Aizawa stalks out, followed closely by Yamada, eyes instantly fixed on Hitoshi when he spots him. The imposing effect is hampered by the way he fumbles with his crutches, but his gaze is no less intense. Hitoshi meets it evenly.

Aizawa tosses an empty jelly packet at him. “Show me.”

“Are you crazy?” Yamada snaps. “You want him to hurt himself just so you can satisfy your curiosity?”

Aizawa falters for a moment, apparently not having thought that far ahead. “Of course not.”

Hitoshi waves off the concern. “Something this small won’t hurt me.”

Yamada looks like he wants to argue. His lips flatten out into a thin line and he runs a hand through his hair, clear agitation in the movement, but he doesn’t try to stop him again.

Hitoshi looks down at the packet in his hand, fingers tightening around it momentarily before he relaxes his grip. Keeping this under wraps around them lost its purpose years ago, even if he hadn’t been willing to face it. He has nothing to lose.

The mangekyo spins to life, the air around the packet distorting as it twists out of existence.

Aizawa stares at Hitoshi’s empty hand. Yamada is looking at Hitoshi’s face, brow creased. “Your eye changed shape.”

“What happens to the stuff you make disappear?” Aizawa asks.

Hitoshi shrugs. “I’m not sure. As far as I can tell, it’s gone forever. I’ve never tried it on something so big or obvious before, though, so if it’s still around somewhere, we’ll find out soon enough.”

The bandages covering most of Aizawa’s face aren’t enough to hide his conflicted expression. “Any other surprise ‘quirks’ we should be aware of?”

Hitoshi hesitates for a moment, but there’s no purpose in keeping it hidden. “I can also make you see minor illusions with eye contact. That’s all I’m aware of.”

“That’s all,” Aizawa mutters. His hand flexes around his crutch, obviously upset. “Hitoshi. Why did you hide this for so long?”

There’s no good answer Hitoshi can give him.  “…I don’t know.”

Aizawa looks even unhappier after that admittedly lackluster reply, but Hitoshi doesn’t know what else to say. He’d always been like this, both as Kakashi and now as Hitoshi. He keeps secrets even when it hurts him in the end. Lies come more easily than the truth, even when the truth doesn’t matter. He layers masks over masks and doesn’t take them off, not even near the people he trusts most.

“Can you think about it?” Yamada asks quietly. “See if you can figure it out. You don’t have to answer now.”

Hitoshi nods slowly. He doubts he’ll come up with an answer that will satisfy them, but there’s no point in saying that out loud now. Not when tensions are high enough already. He suspects they’re not pushing back harder because they’re afraid he’ll hide even more from them than he already has.

Aizawa’s foot taps against the ground in an uneven rhythm. “Is it possible this is a copying quirk of some kind?”

What an ironic suggestion. The corner of Hitoshi’s mouth quirks up under his mask for a moment before he schools his expression back to neutrality. “If it is, I don’t know how to control it. I don’t have any other secret abilities, either.”

Unless he counts his past memories, but that will never be a part of the discussion.  

“The quirk registry doesn’t accept major alterations to your quirk anyway,” Aizawa mumbles, rubbing his forehead like he’s trying to stave off a headache. “Even if they did, I wouldn’t know where to begin in trying to explain this to them.”

Yamada looks troubled. “What should we do then? We can’t just pretend this doesn’t exist.”

“We need to figure out what Hitoshi’s quirk actually is,” Aizawa says. “And we change how we approach quirk training. Hitoshi, have your... other quirk factors improved or changed with practice?”

Hitoshi makes the hand sign for kind of. “Only the warping. I haven’t noticed any changes with the rest.”

“So that’s what we focus on for now. I’ll talk to Nedzu - he'll help us figure out how to deal with this on paper and with the HPSC if they end up involved. The other heroics teachers might need to know, too, so we can work out a training plan.”

Hitoshi doesn’t protest. It’s not a surprise to hear they’re planning to involve others. He’d expected it, but he still wishes Nedzu could be left out of it. The principal is dangerously perceptive.

“This doesn’t change anything with us,” Yamada says, reaching out to touch Hitoshi’s arm.

Of course it changes things. Yamada means well, but even he can’t fully mask his hurt under all his exhaustion. Aizawa is harder to read now that he has a goal to focus on, but it will likely take him a while to move past his sense of betrayal and anger.

Even in this life he keeps bringing pain to those he cares about.

But what’s done is done. Hitoshi takes the olive branch for what it is and nods.

“Well, with that out of the way, how about something a little more fun?” Yamada says, clapping his hands together. His smile is forced, but he barrels forward anyway. “Like your hero name. You guys have to decide on those soon! Have any ideas on what you want yours to be?”

“Oh. Right.” Hitoshi shrugs, feeling a little off-kilter. He’s not sure how to respond to them right now. “I don’t really care. It’s better if people don’t know who I am anyway.”

Yamada laughs and ruffles Hitoshi’s hair. Hitoshi lets him, too used to it from him by now for it to bother him. “You really are like a mini Shouta! He said the same thing when we were kids.”

“I didn’t think it would matter for an underground hero,” Aizawa says. He still looks unhappy, but he doesn’t protest the subject change. “It’s more useful than I expected, though. Before I became more established with the police and they learned who I was, I kept getting accused of vigilantism. Now when I say I’m a pro hero, they actually believe me.”

“One time some cop thought his hero license was a forgery and arrested him,” Yamada snorts. “It’s because you look like a bum half the time. Is it that hard to just shave in the mornings?”

Aizawa rolls his eyes. “It takes too much time to do it every day. I blend in on the streets better like this anyway.”

“Anyway, I picked his hero name for him because he didn’t want to come up with one. Want some ideas?”

“If you want to,” Hitoshi says with some reluctance. With a track record of names like Present Mic and Eraserhead, he's not holding out much hope that any of his suggestions will be something Hitoshi actually likes. Still, it’s obvious Yamada’s trying to lighten the mood, so there’s not much harm in letting him go wild.

“SWEET!” Yamada crows, his quirk tinging the word. Aizawa glares at him, and Yamada grins in apology before continuing at a normal volume. “Hmm, let’s see... how about Mindbend? Or maybe Simon Says?”

Hitoshi grimaces. “Those are way too literal. It defeats the purpose if people can guess my quirk or how it works just from my hero name.”

“True, true,” Yamada concedes. He rubs his chin in thought, then grins. “Dandelion? Your hair kind of looks like one.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Hitoshi is already regretting this.

“K-9? You’d spend a lot of time with police as an underground hero and you like dogs… that one’s a bit weak... or maybe Shin? Like the first character of your surname. You can read the kanji as heart, and you’ve got heart, even if you don’t admit it.”

It also sounds like the first part of shinobi. They’re better than the others, if he had to say something, but he’d rather not be called by those either.

An idea hits him. “Wait, I think I’ve got it!”

Yamada’s eyes light up. “Tell me!”

“How about Henohenomoheji? Written like the face. It’s perfect.”

“Hitoshi… I’m begging you, do not choose that.”

--

Going back to a hospital is the last thing Hitoshi wants to do. The antiseptic stench from Aizawa’s hospital room is still lingering on Hitoshi’s skin when Yamada asks if he wants to go with him to visit Iida Tensei.

He wants to say no. If it were almost anyone else outside of his family, he would say no. He can’t imagine that Iida Tenya would be happy to see him show up either, not after their last interaction.

But Tensei is one of the few people who has been genuinely, unconditionally nice to him. Hitoshi doesn’t know him nearly as well as Yamada and Aizawa do, but he still likes him. It would be meaningful to Tensei if he went, even if it angers his younger brother.

He wonders if Tenya told him anything. What he told him if he did bring Hitoshi up. Probably nothing positive. Still, that wouldn’t exactly be news to Tensei. The man has known about Hitoshi’s stint as a vigilante since he was taken in by Aizawa and Yamada. Hitoshi had stayed with him for a couple days a few times when his foster parents had needed to leave for short trips with their U.A. classes. They undoubtedly talk about him to Tensei. He’s very familiar with Hitoshi’s personality.

Hitoshi spends the car ride to Hosu scouring forums and internet groups for any information he can get about the League of Villains, while Yamada fills the silence with pop-rock music. Despite the upbeat music, he looks as tired as Hitoshi feels.

There’s not much online he doesn’t already know. This seems to be their first public act under that name. Neither Kurogiri nor Shigaraki seem to have any public record of their existencebefore the attack. Those names are likely aliases, but their real names are still unknown. Even with footage of their faces being broadcast to the entirety of Japan, no one has come forward with any credible leads to their true identities, and neither have been seen since. The so-called Noumu also seem to have appeared out of thin air and disappeared just as quickly.

Most others involved in the attack were small-time villains. Some have been arrested, but police haven’t released what information they’ve gotten from them, if any.

“We’re here,” Yamada says, drawing Hitoshi’s attention away from his phone. He pockets it and follows him into the building, adjusting his mask to sit a little more snugly around his nose.

It’s obvious the moment they enter the room that Tensei is in rough shape. His head is wrapped with gauze, dark shadows under his eyes with ashen skin, but he still manages a smile as he sees them. The younger Iida is sitting in a chair nearby, and his frown deepens in contrast when he notices them.

“Yamada, Hitoshi, I’m glad you two are all right,” Tensei says. His words are slightly slurred.

Hitoshi nods in greeting, hanging behind Yamada. “Iida-san.”

“Shouta sends his well wishes,” Yamada says. “He had a session with Recovery Girl and was out like a light right after. I’m not sure how much you’ve heard about what happened.” 

Tensei grimaces. “Tenya told me what he knew. How bad is it?”

“What part?” Yamada says, laughing with no humor behind it. “It’s a shitstorm out there, a complete PR nightmare. Nedzu and All Might are running damage control with the media. Shouta barely made it out of the attack alive, but he’s recovering. He insisted on leaving the hospital against the advice of literally everyone. You better not do the same.”

Tensei huffs out a breath. “Sounds like Aizawa all right. Don’t worry, I think I’ll be here for a while.”

Yamada pulls up a chair and sits on the opposite side of Tenya. He gestures for Hitoshi to do the same, but Hitoshi shakes his head. He’d rather stay standing for now.

“What did the doctors say about your recovery?” Yamada asks.

“It’s not looking good,” Tensei admits. His voice is hollow. “I can’t feel anything in my legs. The casts keep me from trying to move them, but the way he hit my spine… he knew what he was aiming for. They’ve told me it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to walk again.”

He falls silent when Tenya stands up abruptly, his chair clattering back a couple inches. Tenya stalks out of the room without a word, his shoulder clipping Hitoshi’s as he pushes past him.

No one says anything for several long seconds. Tensei looks like he wants to cry but is too exhausted to.

“Hitoshi,” Tensei murmurs. “Would you do something for me?” 

Hitoshi’s attention snaps back to him. “What is it?”

“Could you keep an eye on Tenya? I’m… I’m worried about him. He’s taking it hard.” Tensei’s hands ball up, clenching his hospital sheets. “He looks up to me so much. I’ve let him down. I don’t… I don’t know what to say to help him, and… I’m worried that he might do something stupid. I wanted him to take on the name Ingenium, but… maybe that was asking too much.”

“I… I’m no good at that kind of thing,” Hitoshi says. He rubs the back of his neck, his shoulders hunching slightly. He doesn’t want to say no, but he’s the worst choice for this. He has a terrible track record. “He doesn’t like me anyway. You should ask someone else.”

Tensei closes his eyes. He doesn’t look surprised, but he’s clearly disappointed. “I understand. But… could you let me know if you hear something?”

“All right.” Hitoshi can do that much. He looks back at the door.

Tensei’s right to be worried. Hitoshi is all too familiar with the look Tenya had on his face. In another lifetime, he’d spent months looking at it, dreading it, and doing little outside of a sad attempt at an intervention with his limited empathetic capacity.   

Tenya’s eyes had looked like Sasuke’s.

--

The swarm of media reporters surrounding the U.A. gates is even worse than it had been the first day of classes. Hitoshi briefly considers his odds of successfully scaling the fence far away from the entrance before concluding he doesn’t want to find out what Nedzu might have put in place to prevent exactly that.

“You were one of the U.A. students in the arena when it happened, right? How do you feel about U.A.’s security measures?”

“Do you think they’re taking enough precautions to keep you safe?”

“Do you believe All Might’s role as one of your teachers is what caused this attack?”

“How has this impacted your plans to become a hero?”

Hitoshi raises his book closer to his face and ignores them, pushing past them physically if he has to. They’re strongly mistaken if they think they’re going to overwhelm him into answering.

The clamoring continues until he’s able to slip past them and through U.A.’s gates. Their loud, incessant questions finally fade into silence, and he lets out a small breath in relief.

The campus is unusually quiet as he walks to the classroom. Most students he passes have uneasy expressions, talking in low tones to each other and keeping an eye on their surroundings with more vigilance than Hitoshi is used to seeing in this world’s teenagers.

There’s a nervous energy in 1-A’s classroom too when he enters. A few of the others have small bandages and fading bruises. Midoriya’s arms are both wrapped in bandages.  

“Shinsou! You’re okay!” Kaminari shouts when he sees him, reaching over to clap a hand on Hitoshi’s shoulder.

Hitoshi sidesteps out of his reach and walks over to his desk. “Of course I am. Who said otherwise?”

“There were some rumors going around…”

“You and Midoriya were the only ones that had to go to the hospital, so we were worried about you guys,” Sero says.

“It looked worse than it was,” Hitoshi says dismissively. He hadn’t gone to the hospital because of his injuries, but he’d rather not tell them that. He doesn’t want them questioning him on his home life or family if he admitted he’d been there for a parent.

“Your eye is back to normal,” Todoroki observes.

“Like I said, it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t heal,” Hitoshi says.

Todoroki scans him, his gaze impassive. He must be satisfied with whatever he sees because he turns back to his phone. “How’s Aizawa-sensei?”

Hitoshi keeps his expression neutral. “I don’t know much more than you, just what the news has reported. It sounds like he’s recovering.”

“I see.” Something in Todoroki’s tone suggests there’s more he’s not saying. He’s likely realized there’s something between Hitoshi and Aizawa that goes beyond a simple student and teacher relationship, but it doesn’t seem like he plans to press further on it if Hitoshi isn’t willing to talk. At least not in the classroom.

“Do you think Aizawa-sensei will be coming back today?” Sero asks.

Jirou shakes her head. “I doubt it… it looked bad. Didn’t you watch the broadcasts?”

“Yeah, but what about Recovery Girl?”

“She can’t heal that much all at once. He’s probably still in the hospital.”

He would be if he was anyone else, but they’ve underestimated Aizawa’s sheer stubbornness. Hitoshi’s not about to interject, though. They’ll find out shortly anyway.

“Hey, Midoriya,” Kaminari says. “You were down there with All Might and Aizawa-sensei. Did Aizawa-sensei just look worse than he was?”

Midoriya hunches in on himself, picking at his fingernails. He clears his throat nervously. “He... um. It was pretty bad. I thought he was dead.”

Uraraka looks down at her hands. “I’m really worried about him. He did everything he could to keep us safe… he wouldn’t have gotten so hurt if he didn’t have to protect us.”

“No - I mean, yeah, he got most of his injuries while getting students out, but – I think they were targeting him. The leader seemed like he wanted revenge against him for something,” Midoriya says.

Jirou turns to frown at them. “Why would they target him? Isn’t he an underground hero? Almost no one even knows who he is. They said they were after All Might.”

Yaoyorozu raises her hand slightly. “Both Aizawa-sensei and Vlad-sensei were secondary targets,” she says quietly. “We heard it from one of the villains my group got teleported to. She said they were going to attack during the USJ training, but one of the homeroom teachers realized something was wrong. That’s why our schedules got switched around a couple weeks ago like they did.”

The class falls silent for a few seconds before bursting into a flurry of exclamations.

“So that’s why we were in a different classroom for a week?!”

“I knew something was wrong!”

“Why didn’t they tell us?”

“How did you get the villain to tell you that?”

Yaoyorozu looks away, visibly uncomfortable. Iida, who’d just slipped through the door, freezes for a moment before schooling his expression back into neutrality.

Todoroki doesn’t look up from his phone. “We asked a few questions after subduing them. One of them answered.”

Hitoshi half expected Iida to start yelling at them for leaving out just what they’d done to get that information, but he quietly takes his seat without saying anything. Midoriya leans over and starts whispering with him. Iida’s smiling like there’s nothing wrong.

Kaminari’s brow furrows. “Is that why you and Shinsou went back to the stadium? How did you get back in there? The entrances were all blocked off.”

Hitoshi speaks up before they can start questioning their motives in too much detail. “We didn’t do much. The fight was already over by the time we got there.”

The door slides open and Aizawa limps inside, leaning heavily on his crutches. “Morning,” he mumbles, exhaustion already heavy on his voice.

“Sensei!” Ashido yelps. “You’re already back?!”

“Shouldn’t you still be in the hospital?” Uraraka asks.

“How I'm doing doesn’t matter,” Aizawa says. “Get in your seats. We’ve got a lot to cover today. Today you’ll be coming up with your hero aliases.”

The mood shifts instantly. Several students start talking excitedly to each other, though they fall silent again when Aizawa activates his quirk with a sharp glare. “But first, we need to go over the pro draft picks. They’re a way for them to show interest in your future, and they make offers based on who they think will be ready to join the hero workforce after a couple more years of experience. This is normally based on your performances in the Sports Festival, but things worked out a little differently this year because of what happened.”

He turns on a projector which displays a list of nominations on the blackboard. Todoroki has the most offers by far, with Iida and Yaoyorozu trailing behind him. Bakugou only received a few, and Midoriya only two.

As expected, Hitoshi didn’t receive any offers for him specifically. His performance had been mediocre in the first round, and his relationships with Aizawa and Yamada aren’t widely known. Most heroes who know they have a kid don’t know it’s him.

“A small number of you received direct offers based on your performances in the first round. It’s usually more spread out, but because of the way things went, few of you got a chance to show what you’re capable of. There’s nothing we can do about it now. Don’t take it to heart if you didn’t get any offers.”

Despite the attempt at consolation, a lot of them look disappointed. It’s understandable. Most of the offers that came in were more based on heritage than performance. Bakugou’s teeth are grinding so loudly that Hitoshi can hear it from two seats away.

“The rest of you will still have a chance to work alongside the pros. After what happened, a few agencies who normally make direct offers decided to let students who would like to see them in action choose them instead. You’ll be able to pick from many different focuses of heroism. Each focus has subcategories, like water rescue under the rescue category. I’ll pass out a list of agencies to you shortly, along with the direct offers for those who got them.”

The classroom door opens with a bang, and Kayama sashays in. “And now it’s my turn!” she announces. “It’s time to come up with hero names! They may be tentative for now, but you should still pick wisely because it might become the name the world will call you by in the future. Pick poorly, and you could regret it for the rest of your life!”

Aizawa nods. “I’m no good at this part, so direct any questions to her. What future do you see for yourself? The name you choose will bring you closer to cementing a certain image, because names can reflect one’s true character.”

The noise level in the room quickly rises as most of the students start chattering with each other in excitement. Hitoshi accepts the list of agencies, a small whiteboard, and a marker as they’re handed out to everyone.

His true character.

He idly fiddles with the marker. He’s been called a lot of things over his lifetimes, but few of them would be appropriate for a hero. Even fewer of them would make sense for Shinsou Hitoshi. Yamada had tried to give him suggestions earlier, but they were either too on-the-nose or something he wouldn’t willingly choose to call himself.

Tokoyami leans over. “Have you figured out what you would like your hero name to be yet?”

Hitoshi hums. “Not yet. You?”

“Yes.” Tokoyami tilts his whiteboard so Hitoshi can read it.

Tsukuyomi.

Hitoshi keeps very careful control over his body and expression. It must be a coincidence. He’s not spotted any indications that Tokoyami is anything more than he claims, but…

Itachi’s face stares back at him when he closes his eyes, inverted black and white in a blood-red world. 72 hours of torture in the span of seconds.

“Where’d you get the name from?” he asks, his tone meant to sound mildly uninterested. He watches every minute movement Tokoyami makes with his sharingan. If he knows more than he should, he would recognize what it is.

“It is the name of an ancient lunar deity. I felt it fitting, as I am a creature of the dark,” Tokoyami says. He tilts his head, looking curious. “Have you not heard of it before? I thought it was a commonly known legend.”

Some part of Hitoshi relaxes, even if he can’t shake his unease entirely. He’ll have to watch Tokoyami in the future, just in case. “No, I’ve heard of it. I was just curious if there was another meaning behind your choice.”

“I see. Well, I wish you luck in deciding on a name for yourself,” Tokoyami says.

Kayama claps her hands to get the room’s attention. “It’s time for anyone who’s ready to share their name with the class! Who wants to go first?”

Hitoshi tunes them out as students one by one go up to the front and announce the names they chose.

He’d prefer it if someone else would assign a name to him and take the decision out of his hands, even if it’s a stupid name. At least then he could shrug and say he didn’t choose it. He’s not creative or interested enough for this.

“Shinsou?” Kayama calls. Most of the students have already gone at this point. “You ready to share yours?”

He’s out of time. He makes his way up to the front and holds up his whiteboard.

Kayama looks at it and frowns. “You didn’t write anything down.”

Hitoshi shrugs. “I’d rather not have a hero name.”

“But every hero needs a title. It’s part of your registration as a hero,” Kayama points out. “Come on, can’t you think of something? Anything at all? It can be your name if you really can’t think of something else, but that does mean your name would be public knowledge.”

So that wasn’t going to fly after all. Well, it had been worth a try.

He stares down at his hands. They’re rough, calloused, with small scars littering them. Marks of his past, if only in this world.

“Kakashi, then,” he says finally. Another mark. Another scar, even if its meaning is lost to everyone else but him.

Kayama hums thoughtfully. “Kakashi? Why ‘scarecrow’?”

“Ah, you know...” Hitoshi waves his hand loosely. “I kind of look like one.”

“You think so?” Kayama says, giving him an odd look.  “Well, it’s a bit strange, but I suppose it's acceptable!”

Hitoshi sits back down. Did he make a mistake picking that name? He’s not sure. Everything feels twisted and wrong. Maybe he should have gone with one of Yamada’s suggestions even if he didn’t like them. Maybe he’d feel less wrong if he had.

--

 An attack on the Sports Festival. A new villain organization that had gone largely undetected until their massive debut. Two leaders with rare quirks not found in the quirk registry. Strange, seemingly unintelligent mutants that also don’t match any known quirks, mutation or otherwise. 

Naomasa’s meeting with U.A.’s faculty had taken almost two hours. It had been productive, but it’s frustrating how much information they’re still missing. Despite all the villains they’d managed to arrest in the aftermath, most didn’t have much useful information. What he really dreads is the news he has to share with Yagi.

He lets out a breath as he pushes open the door to the empty classroom Yagi had borrowed for them. He’s already there, a cup of tea in his hands. A mug of coffee is sitting on a nearby desk.

“Tsukauchi-san, thank you for taking time out of your day to see me,” he says with a weak smile. “I wish the circumstances could have been better.”

“No, thank you. I’m the one who asked to speak with you in private,” Naomasa says as he sits down across from Yagi. “How have you been holding up?”

“The outlook isn’t good,” Yagi admits quietly, staring into his tea. “I don’t have much more time.”

It doesn’t come as a surprise to hear. Still, it’s not the answer Naomasa was hoping for, especially given why he’s here. “We’ll have to make the most of what’s left, then. I’ll get straight to the point. I told everyone earlier that we’re still working on trying to interview the mutant referred to as a ‘Noumu’ we arrested at the attack but haven’t had much luck. That is true, but there’s more I left out. We’re not sharing this yet, so this is technically an information leak… but I think you need to know.” 

Yagi furrows his brow. “What did you find?”

“We only caught one of them, but as you might recall, several of the oddly behaving mutants involved in the attack had strange physical similarities,” Naomasa says. “Their appearances are very distinct, yet we somehow have no record of any of them anywhere. The one we arrested doesn’t answer any of our questions or even indicate he understands us. We ended up running a DNA analysis to see if we could identify him. It returned with a match to a small-time criminal that doesn’t look anything like the Noumu. In addition, the analysis found DNA matching at least four other human beings mixed into his.”

“How is that possible?” Yagi asks. “Was it related to his quirk?”

Naomasa leans forward, his hands loosely clasped in his lap. “No, his quirk had nothing to do with it. His body’s been put under an enormous strain. Probably experimented with and drugged extensively. At this point, he’s more of an artificial human than anything. One that’s been engineered to hold multiple quirks. Right now our people are trying to figure out how this is possible, but surely you understand where I’m coming from. This is probably the work of a quirk that can grant quirks.”

Yagi’s expression drops. “All For One.”

“I don’t have any way to confirm that right now, but it’s possible,” Naomasa says gravely. “If he’s really still alive, if he’s the true mastermind behind what happened… things will get bad very quickly.”

Yagi’s hands curl into fists. “Young Midoriya has only just begun his training. He won’t be ready to face him. I don’t know when he will be. If All For One finds out he’s my successor…”

The timing couldn’t be any worse. “Does he know about All For One yet?”

“No, I hadn’t told him that much. I thought we had time. I believed he was dead.”

“We don’t know for sure yet, but start preparing for the worst,” Naomasa says. “They’ve made a very public move now. I doubt we’ll have much time before they strike again.”  

Yagi grits his teeth. “Tsukauchi-san, I have something I’d like to tell you. I hate to even bring it up because I would never want to imagine a student could be involved, but this is too big to turn a blind eye to the possibility.”

Yagi’s dancing around the subject more than usual, but if a student is involved... “What is it?”

“This morning… Nedzu informed me a first year has multiple quirks.”

“What?” Naomasa sits back. “Is he sure? It’s not just another element of the student’s first quirk?”

“No, it seems to be a distinct, separate quirk. His quirk on file is voice-activated, but the second one is ocular. Both emitter types. I don’t fully understand it, and Nedzu didn’t give me a lot of detail, but the student is responsible for one of the Noumu’s disappearances during the attack. It sounds like the boy’s guardians were also unaware of the second quirk until very recently.”

“That’s a very well-timed coincidence.” Naomasa scrubs a hand over his face. “What’s the student like? Does he seem like someone who may have been coerced or bribed?”

“I doubt it, but I can’t say for certain,” Yagi admits, sounding like it pains him to say it. “He was the one who told us someone had been looking at the class schedules a couple weeks ago after realizing someone had been in the staff room, and one of his guardians was gravely injured in the attack. But he does seem to have some social difficulties and has developed quite a habit of lying over innocuous things.”

Yagi probably doesn’t know the student very well yet, either. If the student is a plant, that class will be in even more danger than they thought. “I’ll keep this to myself for now, but could you tell me what his name is so I can be on the lookout, just in case?”

“Ah, of course. Shinsou Hitoshi.”

Truth.

Naomasa almost drops his mug. “You’re kidding me.” This feels like a cosmic joke, even though he already knows Yagi’s telling the truth. His quirk confirmed that for him.

Yagi looks startled. “You know him?”

“Yeah, I do,” Naomasa says. He wishes he didn’t. “Met him five years ago. He was a vigilante in the district I used to work in.” 

“…Five years ago? Wouldn’t that mean he was a ten-year-old child at the time? And you’re sure it was him?” Yagi sounds doubtful, understandably so.

“Trust me, I didn’t believe it at first either,” Naomasa says. “I don’t know how he did it, but he was out there for at least a year before he got caught. He was incredibly talented for his age and supposedly self-taught, too. Aizawa had a theory that he may have been trained as a child soldier of some kind, but we never found any evidence to support it, so the investigation was eventually dropped. He was too young for any criminal charges to be considered, so he was placed with them instead.”

“I – I see.” Yagi twists his hands together in thought. “If Shinsou really is involved with him, it wouldn’t be surprising that you found nothing. He’s very good at covering his tracks.”

Naomasa grimaces. The picture this is starting to form is a very ugly one. Aizawa would be devastated if any of this turns out to be true. “In any case… I doubt he’s actively involved with All For One, if he ever was. From what I know of Shinsou’s background, it’s more likely he was picked up for a while when he was young and was discarded later. You said the second quirk is ocular?”

“Yes. Just one of his eyes, from what I understand.”

Maybe the heterochromia wasn’t a genetic mutation after all. Naomasa doesn’t remember seeing scarring around either of Shinsou’s eyes, but All for One undoubtedly has at least one healing quirk at his disposal. Someone like All for One would have connections that could alter documentation to make it seem like Shinsou had it all along if they wanted to cover it up. “So maybe he was part of an experiment with quirks. It would explain why he hid it for so long. He may not even remember what really happened.”

This would explain so much. After Shinsou had first been brought into custody by Aizawa, Naomasa had been in charge of interviewing him. Most of his answers rang true or false as expected, but certain basic questions about his identity hadn’t. Naomasa’s quirk had reacted like Shinsou wasn’t sure about his name and age. It hadn’t made sense why at the time, but if his memory had been tampered with to erase things he wasn’t supposed to know…

“We’ll keep this between us for now,” Naomasa says after a long pause. “Definitely don’t tell Aizawa or Yamada what we discussed. Right now there’s no evidence outside of speculation, and they’re very protective over him. I’ll check through the records we have on him in case there’s something we missed. Hopefully we’re wrong, and this is just a big coincidence.”

Yagi nods. His hand clenches around his coffee mug. “Thank you. I’ll keep an eye on him at school as well. I hope we’re wrong, too.”

If they’re not… Naomasa hopes he won’t be the one to have to tell Aizawa and Yamada.

Chapter Text

Nedzu was aware of Shinsou Hitoshi long before he ever met the boy. First from a purely professional standpoint, when two members of his faculty became legal guardians of a child and some schedule changes became necessary. Perhaps a relative’s child, he initially considered, but it didn’t quite add up. He was missing some of the puzzle pieces, but out of respect for their privacy, he didn’t try to dig further.

The first time he saw the boy was over a year later at their annual Sports Festival, trailing after Aizawa like a watchful shadow. One step to the side, two steps behind, posture relaxed and eyes scanning his surroundings with casual disinterest that’s anything but. It looked so natural that Nedzu doubted Shinsou even realized he was doing it, and he could feel his own interest pique.

There’s a story there, a mystery that promises to be wonderfully fascinating if Nedzu ever dug his paws into it.

He’d gotten the sense a long time ago that the boy was troubled, even without knowing any specifics. Not terribly unusual among children separated from their parents, whatever the reason behind it. Both Aizawa and Yamada had started coming to work with new layers of exhaustion etched into their bodies nearly from the beginning. Aizawa began storing the bulk of his weaponry – particularly sharp objects – in his office instead of at home. Yamada freely gushes about his family in the privacy of the teacher’s lounge, but stays notably tight-lipped on the subject of their ward’s life before he began living with them.

And four years later, it finally happened. He loves a good puzzle, and Aizawa Shouta brought him an excellent one. One even more complex than he’d estimated, with a childhood spent teetering on the moral line. It’s the perfect opportunity to test Nedzu’s rehabilitation theories.

Nedzu suspected before he met him; he'd known after.

Shinsou Hitoshi is dangerous.

The first time their eyes meet, he felt it. The sensation of a calculating gaze studying him, analyzing him the same way Nedzu analyzed him in turn, estimating his threat level. A mutual understanding as they each catalogued the other as dangerous for different reasons.

Careful, precise control over his face and body. That assessing look was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a calm but slightly nervous demeanor that felt so real Nedzu could hardly tell he was only showing what he wanted Nedzu to see.

It was fascinating to watch the way emotions flowed across his face as he answered Nedzu’s questions, subtle yet clear enough to get their meaning across for anyone paying attention. Anticipation, pain, remorse, longing, caring. They appeared at the right time, accompanying the right words, no dissonance indicating dishonesty.

Fascinating and foreboding, because even Nedzu’s keen vision had a hard time picking up on the miniscule pauses as Shinsou chose what expressions he should pair with his words. Children don’t learn that level of control for no reason. Without some kind of training to minimize tells. That was not a new skill he only recently mastered either – he wields it so naturally it’s likely more subconscious than anything.

Still, Nedzu could tell he was trying to stay mostly honest. Shinsou didn’t try to pretend he felt any remorse over his illegal nighttime activities, or that he felt anything other than cold pragmatism over taking a villain’s life in self defense. It’s written all over his files: this is a boy who thrives in violence.

But throughout that violence, there’s little evidence of true malice. His comparatively calm years with Aizawa and Yamada are another indicator that many of his past actions were reflective of emotional dysregulation with no coping skills, and a desire to do good without any understanding of what good is. When Shinsou challenged him over the merits of prioritizing a good score over the wellbeing of another contestant, he was convinced.

Dangerous, but not in a villainous way. Nothing about Shinsou’s performance at U.A. has challenged Nedzu’s mental profile of him yet; it’s only strengthened it.

And then Yagi asks for an emergency meeting.

The man sits quietly across from him in his office, idly twisting a cup of long-cooled tea still mostly undrunk while Nedzu parses through the newly unearthed flood of puzzle pieces.

The League of Villains. Rapidly escalating public unrest. The Noumu, and their genetic makeup.

Lie Detector and basic questions with uncertain answers.

A distinct second quirk. Years of hiding, an unprompted confession.

All for One.

In the privacy of his mind, Nedzu considers the possibility that Shinsou is no child at all, that perhaps the one sitting in that classroom is not the boy originally given the name Hitoshi. That somewhere in that gap between Hitoshi’s removal from his home and his encounter with Aizawa, an imposter took his place. It would explain some of the disparities, such as Shinsou’s unlikely martial ability and almost soldier-like tendencies that have no identifiable source. It’s too grave of an accusation to even speak aloud without definitive proof, but he keeps it in mind.

How much of the truth does he even remember? Was he planted as a sleeper agent with little to no conscious memory of it? If he is older than he looks… is he in his current state of his own volition?

Putting together the mystery of Shinsou Hitoshi suddenly got a lot more critical.

“Yagi-san,” Nedzu starts, “would you be willing to help get me in contact with someone?”

--

“So – Kakashi,” Yamada says casually.

For a brief moment, Hitoshi’s blood turns to ice before the connection clicks. He forces the tension back out of his posture and blinks lazily. “Ah. Kakashi.”

“The more I think about it, the more it grows on me,” Yamada muses. He finishes drying a glass and hands it to Hitoshi, who dutifully puts it away. “Scarecrows used to be set up to protect fields where their farmers couldn’t. And now you’re on a path to become a protector of the people. It defines you as a protector or guardian, in both the literal and symbolic meaning.”

Hitoshi’s heart stutters. He clears his throat. Works his jaw. He means to say something, anything, but he can’t meet Yamada’s eyes and any words he could have said stay locked in his throat instead.  

Yamada claps a hand on his shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “No matter the reason you chose it… it suits you.”

--

Iida Tenya walks into the classroom with a calm demeanor that’s no longer fake, and Hitoshi knows he’s going to do something reckless. Iida has a plan.

It’s not difficult to guess the intended outcome: Stain’s downfall. Whether Iida is already aiming to kill him or just get him arrested is harder to say for certain, but it likely doesn’t matter. Stain is a formidable enemy, almost certainly beyond Iida’s current skill level. If he gets lucky and actually wins, it’s unlikely he’d be able to incapacitate Stain with anything short of a fatal blow, even if he doesn’t enter the fight intending to take things that far. If Iida isn’t planning to kill him, his odds of coming out without serious injury or death are even worse.

Hitoshi hadn’t been lying when he told Tensei he should ask someone else to help his brother. He doesn’t want to get involved. Doesn’t even know where he’d start with getting through to him. Iida already dislikes Hitoshi; there’s no way he would listen to him. He has no reason to. It has to be someone else, someone he trusts or at least respects enough to actually hear what they’re saying.

His gaze drifts to the desk behind Iida’s, then to the head of messy green curls in front of him.

--

“Between Midoriya and Uraraka, who would you guess is better at giving convincing speeches?” Hitoshi asks his persistent shadow at lunch.

Todoroki stares blankly at him from across the table, soba half raised to his mouth. “How would I know?”

In case you tried anything like what you did with me with one of them, too, Hitoshi doesn’t say. “Just figured I’d ask.”

--

Iida’s shoe locker is empty. The uneasy feeling that’s been building in Izuku’s gut all day grows even stronger.

“Did Iida-kun go home before us?” Uraraka asks, peering over his shoulder.

“I guess so,” he murmurs, closing the locker and turning to pack away the rest of his stuff.

Iida had brushed off Izuku’s concern this morning before he’d even had a chance to say anything. He’d been smiling, acting like he was totally fine, but…

He wishes Iida had confided in him, or at least said something about how he’s really doing. The news is still saying Ingenium is in serious condition. Iida looks up to his brother so much. There’s no way he’s doing as well as he tried to pretend he was.

But he hadn’t, and now it doesn’t feel like Izuku has the right to pry. If Iida doesn’t want to talk to him about it, then there’s not much he can do outside of continue to be his friend and be available if he ever changes his mind.

“Midoriya-san,” a deep voice calls out from the end of the row. “Can we talk?”

Izuku blinks and looks up to see Shinsou staring him down, posture slouched and hands shoved in his pockets.

“M-me?” Izuku stutters, caught off guard. He doesn’t really know Shinsou, but he’s always come across as pretty aloof and uninterested in socializing. Why would he suddenly go out of his way to talk to someone like Izuku? “Uh, sure, I guess. Sorry, Uraraka-san, you can go on ahead.”

She looks a bit disappointed, but she gives him a small smile and waves. “Oh, um, sure, no problem! I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

A little piece of Izuku shrivels up and dies as she leaves, and he’s left alone with Shinsou. Who’s. Really tall. And intimidating.

It’s just – Izuku doesn’t know what to make of the guy.

It’s not really that he’s any more mysterious than some of their other classmates, outside of his bizarre commitment to keeping his quirk to himself. But Izuku’s usually pretty good at reading people, and Shinsou’s really hard to get a clear picture of.

He’s a recommendation student, but his performance during their quirk apprehension tests was all super average. Then he turns around and pulls out a crazy maneuver during the battle trials, then he’s average again in the first stage of the Sports Festival without any clear reason why.

And on top of that, it’s so hard to tell what he’s thinking, especially with him always wearing that mask and never taking it off even in the locker rooms. He gives off this air kind of like Todoroki’s – and how he managed to get himself in the good graces of someone like Endeavor’s son is also a mystery – is it the loner vibe? – but then he went and pulled those pranks with the fake quirks, which Izuku is still embarrassed he fell for, but what if it had been real and he figured out Izuku is All Might’s successor or –

“Follow me,” Shinsou says, interrupting Izuku’s train of thought. He turns around and starts walking out of the building without looking back to make sure Izuku actually follows.

He does, obviously, having to pick up his pace to keep up with Shinsou’s long strides. He adjusts his backpack, sneaking a look up at him, but Shinsou doesn’t say anything and just stares ahead as they walk.

And walk.

“Um, Shinsou-san,” Izuku says tentatively, glancing over his shoulder at the disappearing buildings of the school. They’re surrounded by the trees bordering the campus. There’s no one else in sight. “Y-you said you wanted to talk…?”

Shinsou comes to a stop, but he doesn’t say anything at first. He just stares at him, Izuku twitching nervously under that unnerving gaze. It kind of feels like he’s staring straight through Izuku.

Wait, Shinsou isn’t going to try to jump him or something, right? He’s a little scary, sure, but he’s aiming to become a hero too, so it’s fine, right?

“I need your help,” Shinsou suddenly says, which. What?

“You – you do?” Izuku asks, blindsided.

Then Shinsou reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, eyes flitting to the side for a moment before settling back on him, suddenly looking a lot less sure of himself. “Well, it’s more like Iida-san needs your help.”

Oh. That’s not at all where he expected this to go. Izuku swallows, a wave of dread rushing through his nerves. So he’s not the only one who noticed something was off. But what does Shinsou know about Iida that Izuku doesn’t? If he remembers right, both of them were teleported to the same place in the attack, but he can’t remember really seeing them interact before then.

“Is this about his brother?” Izuku asks tentatively. What happened to Ingenium is all over the news, so it should be fine to say that much, right?

It’s subtle, but Shinsou’s posture seems to slouch even further at the question. He exhales loudly. “Yeah.”

“…What do you want me to do?” Izuku prompts, when he doesn’t say anything further.

“He’s planning to go after Stain,” Shinsou says.

Izuku reels back. “What?! He wouldn’t – he – how do you know that? Are you sure?”

Shinsou has to be wrong. Surely Iida wouldn’t do something so dangerous, reckless, illegal. He’s a strict rule-follower, even over the smallest things. He’s – he’s kind, even if he seems intimidating at first, and…

“His brother asked me to look out for him, but… Iida-san doesn’t like me very much. There’s no way he’ll listen to anything I have to say,” Shinsou admits. For some reason he doesn’t clarify why he thinks Iida would do something like this. “That’s why it has to be you. Maybe you have a chance to get through to him.”

“Wha- you know Ingenium?” No, wait, that doesn’t matter right now, he can think about that later. “L-look, I know Iida can be a little… loud about the rules… but that doesn’t mean he dislikes you.”

“No, it’s – I just know me talking to him won’t do any good at all. I’m…” he grimaces, gesturing vaguely to himself. “I’m not very good with people. I’m even worse at talking them down. I’ve tried this before and to say it went badly would be a huge understatement. You’re his friend, and that… that means something.”

He looks away, eyes downcast. For a second, there’s something like grief radiating from him before he pulls himself back together. He shoves something into Izuku’s hands – a scrap of paper. “There’s a good chance he’s going to try to use his internship to get close to Hosu. I’d suggest trying something sooner rather than later.”

And with that, he turns around and starts walking away, raising a hand in farewell. “If you need me, call. I’ll come.”

Izuku doesn’t try to follow him or beg for a better explanation. There are too many thoughts swirling in his head, the new information overwhelming. He needs time to parse through everything Shinsou just dropped on him. He looks down at the scrap of paper and sees a phone number scrawled on it.

Shinsou is still a huge mystery to him. He’s secretive, and hasn’t even tried to pretend he’s not a liar, but this feels different. Izuku’s gut tells him that, at least for this, he can trust him.

The sun is setting by the time Izuku leaves campus, trudging home as his mind spins. He has to talk to Iida. He doesn’t want to overstep, but Iida is his friend. He can’t just stand by and watch him self-destruct or get himself killed. He has to figure something out, or he’ll never be able to forgive himself.

At the same time, another part of his mind is thinking through a different mystery altogether.

Do Iida and Shinsou know each other after all, even though they’d mostly ignored each other at school and acted like they didn’t? If Shinsou knows Ingenium well enough for the hero to ask a favor from him, it seems kind of unlikely they didn’t know each other. But why would they try to hide it? Or did they already dislike each other before the school year started, and had mutually decided not to acknowledge each other?

Shinsou knows Ingenium on at least a semi-personal level. He and Todoroki, Endeavor’s son, started hanging around each other within days of school starting. He’s a recommendation student, which means Shinsou had a hero vouching for him. Ingenium, or is there yet another hero who had enough faith in his odds?

A forgotten memory suddenly comes to the forefront of his mind. In the aftermath of the attack on the Sports Festival, Izuku had been so focused on protecting All Might’s identity that he’d barely been paying attention to anything else going on. Todoroki had appeared out of nowhere, and Izuku hadn’t thought much of it, but… Todoroki hadn’t been alone, had he? Shinsou was there too, and he’d gone straight for Aizawa. He’d looked devastated, bleeding and hunched over Aizawa with single-minded focus like nothing else going on mattered.

They don’t look anything alike, but… Izuku can’t help but wonder.

--

Hitoshi can’t sleep. This is nothing new, but the images burned into his eyelids tonight are.

He wonders if Aizawa or Yamada have picked up on the implications of the sharingan’s perfect recall. Every detail of the scene in that stadium are his to keep. Permanently. He can play it back second by second, pick out everything his mind didn’t focus on when it happened, as if it’s happening right this moment.

Hitoshi closes his eyes and watches the blood slowly seep. Fragments of concrete crumble to the ground, coating black fabric in a thin layer of gray dust. Slick patches turn black fabric even darker. A human leg isn’t meant to bend like that. Shouldn’t look that flat. Aizawa’s eyes closed before the paramedics got there. They were covered in blood. The side of his face doesn’t look right.

He wants to pry open those eyelids to prove to himself that Aizawa’s eyes are still in their sockets. No one’s cut them out. His lids still curve out over them.

He has only one image of Obito burned into the sharingan’s memory. His eyelid hadn’t closed fully over the socket after his eye was removed. It had sunken back into the hollow space left behind. Rin had given him a sedative before performing the transplant. Obito wasn’t dead yet, his chest still rose weakly as his body fought to hold onto life, but he’d reached his end decades before it should have come. Tears of blood stained his skin that no one would ever wipe away. He looks so young.

The rockslide had coated him in a thin layer of chalky dust, too.

A phantom migraine clings to the edges of his brain, remnants of how far he’d pushed his limits.

The last time he’d pushed his limits with the mangekyo, it killed him. Kakashi had known what was going to happen when he did it. He’d known he’d finally, finally, reached his own end.

Chakra exhaustion had been nothing new to him, but those final moments were different. Time has diluted a lot of his memories of anything not frozen in time with the sharingan’s recall, but he’ll never forget the way it felt as his body… well. He avoids thinking about it for a reason.

He knows what it feels like to die. But he doesn’t know what death feels like. He’d wanted to join Obito, and Rin, and Minato, and…

(Sometimes, on nights like these, the barest trace of a memory long forgotten brushes by him. The smell of smoke. A deep voice he can’t place, even as it feels so agonizingly familiar. And then it’s gone again, no matter how hard he tries to grasp it.)

The apartment is dark as he leaves his room. Aizawa would normally be out on patrol right now, but with his injuries, he’s stuck following a halfway normal sleep schedule. He’s home tonight.

He sinks to the floor next to their bedroom, leaning his head back against the wall. Like this, he can faintly make out the sound of breathing. Of life.

--

It's the final day to submit internship choices.

Hitoshi tunes out the lectures, his focus narrowed in on something very different. A blank submission paper sits folded in his pocket.

Iida’s internship choice is in Hosu. He’d submitted it before Midoriya had a chance to try to talk him out of his plans, if the presence of his submission paper in Aizawa’s homework stack was any indication.

Midoriya looked almost sick with nerves when he entered the classroom earlier. He keeps glancing over at Iida, eyebrows pinched and his mouth sharply curved down in upset. Behind Iida, Uraraka’s expression isn’t much different. Midoriya must have clued her in, too.

Iida’s expression is stony. He’s mostly dropped his falsely cheerful façade today, jaw set and eyes locked on the instructor. He doesn’t return any of Midoriya’s unhappy glances, even though he must notice them from where his desk is positioned in the room.

At lunch, both Midoriya and Uraraka immediately follow Iida out of the classroom, seeming determined not to let him leave their sight. That’s good, but there’s no guarantee it’ll help.

Hitoshi absently rubs the corner of the paper in his pocket as he trails behind the group from a distance. Todoroki shoots him an odd look but doesn’t say anything when he chooses to sit in the cafeteria today, opting for a table with a better vantage point to watch them without being too obvious about it, and where he’s out of Iida’s line of sight.

There are no expressions of relief. No signs that they’ve gotten through to him. Maybe they’ll be successful by the time internships start, but…

“Midoriya is probably better at speeches,” Todoroki says out of the blue.

Hitoshi blinks, thrown for a moment. “What?”

Todoroki stares down at his udon with an icy expression. “He reminds me of All Might.”

So Hitoshi’s not the only one who noticed that. For all of Todoroki’s social unawareness, he’s pretty sharp at making those kinds of connections. Not that Hitoshi’s one to talk. The way he said it is strange, though. “That didn’t sound like a compliment.”

Todoroki clenches his fists. “It means I have even more reason to rise above him.”

…Right. Hitoshi has a hunch Midoriya’s going to end up facing his own uncomfortable confrontation with Todoroki at some point. Probably in the near future. “Right, well… hope that goes well for you.”

He’s rooting for Midoriya on that one, honestly, but he’ll keep that to himself.

Lunch ends. Midoriya’s expression doesn’t show any signs of success.

Hitoshi fills out his internship selection.

--

Shouta nearly crumples the paper with his one working hand when he reaches Hitoshi’s internship selection form.

The choice itself isn’t a bad one. It’s a small, low-profile agency focused on overnight operations and infiltration. It’s not underground the way Shouta is, but it’s a decent fit for the type of work Hitoshi will likely do in the future.

No. The choice isn’t the problem at all. The problem is that it’s in Hosu.

The past week has been a nightmare, with everything that happened at the festival, his injuries, Hitoshi’s massive secrets, and the news with Tensei. So much has changed in such a short period of time. But Shouta hasn’t forgotten the question Hitoshi had asked Tensei before everything, the last time they’d seen him before he ran into the hero killer. An innocuous line of questioning from most, a dangerous one from someone like Hitoshi.

"Have you narrowed down what part of Hosu he spends the most time in?"  

Even after that, maybe he still could have dismissed it as a coincidence, if it hadn’t been for the request Hizashi had told him Tensei made only a few days ago.

Damn it, Tensei. Shouta’s going to have to blame the opioids probably messing with the man’s ability to think straight, or he'd be beyond pissed off with his friend for asking something so stupid of Hitoshi. Tensei should know better than this.

Because Hitoshi’s default response to “looking after” people isn’t the emotional approach the way Tensei had probably meant it to be. No, he’s much more likely to choose a method that involves putting himself in danger, without the appropriate amount of regard for his own life and wellbeing.

First Tenya, now Hitoshi. The sense of uncertainty he’d felt when he’d first seen Iida’s agency of choice is snowballing into dread.

Shouta is sure Hitoshi’s aware his choice is going to result in a confrontation. And as much as Shouta wants to start demanding answers and shut this down without discussion, he knows that wouldn’t go well. It’s entirely possible – likely, really – Hitoshi will just double down and get on a train to Hosu as soon as he’s out of Shouta’s direct control, internship be damned, if he’s decided the best way to help Tenya would be to go after the hero killer.

And now? Right after their worlds have been thrown into chaos by that attack with Tensei’s injuries on its heels? Shouta can only imagine how much emotional stress the kid is under on top of his convictions. His dissociative episodes have been resurging. His sleeping has gotten worse again. Shouta hasn’t heard a single one of his ridiculous excuses since the festival. Every once and a while, he looks at Shouta with an unfamiliar, haunted expression, like he’s seeing someone else instead.

Hitoshi needs professional help. That’s something he and Hizashi have known since they first took him in. They’d tried more than once, too, but Hitoshi staunchly refused to say a single word to any therapists they brought him to. Alternative forms of therapy had been similar failures. In the end they’d all but given up, because what more can you do when the person you’re trying to help utterly refuses to accept it?

The fact that Hitoshi had withheld vital information about his own quirk (quirks? He’s still trying to wrap his head around it) already shows there’s less trust between them than he’d thought. Shouta isn’t the type to mince his words, but he needs to tread carefully or he might destroy whatever caused Hitoshi to finally reach out.

So he doesn’t storm into Hitoshi’s room to demand what the hell he thinks he’s doing, or give his submission sheet back and tell him to choose somewhere else. No, he waits on the couch until Hitoshi finally comes home, way later than he should have, and doesn’t ask where he’s been the last few hours, and slowly sets the form down on the coffee table. Hitoshi’s eyes lock onto it immediately. “Hitoshi. Let’s talk.”

Hitoshi slowly walks into the small living room, shoving his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t sit down, and he looks at Shouta with a calm that says he knows exactly what this conversation is going to be about.

Shouta’s not coming in guns blazing, but he’s not going to beat around the bush, either. “Are you planning to go hunt Stain down?” he asks, folding his hands in his lap.

Hitoshi’s eyebrows twitch up for just a moment before he smooths his expression back out. He shakes his head. “I’m not. Stain’s not the reason I chose that agency.”

“Then help me understand,” Shouta says. “Why Hosu? I know you haven’t forgotten I told you to stay away from that city. There was at least one other agency similar to this one you could have chosen instead, in another city.”

Hitoshi is silent for several long seconds before he finally responds. “Because Iida’s going to try to get revenge.”

“He told you that?” Now that’s a surprise. He hadn’t even known they’d spoken to each other before, much less gotten that close. That’s not even starting on the improbability of the infamously legalistic Tenya trying to do something so uncharacteristic.

“He didn’t. He didn’t have to,” Hitoshi says. “Iida chose an agency in Hosu. You know that. It’s because he’s going to look for Stain.”

There isn’t a trace of uncertainty in his expression, and Shouta’s heart sinks as he realizes how deeply Hitoshi’s managed to cement this conclusion in his mind.

The kid must read something in his expression, because he doesn’t wait for a response before continuing. “I’ve seen someone do this before. Take this pointless path of revenge. I can’t explain it, but I know. I can see it in his eyes. He’ll get himself killed if he’s left alone.”

Another vague reference that feels impossible with Hitoshi’s known history. It’s gotten downright aggravating over the years to try to piece together the rare fragments he gives them to the facts they have about his early life. There are so many incongruities, to the point where it seems like there have to be lies mixed in there, but these bits of information never come with the typical signs that usually come with his dishonesty. They feel like truths, even when it doesn’t. Make. Sense.

“So the answer is to get yourself killed alongside him?” Shouta retorts. “How is that any better?”

“I want to stop him. Keep him from looking for Stain in the first place.” Hitoshi runs a hand through his hair, brow pinching. “I already tried some things to get him to reconsider, but it didn’t work out.”

“That’s not your responsibility, even if that really is what Tenya’s planning. This is not what Tensei meant when he asked you to look out for his brother.”

“Then are you going to stop Iida?” Hitoshi asks, meeting Shouta’s gaze head-on. “Are you going to let him go to Hosu alone?”

“I can’t veto his selection just because it’s in Hosu.” It galls him to say it, but it’s true. “Iida has never given us a reason to doubt his intentions. He’s a rule-follower to a fault, and he can just as easily argue he chose a Hosu agency because he wants to be near his brother while he’s in the hospital. And past that, I don’t have custody rights over him to make that decision for him.”

“Like you do for me,” Hitoshi says flatly.

Shouta grits his teeth. “But that’s not going to stop you, is it?”

Hitoshi had outright said as much, back when Shouta asked him if he truly wanted to be a pro hero. If he thinks someone he has a responsibility to protect is in danger, he’ll stop at nothing.

He’d told Shouta a friend had died, back during that conversation. Died saving Hitoshi. Shouta’s thought a lot about that admission ever since.

How old had he been? Had it been another child who’d died? How did it happen?

Had Hitoshi watched it happen, like Shouta witnessed Shirakumo’s death?

Hitoshi just stares at him. Not openly confirming the answer to Shouta’s question, but they both know what that answer is.

“If I get any sign, the smallest reason to believe you in any way intentionally tried to engage the hero killer, that’s it. You’re out of the hero course,” Shouta says with finality, and he fully means it. “No searching. No baiting. No lingering where you shouldn’t be, no nothing. The agency you chose will be warned to keep an eye on you, and I’ll warn Tenya’s agency to be on the lookout too just to be safe. Is that understood? I’m trusting you.”

Some of the tension washes out of Hitoshi’s posture. “Crystal.”

--

“I don’t really like the idea of Hitoshi interning in Hosu,” Hizashi says in a low voice after Hitoshi’s retreated to his room for the night. “He’s going through a lot right now. What if he gets it in his head to try to avenge Tensei or something while he’s there?”

Shouta exhales harshly. “Tenya’s internship is going to be in Hosu, too. Hitoshi’s convinced he’s the one planning to go after Stain.”

“What?!” Hizashi whisper-shouts. “And you’re letting him go anyway after he told you that? How’s it any better to have both of them there?”

“I know. It’s unlikely Tenya will actually go that far, but that doesn’t matter here. What matters is that Hitoshi was honest, instead of lying about his reasons for trying to go to Hosu.” Shouta scrubs a hand over his face. His eyelids feel like they’re sticking together with how exhausted he is. “It took him five years to finally come clean about half his quirk. Five years. He hasn’t trusted us. I thought we’d made progress, but we’re barely past the start line.”

His husband’s expression twists at the reminder. “So you’re trying to make it a two-way street. Show trust in him, to prove he can trust us.”

“Yeah.”

Hizashi lets his head drop into his hands. “Okay. Tensei’s little bro is pretty gung ho over the law in the first place, so they should be fine. But Shou, you gotta talk with me about these things before you go making decisions all on your own. I’ve told you this before, you know that. We’re supposed to be a team.”

Shouta feels a pang of guilt lodge itself in in his chest. “Sorry.”

He’s still torn with indecision on whether he’d made the right call. He hopes the kid will prove it was.

--

The day they leave for their internships arrives.

Standing on the train station’s platform, Hitoshi eyes Aizawa. There are dark circles under his eyes and he’s leaning heavily on his crutches, but despite the exhaustion he’s still practically vibrating with tension that’s almost definitely Hitoshi’s fault.

Hitoshi’s gut twists uncomfortably. He knows Aizawa is upset with him, even if he ultimately hadn’t stopped him.  

He hadn’t lied to Aizawa. He really will try to stay out of the hero killer’s way. He’d decided before everything that he was willing to kill Stain if they ever ran into each other, but that doesn’t mean he has to try to run into him. It really is better if neither he or Iida ever lay eyes on him. He’s promised Aizawa he won’t try to get involved, and he intends to keep that promise.

Aizawa is making an effort to meet him halfway. He wants to prove he deserves that gesture.

Midoriya is talking to Iida again. His eyes are wide and scared, while Iida looks uncomfortable. His mouth is twisted down.

But there’s no defeat in his posture when the doors for the train heading to Hosu open and Iida strides forward to board, leaving Midoriya staring anxiously after him with glassy eyes. He shoots a look over at Hitoshi that screams of fear.

Hitoshi nods slightly in thanks before turning to board as well. No matter the outcome, Midoriya had done his best. That’s all he’s able to do.

Now it’s Hitoshi’s turn.