Chapter Text
They took a train this time, which meant hiding Izuku’s mask in his backpack again. And Toga’s cape. No one batted an eye at the two of them otherwise, thankfully. Or, not because they were vigilantes, at least. Toga’s conversation topic of “top ten blood types” may have been the reason there was a slight buffer of seats around them though. Not that Izuku was going to complain. The debate was interesting.
He had personally never thought about how bird blood would rate compared to human blood, but Toga apparently had, so now Izuku was.
Rats were, apparently, at the bottom of the list.
They got off the train still on the same topic.
“But what about octopi?” Izuku wondered aloud as they wandered away from the station. “Don’t they have blue blood?”
“They do! I’ve never had one with blood though, just the cooked ones. Now snails-”
Izuku made a face, which Toga laughed at. “Snails?”
“I was five and thought they’d taste good!” she answered. “They were weird.”
Izuku snorted. “Yeah I’d think so.”
“My dream is to eat an icefish,” Toga declared. “Because they don’t have hemoglobin or hemocyanin, and I wonder if I’d be allergic to it.”
“I don’t…think that’s how it would work?”
“But how would you know that’s not how it would work?”
Izuku opened his mouth, then closed it, conceding the point. Toga grinned smugly. She skipped along, probably about to bring up some other silly topic.
That was about when they heard the yelling.
Both of them immediately exchanged a look, then broke into a run. Towards the sound, obviously. Toga was already palming one of her knives. Izuku frankly had no idea how many of those she had right now, and he didn’t want to try and count.
He had his kyoketsu-shoge in two hidden pockets. No conscious memories of how to use them had surfaced yet, but they still felt familiar. Enough to keep them close. Even so, Izuku hoped he wouldn’t have to use a weapon he couldn’t consciously remember how to wield.
That hope diminished as they sprinted for where Izuku could now see rising smoke.
Izuku and Toga both skidded around a corner, and came face to face with a building on fire. People were screaming. Some were running out of the entrance, others pointing up at windows. More still were calling for heroes and firefighters. All of them were staring though. Mainly in terror.
Because the building had a gaping hole in one wall, crumbling at the edges. And in it stood a nomu.
This one was charcoal black, flames flickering over its body, glowing with embers under its skin in cracked and magma-bright lines. Its blank eyes stared out at the crowd. Wicked claws tipped its hands, each easily as big as Izuku’s arm. Its mouth was studded with alligator-like teeth poking out of the sides.
It didn’t move for a moment, which let Izuku take in the situation. The fire was climbing. It hadn’t consumed the entire building yet, but it was going to soon. Smoke billowed out of every nearby window. People were still screaming. No heroes had arrived yet. There were no sirens in the distance, and no one coming to help.
Just them. Just him.
The only silver lining was that this nomu wasn’t lunging at random people. Not yet, at least. But it was something.
“Betcha this one is crunchy,” Toga said under her breath.
Izuku hummed, amused for a moment. “Probably tastes charred.”
“Yeah. Like Dabi’s burnt food.”
Izuku snorted.
The next second he was moving, belatedly realizing it was because the nomu was also moving, and he had jumped into action without thinking. Quite literally too. He cleared the distance between where they stood and the nomu in two long, leaping strides.
The nomu’s eyes locked onto him, and something in them sparked. A violent awareness that hadn’t been there before. Izuku had all of two seconds before fire was roaring towards him.
The nomu made a crackling, gargling noise as it watched him dodge. Izuku landed nimbly on a different section of sidewalk, the fire going into a wall. Which thankfully didn’t catch. Not that Izuku had long to be grateful for that, since more fire was coming for him the very next moment.
Landing again, closer this time, Izuku didn’t let his eyes leave the nomu. It didn’t blink. It didn’t move much at all actually, which was a problem. The building was still on fire, and the nomu had lumbered maybe one step. People were going to get hurt if nothing changed.
Izuku had to lead it away from the crowd, or at least the building. Enough that the fire could begin to be put out once a hero or firefighters got there. That couldn’t happen if the nomu was still there though.
So he had to get it to move.
A careful step backwards had the nomu’s eyes following him. Izuku retreated another step, facing the nomu all the while. Light on his feet, he took a small hop back.
The nomu exploded into motion, faster than Izuku thought it might. With a yelp he hurriedly ducked behind the nearest wall. It led into an alley. No fire escape on this side of the building, so no people. It was empty.
A small burst of thankfulness struck behind his collarbone, something small and viciously relieved. It meant Izuku could fight without someone else there. No one to intervene, no one to get hurt.
It quickly dissipated as the nomu came crashing in after him. Claws missed Izuku by a hair as he ducked, teeth snapping in their wake. The opposite wall gained a new crater as the nomu rammed into it.
Izuku leapt backwards without missing a beat. Farther into the alley, farther from the street and people and deeper into the shadows. The nomu followed with slicing, jerking motions. It didn’t try to burn him again, at least. The fire had died down to only show in the cracks of charcoal skin, but now he had to worry about it catching him.
Izuku jumped at the wall, angling himself to launch upwards. He pushed off and flew above the nomu, which stopped to watch him. It didn’t follow as he rose to roof-height.
Distance—he needed distance. Touching the thing with fists was asking to be burned. Getting near it at all seemed like a terrible idea, with the claws and teeth and fire.
As Izuku began to fall back to earth, gravity taking hold once more, he pulled out his kyoketsu-shoge.
He handed in a crouch. The nomu made another crackling sound, regarding him with nothing but violence. Izuku didn’t put much thought to his next movements. It was second nature how the knives settled in his palms, rings and rope coiling at his elbows. It all fit so easily. Like they belonged there. The sharp edges felt like extensions of himself, the rope just another limb. A part of himself that he, hopefully, hadn’t fully forgotten.
Please work, Izuku silently prayed, then leapt into action.
He began to swing one of the knives in a circle, the other held still in his other hand. The nomu watched with an unaware blankness. Then, like a switch flipped, it threw itself at Izuku again. The force of a train bearing down on him, Izuku moved with instinct.
He lashed out with the already-spinning knife, throwing it with all the momentum it had built up, as he leapt to the side.
Izuku almost froze with shock when the knife hit true. It sunk in deep to the nomu’s shoulder, metal almost immediately glowing with the heat there. But it hit.
The nomu bellowed, a deep and disturbing sound. Izuku didn’t have more time to consider his success before he had to dodge again. He yanked the one kyoketsu-shoge back to himself as the nomu barreled by. The metal was still vaguely glowing.
Izuku breathed. In and out, quick and readying. He still knew how to use his weapons—that was good. Amazing news. Muscle memory had stuck around somehow.
Now he just had to use them, not think about it too hard, and try to remember what he did last time to activated whatever quirk he apparently had. Because something told him—some faint memory wisping to the surface—that knives weren’t going to be enough.
Izuku didn’t know how he knew that, but it felt right. His kyoketsu-shoge seemed tiny in comparison to the nomu. But his quirk—which he was still trying so very hard to not think about—had worked last time. It would probably work again.
If he knew how to activate it, that was.
Izuku threw his kyoketsu-shoge again. And again, they struck true. Both this time. Even as he dodged claws and rebounded off a wall, pulling them back to him and dragging longer wounds as he did, his movements felt natural. Like he had done this a thousand times before.
He probably had.
Izuku didn’t think about it too hard as he fought, letting his panic fall to the back of his mind. Swing and throw. Pull back, dodge, leap for all he was worth. Go up when he needed a second to breathe. The nomu didn’t seem inclined to follow him skywards, at least. Not when he fell right back down towards it.
There wasn’t a solid minute to focus though. A minute Izuku desperately needed. The fractions of moments weren’t enough for him to dig into his soul and find whatever quirk he had now. It wasn’t long enough to figure out how to make that strange electricity come back.
But he had to try.
Each throw, each pause the nomu took, he tried. He tried to claw something up, to think hard until something happened. To rifle around his barren brain in the hope of producing some kind of spark.
On one throw of his kyoketsu-shoge, the nomu got too close. A burst of fear lit behind his collarbone. Izuku snarled, wrenching himself away as fast as possible.
Sparks danced over his hands as he did.
It felt like energy writhing under his skin. Slippery—hard to hold and handle, let alone direct. Like Izuku had been handed an eel and told to aim it like a gun.
But the sparks were something, so he kept trying.
What had he done last time? Izuku tried to think as he leap back a step, swinging the kyoketsu-shoge out and stabbing the nomu’s arm. Last time he had been in danger of death, the nomu holding him by the neck. He had dug his gloves’ claws into it.
The nomu slashed at him with claws again, Izuku dropping to duck, slipping to the side.
Maybe he had to touch it?
It was all he had, so it was worth a shot.
Izuku jumped back up, sidestepping another slash. Skirted it until he was right at the nomu’s side. Fire was an ever-present danger, but especially this close. Where was dim, where wouldn’t he get burnt?
The back of the arm that had just slashed at him wasn’t as on-fire as the rest of the body. Izuku took the opportunity without more thought. He slapped a hand onto the charcoal flesh, trying not to grimace at the heat already rising through his hand, and tried to dig his nails in.
Lightning bolts exploded from where he touched. Hungry tendrils glowed green over the nomu’s arm, overtaking the coal-glowing light it had. It made a sound, low and pained, as it moved to swat at Izuku.
The nomu seemed slower now, and Izuku felt like he’d just hit a sugar rush.
Green sparked off his hands and up his arms. Izuku dodged, jumped up with one kyoketsu-shoge flying, and lunged forward.
It would work. It had to. Hand outstretched, he leapt towards the nomu again.
He didn’t actually get that far.
A sense of impending danger had his hair standing on end. It had Izuku changing course, launching himself backwards with one foot. The quickest direction change he could manage.
A good thing he did too, because the next second something—someone—hit the nomu like a falling meteorite.
The impact shook the ground. The nomu left a crater in the alleyway concrete. It twitched, but didn’t move much more. Not for now, at least.
But standing on it, rising to their feet in the clearing cloud of dust, was an angel.
Izuku felt something in him shake loose.
He stared, waiting for the dust to clear more. Even in the settling he could make out a silvery pair of wings, outstretched but beginning to fold back to rest, and the fading engine-glow of a jetpack built into them. The shine of a visor could almost be mistaken for a halo.
When the dust cleared a bit more, the figure straightened. Izuku could see what looked almost like a space suit now. Slightly slimmer, easier to move in, created for shock absorption instead of surviving the vacuum of space. Over the person’s chest was what looked like armor. A bulletproof chestplate—silver in color, to match the wings. Their boots were obviously designed for shock absorption too, almost like Izuku’s. Necessary, he imagined, since they had fallen from the sky like that.
The cloud dissipated a bit more, and with it came a voice.
“Izuku!?”
His…name?
They—she, he could guess now—sounded so relieved. On the verge of tears from it. Relieved and happy and like grief had been lifted from shoulders too heavy to actually hold up hope.
Emotions flooded Izuku, immediately drowning him in their riptide. The air was wheezed from his lungs as he stumbled on suddenly shaking legs.
Love boiled up behind his ribs and seared itself into his heart. Platonic, he vaguely registered through trying to suck in a breath, but something fierce. The sheer loyalty that felt like it was beginning to claw its way out of his skin had teeth. It dug into his lungs, suffusing every breath. He inhaled and it was thick through with love that was trying to clog his throat like heavy humidity.
He knew them, Izuku realized. He knew her.
But who was this? Who had he known that made him feel like he would snarl and bite and protect until they were safe?
Who had he known that made Izuku feel like going to war was worth it, if it kept them alive?
Pressure expanded behind his eyes, filling his skull like a lead balloon. Izuku shook and searched for the nearest wall. He had already forgotten enough, he didn’t need to add a concussion to it. Not if he could help it.
It was only a moment between his name being called and the emotions tearing into his body like painted dogs on prey. A moment, and then the person was stepping through the haze they had created.
Wide green eyes met teary brown, and Izuku was pretty sure he blacked out from the memories suddenly breaking their way into his skull.
There was another monster.
Izuku grit his teeth behind his Jackrabbit mask as he leapt into the air, dodging a hunk of road the thing had thrown. This one had some kind of earthquake quirk. It had left the street in disarranged chunks of jagged concrete and exposed rebar. One building had collapsed. Mostly empty, thankfully, but-
Jackrabbit was the only one on scene.
It had collapsed mid-fight, and he couldn’t disengage to go help. Even just distracting the monster was taking all of his energy and focus. It was faster than it should be, being that big. Double Izuku’s height at minimum. And strong.
A swung of its arm had torn out half a wall a minute ago. Izuku hadn’t risked getting caught by it much after that.
But still, he had to do something. Until a sturdier hero showed up, if nothing else. Izuku would survive.
Hopefully.
No—he had survived these things before. In Hosu. Mutated and twisted into an approximation of what used to be a person. Jackrabbit hadn’t faced them for long one-on-one, getting distracted by Stain, but he had still seem them. Still survived them.
This one was different, but still similar enough. Just another villain. One he could go all-out against, since it didn’t seem to be exactly…human. Not anymore, at least.
Izuku pulled out his kyoketsu-shoge and started swinging.
He would survive. Whatever happened, he would survive. Until heroes showed up, until the sun rose. It had barely set, the sky still an inky blue on the horizon, the streetlights having only just turned on. Most of the nearby ones were uprooted now, laying on their sides. Lightbulbs shattered. Another thing to worry about: broken glass.
But he would survive. Jackrabbit always did.
Albeit that was usually by running from cops, but still.
He lashed out with kyoketsu-shoge, both at once. The monster roared when they hit true, and the ground shook. It split open in jagged ripples. Izuku leapt out of range, pulling his knives with him. He landed on a balcony across the street.
A breath, deep and steading, was all he allowed himself. Then he was leaping back down again, putting force behind his plummet as he aimed for the monster’s side.
Something gave beneath his feet, a crack he felt echo up his own bones, but it didn’t seem to effect the monster much. Not with how it reached back to swat at Izuku. His immediate launch off the monster’s side was all that saved him.
Pebbles rolled as his feet skidded on the cement, broken up as it was. But he stayed standing. Izuku was unharmed still, his kyoketsu-shoge ready to swing again.
That was when a blur dashed in, legs glowing with engine exhaust, and wound up a kick at the thing. A second later ice rushed in, freezing it still. If only for a moment.
Izuku stood straighter, and breathed just a bit easier. Backup was here. Not only that, but Shouto was here. And Iida—Ingenium. His classmate.
Someone else too, but Izuku only realized that when she almost crashed into him, expression set in heroic ferocity.
“Wait wait wait!” he yelped, jumping back a few feet. She followed, swinging at him with precise, vicious punches. “I’m not a villain!”
“Then who are you?” she snarled, still swinging at him.
“Jackrabbit! Sho- Triple Point and Ingenium know me!”
She paused, holding for just a moment. Her glare was suspicious. Only now did Izuku place who she was.
Uraraka—Uravity. She was in 1-A, now 2-A, at UA. Shouto’s classmate. Had a gravity quirk, liked pink. Confused Shouto with her intensity sometimes. Scared him once by being on the ceiling. Izuku had immediately liked her on principal alone.
That like was slightly dampened with how she looked ready to arrest him right now, but still.
“Look,” Izuku said, “you can worry about it later. But you’re a rescue hero, right? That building collapsed and I’ve been busy fighting that thing. Can you- can you go-“
Uraraka stared for a moment as he tried to choke out the words “check for survivors.” The lump in his throat strangled the words. Prevented them from leaving, in his guilt for letting it happen. There was nothing he could have done, but being unable to help cut something deep.
“Fine," she bit out.
She turned and ran, leaping over debris like she was floating. Izuku watched for one second and no more. Once that second passed he was off again, leaping and diving for the monster and his friends.
Ingenium wound up an armored kick. It had the same effect as Izuku’s had, which was to say barely any. The thing didn’t even flinch, just bellowed, and slammed a fist into the ground. Everything rocked. Izuku stayed on his feet by grace and good balance alone.
Iida wasn’t quite so lucky. Izuku moved without thinking, scooping up the taller boy and jumping out of range. The monster’s fist slammed into the cement where he’d been a moment later.
Izuku set Iida back on his feet. Once he was steady, all the work of a half-second, he was off again. Leaping and slamming into the beast feet-first, the force breaking something underneath again, kyoketsu-shoge also swinging and stabbing.
He wondered if this thing could even be incapacitated. If it could even be killed. Because it hadn’t so much as flinched yet.
Another figure slammed into it while he threw out the morose thought.
Uraraka snarled as came down with a pipe in hand, swinging it downwards like a smashing bat. The way it smacked into the monster spoke of weight behind it. Way more than a pipe should have.
Gravity manipulation, Izuku belatedly remembered. That was her quirk.
Uravity disengaged, dropping the crumpled pipe and landing somewhere near Izuku with her float-like jumping. She had her fists up. Ready to swing. He didn’t look at her for long, eyes on the threat, but it was enough to note the action.
“Other rescue heroes are here,” she reported, though to Izuku or the other two was unknown to him. “They’re clearing the building. I’m here to help.”
Izuku nodded, spending a moment to locate Shouto and Iida again. Shouto was trying to freeze the thing to the ground. Iida was running in once more, aiming a kick at one of the monster’s legs.
Another quake hit them, tearing the ground up like claws had been scored across the cement. Izuku waited until it stopped before he jumped.
Uravity leapt with him.
His kick connected below hers, her hands slamming into the monster’s back. The thing swung at them, but it was slower now. Heavier.
He could definitely work with that.
The two of them fought in tandem, distracting and hitting where they could. Shouto froze the monster whenever he had the chance. He used fire when he got close, even if it didn’t seem to do much either. Same with Iida’s engine-powered kicks.
Uraraka huffed each time she hit the beast, frustrated her quirk wasn’t doing enough. It got slower, but didn’t stop. Izuku continued to cover her. At least his knives were doing something. Too little, but something.
They both backed off for a moment, letting the other two jump in. The darkness meant Izuku couldn’t see how the monster was faring. Just that it was moving, still alive, and attacking his friends.
“I have an idea,” Uravity suddenly said to him. “Can you get me above it?”
Izuku immediately nodded. “Let’s go.”
Uraraka tapped her own arm, then climbed onto his back. She weighed nothing. Literally, she was holding onto him so she didn’t float away.
There was no time to question whatever plan she had. Izuku jumped, flying through the air, their apex directly above the monster.
Then, they began to fall.
Uraraka let go, and immediately plummeted passed Izuku. She cut through the air, falling like a stone, so fast Izuku got to watch as she slammed into the monster’s back. And it- it fell. Like the gravity had been too great for its limbs to hold it up.
Uravity screamed as she held her hands down, pink electricity flaring out around her.
Izuku altered his trajectory a bit, not wanting to get in the way of that. The monster began sinking into the ground. Concrete cracked, buckling under whatever weight the thing now was. He landed as Uravity’s scream stopped, hoarsely crackling out as it left her throat.
The monster stopped moving.
Uraraka was kneeling on its back, head bowed and breathing heavy. Pink lightning bolts still arced off her in flickers.
Everything fell silent. The street, the settling dust—all of it. Just—quiet. Besides their heavy breathing, and weighted, waiting stares at the no-longer-moving monster. They watched with bated breath for it to try and get back up.
It didn’t.
Izuku laughed then, breathless and adrenaline-high. Uravity wasn’t far behind. They dissolved into stomach-aching laughter. Izuku caught her as she stumbled off the monster. Both propped the other up as they leaned into each other, ecstatic about surviving.
“You know,” Uraraka giggled, “I could go for a drink right now. Wanna come?”
“I would kill for some matcha.”
“Sweet, let’s go.”
Iida's sputtering about proper procedure followed them as they escaped the scene. Not that Jackrabbit had to worry about that. Shouto and Iida had it handled though—evidenced by Shouto’s thumbs up behind Iida’s back—so Izuku hared off with Uraraka hitching a weightless ride.
They must have made quite a sight. Both of them were covered in sweat and concrete dust, bangs clinging to their foreheads, grins sharp with adrenaline. Izuku still had his mask on. Uraraka was a decently well-known hero student. The poor cashier at the first open boba place they found looked about ready to implode.
But they sat on a rooftop now, Izuku with his matcha and Uravity with a milk tea. He was still Jackrabbit, still hidden behind his mask, but he had pushed it up to drink. Just enough that he had to trust Uravity to watch their backs. A gesture that she took with both hands, almost reverent, as they talked.
He asked how what she done with the monster at the end. She cheerfully informed him that she increased gravity until it got squished under its own weight. Izuku nodded, impressed. It wasn’t the worst thing he had seen. And she had kept them all alive, so.
“You did a good job,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that, but still. Thank you.”
Uraraka bumped his shoulder with her own. “We both did good.”
“Yeah.” Izuku’s smile softened. “We did. We make a pretty good team, huh?”
She nodded decisively. “Ingenium is going to get migraines about us meeting.”
“Oh definitely.”
They both laughed, and Uravity launched into a story about Ingenium from their first year. Something about ill-advised skates and a peer-pressured Iida. Izuku, in turn, threw Shouto under the bus with a few stories of his own.
Hours passed in the blink of an eye. Before they knew it, it was deep in the night, and Iida was calling to tiredly tell them Uraraka should come back. People were thinking Jackrabbit had kidnapped her. Funny, but not something they wanted to encourage.
They both headed home with a smile and a new friend.
He found her on a rooftop. Their rooftop, specifically. The one they had chosen after first meeting. The one Izuku had taken his mask off on, revealing himself. The one she had punched him on because she had just met Izuku the week before that, but had known Jackrabbit for a over a month by then.
They always met there. Whenever both of them were out and about, they sat there. Sometimes with drinks, sometimes with food. Always with a conversation.
This time wasn’t different, necessarily, but it was heavier. Izuku knew that the second he touched down on the concrete roof. Ochako had asked to meet here, and the very moment he spotted her he knew something was wrong.
Izuku lightly dropped next to her, silently offering his shoulder to lean on once he sat. She took it without hesitation. Warm and familiar.
The first thing she said was, “I’ve never told you about my quirk.”
Izuku hummed, tilting his head to lean on hers. He knew about her quirk. He knew it had changed at some point after she’d gotten into UA, before they had met. Knew she’d had to all but relearn a part of herself.
Somehow, he knew she meant none of that.
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I don’t know what to do.” Her voice cracked with tears, and Izuku immediately slung an arm around her shoulders, holding his friend. Ochako leaned into it like a moth to flame. “And you can keep a secret.”
Izuku huffed lightly in amusement. He was a vigilante, of course he kept secrets. Many of them.
He had a feeling one more was about to be added to the list though.
“I used to just cancel gravity,” Ochako told him in a storyteller’s tone. “That’s- that’s what my quirk was. Zero gravity. But then…”
“It changed?”
Ochako hummed, making a so-so noise. “Kind of. I…All Might noticed me. He…Izuku no one can know about this, ok?”
“Of course.”
She took a deep breath. He felt it against his side, how her ribs expanded and her lungs shook. None of it helped when the words left her mouth.
“All Might’s quirk can be passed down.”
Oh.
“And he…he gave it to me.”
Oh.
“That’s when my quirk changed,” she continued. “Instead of just canceling it out, I could change gravity. And some other stuff, but- but that’s the main thing. I have All Might’s quirk…”
There were so many dots connecting. Explanations filled themselves in on the inside of Izuku’s mind, theories and ideas being strung together in a semi-coherent line. All the times he’d wondered—all the scraps about All Might’s quirk he had ever gathered—and things began to make sense.
A quirk that could be passed on. Ok, Izuku had figured that had to exist somewhere at some point. But if it had never been noticed, then the properties of it probably changed with each person. Super strength in All Might, but a quirk change—maybe just a power boost—in anyone else. Plus whatever “other stuff” meant.
“Its name is One for All,” Ochako said softly, and the sheer power in those words brought something heavy to Izuku’s chest. “But- but when it was created, it wasn’t…it wasn’t alone. The original quirk was just the ability to transfer it to another person, but…the original holder, his brother…he could take and give quirks. His name was All for One.”
(Something in Izuku shook with a familiar, burning kind of hatred. Where had he heard that name before?)
“He gave the original holder a power accumulation quirk. He- I think he expected it to make him…docile, I think. Because people can’t handle multiple quirks. But he fought back, and—that’s how One for All got passed on. It’s always gone to heroes trying to stop All for One, because he stayed alive. A villain. A bad one.”
Izuku hummed, letting her know he was still listening. It made sense. Someone like that—in the dawn of quirks? It wouldn’t be out of the question for him to find a quirk that stopped him from aging.
It could have done so much good, he idly thought. But of course the power had corrupted the holder. So much influence at one’s fingertips…it was easy to see how it could be abused.
“All Might was the first one strong enough to actually kill him,” Ochako whispered. She pressed harder into his shoulder. “He killed him. He thought he killed All for One.”
The “he didn’t though” hung in the air, silent. Heavy. It smothered like smoke, weighed like the suffocating press of tungsten laid over their ribs.
“All Might thinks he’s behind the monster that attacked him last week,” she admitted. “It had multiple quirks.”
“Like the ones in Hosu, and the thing when we met…”
“Yeah.”
They were quiet for a bit, just processing. Mainly Izuku. He held his friend tighter and looked out over the city. His city.
“All Might said he chose me because he wanted One for All to have a peaceful end,” Ochako whispered. “It’s getting so powerful that it’s…it’s dangerous to pass on. So he wanted it to end with a rescue hero. He wanted it to end with me. But now All for One may be back, and he- Izuku’s he’s-“
Ochako choked on a sob. He could do nothing but try and soothe her as the words left her mouth and sent something freezing down his vertebrae.
“He’s killed everyone else that had One for All,” she cried. “And n-now he’s back and I- I don’t think I can defeat him. All Might couldn’t, s-so what can I do? What chance do I have?”
The love rose first, in Izuku’s chest. Fierce and gutting. The urge to protect—so vicious Izuku swore he had grown a new set of teeth—came with it. If he looked down there would be claws on his hands. Or there should be, in his mind. Something useful to protect his people. His friend.
Izuku would trade his beating heart to keep her safe. He knew that. He knew it like he knew his blood was red and that he would bleed for her. For his friends that had become his family. He knew it like he knew the sun would rise and she would be alive tomorrow.
He would have fought Endeavor for Shouto and Dabi. He had risked everything for Hitoshi. So for Ochako?
Izuku knew it like he knew he couldn’t give up being a hero; with the type of fear-defying determination had made a home in his soul, beating behind his ribcage. A living part of himself that took what he’d just heard and refused.
He would take care of it.
“You’ll be ok,” he said softly, holding Ochako tight. “We’ll figure it out.”
She nodded, reassured, if only for the moment. Izuku continued to hold her.
He was no hero. Izuku didn’t usually fight in the daylight, or face villains directly. He ambushed. He ran on jackrabbit feet from flashing lights and slipped around heroes with a hare’s grace.
Jackrabbit was no hero. He was no All Might. But he had knives and a vast, unfathomable ocean of determination to keep his friend safe.
It would do.
And, well, if this “All for One” person happened to be connected to the monsters he’d begun investigating, it would certainly be a bonus.
Izuku opened his eyes, blinking away the bright spots of stars and blackened edges, to another yell of his name. A yelp, really. Worried and edging into panicked.
Anger was flaring up behind his ribs, baying for blood. All for One’s, specifically.
He stumbled until he was holding onto a wall, leaning onto it the weight his legs couldn’t take. Just until his vision cleared. Just until he could breathe. Rapid footsteps approached before he got to that point.
“Izuku?”
He looked up, and saw Ochako. His friend. His friend. A friend he’d move heaven and hell for. The one that had spurred his search for All for One. And as far as he could tell, the one that had given him the villain’s name.
He was behind the nomus. He was why they appeared, and why they disappeared, always teleported away before anyone could investigate them. Dead or alive. Gone before they could be looked at too closely.
But Izuku had. He had been trying to find them first, just a point on a to-do list of investigation. Where they had come from, what they were. And that had led him to All for One.
It had led him to…now. Somehow.
But he had also done it for Ochako. To protect her from All for One. Because if Izuku faced him, killed him, then she wouldn’t have to worry. She could be the rescue hero she deserved to be, without the threat of a supervillain hanging over her head.
He loved her, fiercely and with an abundance of trust. He loved her enough to send himself into hell to keep her out of it.
It hadn’t worked though. And now he was here, only a few memories of her playing in his head, but the love still burning its way through his insides. Loyalty still screamed its way through his heart and back to his lungs, sinking into his capillaries and escaping like steam from his mouth.
More memories waited beneath the surface. Softer, quieter ones. Hanging out in Shouto’s room, all four of them squished together, one a face he still couldn’t recall. Boba runs they dragged each other on as a break from studying. Helping her settle on a final hero costume. Her jetpack, her wings, for flying around without gravity applying to herself.
Dinner at his house, with a mother whose face he couldn’t remember, but surrounded by his friends. Laughter that made his chest feel light. Spotting each other on patrol and waving, jumping beside each other if they had the chance.
Hazy, unclear memories—but there. Enough that Izuku could tell how much he loved them. How much he adored them all.
So when Ochako edged closer, careful, he didn’t move away. He- he trusted her, right? Even though she was a hero, and he was a vigilante?
Right?
“Something’s wrong,” Ochako said softly. Izuku didn’t know if it was to him or not. “But you’re- you’re alive, Izuku…”
The words tore themselves from his throat, croaky and hoarse. Strained through the memories taking an icepick to his brain. “O-Ochako?”
She paused, looking at him. Izuku was still blinking through the spots in his vision.
“You’re not ok,” she observed, soft but knowing. “You…you know me, right?”
She stepped closer, cautious but hopeful. There was so much relief still in her gaze. It was crushing. It was freedom dripping from cinnamon-brown eyes. So much grief that hadn’t been needed, had been lifted, because Izuku wasn’t dead.
But he was. Every part that mattered, for all intents and purposes, was dead. Gone. Izuku had memories, but none of them really felt like his. He was missing so many pieces. So many parts of these people he knew, these people he loved, that it would make little difference if he changed his name and lived as someone else. In his mind, at least.
But he loved them. He trusted them. Izuku trusted this person with kind eyes and jetpack-wings, who he had gone after All for One for.
So even with turmoil clinging to his insides, he didn’t run.
He took in Ochako. Every feature he hadn’t been able to recall moments ago. Committed them to memory. Her brown eyes, the way her hair was in a low ponytail, longer than it had been in his memory of when they met. The way she was approaching slowly, like she was trying to not startle him.
She could help him, couldn’t she? She had known him. Been his friend. Maybe…
Izuku didn’t get more time to think about it. On his next blink, Toga was all but slamming into him. She grabbed his arm and pulled, spurring him into a run, the two of them now sprinting down the alleyway and towards whatever exit Toga chose.
“Sorry!” she called over the sound of their pounding footsteps. “But that was a hero, Bunny boy!”
“But- I knew her!”
“Yeah, and she’s still a hero! Even the pretty ones chase vigilantes, silly!”
Toga laughed, strained and breathless. There was concrete dust and soot covering her. She had been helping people out of the building, Izuku realized. While he fought the nomu.
He glanced back, just for a moment.
Ochako wasn’t running after them, but she had her hand raised. Like she was watching them go, but couldn’t quite stop herself from reaching for him. For her friend.
They ducked behind a corner, and Izuku focused on running.