Chapter Text
He was happy—truly happy—for the first time in what felt like years.
The doctor wasn’t near him, barking orders through the speakers, forcing him to obey commands he barely understood. The silence was strange, almost peaceful, and he clung to it like a secret treasure.
The doctor was never kind. Izuku knew that much. He knew that he had been with the man for a long time, though the exact measure of time escaped him—days and nights blended into a grey haze inside the lab. Still, he
knew one thing with absolute certainty: the doctor was proud of him. Proud because Izuku’s body could hold multiple quirks without breaking apart, without melting into the unstable chaos that claimed the others.
They had tried to make more like him.
Others without quirks, others of his age.
All of them failed.
The memory of those screams still lingered in the back of his head, muffled but unforgettable.
Now, the ground trembled. The walls shook. Alarms screamed in red and white. Somewhere far down the corridor, a siren broke into static, drowned by the echo of explosions.
The facility was under attack.
Izuku knew what that meant.
Heroes.
He had seen them before—only through security monitors, flashes of capes and uniforms blurred by smoke. The doctor always muttered about them, especially the troublesome ones. Those were the ones Izuku was meant to watch, to restrain, to destroy if necessary.
But right now, the doctor wasn’t here to give him orders.
And that changed everything.
For once, the world felt wide open.
He turned his gaze toward the other Nomus in the chamber—empty eyes, slack mouths, creatures that breathed but did not live. They shifted aimlessly, waiting for commands that would never come. He didn’t hate them. How could he? They were like him—only less lucky. Less awake.
When the nearest one twitched, Izuku reacted on instinct. His muscles surged, bones stretching, skin tightening as he grew—two meters, then three. The floor cracked beneath his feet as he reached out, slamming one Nomu to the ground and restraining two others. His strength made the act effortless, almost casual.
When he was done, he shrank back down—half a meter tall, a small and agile shadow among the wreckage. The transition was smooth, practiced. His quirk of size manipulation was one of his oldest, one of the few he actually remembered having before the experiments. He wasn’t sure if that was true, but it felt like it.
He moved toward the exit, silent despite the chaos.
Freedom, for the first time, didn’t feel impossible.
He only needed to find a gap—a weakness in the walls, a door left open, anything that would let him out.
Then, like a whisper in his mind, the last order resurfaced:
“Observe the heroes most troublesome to combat. Restrict them if possible. Injure them if necessary.”
It wasn’t a command anymore. It was a memory.
But it gave him direction.
Outside, the air was cold. The night was painted in the colors of fire and ash. Smoke curled up from the laboratory’s ruins, and spotlights swept through the chaos.
Izuku crouched low, hiding behind a half-collapsed wall. His senses—sharper than human—caught movement below.
A man dressed in black.
A utility belt heavy with gear.
A scarf—no, a capture weapon—wrapped around his shoulders, flowing with each step like liquid shadow.
He knew him. Or rather, he recognized him from the doctor’s files.
Aizawa Shouta. Eraserhead.
A hero feared for neutralizing quirks with just a glance.
One of the “problematic” heroes.
Izuku followed him from a distance, careful to stay out of sight. His steps were light, deliberate, and he adjusted his size to keep quiet—just small enough to slip through gaps, just large enough to see over the debris.
There were more heroes nearby—voices carried through the smoke, giving orders, coordinating evacuations. But Izuku didn’t want to switch targets now. Something about the black-clad man drew his focus.
He climbed onto a half-destroyed roof, crouching at its edge. From there, he could see everything—the burning lab, the heroes moving through the wreckage, and in the distance, a group of pro heroes surrounding someone.
The doctor.
They had captured him. Izuku could tell by the way the figure struggled, the way his lab coat flared as they restrained his arms. The sight should have made him feel something—rage, fear, loyalty—but it didn’t. There was only a strange emptiness inside, and beneath that, a fragile thread of relief.
The man who had created him was finally powerless.
Izuku’s attention drifted back to Aizawa. The hero moved with quiet precision, scanning every direction, his scarf coiling like a living thing. Even without knowing him, Izuku could sense the exhaustion in his movements—the kind of weariness that came from too many battles, too many responsibilities.
He wanted to see more.
So he watched.
And for the first time, it wasn’t because someone ordered him to.
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Eraserhead felt uneasy.
He was trained to stay calm under pressure—chaos and danger were constants in his life—but something about this mission put him on edge. Maybe it was the silence after the battle, or the lingering stench of smoke and chemicals that hung thick in the air. Maybe it was the building itself: cold metal walls, flickering lights, the faint hum of machinery that refused to die.
They had caught the doctor. That should’ve been a relief.
It wasn’t.
After handing the man over to the restraining unit, Aizawa moved deeper into the facility. His boots made little sound against the cracked tiles as he approached one of the few rooms still untouched by the chaos. The air inside was colder, heavy with the smell of rust and decay.
He froze in the doorway.
Every Nomu in the room—at least a dozen—was already restrained.
Some were tangled in what looked like metal pipes or thick cables torn from the walls. Others were wrapped in what resembled vines or steel tendrils that had fused with their bodies. They weren’t moving. Not even twitching.
Aizawa’s first thought was that another hero had gotten here before him. But the damage didn’t match any capture method he recognized. These restraints weren’t neat or precise—they were violent, desperate. As if someone had done this in a hurry, using whatever was within reach.
He reached for his communicator.
“This is Eraserhead. I found a containment chamber. Multiple Nomus, type similar to the one from USJ. They’re restrained—unknown method. Possibly organic and metallic combined. Sending coordinates.”
Static crackled in his ear as the operator responded. They were reorganizing hero teams for transport and elimination protocols. He was told to hold position until reinforcements arrived.
He scanned the room again, methodical. His eyes flicked from one Nomu to the next, analyzing the damage, memorizing the environment.
That’s when he noticed it.
In the far corner—just beside a pile of shattered glass and bent steel—something small shifted.
A bush?
Aizawa blinked. There shouldn’t be any plants in this place. The nearest vegetation was outside the facility, and the growth here was too deliberate, too green. He narrowed his eyes, activating his quirk for an instant—nothing changed. It wasn’t using an active ability.
Still, it moved.
He turned his attention briefly to one of the larger Nomus sprawled against the wall—its chest cavity crushed inward, its limbs bent at unnatural angles. Judging by the wounds, it might’ve been the teleportation model or a replication type. Whatever had fought it had done so with sheer brute force.
The small “bush” twitched again.
His instincts flared.
He reported the anomaly through his earpiece:
“Possible small Nomu sighted in the containment chamber. No visual aggression yet. Keeping visual contact.”
The response came quickly this time.
“Understood, Eraserhead. Evacuation team inbound. Please exit the area. We’ll handle the elimination once containment units arrive. Do not engage.”
He didn’t like it, but he followed orders. Losing the doctor wasn’t an option.
He took one last look around, memorizing every angle of the room—the cables, the motionless Nomus, the faint trail of dust leading toward the corner where the bush had been. Then he stepped out, closing the reinforced door behind him.
The corridor outside was empty.
Or so he thought.
As he walked, the faint scritch, scritch of movement echoed behind him. Subtle. Barely there. But impossible to ignore.
He didn’t turn immediately. Years of experience taught him better than that. Instead, he slowed his pace, keeping his head tilted slightly, pretending to check his communicator while watching the shadows in the reflective glass beside him.
There it was—something small, creeping along the wall. It stayed just far enough behind to avoid direct view, but its silhouette flickered whenever it crossed the light.
Aizawa frowned.
It was following him.
By the time he reached the exit, other heroes had gathered outside—officers, medics, and rescue units coordinating containment. The doctor was already being escorted into a reinforced vehicle, shouting threats and nonsense about “his work” and “his perfect creation.”
Aizawa barely paid him any mind.
His focus was behind him.
The “bush” was still there.
It had followed him out of the building, moving in quick, darting bursts whenever no one was looking directly at it. When someone turned, it froze—like a wild animal pretending to be part of the scenery.
At least three officers noticed it. One of them pointed, lifting his weapon.
“Sir, there’s movement behind you! Is that—?”
“Hold fire,” Aizawa said sharply. His scarf loosened slightly, ready to strike if needed. “It’s following me, but it hasn’t attacked.”
The officers exchanged uncertain glances. The creature—or whatever it was—shifted again, pressing itself low against the ground. Then, as if deciding that hiding wasn’t enough, it began to climb.
Straight up the side of a nearby building.
Its movements defied logic—fluid, silent, almost graceful. It didn’t leap or grasp. It simply moved, as if the laws of gravity didn’t apply to it.
Gasps spread among the officers.
“What the hell—?”
“It’s scaling the wall!”
“That’s a Nomu, right? Should we—”
“Negative,” Aizawa interrupted. His tone was calm but firm. “Keep your weapons trained, but do not engage. I repeat, do not engage.”
He tilted his head back slightly, following its ascent. Moonlight caught a glimpse of green—faint, barely visible beneath the shifting surface of the “bush.” Not metal, not vines… hair?
For a brief second, Aizawa could’ve sworn he saw a shape—small, humanoid, maybe even childlike—before it melded back into shadow and vanished across the rooftop.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t behaving like any Nomu he’d encountered before.
He felt a prickle at the back of his neck, that familiar sense that he was being watched. Not hunted, exactly—just observed.
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He was free.
Truly free.
For the first time in… he didn’t even know how long, he wasn’t under the doctor’s control. There were no needles, no orders, no cold hands tightening metal restraints around his arms. No voice echoing through the speakers, demanding obedience.
Only silence.
And a hero to watch.
The black-clad man—Eraserhead—was easy to follow. He didn’t seem to notice the small presence tailing him from rooftop to rooftop. Maybe he did notice, and simply didn’t care. Either way, it didn’t matter. Watching him was part of the last order he had ever received… and now it was the only purpose he understood.
But watching wasn’t all he wanted to do anymore.
Hovering above the cracked roof, the creature who used to be “just another Nomu” found his thoughts drifting. For the first time, they weren’t about fighting or surviving. They were about himself.
He didn’t have a name.
He couldn’t remember one.
The doctor never called him anything beyond “Subject Delta-7” or “Prototype.” Sometimes “my masterpiece,” when the man was particularly pleased. But those words weren’t names—they were cages made of syllables.
Now, he wanted something different.
Something his.
He thought of colors first. Most Nomus were shades of purple or black, skin warped and ugly. He was different—his skin had a greenish tint, faint and strange under the moonlight. But “Green” felt too obvious. Too shallow.
He tilted his head, floating slightly higher as the wind tugged at his loose clothing. He remembered the doctor once calling another creation “Kurogiri”—something elegant, like a name from another world. He had only seen that one once, when they were adjusting the strange, mist-covered being in one of the labs. The memory stuck because it was the only time he had ever seen a Nomu treated with… respect.
“Kurogiri,” he whispered softly, testing how words felt on his tongue. The sound vanished quickly into the wind. He wanted one too. A name that belonged to him.
He tried to think—digging through the mess of fragments and half-memories buried deep inside his head. Somewhere in that fog, a sound flickered. A syllable.
Zu.
He didn’t know what it meant.
A name? A nickname? A code?
It didn’t matter. The sound was warm somehow. Familiar.
“Zu,” he murmured again, the word vibrating gently in his chest. It made him feel something—something that wasn’t fear or confusion. Maybe it was joy. Maybe it was something close to hope.
But “Zu” was too short. Too small.
He needed more.
“Zuzu,” he decided aloud. “That’s better.”
He smiled, though the expression felt foreign on his face. Muscles unused to softness trembled slightly, but he didn’t care.
He had a name now. Zuzu.
It didn’t matter if it came from a broken memory or if he made it up. It was his. And that made it real.
Below him, the hero moved again. Eraserhead walked toward a group of vehicles at the edge of the ruins—police lights flashing red and blue across the darkened street. Another man was waiting there, wearing a long coat and a wide-brimmed hat.
Zuzu tilted his head, watching from above. The sight puzzled him.
“Why wear that?” he whispered to himself, drifting closer. “Is that… a kind of armor? Or a sign? Maybe the hat means something?”
He remembered the doctor’s strange obsession with his white lab coats—always spotless, always buttoned up to the throat. The other Nomus, if they wore anything at all, had only been given scraps of shorts or restraints. But Kurogiri had worn a suit. That had meant something too, he was sure of it.
Clothing was strange.
He looked down at his own. The fabric clung loosely around his form, stretching and shrinking when he changed size. It was one of the few practical things the doctor ever gave him—“adjustable material,” the man had called it, so his transformations wouldn’t shred the cloth each time. He wondered if that counted as kindness. Probably not.
Still, he liked having clothes. It made him feel… less like a monster.
He lowered himself slightly, floating just high enough to keep out of sight. The scarfed hero was speaking to the man in the coat—words too faint to catch, but their tone was calm, steady. The kind of voice used to control chaos.
Zuzu admired that.
He didn’t understand the world of heroes, but he could tell this one wasn’t like the loud ones who screamed attacks and slogans on the screens the doctor watched. This man was quiet, watchful. His movements reminded Zuzu of the predators he’d once seen on old security footage—patient, precise, dangerous but restrained.
And yet, there was something gentle about him too.
Maybe that was why Zuzu hadn’t left.
He drifted from roof to roof as the heroes began to move, lights flashing, voices rising in the night. He felt the pull of the wind against his skin, the thrum of power in his limbs. He could grow, shrink, lift himself into the air with ease—it all came naturally, like breathing.
For the first time, he wasn’t using his abilities because someone told him to.
He was using them because he wanted to.
He laughed softly, the sound strange in his throat. “Zuzu,” he said again, just to hear it.
The stars above blinked faintly behind the smoke. The city stretched out before him—endless, alive, filled with color and sound. So much to see. So much to learn.
He didn’t know where he came from, or what he used to be. Maybe he had been human once. Maybe not. But tonight, that didn’t matter.
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By the time Eraserhead had been cleared by the medics, the chaos around the ruined facility had begun to fade into controlled order.
The doctor—sullen, restrained, still muttering about “perfect creations”—was already being transported to Tartarus. The air smelled like ozone and burnt metal. Smoke drifted lazily upward, blurring the searchlights that cut across the sky.
Aizawa rolled his shoulders, his capture weapon shifting against the back of his neck. The burns along his arms stung, but nothing serious. He was fine. At least, physically.
He exhaled slowly and turned toward the patrol cars parked near the outer perimeter. That’s when he saw it again.
The Nomu.
The small one.
The strange one.
It was perched at the edge of a rooftop just beyond the police barricade, shifting slightly, like a curious animal caught between hiding and approaching. The light from the vehicles reflected faintly off its greenish skin and loose clothing. It wasn’t trying to attack. It wasn’t even trying to run.
It was… following him.
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. Several officers had already noticed it—he could tell by their tense stances and the way a few had their weapons half-raised, waiting for an order that didn’t come. Two Pro Heroes stood nearby as backup, murmuring uncertainly to each other.
He raised a hand to stop them.
“Don’t shoot,” he said firmly. “It’s been following me since the operation ended. It hasn’t shown aggression.”
He started walking toward the nearest patrol, where a familiar figure leaned against the hood of a car—detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, clipboard in hand, his expression somewhere between exhaustion and skepticism.
“Shouta,” Naomasa greeted, pushing off the car. “You look like hell.”
“I’ve been worse,” Aizawa replied dryly. His gaze flicked briefly to the small Nomu still hovering in the distance. “We have a situation.”
Naomasa frowned. “Another Nomu?”
“Yes. But this one’s… different.”
That earned him a raised eyebrow. Aizawa gestured subtly toward the creature. Naomasa followed his line of sight and squinted, taking in the small, half-crouched figure that seemed to be trying its best to look unthreatening.
“Is that a—?” he began, then paused. “That’s not what I expected. It’s smaller than the others. Different color too. Greenish? Not purple?”
Aizawa nodded. “I’ve been watching it. It restrained the other Nomus before we arrived. It’s capable of independent movement and decision-making. Maybe even reasoning.”
Naomasa blinked. “You’re telling me this thing tied up its own kind?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s…” The detective let out a short, incredulous laugh. “That’s absurd, Shouta.”
“I know,” Aizawa said quietly. “But it’s true.”
For a moment, they both stood in silence, watching the creature. The Nomu—small, almost harmless-looking from this distance—tilted its head as if it could sense they were talking about it. It didn’t move closer, but it didn’t back away either. Its large, luminous eyes followed Aizawa with almost childlike curiosity.
Naomasa scribbled something onto his clipboard. “So, what’s your read? If it’s not hostile, should we call containment to handle it? Or do we let it be?”
Aizawa’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like either option.
“If we send in a team now, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later. It hasn’t attacked anyone. It’s… watching. Like it’s trying to understand us.”
Naomasa gave him a sidelong glance. “You think it’s intelligent?”
“I think it’s aware,” Aizawa replied. His tone was calm, measured—but something beneath it carried unease. “It reminds me of Kurogiri.”
That name made Naomasa’s expression harden. “You think it’s another one like him?”
“Possibly.”
They both knew what that meant. Kurogiri had been a Nomu unlike any other—self-aware, loyal, and disturbingly human. The thought that there could be another, wandering free and following heroes out of curiosity, sent a cold weight through the air between them.
Naomasa tapped the end of his pen against his clipboard. “If it’s that advanced, it could be dangerous. But if it’s capable of restraint…”
He trailed off. The unspoken implication hung there.
Aizawa sighed. “I’ll approach it. Slowly. If it attacks, I’ll neutralize it. If it doesn’t, we bring it in for evaluation. Preferably somewhere secure, but not hostile.”
Naomasa hesitated. “That’s risky.”
“Everything’s risky,” Aizawa replied, voice low. “But I’m not killing something that hasn’t done anything wrong. Not yet.”
The detective studied his friend’s face for a long moment, then nodded reluctantly. “All right. I’ll coordinate a fallback unit, just in case. Try not to get yourself killed.”
Aizawa almost smirked. “I’ll do my best.”
He started to move, but Naomasa’s voice stopped him.
“Hey—Shouta.”
He turned slightly.
Naomasa’s tone had changed. Softer. “You really think it could be like Kurogiri? That it…?”
Aizawa didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted toward the Nomu again, still crouched at the edge of the light, green and trembling slightly under the hum of the wind. It looked small—too small to be the product of pure design. Something about its posture, its hesitation, tugged at something in his chest he didn’t want to name.
“I hope not,” he said finally. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the night air like a blade. “I hope to god it wasn’t made from a child.”
The words hit hard. Naomasa froze, the pen slipping slightly in his hand. Two nearby officers exchanged horrified looks, their faces pale under the flashing lights.
For a moment, the entire world seemed to still.
Aizawa didn’t look away from the small creature. The idea alone—children being turned into monsters—made his stomach twist. But in this world, with the doctor’s kind of cruelty, it wasn’t impossible.
And that was what scared him most.
He exhaled slowly, pulling his scarf loose around his shoulders. “Set a perimeter. If it moves closer, let me handle it.”
Naomasa nodded grimly. “Understood.”
As Aizawa stepped forward, the night air felt colder, heavier. Each step brought him closer to the Nomu’s faint silhouette, the creature that watched him with wide, curious eyes and tilted its head as though it recognized him.