50 Chapter 50: Fall

Money Problems.

It was early in the morning and Izuku was at his desk. Doing paperwork.

Izuku liked to get up VERY early, so he could get stuff done before he had to make breakfast.

The paperwork he was dealing with now was actually not something directly related to the children(or the damages they cause). This particular mountain of paperwork he was doing was securing income.

Now one would think Izuku being a humble, selfless person who was also extremely rich, money would be the last thing on his mind.

However, Izuku had come to realize that most of his money came from the Government. He'd used up most of the "thanks for taking down the Yakuza" money by now, and his mother and the government were the only sources of income he had.

And both of those weren't necessarily reliable.

His mother's company was doing, ok, but that could take a turn for the worst at some point. And the Government was known for screwing people out of money. And while he was confident they couldn't do that to him, seeing that their contract said that as long as he was taking care of any O.P.C. they were to give him money, he'd heard tales of people more confident than him who'd had the rug pulled under them, and we're left with nothing.

Now compare that to the amount of money he would NEED to spend to keep this operation going, were the government to stop supporting him.

The cost of food, the cost of maintaining the MASSIVE house they live in, the cost of repairing the massive house they live in, the cost of fixing up the land around the house whenever it got too badly damaged. The cost of paying employees and maintaining their benefits(when he eventually got some.)

And The absolutely enormous cost that came with maintaining all the kid's special needs like Kiba's blood, Kei's visors, Sansan's chemicals, Netsu's fireproof clothes, and items, Fukunoko's special room, the antidotes to Fukunoko's gas, Kai's EVERYTHING.

And those costs only increased with each kid he took in.

But that was just the cost of the essentials. Izuku wanted to give these kids the best life he could, which included buying lots of video games, regular games, and sports equipment, and training equipment. On top of paying for all the stuff that came with each child's personal interests like Kiba's streaming equipment and Shiruku's dress-making equipment.

In summary, Izuku NEEDS to be rich, at all times for this to work.

So the more income, the better Izuku felt.

Of course, there was Eri's blood. While that money was also from the government, Izuku was much more confident that the government would continue. Why?

Because it saved them a crap ton of cash.

As mentioned, the cost of taking care of an O.P.C. was a lot, and level 2 O.P.C.'s even more so. Meaning unless Izuku ramped up the price for Eri's blood by three hundred percent, they'd be saving so, so much money.

Then there was the more conventional way rich people got richer. Investing. This, as expected, got Izuku a lot of money.

And then there were the more specialized means that involved his children.

Shiruku often had a lot of leftover webbing and rejected or unfinished clothes made out of those webs, which the spider girl considered to be trash. Most of the world did not share that opinion, as ever since people started getting quirks that allowed them to make webbing, clothes made out of those webs had become luxury items, which sold for very high prices. This combined with the overall rarity of the material, made it so selling large amounts of quirk-produced webbing, would make someone a very generous amount of cash. Of course, Izuku asked her permission before doing this, but as one would expect Shiruku didn't have a problem with her dad selling her trash.

Fu's...remains were also something he sold sometimes. Something he found about Fu is that the boy could not eat his own body parts. His body would literally reject them, and throw them back up. So whenever someone would dismember, tear apart, behead, or any of the various things that could be done to the boy that would result in his body parts being thrown around, Izuku was often left with just pieces of human flesh and gallons of blood. He saved the blood for Kiba, and he would sometimes save the flesh for Shiruku, but occasionally he was left with so much of it that he would just sell it online, where it would then go to people with flesh-eating quirks.

All these methods required, of course, a lot of paperwork. Which is what he was doing now.

Izuku laid his head on the desk for a moment and closed his eyes. He didn't need sleep(he told himself) his body wasn't screaming at him to get the hell back in bed(he told himself). He was fine(he told himself).

He opened his eyes and looked at the clock, and sighed.

In five minutes he had to make food. Meaning he would have to finish up the paperwork.

Izuku took a deep breath and quickly got back to work. Today would be a busy day.

He would need a lot of coffee.

Morning lessons.

"Alright everyone, please hand in your homework," Izuku told them from behind his teacher's

desk.

In front of him were Eri, Kei, Kiba, Fu, Kioku, Shiruku, Yami, Otoko, Yonda, Netsu, and Ken, all in desks in front of him.

After feeding everyone in the house, it was time for class. Some of the kids were more ecstatic about this than others...and by that, he meant Kiba and Ken really didn't want to be here.

Speaking of people not being here. Izuku had decided that Fuku, Kai, Mu, and Nara didn't need to attend.

Fuku wasn't here for obvious reasons. She most likely wouldn't be able to stay conscious in a room with this many people, let alone learn anything. He would have to give her private lessons later on.

Kai also wasn't here for obvious reasons, Izuku would again, give him private lessons.

Mu was pretty much the same case as Fuku.

Lastly, Nara wasn't here simply because she didn't need to be. To put it simply, she was a level above all the other kids in terms of her studies, and she was still determined to study and learn even more on her own, so Izuku just left her to her own devices for now, much to her brother's displeasure.

Speaking of Ken, he wasn't dumb. But it was clear that most of his intelligence was dedicated to figuring out ways to fight people, rather than any academic pursuits.

This could be seen by the fact that everyone else had brought their homework to the front, except him...and Kiba.

Izuku sighed. "Ken. Kiba. Why is it that your homework isn't here with everyone else's?"

"Oh uh...I forgot." Ken obviously lied.

"Hah! To think you could be so empty-headed! Caretaker, I apologize for my homework's disappearance, but I have a perfectly reasonable explanation!" Kiba cleared her throat. "...The Grimm ate it."

Yami raised an eyebrow.

They're lying! Ken ignored it and Kiba forgot! Yonda told him.

Both the called-out kids immediately turned towards Yonda and glared at her harshly.

"I kind of figured but thank you Yonda." Izuku pinched the bridge of his nose as he felt an intense headache coming on. "You two, see me after class."

The two looked very, very displeased, and were still glaring daggers at Yonda, who looked incredibly smug.

"Alright, today we'll be learning about biology," Izuku told them, and he pressed a button on a remote, and the blackboard flipped around, becoming a large screen. "And to do so, we'll be watching a show called Cell's At Work."

Izuku tried his best to make sure his lessons were fun. And he put a lot of work into his lesson plans. Because after all, how could he expect the kids to put in the effort if he didn't?

Four hours later.

Class was now done.

Of course, his classes were drastically shorter than most school days, due to him cutting out all the unnecessary fluff that schools were forced to teach kids for no good reason. It also helped that they all lived in the same house, so if anyone had any questions they could come to him.

However, while most of the kids left, two remained. Kiba and Ken, looking mighty unhappy.

"Let's start with Kiba." Izuku decided that going one at a time would be better. More precise and allowed him to focus more on certain things. "Kiba, I know you don't forget to do these on purpose. But I also know the reason you keep forgetting is because you don't think it's important."

"Well it isn't!" Kiba pouted and crossed her arms.

"Yeah, if we're gonna be heroes then we won't need to do any of this stupid math stuff!" Ken argued.

"You two do realize that to get into any hero school you have to pass a written exam right?" Izuku pointed out.

Both their eyes widened, and it looked like he just told them they had a terminal disease.

"WHAT!?" They both shouted.

"Yeah. It's a test with a variety of subjects from math, to science to history." Izuku explained. "And no matter how powerful your quirk is or how well you do on the practical exam, if you don't pass the written exam, then you don't get in."

"That's so lame!" Ken shouted out in protest.

"Why does it matter if we're good at math and science and all that if we're strong! That is illogical!" Kiba objected.

"Are you sure about that?" Izuku asked them. "Kiba, did you know that if you hit the air hard enough and fast enough, you can shoot out a blast of air? Or you can kick the air below you, to propel yourself, meaning you could basically fly?"

Kiba's eyes went wide once more, this time with wonder rather than horror. "Really!?"

Izuku nodded, "That's right. All Might does it all the time, and you want to know how he figured that out? By learning physics, and science. If you want to be number one then you have to not only learn how to control your quirk but learn about how it interacts with the world around you. And that means learning things like math, and science."

He then turned to Ken. "And you should be especially motivated to learn about math because your quirk has a time limit."

"Psh, what does that matter! I'll just take down all the villains before my time runs out!" Ken said arrogantly.

"Ken, we both know that that's not always possible." Izuku sighed and took a moment to think of something. "Alright then Ken, if you can answer this hero problem, then I'll excuse you from classes."

Ken piqued up, "Wait really!?"

Izuku nodded.

"Alright! Bring it on!" Ken challenged. Confident in his ability to take on anything hero-related.

"Alright, villains are attacking a park in the city. And the only heroes there are you and a hero with reconnaissance, that means gathering information, quirk, who can't fight very well, and you are in your Feedback form. The reconnaissance hero tells you that there are eighteen villains, with eight hostages. The villains are in eight groups of two. Seven groups have a hostage and the final group has the group's leader. The groups are spread around the park around ten blocks away from each other, and it would take you about ten seconds to defeat each villain. You have ten minutes left in your transformation. What do you do? A: Charge in and try to fight all the villains and save all the hostages. Or B: Wait around the park's exit so the villains don't escape, so back up can arrive and take down the villains?" Izuku asked.

Ken seemed to think about that for a moment, but after a few moments, he made an expression that told him what he was thinking.

Why am I even thinking about this? The answer is obvious.

And then he said exactly what Izuku thought he would say.

"The first one! I just have to kick their ass as fast as I can!" Ken answered.

"Wrong," Izuku said swiftly. "Here is where Math comes in. First, you take the total amount of area you have to cover. In that case, you would have to run nine blocks. Then you also take in the amount of time you take to defeat all the villains. Then you take in Feedback's maximum speed. Putting all that together into an equation, and you'll see that it would take you over ten minutes to do all that. Meaning you'd transform back into your normal form before it was done, and the villains would almost certainly kill you. So the wiser option would be to make sure the villains don't escape, while backup arrives."

"Mmmmm." Ken wanted to argue. Because just sitting around and making sure villains didn't move sounded so much lamer than charging in and taking down all the bad guys. But what Izuku said also made too much sense for him to logically refute.

"That is one of the many situations where math is important as a hero. And I drastically simplified it for you. It's unlikely you'd be able to know that many details, so you'd have to make multiple calculations for multiple scenarios, and adjust them accordingly on the fly. For example, if one of those villains happens to have a powerful endurance quirk and would take a while to beat, you have to estimate how long it would take you to beat him, if you could at all, how much time you have after, and determine if it's smarter to maneuver around the villain and save the hostage, and then move on to save more hostages." Izuku continued. "A miscalculation, or worse not making a calculation, with a quirk like yours, can kill you."

Ken once again didn't say a word, instead just choosing to pout in frustration. It was another case of, he couldn't refuse what Izuku was saying, but he didn't want to admit he was right.

"Listen, I'll admit. Schools teach you a lot of useless information that you'll never need to know." It was scary to Izuku just how much time schools wasted teaching people things that no one NEEDED to know unless that happened to get into a very specific field, rather than anything useful like how to deal with finances, first aid, or human rights and the laws of the country you live in. "But I've done my best to trim away all the useless stuff you guys don't need while giving you everything you DO need to learn and making sure you understand it. Which is what this homework is for! I can't go to all of you individually and make sure you understand what I'm telling you, so this is how I make sure! So I need you two to take this seriously!"

Both kids still looked unhappy but in a different way. It was clear that they had gotten the message and understood things better now, but they just didn't like what they were hearing.

"If you two continue to ignore the few responsibilities I give you, then I will have no choice but to take away your streaming and gaming privileges." Izuku saw fear light up in their eyes after he said that, as it seemed they were finally gonna start getting their acts together. "I'll be giving you this homework to do as makeup work, along with today's homework. I-"

Suddenly Izuku was interrupted by another coughing fit and pain in his chest.

He quickly turned around, and covered his mouth, while leaning on the blackboard.

Immediately the mood in the room changed, and Kiba and Ken both became a bit concerned.

"Caretaker!? Are you ill?!" Kiba rushed over to his side, but Izuku held his hand out to stop her from getting too close and seeing the blood coming out of his mouth, and his pained expression.

"I'm...fine…" Izuku's words were broken up by coughs and pain, as he tried to catch his breath and not succumb to his weakening body and fall to his knees.

Somehow he managed to pull himself together, and the fit subsided. Although a lot of chest pain still remained, he just powered through it.

"Alright. I'm gonna go take some cough medicine. You two do your homework." Izuku then left in a hurry, never turning towards them as he ran out of the room.

The two children stood there for a bit, Ken not really sure what to make of that.

"Hey Kiba. Is it just me, or is Izuku hiding something? Like...something bad." Ken waited for a response, but Kiba didn't give him one, instead just standing there. "Uh...Kiba?"

"I smelled blood," Kiba said. "Something is horribly wrong."

Making Calls.

After spending a few hours cleaning up the blood coming out of his mouth, grading all the homework, tutoring the kids who missed out on class, and spending some time doing quirk training for Eri and Netsu, it was time for him to look at the order list.

The order list was a list that was on a bulletin board in the hallways where the children's rooms were. It contained everything the kids wanted Izuku to buy for that week.

There were a lot of requests weekly. Most of which were pretty standard.

Shiruku asked for more dressmaking supplies. Ken would ask for games, Kiba would ask for various items relating to her streaming hobby.

But of course, sometimes they would request things that either Izuku couldn't or wouldn't buy.

Netsu had somehow heard about Trigger and requested that, and that led to Izuku having to spend an entire class talking about why not to do drugs.

Kei had requested a chicken coop so she could have unlimited eggs, and then Izuku had to explain to her why that wasn't an option.

And Kyosei would occasionally try to ask for Chocolate, writing it on the board whenever Fu passed by and wasn't looking behind him.

But really the bulk of the unreasonable request came from two kids.

One of them was unsurprisingly Kiba, who requested things like, A castle, wine, a weather control machine so she could make lightning strikes whenever she introduced herself, and a request to build a moat of blood around the house.

She was still asking to the castle, to this day.

The other one was surprisingly enough, Fuku. Who despite her rich background, or maybe because of it, didn't seem to know how money worked and thought that you could buy anything. Most of her unreasonable requests weren't for physical objects, although she did at one point ask for a rocket ship so she could isolate herself in space, but were for things like happiness, courage, and determination.

And so Izuku took the paper off the board and started reading it over.

Alright, looks mostly reasonable, aside from Kiba's usual castle request. Izuku walked over to his office and sat behind his desk, as he reached for his phone.

It was time for him to order supplies. Not just the list of things the kids wanted, but all the other things the house needed.

Firstly he needed to take stock of their food, check how much they had, how much would expire and what they had to throw out, and what they could feed to Fu before they check on what they needed to order.

Before he had to do all this checking and inspecting manually, taking stock of every bit of food himself, but now he could do it all from his desk, thanks to the Seers.

And when he ordered food, he didn't just order what they needed. He had to order a lot of

surplus food. For two reasons, one if something happened and the food got stolen or damaged or set on fire, then they wouldn't starve. Second, he always had to be ready in case D.O.C. sent more children.

He also had to take stock to see if there was enough protective equipment for the kids. Kei's visor, Netsu's fireproof clothes, gas masks, and things of that nature.

And once that was done, he could finally make some calls to place orders for all of this stuff.

And once that was done, he then moved on to house maintenance.

Firstly he'd have the Seer's go out all around the house, Kai's room, the storehouse, the greenhouse, and the, and inspect them for damages. Once that was done he filed everything into a comprehensive list. Then he called one of the construction companies he did business with, mostly the Urarakas, and asked them to fix it.

Speaking of the Uraraka's, being a small construction company from a small town that was adjusting to a new environment and new scale of construction altogether, they sometimes lacked supplies, meaning Izuku would have to purchase them himself, which meant more paperwork and phone calls.

This embarrassed the Urarakas horribly, and they promised that after some reformatting of their company this wouldn't happen again.

He felt horrible for making them do all that work, but on the bright side after the shot in the arm, he gave them they were doing much better and were on the path to becoming a bigger, more successful company.

Back to the topic of work, after all, that was done, it was time for reforestation.

Izuku once again sent out the Seers, who were such a godsend, into the forest, to check the areas where the kids had been, for trees they damaged or destroyed. Then he would make a call to have all the damaged trees chopped down, the stumps to be pulled out, all the fallen trees to be taken away, and for everything to be replanted afterward.

Then once that was done, he was finally finished with ordering supplies, and maintenance.

This all had to be done. Biweekly. Unless of course one of the kids did something that would cause him to do it sooner, which happened often so really it felt like instead of it happening every two weeks, he felt like he did twice a week.

He had to do it fast though because after this he still had to do all the paperwork for the Q.R. branch! Literally deciding the fates of some people's entire lives!

So he had a lot still ahead of him.

As he was looking over the last part of the list, he saw something that made him pause.

A maid. Someone had requested a maid.

And next to that request, was the sentence "You need help, Dad."

Immediately Izuku's head fell onto the desk.

He felt like a failure.

It was very apparent that the kids were concerned about his health. Yami had taken it upon himself to spend his time making new Grimm to help him.

Children should not spend their time worrying about the health of their parents. They should be free to play and do as they wish, learning about the wonders of the world around them until they grow up to be well-adjusted adults and live happy lives.

If he couldn't let them do that then what was he even doing!?

Suddenly he started coughing again.

Damn it when I said I wanted to be like All Might this is not what I meant! Izuku thought as blood flew out of his mouth.

And then everything went wrong.

THUD!

Suddenly the little energy Izuku had seemed to leave his body, as he collapsed onto his desk.

What?! It became very hard to breathe as pain racked his body, and it felt like he was choking on his own blood.

The last thing he thought before he fainted, was I failed.

And then everything went black for him.

However, as it turns out, someone was listening to his thoughts at that moment.

Outside the office, a few moments ago.

Yonda walked up the steps to her father's office. Determined to make him get some sleep.

I failed. She barely heard.

She frowned before moving faster towards his office, stopping right outside the door. Father. I'm coming in.

No response.

Father? Yonda was confused. It wasn't like he couldn't hear her. She was in range for her quirk to take effect, and she was literally speaking in his head. Father, are you already sleeping?

No response.

Yonda started to get worried. Something was wrong. She wasn't hearing anything. Which meant one of three things. One, either Izuku was in dreamless sleep, he wasn't here...or he was dead.

And it was very unlike her father to sleep so early...well early for him anyway, and he was normally here at this time.

She might have been just being paranoid, but she wanted to make sure that was the case.

So she opened the door.

And was met with the sight of Izuku, limp on a desk that was dripping blood.

Everyone in the house was woken up by a psychic scream ringing in their heads.