56

Sorry about the delay everyone! I got the chapter to my editor a little later than I would have liked and the editing process rolled over into today. But it's still Friday for me! So I'm only late by a matter of hours instead of days.

On the story front, we get to see a scene that people were looking forward to, and one that may come as a surprise.

Last chapter we had:

-A hopefully tasteful conversation Shiozaki

Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

*Several Days Prior*

All For One was having a decidedly good day. He had been having a string of those since Midoriya had fixed his face. He could get along perfectly fine with that awful mask the good doctor had made for him, of course, but that didn't mean that he cared for it. It was good to be able to see again. It was good to have his face again. It was even good to have his hair again.

He wasn't a vain individual. At least, that's what he told himself. An exacting man, he simply held himself, and those he surrounded himself with, to a greater level of expectation, particularly in regards to personal grooming habits. Looking like a disheveled testicle hadn't sat well with him.

All For One smiled, taking another drink from his glass. He had come here from a meeting in order to speak with Kurogiri, and while he hadn't found him, nor young Tomura, he had discovered that the teleporter had taken immaculate care to stock the bar. It wasn't the best whiskey he'd had—no, that honor would go to his own personal stock—but it wasn't cheap liquor, either. After the good day he'd had so far, a moment of silent contemplation with a decent whiskey was just what the doctor had called for. Not literally, he supposed, but close enough.

The portal opening in front of the front door had All For One standing. His glass came up in the beginning of a toast but nearly lost its liquid with how quickly he had to step to the side. He watched with raised eyebrows as Tomura slid across the floor, bouncing and bowling down the barstools in his way. He looked back to the portal, ignoring the hacking of the young man on the floor.

Kurogiri materialized after a moment more, and his ragged appearance had any semblance of good nature fading quickly from All For One's face. He wasn't so out of touch with the ability to see that he didn't know what blood looked like. The coughing slowed enough for Tomura to devolve into furious screaming. All For One sighed dispassionately. So much for quiet contemplation.

All For One set his glass down before striding over to Tomura. Kneeling, he rested on the balls of his feet before reaching out and grasping the young man by the jaw. Calloused hands twisted Tomura's head side to side, showing off the red skin and fingertip bruises already forming where someone had dug their hand into his throat. Tomura himself had gone silent and still in All For One's hands and stayed that way when the man stood, face stoney and cold.

"Whatever group thought that this was acceptable behavior is sorely mistaken. I'd advise you to start from the beginning." Tomura opened his mouth when All For One raised his hand. "I wasn't talking to you, Tomura. Kurogiri, explain." The specter froze where he stood. Even the black mist concealing his body seemed to congeal.

"Would you prefer the long or short version, sir?" All For One tilted his head in contemplation. If this were one of his groups that had decided to end their own lives, then he would need details. Carefully, he picked up his glass once more. On the other hand…

"Give me the short version. We can speak of details after I get a handle on-"

"Tomura just led an attack on the first-year hero students at U.A." The words froze him in his tracks. He had been thinking that someone was disobeying him, that someone didn't know who Tomura belonged to. Steeling himself, the man took a deep, angry breath, the glass coming to rest on the counter once more with a quiet click.

"Elaborate." Kurogiri ran it through for him, from the moment they arrived up to the nomu smearing the ground with the professor. All For One stared at the bottle rack while he contemplated. This was salvageable. They had announced themselves with Tomura's stupid organization name, and while it wasn't ideal, he could at least cover their tracks.

As long as the damned rat didn't get wind of the connection, he could salvage this. This wouldn't ruin the wonderful day he had been having. He would be having words with the doctor about field testing their experiments without his permission, of course, and he would have to impress upon Tomura how utterly stupid this stunt had been.

"And what happened to make you leave in such a…" All For One glared down his nose at the young man. He had made him kneel halfway through the story and hadn't let him up just yet. "... disgraceful way? Did the creature fail to kill All Might?"

"The creature did fail, but All Might wasn't there, sir." All For One paused, his breath stuttering for only a moment, too quiet for anyone else to hear. He swept the others with an even glance.

"Who, pray tell, caused this, then? Am I to believe that mere students killed a weapon designed to take on the giant windbag?"

"It was a cheater! He-" All For One's glare silenced the man kneeling at his feet.

"I did not ask you, Tomura."

"It was actually Mr. Midoriya, sir, who tore the nomu to pieces." The glass, both shatter and decay resistant, exploded under the pressure of All For One's curled fingers. Slowly, he turned his head towards Kurogiri. His tone was low, very nearly a growl.

"W̵̭͕͎͗́h̴̖̒̊ȁ̵̟͈̑͠t̴͙̔̈́̍?" Kurogiri stepped back as All For One came forward, fury and malice radiating from him in waves. He stooped low, grabbing Tomura by the throat again before pulling on his quirk. Tomura screamed as All For Once growled, dragging the young man along. A few quick steps took the two men to a small utility closet on the opposite side of the bar. All For One yanked the door open, letting it slam back into the wall.

With a quick wave of his hand, the contents of the room decayed away into gray sand. "Kurogiri, portal the ceiling and floor." The mist man followed his orders as All for One jostled Tomura roughly, snarling. "You can have it back when I'm done cleaning up your mess." He tossed the young man into the dark room before closing the door to his screeching terror.

Unsalvageable. Untenable. Indefensible. So fucking stupid. All For One roared and punched through the closest wooden table.

…

*Current Time*

Midoriya wanted to sigh as he walked yet another of his appointments out the front doors of Moonlit Industries. The moment the man was out of reception, Midoriya let the horrid, fake smile drop away. He rubbed his jaw as he walked back through the lobby. He was only supposed to have three meetings today. That was it. But the moment that people had caught wind that he was taking meetings again, it had been chaos.

He was attempting to catch up on the work that he had missed while being comatose, but now he was under a deluge of half-assed condolences and unneeded sympathies. Some of the offers had even held some merit, but Midoriya was damned if he had to deal with another day of this. One good night of sleep and the universe decides to spite him.

The rhythmic tapping of Midoriya's cane came to a halt at the door of the security office. He sighed before looking at his wrist. An old timepiece, attached with a thick leather strap, rested there. His mother had told him it was his father's, but considering the amount of work that he'd had to put into it, he wouldn't put it past the damn thing to be pre-war. Wherever the hell his father had gotten it, it wasn't his.

He had a good few minutes, he supposed, before his next meeting. Midoriya glanced up at the office door and, after another moment of hesitation, pushed inside. He paused, though, when he realized that the man he was looking for wasn't in the room at all. Stepping back out, Midoriya made his way down the hall and to another door.

There, in the armory, Midoriya found Dabi field stripping the same rifle that he had been working on for the past several days. Quietly, Midoriya took a seat as he continued to watch. It was a calming thing for him, firearm maintenance. Years and years of cleaning his service weapon had left him with the ability to do it in his sleep, and going through the steps had helped him countless times. Dabi didn't look calm, though. He looked like he was trying to defuse a bomb.

"You've decided on a caliber, then?"

".338." The brief response had Midoriya frowning.

"Dabi, we need to talk about this."

"I thought you said you weren't going to get in my way."

"If I wanted to get in your way, I wouldn't have offered you the rifle, the range, nor Athena's assistance to make the shot."

"No, instead you make me spend hours studying weapons, and want to talk about it." Midoriya sat there in silence, staring the once-scarred man down. Dabi smacked the spring on the edge of the workbench in frustration. "What! What do you want, Midoriya?"

"You know, your brother's not doing too well right now." Dabi blinked at him in concern.

"I thought Natsuo was doing fine upstairs?"

"Not that brother, Dabi." Midoriya's voice was soft as he leaned into the cane between his legs. He saw the exact moment it registered which brother he'd meant. He watched as Dabi tensed, glancing away, back to the gun parts.

"I don't care wh-" Midoriya stayed silent as Dabi seemed to fight with his own fist for a moment. Back and forth it went before slamming down on the table. "Not his fault." Dabi hissed the words between his teeth. "Not his damn fault."

"Still struggling with that?"

Dabi snorted. "Yeah, I'm still fucking struggling with that." Backing up, Dabi's legs met the chair behind him, and he sagged into it wearily.

"Why haven't you gone to see your mother yet?"

Dabi mumbled something low under his breath. Midoriya quirked a brow at him, even though he knew Dabi couldn't see it. Another hissed fuck.

"Must you always track what I'm doing?"

"I make sure to track everyone around me except Mei."

"Why does she get the exemption?" He grumbled the words before his brain caught up with him. He threw his hand in the air before Midoriya could respond. "Yes, I already know that answer."

"You don't actually know where she's at, do you?" Dabi smeared black across his forehead as he reached up and rubbed his face.

"No, I did not read the damn packet. Because that's what you're really asking." A beat of silence and Midoriya spoke.

"Your brother came to U.A. refusing to use his fire because it was his father's quirk. You already know that, but now he hasn't left the side of his classmate's hospital bed in days. Do you know why? Because she killed a man to save him after his ice tore the skin off her." Dabi stiffened and put down the part he held.

"His ice did?" Midoriya grunted an affirmation. "How bad?"

"It's ugly. The ice went a quarter of the way up her legs. She shredded them to pieces saving him. Lucky that she didn't bleed out with how close to ripping open an artery she was. Two more students came within inches of freezing to death in an ice cave, too."

Dabi put his face in his hands and just breathed. That was… worse than he had been expecting. Shouto was already using only his ice now. With this- the thought trailed off and his head snapped up in horror. "How likely is it that he's going to refuse to use his ice when training starts again?" Midoriya shook his head.

"I want to say unlikely, but knowing your family? Pretty damn likely." Dabi snarled and grabbed another part.

"Yet another reason for the old bastard to die." Midoriya tilted his head slightly. He didn't mind the death of Endeavor. He'd been damn close before to being lit on fire by the man while on a mission. That didn't mean he was without reservations..

"Oh? And how is that? You know that kind of logic is twisted."

"It would keep others safe, and you know that." Midoriya dipped his head.

"To a degree. But how does one quantify the good he's done? It's easy to tally up lives lost." Dabi snarled at him.

"You are not fucking defending him." Midoriya sighed and shook his head.

"When have I ever defended Endeavor's actions? Do you know what a cascade effect is, Dabi?" The sudden shift in conversation threw the man for a loop, as if the room had just turned sideways on him.

"Uh, no. Physics thing, right?"

Midoriya gave him a small smile. "Pretty good education for never going to school."

Dabi shrugged."You pick up a few terms from proximity to you science types. What's that got to do with this conversation?"

Midoriya gave him a look, as if telling him to wait for it. "A cascade effect is something inevitable or some unknown chain of events triggered by something affecting a system. You got out, Dabi. Your brothers and your sister didn't." Dabi gritted his teeth and took a breath.

"I nearly died to get out. If that weird ass scientist hadn't picked me up, I wouldn't have made it. I wasn't even trying to get out." The look on Midoriya's face had Dabi sputtering. "What, you don't believe me?"

"No, I believe you, I'm just concerned and wondering who the hell the scientist was." Midoriya shrugged. "Irrelevant, I know. Dabi, why are you letting your father control your life?" That got a reaction from Dabi. Shock, surprise, fury, and disgust were all evident as he reared back.

"He does not control my life."

"Doesn't he? You're out. He doesn't even know you exist anymore. He mourned your loss. Yet, here you are, good job, salaried plus bonus, good prospects, paid time off. Hell, Mei and I are flexible. You could help your brothers and sister, and you could go meet your mother. You could find hobbies, things you enjoy, even meet someone, for gods' sakes. Live a good life in spite of your father. Yet here you are, obsessing over how to kill him. You could all ruin him. You could kill him, but, just hear me out on this, when do you get to start enjoying your life, Dabi?"

Silence reigned for a long, long moment, the air heavy with tension. Dabi finally let out a low, dark chuckle. "Yeah. Yeah, you might have a point. But don't you think you should take your own advice first before you foist it off?" Midoriya dipped his head slowly.

"Yes, well, you may have a point there." Midoriya glanced at his watch and sighed before standing. "Just a thought, though, I like where I am, what I'm doing. Do you enjoy where you are?"

…

Midoriya met his next client at the door of Moonlit Industries with the same smile he had let drop off his face not too long before. The man was fairly respected in the business world, even if Midoriya knew about some of his late-night proclivities. He stood at almost six feet tall, his black dress shirt and pants matching. Not precisely the style he tended to have coming through the building, so there was at least variety in his day-to-day.

Midoriya gestured for the man to walk with him as they made pleasant enough small talk, the same general information that he'd shared with everyone who asked about the attack at the USJ. That he couldn't comment on the state of the investigation or the beast that put him in this condition, but he wouldn't deny that it was a hell of one. The two men stepped into Midoriya's office with little fanfare. Midoriya sat behind his desk, closing some of the leftover holographic charts that he had been using with his previous client.

"Your office is very clean. I appreciate that fact." Midoriya gave a smile.

"We do try our best. Keeping books dust free can be a nightmare, but it is worth the challenge." Midoriya held up a mask from his desk drawer for the man to see. "Would you prefer that I wore one, as well?"

"Very considerate of you, but no. That shouldn't be necessary." Midoriya nodded his head, placing the mask back into its home in the drawer and shutting it.

"Well then, you've had this meeting slot reserved for a little while now. So, how can Moonlit Industries help you, Mr. Chisaki?"

Notes:

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