Walls: Physical and Other

Izuku knew there were other kids from his year level around him, he just didn't focus on them. All he was focused on was putting one foot after the other as fast as he could. In his vision, the finish line loomed impossibly large. His lungs burned, his feet pounded the track and then he was over it and slowing down.

Izuku gulped in great lungfuls of air as he kept walking. It was the best way to avoid getting too cold. If that happened he'd be stiff. He looked at the results board. Usually he wasn't that competitive, but this was their school sports festival, and it had been the final of the 100 meter dash. On the stands the rest of the school sat, though he knew most of them weren't interested in the fourth year results, he could still hear cheering from his level. There were some parents on the other side. Dad hadn't managed to get here but Kurogiri was there, with a grumpy Tomura and Gigantomachia stood beside the stadium and looked as if he was holding it up himself!

The results came up and Izuku felt elation. He'd won! He grinned. Hitoshi had made it to the semi-final but had come in 6th and that wasn't good enough to get into the final. Only the top four out of each semi final had made it. Shigeru and Naoki hadn't made it that far. They got through the heats, though Naoki had done better on the longer distances. He'd come in 5th over all. Izuku had come in 2nd to Akio, who had a mutant quirk. You couldn't turn off mutant quirks so no one was going to beat Akio on a distance run. Even Akio had congratulated him.

"What?" There was a cry from his side.

Izuku turned and immediately the good feeling faded.

Setsuna spun and growled at him. He suddenly remembered that she'd come 3rd to him in the long distance. And second to him in the… Izuku held up his hands placatingly.

"No!" She yelled in response. "You do not get to do that!"

He just looked at her, aware that the other students were backing away. There was some call for them to clear the track so they could run the final of the fifth years.

"You say you aren't training but you always beat me! You must be cheating!" Setsuna howled.

"I didn't use my quirk!" Izuku objected. He really hadn't.

"You must be! How could you beat me?" She stomped one foot on the ground as her hands formed into fists.

"I just did my best!" Izuku told her. That's really all he'd ever done.

"Argh!" Setsuna screamed and Izuku was shocked when she swung her fist at him.

He saw it coming. There was no way he couldn't see it coming, and without thinking he dodged. Setsuna screamed louder and swung her other arm at him. Izuku dodged again. Her patterns were rather like Tomura. "Cheater!"

"I didn't use my quirk!" Izuku cried out louder.

The commotion finally brought the attention of a teacher and Izuku saw there were several hurrying over.

"You must have!" Setsuna insisted. "There's no way you could beat me!"

"I didn't!" Izuku insisted.

Mr Rikujo looked down at them both. "Izuku?" he asked.

The green haired boy felt his stomach sink. He actually felt nauseous. He knew that tone. "I didn't use my quirk," he repeated.

"Izuku," their PE teacher said softly. "Is there some aspect of your quirk that gives you enhancement? Maybe like a mutant quirk that you can't turn off?" Mr Rikujo pressed.

"I'm fireproof," Izuku said. "That's all. There is no other aspect."

"Izuku," Mr Rikujo tried again. "It's okay if there is. We just have to register it."

"There isn't," he reiterated.

"There has to be!" Setsuna growled. "There's no way he could have beaten me!" She asserted.

"Let's move to the side," Mr Rikujo said. The other teacher standing with him nodded. Izuku didn't know who they were. The woman taught one of the upper year levels.

The small group shifted.

"I didn't use my quirk!" Izuku tried one last time. "I just tried my best."

"I'm sure you did, sweetie," the other teacher said. "But Setsuna is-" the woman seemed to fish around for the right word. "She's been trained by professionals," the teacher eventually said. "She finished first in the Kanto Regional Trials."

Mr Rikujo nodded, and Setsuna simply looked proud.

"I didn't cheat," Izuku cried looking down at the ground. Why didn't they believe him?

From the corner of his eyes he saw Mr Rikujo exchange a glance with the other teacher. There was definite meaning there. "We'll have to run trials," the woman agreed.

"Izuku," Mr Rikujo spoke to him. Again, Izuku recognised the tone of voice. From the way Setsuna seemed to jump on the balls of her feet, she did as well. A grin passed over her features. "We're going to have to disqualify you for using an unregistered part of your quirk."

"I didn't," Izuku interrupted.

"It's not your fault, son," Mr Rikujo told him sincerely. "We just have to find out how this works and register it."

"But I don't!"

"You must have, sweetie," the woman said. "Your results have been too good."

Izuku just kept his eyes on the ground as he fought back tears. "I didn't," he whispered the words.

"It's okay," Mr Rikujo was upbeat. Izuku didn't want upbeat. He wanted someone to believe him for once. Someone not his dad or Kurogiri or Gigantomachia. Someone else. "Once we find out what aspect of your quirk this is, everything will be fine for next year."

The green haired boy didn't nod. He didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say to that, because he knew, from experience, that they had already made up their minds, and nothing he could do or say would change them.

It wasn't fair. He'd just done his best, and yet… he was punished for it.

Izuku turned and walked across the field. No one stopped him as he went over to where the parents were spectating. Kurogiri was already waiting next to Gigantomachia. Tomura looked mildly interested but the smile he gave Izuku was distinctly superior. It told the younger boy without words that he should have expected this outcome.

"I want to go home," Izuku told Kurogiri.

The misty man nodded and no one said anything as he expanded and they walked through.

-ted-

Sir Nighteye looked at the screen. It was the electronic pinboard he had made for the Gala where Hiryu Rin had lost his quirk. It had taken weeks, even with the Rin family backing him up to get actual security footage from the gallery. Just the entry hall. They refused to hand over anything more.

But it had been enough! Not enough to prove that All For One had taken Hiryu's quirk, because no one wanted that going public but enough for him to prove that the man had been there. Which, unfortunately, since officially All For One did not have a criminal record, was still not enough to enable them to run a facial recognition algorithm over anyone but criminal databases.

So he had done this the hard way.

Wèizhī Fumenu was All For One's alias. He owned Changhong, which was listed. Eighty percent of it was owned by five different companies, and the remaining twenty percent was owned by ordinary investors. None of whom had any reason to complain about the dividends paid out. The five companies however were a different story.

Mirai allowed his eyes to track over the links between them and Weizhi's Changhong. It was a breathtaking tangle of ownership, counter ownership and dodgy relationships. And none of it was actually illegal. As far as he could tell, all the companies were legitimate. They had employees, and offices. The employees actually existed. And the offices were real. The employees worked there.

It was a hugely elaborate set up.

It just made him all the more convinced that it was All For One. He was the only criminal Mirai had ever seen that went to this sort of trouble on a routine basis. When he had first met Yagi Toshinori, he would never have believed a villain could be this involved with legitimate business. He would never have believed they could be this cleverly convoluted. He had seen many convoluted plans in his time but most villains were shallow. All For One was beyond even next level.

The companies all traced back to several huge firms. COSCO, Sysco, JBQC, Enterprise were the big ones. They were all legitimate businesses with thousands of employees. All of them had traded for decades! There was nothing wrong with them. If he wanted to say there was, then he would need absolute proof to bring to the Hero Commission.

And he didn't have that.

If Sir Nighteye was honest with himself, and he mostly was, he knew he wasn't going to get that.

Within the tangle of companies, maybe even within the big ones, All For One was there. Somewhere. He'd be executive level but Mirai had looked over all the images of the company's Executives. He might not be able to use facial recognition software but he had eyes. None of them matched the image they had.

Which meant that All For One was using the same trick as he'd used at the gallery. Using some else's image to replace his own. Except Mirai had reverse searched each Executive image. He'd even stretched the rules a little. Most were more than happy to accommodate All Might's sidekick.

And he'd found nothing.

Mirai nodded to himself. He had to keep reminding himself that this was not a petty villain. This was the Emperor of the Underworld. This was a man who had been engaged in crime since the dawn of quirks. He would be careful. He had resources and he wasn't afraid of using those resources. His alias, this time, would be as close to perfect as possible.

Sir Nighteye's lips drew into a thin line.

Which meant that the Gallery, while being a confirmed sighting of All For One, was a bust. Unless more information came to light, he'd tracked down the lead as much as he could and gotten to the same place all the other leads had gotten them.

Nowhere.

They had events they could tie to him. The murder of Saberwind. The theft of Hiryu Rin's quirk. They knew he did those things and while the events tied to him, they never led back to his location.

He pushed his glasses up with his middle finger.

There had to be something, somewhere. There always was. No villain was perfect.

He looked at the image of All For One. He was looking down at something below him. Mirai tapped the image and the entire photo revealed itself. The woman, Inko Midoriya stood behind a young boy with her hands on his shoulders. It was the boy All For One was looking towards.

Sir Nighteye tapped the table as he stared at the image. It had been four years since it was taken. Officially, the police had no leads. Unofficially, they had the same dead-end lead that he had about Saberwind's murder. There had been no information about Izuku Midoriya or Hisashi Midoriya. But…

Usually, Mirai thought Toshinori was too optimistic. Toshinori thought the boy was still alive. In this case he agreed. There was something not right with All For One taking the child. There was something they were missing. Or rather, something the Police were missing. He hadn't looked into the child angle. He hadn't looked into this case. Perhaps it was time he did.

It was time to go back to the beginning, and maybe he could find the kid.

He was quirkless, wasn't he? How hard could it be to find him?

-ted-

Izuku heard Tomura snort.

"I don't know what you are so surprised about," the older boy said. "Did you really think the world would be fair?"

The green haired boy tried to ignore him.

"The bitchette is training to be a Hero, so of course they believed her!" Tomura continued.

Izuku swallowed and then bit the inside of his lip. He didn't want to remember the school sports festival. The grey haired boy was determined to bring it up. He glanced up, looking at the older boy. He had two hands clasped around his neck and another two on each arm. There was nothing covering his face and Izuku could see the way his red eyes glittered.

"I didn't cheat," Izuku said tightly.

"Oh, I know you didn't," Tomura agreed with a laugh. "I know you did your very best. I know you competed fairly. I know you did nothing wrong." The older boy laughed again. "And I know they don't believe you!" He crowed the finishing words.

Izuku looked back down at the table.

That was the core of the matter. They didn't believe him.

Setsuna didn't. She was still insisting that he had to have used his quirk.

Mr Rikujo didn't. He thought there was an undocumented aspect of his quirk.

The other teacher hadn't even thought about it. She'd simply sided with Setsuna.

His friends…

Izuku could tell that Naoki and Shigeru wanted to believe him. They wanted to believe that he'd just done his best. They would love for him to be truly faster than Setsuna but… But despite everything they had seen. Despite the fact that they spent lunch with him, that they played with him, that they had seen his physical skills since day one, Izuku could tell they had doubts.

They knew Setsuna was in training. They knew Setsuna had won the Kanto Region Trials. They knew… nothing.

And that hurt. It hurt more than Tomura's gloating over the situation. It hurt more than the way Setsuna still gave him superior grins. They were his friends. They had known him since the beginning of school. They…

Didn't trust him. Didn't believe him. Izuku bit down on his lip so hard he drew blood. He would not cry over this. Not while Tomura was here.

Hitoshi believed him. That was something. Hitoshi had even asked his permission to make an offer to the school. The purple haired boy was prepared to use his quirk (with Izuku's permission) to prove that Izuku hadn't cheated.

Everyone had scoffed. Everyone had said that they wouldn't trust Hitoshi to really use his quirk on Izuku because they were friends. It didn't help that Izuku had told them that Hitoshi had already used his quirk on him. That had just gotten Hitoshi into trouble.

"There are no real Heroes Izuku," Tomura told him. "And the heroes of this world aren't going to help you! That's why it has to change. That's why they have to go because in this world, only liars like that bitchette become heroes." Tomura laughed and walked away.

Izuku remained at the table. He didn't know what to do.