Chapter 50

When Shouto returns to the dorms after the first official day of remedial training, he's about ready to either fall over or take a three-hour shower.

It's a good sort of feeling, though. Since high school started he's trained in plenty of places, under plenty of people. The change from Endeavor's idea of training to UA's was jarring, and he's assumed that every shift from one set of teachers to another would take just as much adjusting. But as time has gone on, every place he's trained that isn't with UA or Endeavor has been more like UA than Endeavor, so he's been forced to conclude that his father's an outlier as well as a bastard. Without him, training leaves Shouto feeling exhausted, but not wrung out or angry or used. The ache in his muscles is satisfying, not debilitating.

"Whoa, check out Todoroki's face!"

"Awww man, so much for the class pretty boy!"

He weathers the teasing as he rests his eyes on the common room couch. His focus wavered at some point during training, and he wiped out and split his chin open on the concrete, which makes for an interesting face when combined with the usual bumps and bruises. He shrugs it off; Sero and Ashido's lighthearted ribbing doesn't damage his pride the way harsh ridicule does. It's certainly not enough to affect his—

"Bet Midoriya won't mind." It's impossible to disguise those four words as a coughing fit, but Kaminari still makes the attempt.

Shouto's good mood wavers. Nearby, Iida and Uraraka are close enough to see him pull a face, and both of them wince in sympathy. Iida rounds on Kaminari to scold him for making invasive comments and circulating false gossip. In the confusion, Shouto slips out and heads to the kitchen.

Ojiro is there, humming over a mug of tea as he waits for it to cool. "Oh hey, Todoroki," he says. "Training go well?"

"Went fine," Shouto answers. He goes to the fridge and sighs with relief when he sees that his leftovers are still there. Kirishima got mixed up and accidentally ate his the other day; that had been disappointing enough without having to awkwardly brush off Kirishima's soulful remorse.

"Your face begs to differ." His classmate grins impishly. "They're really working you and Bakugou hard, aren't they? It's been a while since I saw you guys this beat up from training."

Shouto shrugs. "Not like I don't need it."

They stand in companionable silence for a few minutes. Shouto isn't friends with everyone in class, not like Kaminari and Ashido are. But even outside of his group of close friends, there are a few whose company he doesn't mind. Ojiro is one of them; he's friendly but not overbearingly so, and it makes him easy to be around.

"Speaking of which," Ojiro speaks up eventually. "Remember, uh, study group? That thing we did before summer started?"

Shouto finishes his mouthful before replying. "What about it?"

"Well, I was talking to Yaoyorozu earlier, and we were thinking of starting it up again," Ojiro says. "Iida was refining the rules, after what happened last time—"

"After Bakugou took things too far again?" Shouto says acidly.

"R-right," Ojiro says awkwardly. "Yaoyorozu said they'd run things by Aizawa to see if he had any advice. But anyway, I just… it feels like it'd be a good idea to give it another try, you know? We do a lot of rescue exercises and battle simulations, stuff like that, but I feel like we could do more sparring. I don't wanna get rusty, you know? And… well, you and Bakugou are off getting outside training, and a few of the others are looking into internships, so I'm pretty sure there's more we could all bring to the table."

Shouto grunts noncommittally.

"You're not really a fan of Bakugou, are you?" Ojiro asks.

Shouto's mouth tightens. He's never really been a "fan" of Bakugou. He respected him as a strong opponent and combatant, but he's never liked him. And now, with recent revelations, he can hardly talk about him without his mood taking a turn for the worst.

"I think he's sort of mellowed out," Ojiro goes on, a little cautiously. "Since Kamino. I mean, what happened there was terrible, and he shouldn't have had to go through that—neither of them should have—but he's been different ever since. He's been more careful. Have you noticed that?"

"I guess," Shouto says grudgingly. If he thinks about it—really thinks about it—he can't imagine Bakugou throttling Midoriya in a headlock and spitting venom at him the way he once did. But Midoriya's cautious around him, for a damn good set of reasons, and anyone that makes Midoriya that tense has Shouto's instant dislike. "Why're you telling me this?"

"Well… we messed up a lot, last time," Ojiro says. "We did a lot of things wrong—I mean the first thing was inviting ourselves without asking, and that was pretty uncool. Sorry about that." He pauses. "You think Midoriya would be up for it?"

"Why're you asking me?"

"Because Bakugou's not the only one who's been different since Kamino, and I think you know that," Ojiro says bluntly.

Shouto stares at him.

"Look, I don't put any stock in dumb rumors and gossip," Ojiro goes on. "But I know he trusts you more than pretty much anybody else. Except maybe Uraraka and maybe Iida, But I'm pretty sure it's you. And since this kind of started with you two sparring together, if anyone should bring this up to him, it'd probably be you." He pauses. "Also he's been in a weird mood today. I think he went out to apply for an internship, and he's been kind of off ever since he got back."

His food is finished. Shouto nods his thanks to Ojiro, puts the dishes away, and goes upstairs.

Midoriya's door is unlocked, and Shouto knocks twice before letting himself in. To his relief, his friend is there, which means he doesn't have to go looking for him. An unnatural chill settles over him as he steps in; once upon a time he would have ignored it as a trick of his imagination, but now he suspects it might be dead people. The thought should be weirder to him, but somehow it isn't.

Midoriya glances up from the textbook he's staring at, blinking owlishly. Mika climbs out of his lap and jumps down from the bed, trilling softly as she slides back and forth past Shouto's feet.

His friend's hands flick out. Shouto's gotten better at sign language; he's been studying books and online videos, and he always tries to find at least some time each day to practice with Midoriya. He's always been good at building muscle memory and learning through physical movements; Yaoyorozu says he's a kinesthetic learner.

You look like you got hit by a train, Midoriya tells him.

"Thanks ever so," Shouto says dryly. "Did I miss anything important today?"

Midoriya shrugs. "I'm the wrong person to ask, I was gone for about half the day."

"Internship?"

Midoriya's face falls. Then the rest of him does, flopping back onto his pillow with a groan.

Ojiro was right, apparently. Shouto scoops up Mika and deposits her on Midoriya's chest. "What happened?"

"I think I sabotaged myself."

"Did you not get it?" Shouto asks, sitting down next to him. Mika yowls insistently, stretching her paws to grasp at him, and he scoots closer so she can properly drape herself across both of them.

"I… think I did, actually? Like he wanted to, to test me, and I technically passed it, but…" Midoriya's face crumples. "I think I made him hate me in the process. Or he already kind of hated me, and I gave him more reasons to."

Shouto shrugs. "Why would you want to intern with him, then? You've got All-Might in your corner; I'm sure he'd be happy to break out his connections for you. Intern somewhere else."

"I can't. It has to be him."

"Why?"

"Because I think, out of everyone who has any chance of saying yes, he's the one who can help me," Midoriya replies. "I think he's the best one to understand what I need."

"Will he give you what you need, if he hates you?" Shouto asks.

"M-maybe? Maybe hate is a strong word? I just…" Midoriya cuts himself off with a sigh.

"What hero is it?" Shouto asks. "And what'd you do to make him—angry with you?"

"It's Sir Nighteye. Remember Togata-senpai? He's the one Togata's been interning with." Shouto's eyebrows rise. That's not surprising; Shouto has seen their upperclassman wave to Midoriya during passing periods. "And as for what I did… look, do you remember the Sports Festival?"

His heart sinks. "…Yes?" Shouto averts his eyes, so they won't linger for too long on Midoriya's left eye.

"Remember that… that stuff I said to you?"

As if he could ever forget. "Do you mean when you told me my power was my own, or when you said 'fuck?'"

"Look, I said a lot of things!" Midoriya slings one arm over his eyes. "I said a bunch of things, and half of them I didn't really mean because I was angry and I was trying to throw you off. Like… like throwing the recommendation thing in your face. I still feel really embarrassed whenever I think about that."

"I mean… I did get in on recommendation," Shouto points out.

"Yeah, but you didn't ask for it, and you couldn't control that, and you've never held it over the rest of us. Did you even want it in the first place?"

"No," Shouto says sourly. Given the choice, he would have taken the entrance exam and earned his place in UA on his own merit. But no, the old man just had to make him special. It's a sore point and it always has been; that's why when Midoriya threw it in his face during their match, he…

He'd—

"You see?" Midoriya says, voice muffled by the arm over his face. "It made you feel like crap for something that wasn't even your fault. And… and that was kind of what I was trying to do, because back then you were right about being stronger than me, and I was pretty much out of bones I could break so there was no other way to get one over on you."

"It's a legitimate strategy," Shouto points out.

"Not always."

He can tell where this is headed—Midoriya has a hero complex you could land a jet on. The purring one-eyed cat lying half in his lap and half on Midoriya is proof of that, now that he knows how his friend got her in the first place. For someone who brings out under-handed tactics whenever he's backed into a corner, Midoriya's kind of a bleeding heart.

"You said you weren't sorry for using it at Kamino," he says quietly. Midoriya stiffens for a moment, then relaxes again.

"That's different. That's against villains."

"Why'd you do it today?" Shouto asks. Technically Midoriya hasn't said he did, but contrary to what his classmates seem to think sometimes, Shouto can read between lines.

"A lot of reasons," Midoriya says. "But I guess… strength wasn't going to work. I wasn't going to win if I just pushed myself harder. And he wasn't—he wasn't seeing me. I wasn't what he wanted, and he wouldn't stop seeing what he wanted and comparing, so I just wanted to wanted him to see what I actually was, even if…"

"Even if it was ugly?" Shouto finishes for him.

"It was like he'd already decided what I was, and what he thought of me, before I'd even walked in," Midoriya says softly, and doesn't seem to notice the painful little pang it causes in Shouto's chest.

"Can't imagine how that feels," Shouto says quietly.

It takes a moment for the irony to register. "Oh," Midoriya says. "Right."

"Yeah."

More silence passes. It's easy for that to happen, when there's a cat within reach.

"So what are you going to do from here?" Shouto asks. "Look for another internship, or try to salvage this one?"

"Either way, I passed his test," Midoriya says. "And he said he'd call me in again to discuss my internship. So I guess… I'll go in, apologize, and see what happens."

"You're my best friend," Shouto says.

Midoriya twitches. "Uh, yeah? You're… you too." There's some hesitance to it, which Shouto understands. 'Best friend' still seems wrong somehow, too shallow, not enough.

"I didn't like you very much when we first talked," Shouto continues. "And what you said hurt, sort of. But a lot of it was sort of right. And now you're my best friend. So… maybe there's hope."

"Yeah, maybe."

"You grow on people. I don't think Aizawa-sensei liked you very much at first, either."

"Haha, thanks."

"Are you going to tell this Nighteye?" Shouto asks. "About the ghosts?"

Midoriya looks back at him, then at another spot in the room that is empty to Shouto's eyes. "Yeah," he says. "I am." He looks to Shouto again. "Did you come up here just to check on me, or was there something you wanted to talk about?"

Shouto thinks of what Ojiro says, then looks at Midoriya's tired face and decides it can wait. But… "We should spar again," he says. "It's been too long. Do you have time right now?"

Midoriya blinks up at him, brightening. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I got time."

Because there's no getting around it, Nighteye calls the boy in for the next free slot in his schedule.

And there is no getting around it; truthfully he had planned on taking him on as an intern regardless of the results of his "test", but now he can't refuse him even if he wants to. He set his terms, and Midoriya Izuku met them.

He gives himself a day to wrest himself back under his own rigid control, until he stops tasting bile in the back of his throat and the crawling beneath his skin recedes to a more acceptable level. It helps that a full day means that he no longer has the boy's future pressing behind his eyes, demanding to be seen—he only looked carefully the day before, peering ahead moment by moment so that he could foresee each maneuver before they happened.

He's still bracing himself, not sure how Midoriya's voice will affect him now, when he last heard it echoing his own thoughts. Before the boy walked into his office, no one dared call Nighteye a coward but the voices in his own head.

He shakes himself, half-embarrassed at the thought. He can remain professional; a few slung barbs will not change that. The boy copped to being a strategist and manipulator; Nighteye pushed him into a corner and demanded he prove his skills, and he did so. He might not like the boy much, but he isn't foolish enough place all the blame on him when he only did exactly as Nighteye asked.

The boy knocks and waits for permission before entering. The door to Nighteye's office swings gently open and Midoriya is barely stepping in, when a chill creeps up Nighteye's spine and takes hold, clutching with many clawed fingers until his temples ache from gritting his teeth. He relaxes his jaw, but the unease remains, pulsing like a heartbeat as the taste of bile returns.

Midoriya looks much the same as he did yesterday, dressed in his school uniform with the tie poorly done and the lapel of his jacket crooked. The only difference is that the dark circles beneath his eyes may have deepened. The eyes themselves are too bright and unblinking, darting and flickering about the room. When they do settle on Nighteye's face, they pierce a little too deep for his liking.

Everyone has a presence. Even the most nondescript, least interesting people have a presence if you know how to look for it. Midoriya's sets his teeth on edge and tilts the very axis on which the room balances.

"I want to apologize," Midoriya says, before Nighteye can get a word out. "And, um. Clear things up. I meant what I said about you not having any say in who gets One For All." He doesn't flinch or falter when he says that. "But the rest of it wasn't—I didn't mean any of that. I was only saying it to get you angry enough to leave the desk." He takes a deep breath. "I don't like doing that, saying things that I know will hurt people, just to get them to do what I want. It's one thing if it's a villain, but with anyone else it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like bullying. So I'm sorry."

Nighteye raises his eyebrows. That's just odd—a boy apologizing to a grown man for bullying him. The boy even says bullying like a curse, like it's a filthy slur that he's ashamed to say. In the space of that single word, Nighteye catches a glimpse of what he saw on full display yesterday, when the boy spat out venomous words until Nighteye lost both his temper and the challenge he had set himself.

It's anger, plain and simple. The boy may claim that his words were false, but the anger was not. Even now, in a display of humility that Nighteye can judge to be genuine, the anger slips through so easily. Coupled with the unsettling air that he carries about him, it renews the crawling and the chills and the off-balance feeling that Nighteye endures stoically.

And that—above all else, that is why Nighteye knows he is right. This boy could be a hero on his own. Underground perhaps, with an air like that, with anger like that, with a head for strategy as ruthless as that. He could be formidable; he even has a quirk of his own—

(and hadn't that stung to realize, that the boy who All-Might claimed as quirkless had a quirk after all, that after years of silence on both sides, in spite of his best efforts and an outstretched hand, All-Might still didn't trust him with so simple a truth—)

But none of that matters when this boy cannot be what All-Might was. He cannot be what the world needs. What One For All needs.

"It's pointless to apologize," he says at length. "You proved the skill that you claimed, and you did as you were asked. As for your strategy…" He pauses. "You know the details of my quirk, then?"

"I asked All-Might, after he told me what you foresaw," Midoriya answers. "I wanted to know the details, to see if there was any way around it. It wasn't—I didn't think I'd be using it against you. I didn't know you'd test me like that."

"It was effective," Nighteye concedes.

Putting aside the incapacitating effect of Midoriya's harsh words, the plan was so deceptively elaborate that Nighteye has to wonder if Midoriya even intended for it to work as well as it did. What he foresaw, in brief snatches, was this: Midoriya, giving up on the fight. Himself, overpowering the boy. The boy fleeing, as if in defeat. Its success hinged on the fact that Foresight is purely visual.

Ingenious.

"You used the limits of my quirk to hide your victory from me," he says. "And to hide your quirk, as well."

Midoriya's throat bobs as he swallows. "Yes," he says.

"Some form of telekinesis, I assume? Or gravity manipulation, perhaps?"

The boy stares at him for a moment longer. The anger is gone from his eyes, replaced with a hollow look that seems to deepen the dark circles beneath them. "No."

"Your quirk was never in public record," Nighteye continues. "Before you started high school, when I assume you gained One For All, you were listed as quirkless. Why was this?"

"They called it—an invisible quirk," Izuku says. "But that's not—that's not totally true? It's not that it was useless, or obscure, or that I didn't know how to activate it. It was just easy to hide. It was so easy to hide that I'm not sure people would've believed me even if I didn't try to hide it, but—this—" His hands curl into fists. "This is sort of one part of why I came here, to you. Because—All-Might trusted you, with One For All. And you have a quirk that you keep secret, because it works best when people don't know what it is, so…" He braces himself and meets Nighteye's eyes again. "I see ghosts. Dead people who haven't left yet. And I think I make them… more present, I guess? Just by being around them. And when I got One For All, that sort of got stronger. I can let them move things now, and appear. That's what happened yesterday."

Since the day before, there has been a knot in his chest, heavy and festering like a mass of necrosis lodged in his ribcage. With this knowledge, it begins to loosen.

Such a quirk is unheard of, obviously. The existence of an afterlife can neither be proven nor disproven. But if this is what the boy's quirk is, or at least an approximation of it, then… he can understand. It might sting, but…

"Also, um, All-Might told you I was quirkless, right?"

Nighteye nods. "It makes sense now that he would keep such a thing quiet," he admits.

"Oh, he didn't," Midoriya says. "I mean, he wasn't. I only told him recently."

Nighteye goes cold. "…Recently."

"After—after Kamino. After I…" His voice trails off. "So he wasn't lying to you. If he talked to you before then, he only told you I was quirkless because he didn't know. He didn't mean to be dishonest."

He didn't know.

He didn't know.

Something so basic, so fundamental, and All-Might didn't know because this boy—

Nighteye shuts his eyes, breathing through his nose as quietly as he can. He recognizes the sensation crawling up his throat, for all that it's been years since he let himself feel it for All-Might. Not bile this time, but anger. Protective anger, at that—and he knows it's absurd to look at this hollow-eyed teenager and feel protective of the Symbol of Peace, but that's about where he is now.

It's such a mess. The pillar is gone, with the world scrambling to build a new one on the way down. One For All is in the hands of a boy who bares his teeth instead of smiling, who bleeds fear and anger and unease instead of reassurance. A boy who inherited it on a lie.

And Nighteye wants to help. He's desperate to help, but All-Might has made quite clear what he thinks of Nighteye's "help". The proof of that is standing in front of him, watching him with probing, unsettling eyes.

And then those eyes blink and look past him, as the boy draws in a sharp breath and swears fluently.

This conversation is awkward. It's unbearably, overwhelmingly awkward, and if Rei's empathic enough to feel half of how awkward it is then Izuku really can't blame her for acting out, but at the same time the last thing he needs is her helping. To make matters worse, she isn't Nighteye's biggest fan at the moment, so it's hard to tell if she's just lashing out or she's genuinely trying to break the ice.

Either way, he would prefer it if the ice were the only thing she broke.

He would've had to be blind to miss the merchandise lining Sir Nighteye's office. Figures, wall hangings, posters, and what looks like a small set of shelves lined with audio and video recordings of old interviews. Everything from cheap gachapon figurines to limited-edition collector's items.

The collection just so happens to include one of the limited-run New Year's snow globes that were only produced for the holiday season when Izuku was eight, which is unfortunately also the heaviest and most breakable object in the room. Rei zeroes in on it like she can smell the price-to-fragility ratio.

"Rei no that's a collector's item—" It takes One For All for Izuku to win a race against gravity and catch it before it hits the ground. His hands shake a little as he puts it back on the shelf. Give it a few decades, and collectors will sell their firstborns to get their hands on it. "You're not helping," he hisses.

Rei sticks her chin out stubbornly. He's a butthead jerk and I don't like him.

"I don't care if you don't like him, you can't just shove his breakables on the floor—"

Nighteye's still in the room. In hearing range. Watching him. Izuku stares back, mind blanking as it makes a wild leap for a possible excuse. It runs through a full list of options before he remembers belatedly that Nighteye's supposed to know about this—that he only just finished telling him. If anything, this can only be a good thing; it means there really is no backing out.

It's a good thing, he repeats to himself. It can only be a good thing.

He shoots a glare at Rei, who sticks her tongue out and blows a raspberry only he can hear.

"Sorry about that," he says to Nighteye, still standing by the shelf with the rescued snow globe. He's been apologizing a lot. If he does it too much, it'll probably stop sounding real. "I didn't ask her to do that, I swear. She just gets bored easy. And she doesn't like you. Not that that's your fault, it's pretty easy for her to not like people but—um."

The problem is twofold: there is no right way to talk about this as far as Izuku can tell, and Nighteye is very, very hard to read. It's one thing to open up to people like All-Might, Todoroki, Uraraka and Iida—people who know him and trust him, who he trusts in turn. But he's just met Nighteye, and he isn't sure where he stands with Nighteye but it can't possibly be in his favor.

He has no choice but to lay it out plainly and hope for the best.

He returns to his original spot, holding Rei's hand so she won't be tempted to try a second time. Nighteye hasn't stopped watching him and… he doesn't seem too angry. Or irritated. Or skeptical, for that matter.

"Stuff like that sort of happens around me," he explains. "Cold spots, swinging doors, weird noises, the usual stuff. Like I said, they get stronger if they're around me long enough, and One For All's made that worse. Or, better?" He remembers the question that Nighteye asked yesterday, the one he tried to answer with a joke. "I guess this is another thing I have that could help you. If I get them talking, they can tell me things. I can't force them to do anything, but usually they like being helpful. It's not like most of them have anything better to do, being what they are."

He falls silent, hoping that's enough of an offering. If Nighteye would just say something, this would be half as nerve-wracking.

Nighteye's folded hands tighten for a moment, then go slack. "How many?" he asks.

"Ghosts?" Izuku says. "You mean… in this room, or in general? There's just one in this room, but… I don't know how many there are in all. It's a lot. They're everywhere."

"How much of this does All-Might know?" Nighteye asks.

"He knows about my quirk, and how it works, and what it can do," Izuku answers. "Some of the personal things, too. Like Rei."

"Rei?" Nighteye's brow furrows again.

"The one who just tried to knock over your New Years snow globe," Izuku explains. "Would… would you like to see her? I can make it so you can see her, if you want."

After a moment, Nighteye gives a single nod.

Izuku is careful only to press a drop of One For All into the hand he's holding. A little goes a long way; the power spreads through her until Nighteye is opening his eyes wide and sitting up straight behind his desk. Rei, thankfully, doesn't try to destroy any of his things. Or worse, attack him.

However, she does open her mouth wide and contort her face into something grotesque and… sort of melty. It's bad enough visually without the high-pitched grating coming out of her throat, but Rei has never done anything in half-measures.

"That's not helping," Izuku tells her, and Rei proceeds to blow a raspberry with about nine tongues. "I'm really sorry, she's just sort of like that." The power lasts her less than a minute. She gestures rudely at Nighteye as it runs out, and Izuku only hopes she turned invisible before Nighteye could see it.

He's standing up now. He looks thoughtful—good thoughtful or bad thoughtful, Izuku can't tell.

"They're not always like that," he continues. "Loads of them are just like regular people. The worst they get is looking like they did when they died. Oh, that's another thing I'm good at—I have a really strong stomach."

Nighteye raises an eyebrow.

"It can get pretty bad," Izuku says. "A lot of car accident victims. And… and villain attacks. Buildings falling on people, it's not pretty. I mean, there's this one ghost I know who was stabbed in the head. And the hole is just sort of… always there. Kind of leaking." His voice trails off as he realizes belatedly that a raised eyebrow isn't necessarily a request to elaborate. "You—you get used to it, after a while."

"Is that so," Nighteye says quietly. Before Izuku can ask what he means by that, he speaks again. "And this… Rei. Is she with you often?"

"She's protective," Izuku says. Beside him, Rei holds her chin high. "She was only nine when she died, but she's been with me a long time." He sees Nighteye's face do the same complicated maneuver All-Might's had when he first found out her age.

"What do you mean when you say they aren't always like her? Is there something that sets her apart?"

Rei hisses at the question, letting go of Izuku's hand to vanish from the room again. Izuku lets her go. He opens his mouth to reply, and pauses for a split second when the expected lump doesn't form in his throat. His insides had tied themselves up in knots the first time he tried to say this out loud, and the tears had come so easily, but now the words fall from him without a fuss. "I only found this out recently," he says. "She was part of All For One's experiments, to figure out how to create the Noumu. She died decades ago, before they perfected it. But they tortured her, and it… did things to her. That's how it is with all of them."

"All of them?" Nighteye says sharply.

"The Noumu," Izuku says. "The ones that didn't survive. Their ghosts look like hers. It's like what happened to them twisted them and… and traumatized them, I guess." Another memory passes before his eyes, and he can feel his stomach crawling up his throat as he answers. "Haven't seen them since Kamino. And after what they did to Dr. Tsubasa's ghost, I'm not sure I want to." He shakes his head. That's enough sharing for now. Any more and he might do something truly embarrassing, like puke on Nighteye's carpet.

He can do this, he thinks. He wants Nighteye's help—maybe he even needs Nighteye's help—but he can't just ask for it, not after getting off on such a horribly wrong foot. No, if he's going to win back Nighteye's good will, if he's going to prove himself to Nighteye, not as a holder of One For All but as Midoriya Izuku, then he's going to have to be genuine. He's going to have to give something first before he thinks about taking.

And right now, he thinks, the most valuable thing he has to offer is honesty.

A shudder passes through Nighteye as he listens, but he suppresses it.

The disconnect between what he hears and what he sees is jarring. The boy's face is calm, and his voice is calm, and they shouldn't be. He's talking about death and torture and the murder, of damage that lasts beyond the boundary of life and death, and no one should speak so casually, so indifferently, about that kind of pain. No one should be that calm when they talk of villain's crimes. Of All For One's crimes.

You get used to it after a while.

That frightens him. More than the revelation of lingering dead, even more than how easily the successor of All-Might causes pain with nothing but words, that frightens him. That a boy this young, on the path to becoming a hero, carrying within him the most powerful quirk in existence and with it the hope for future peace and stability, can be numb to death and sorrow. That he can speak of the torture and murder of a child as if it means as much to him as the color of the sky.

His quirk might tell him what that means for the future—for both Midoriya's internship and the boy's future as a hero. The thought of what it might show him makes him sick with dread.