Just People

It was autumn but the weather had been relatively dry and despite the chill in the air, they were taking the opportunity to eat lunch outside. Izuku knew that Shigeru and Naoki were a bit wary of Hitoshi but they sat with them anyway, so that was something. The problem with it being autumn was that everyone was crowded onto the tarpaulins that had been placed out. That way they didn't get muddy feet but it did mean that no conversation was private.

Izuku was talking with his group of friends but he couldn't help but hear other conversations and he was noticing a theme. He frowned as he ate the bento Kurogiri had made.

Naoki sighed. "What is it, Izuku?" he asked.

"Nothing," he replied.

"It is something," Shinsou drawled. "You've been frowning for the last five minutes." The purple haired boy had already finished his lunch and was sitting with them. He wasn't that tired today.

Izuku worried at his lower lip. "It's about Setsuna," he said.

"Oh yeah, she finished first at the Kanto regional trials on the weekend," Naoki said with a shrug.

He nodded. "No one seems happy about that though," Izuku observed.

Shigeru sighed. "You really don't get it, do you?"

"He doesn't," Hitoshi answered.

"I don't get what?" Izuku demanded.

Naoki looked upwards, as if asking the Gods for strength. "You explain," he told Shigeru.

Shigeru gave him a grumpy look but eventually nodded. The other boy put down his chopsticks and shifted so that he was looking directly at Izuku. He sighed and for a moment Izuku wondered if Shigeru was like Hitoshi. The purple haired boy sighed a lot too. "Setsuna is great at sports," Shigeru said. "And she's already training to be a hero but-" Shigeru sighed again. "She's not very nice," he finished.

Naoki nodded. "Sometimes I wish I had her quirk," he said.

"But Finder is so useful!" Izuku objected.

"Not to become a hero," Naoki grumbled.

"Since when do you want to be a hero?" Hitoshi asked with a surprising amount of acerbicness for an eight year old.

"That's not the point," Naoki snapped back. "Her quirk is great but she's painful."

That was practically the words Izuku had been overhearing from others. He resolved to talk to Shinsou after school.

"So, do you like her or not?" He pressed the question.

Naoki and Shigeru shared a glance. "We like her but-"

"Her quirk is great but-"

"But what?" Izuku demanded.

"She's not that great," Naoki said after a rather loaded pause.

Izuku nodded and let the matter drop. "Has anyone been able to play SuperMario Odyssey XXII?" he asked to change the topic. He still had the Tinnendo Stitchmate, XL Lite that Tomura had given him and this year he had found out that others had them as well! It was nice to be able to talk about games to someone who wasn't Tomura.

Shigeru grinned, the previous conversation forgotten, while Hitoshi groaned. "Just the beginning," the other boy said excitedly, picking up his chopsticks again to finish his lunch.

Izuku smiled. He still had questions but for now, this was more fun.

-ted-

Izuku walked beside Hitoshi as they made their way home. It wasn't that they didn't talk, it's just sometimes they enjoyed each other's company in silence.

"So why were you asking about Setsuna?" Hitoshi asked.

Today wasn't going to be a silent walk home.

Izuku took a few more steps before he answered. "I was curious," he said. "Everyone says-" He stopped. That wasn't what he meant to say. "It's just that-" He stopped again. He didn't really know how to say this.

Hitoshi glanced over at him.

"It's hard to explain," Izuku said finally. Even for an eight year old it was difficult to explain what he felt.

"Try again then," Hitoshi encouraged.

"Heroes are meant to be good people," Izuku began again, backtracking slightly.

"Yes," Hitoshi drawled. Izuku's opening statement was obvious.

"Setsuna is training to be a hero."

"That's true," Hitoshi agreed.

"But no one likes her. No one thinks she's a good person. So if she becomes a hero, then how can she be good?" Izuku concluded with the question.

"Huh," Hitoshi grunted.

They walked for a bit more. "You see, I just don't get it," Izuku said.

"Well, Heroes are just people," Hitoshi said.

Izuku looked at him. That was what Gargoyle had told him. It's what Kurogiri had confirmed. Heroes were meant to be good people but if Setsuna was training to be a hero, then there was a fair chance she would become a hero. This wasn't the same as the other kids in his previous school. The odds were against them. No one trained from this age if they didn't have a chance.

Which would mean that Setsuna could become a hero without being a good person. He had seen what she was like, briefly. Others confirmed her actions. Why was she training to be a hero then? Shouldn't someone like Naoki become a hero? Finder was a good quirk! He could find anything you could give him a model of. He wasn't interested in being a hero but… he was a nicer person.

Izuku sighed. He wanted to believe that Heroes were good people but… when a Hero told you they existed to maintain the status quo, and when you could see that someone training to be a hero wasn't a good person… Nothing made sense.

"Maybe she'll get better?" Hitoshi suggested, though Izuku could hear the doubt in his voice.

"Maybe," Izuku agreed absently.

Hitoshi reached up to scratch at his hair. "I don't know what to say Izuku," he consoled his friend.

"It's okay," Izuku agreed. "So what did you think of Odyssey?" He asked with a grin.

Hitoshi heaved a sigh. "You know what I think of it!" He replied. He'd been playing it when he came over to visit.

"Yeah, and you actually got ahead of me!" Izuku told him.

"I still don't get how that happened," Hitoshi said.

"I've been busy," Izuku replied. He had been busy. Kurogiri had been testing his situational awareness while he was training. That was tiring! He could do one, or the other, but when he was training he couldn't seem to combine them and the misty man kept startling him. It was hard work but he felt as if he was making some progress and Kurogiri wasn't disappointed in him. He explained that Izuku was doing this very young.

"Obviously," Hitoshi drawled. "Well, the levels get better," he explained.

"Oh! How?" Izuku asked.

"You'll have to find out!" Hitoshi answered but had the sense to run ahead with that pronouncement.

Izuku blinked and then grinned as he ran after his friend.

Things would work out. He was sure of that.

-ted-

"I have a lead," Mirai told Yagi as soon as the other man came into the room.

"A lead?" the Pro-Hero known as All Might was shocked but Mirai could hear the hope in his voice.

"It's a couple of weeks old but-"

"That's better than anything we've had so far," Toshinori finished his sentence. "What is it?"

Mirai took over the projector and Yagi found himself looking at the image of a young boy. The child didn't have green hair, so it wasn't the kid All For One had kidnapped from his mother, the kid who might be his son. "Who's this?"

"Hiryu Rin," Mirai gave the child's name.

All Might didn't even have to ask how Hiryu was a lead. "His quirk is gone," Mirai said. "And there is no medical reason for it."

"So that's why it's a few weeks old," Toshinori nodded.

Children sometimes had trouble using their quirks and wouldn't for days or weeks at a time. Therefore, it wasn't surprising that it had taken a fair amount of time to actually diagnose that the quirk was truly gone and it wasn't just a childhood ailment.

"His quirk was Scales. A serviceable quirk but not one in his usual interest range."

"What does it do?"

"Allows him to generate scales over his skin, and to use them as projectiles. From the tests I've been able to run on one of the scales that the parents had, they aren't that strong."

Yagi frowned. That didn't sound like All For One. The man took quirks, yes, but he tended to only take the strongest quirks. This one sounded useful but if the scales weren't that strong then there were other quirks which would be better suited. "Let's ignore the suitability of the quirk for the moment," Toshinori said. It was entirely possible that All For One didn't realise the quirk's weakness, and that could only be a good thing for them. "Why do you think it's him?"

His sidekick gave him a look. "There's always a chance that it's not him," he said.

"I know, but you wouldn't have brought this to my attention if you didn't think it was."

"True." Mirai flashed another photo up on the projector. This time Yagi saw Hiryu standing with two people who had to be his parents. It took him a moment to see that they were very well dressed. "The Rin's are well off," Sir Nighteye told him. "As such their son has had quite a few scans done recently. One is of his quirk factor itself."

"That's reliable?" Toshinori asked. He recalled someone asking him, or rather All Might to have that scan done and had decided the question fell into the range of 'questions about One For All' and had politely deflected it.

"Not completely but reliable enough," Mirai said, "especially because they have a before scan."

"And that confirms the quirk is gone?"

His sidekick nodded, and brought up another image. This displayed two graphs. Toshinori didn't know exactly what was being graphed but while their scales and colour schemes were the same, the results were noticeably different.

"We know so little about quirks and the concept of becoming quirkless is not one people want to contemplate. The stupid would say that if you become quirkless, you will gain a toe joint." Mirai rolled his eyes at the statement. He knew that wasn't the case.

All Might sighed. "That's the accepted diagnosis technique for quirklessness," he reminded his sidekick.

"Yes, but you just aren't going to grow a new joint!" Mirai objected.

"All For One doesn't work like that," Yagi agreed with Mirai.

"True, and it is the results of the scan that lead me to believe this is actually All For One," he said. "There is a definite change in Hiryu's quirk factor and he cannot use his quirk any more."

"So when did it happen?" Yagi asked, pushing aside any joy he felt at the possibility of having a lead. This was not how he wanted to find All For One.

But if he was honest with himself, he really couldn't think of any other way to find the fiend.

"Three weeks ago, at a gala that the Rin's really had no right to attend."

All Might gave Sir Nighteye a look. His sidekick did not back down. "They are well off, but they are not that well off," Mirai defended his statement. "This was a gala for Ambassadors, Ministers and multi-billion businesspeople. They aren't there yet. Plus, Hiryu was found unconscious on one of the balconies with no clear memory of how he got there."

That was a bit of a give away.

"The authorities concluded that he had wandered away from the party, and gotten out of an unlocked door, and fallen asleep there but that isn't right."

Toshinori nodded. That wasn't right but at the same time it didn't really matter how he'd gotten there. It was obvious that was where All For One had taken his quirk. "Who was at this gala?" Events like that had guest lists, and while it was obvious that All For One would be using an assumed name, that name was something which could be tracked.

Mirai pulled up another slide. It was of many head shots. Too many to see the people clearly. "I've taken the liberty of removing those who it simply couldn't be," He explained, flipping up another slide. There were fewer head shots this time and each photo was accompanied by a name. "It leaves this many," he said.

"It's unlikely to be the women," All Might said. He had never heard of All For One posing as anything but a successful businessman. "And it won't be any Ambassador," he added.

Mirai tapped at his computer, and the slide changed. Again there were fewer images. "I think we can work with this," he said, looking at the list. "Do you recognise any of the names?"

All Might took a few moments to read them. Some were Chinese and the Chinese Kanji were written with the Japanese. Most were the same but a few were different. "This one seems suspicious," he said, pointing at one. The Kanji didn't match the pronunciation hiragana.

Sir Nighteye brought up the image. All Might stared at it. The image was most definitely not All For One. The man - All Might assumed it was a man - had a mutation quirk. His head was not the normal human design. He had a speckled skin and a huge mouth, topped by beady eyes. There were six fringed tendrils rising from his head.

"That's not him," Yagi said unnecessarily.

"True," Mirai agreed, "The name is good though."

"Yes, Unknown would be something he'd call himself. He'd think it funny. Who else is there?"

They spent the next hour going through the other candidates and when none of them were All For One, the two of them flipped through the rest of the guest list. None of the images even came close to looking like All For One.

"You ran them through recognition software?" Yagi asked.

Mirai nodded. While they couldn't access civilian databases, you could compare images to one you had. "No match," he confirmed.

"But we know he was there?" Toshinori said.

Mirai nodded again. They were ninety-nine percent sure that All For One had been at the event. There was always a slight chance he hadn't been but that didn't fit the evidence.

Yagi sighed. "How sure are you that the images are correct?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Names to faces," Yagi said, "How sure are you that you have the right faces for each image?" He clarified his question.

"Very," Mirai sounded offended.

Toshinori shook his head. "Could you sort the images based on quirk type?" he asked.

"I don't have that information," Sir Nighteye said.

"Then let's sort mutant quirk type against the others," he said. It was true, you couldn't tell what type of quirk someone had from an image and even those who looked as if they had mutant quirk types often had an emitter quirk completely unrelated to their looks.

There was a flash of understanding in his sidekick's eyes and Yagi watched as Mirai ran through some internal calculations. "There's only one," he said and tapped some keys on his computer. The slide that had all the guests appeared again but then the headshots moved. One remained to the side.

"Just the one?" Yagi pushed.

"Just the one," Mirai confirmed.

Toshinori sighed.

"You can't change the world," Mirai reminded him, talking about the prejudice inherent in the conclusion that there was only one. Some countries had a marked prejudice against those who displayed any mutant look, even if they had an emitter quirk. Those with mutant features fared badly.

Yagi sighed again. "Let's confirm this image then," he said. He didn't like the prejudice, but if he could use it… No, usefulness did not make it better but it was not something he could deal with here.

Mirai was typing something. Toshinori watched as several browser windows opened and his sidekick worked his way through several websites.

"Well," Sir Nighteye said eventually. "This man does exist, but his name is not Weizhi." He tapped the screen again to bring up the man with the mutant quirk. All Might read the new name caption. Pedro Axolotl. Next to his picture, there was an empty space, with the name Weizhi Fumenu below it.

"So who is Weizhi?" All Might asked slowly. It was odd. He felt almost afraid. As if this lead would disappear.

"I don't know," Mirai said tightly. "The name exists. There is paperwork but I cannot find any visual evidence of him." A very, very small smile creased his features.

Yagi bit the inside of his lip to avoid returning it too widely. He glared at the empty space above the name Weizhi. There was a long way to go. He couldn't say the words yet but maybe one day.

Maybe one day he would look back to this moment and know it was the beginning of the end. He would know this was the moment they had him.

He hoped.