75

Chapter 75: Chapter #74 | Melancholy

Notes:

Hey there folks! This was supposed to be February's release. Unfortnuately I have a bad habit of getting chapters to my editor late in the month and they have to find time to edit them. So we wait for my schedule to permit me to write and my editors to grace us with their glorious words!

In the meantime, we have some revelations that will likely turn canon... irrelevant.

Last chapter we had:

-Tokoyami vs Midoriya

-Matsumura vs Shoji

-Shoji vs Midoriya

-An end to this damnable event.

Enjoy Everyone!

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

Chapter Text

Midoriya's grin turned to a frown as the students stepped into the faculty tunnels. Out of view of the cameras and people, the smiles and upbeat attitudes of Class A dissipated to grimaces. Several students from other schools seemed taken aback by the mood shift but kept moving. Matsumura blinked as she looked between the serious expressions. Inadvertently, she felt herself take a step back as, around the corner, stepped a medium-sized humanoid robot with thick plating.

Calmly, Midoriya, and the group following him, stopped as it handed over a small tablet. He glanced at the tablet with a frown, humming. Midoriya's gaze drifted back towards the group following him, at Matsumura, and then finally at the rapidly emptying tunnel. Maybe it was the mood shift. Maybe it was the robot. Hell, Matsumura thought to herself, it could have been the serious facial expression that did it. But the man in front of her had asked a silent question that she was smart enough to interpret.

"Well, uh, this has been fun guys! I'll, uh, I'll just get going. Hope to see you all later!" Quickly, Matsumura strode away from the group and back towards her school's area. Behind her, several members of U.A. called affirmations and parting phrases, but the thumping in her chest didn't calm down while she could still feel cold eyes on her back.

Midoriya sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as Matsumura dipped around the next corner. Alone, the U.A. students stood in the hallway, silent, except for the low clicking of the robot. "So, uh, this sucks ass. What'd you just get told now, Midoriya?" Midoriya's eyes flicked from Sero to the tablet.

Midoriya sighed. "A few things. Mostly, you guys don't need to worry about it. Mezo, Tokoyami, watch your backs if you decide to go up to the bleachers. We've a few members of the CRC in the audience today. Spread the word. Don't start anything, but if something happens? End it. I'll deal with the aftermath with Nedzu."

The cold light in Midoriya's eyes as he shared the news had Tetsutetsu and Sato blinking stupidly. Despite 1-B's reaction, 1-A hardly reacted outside of snarls and glowers. "What the hell are the CRC doing in the audience? What about security?"

1-A stared darkly at Sato as Tokoyami and Shoji shook their heads. "You haven't figured it out yet?" Sero jerked a finger towards Midoriya. "Quirkism is illegal, and yet you heard the booing of the crowd with Midoriya. Besides, what law have they broken?"

Tetsutetsu and Sato continued staring on, dumbfounded."Wait, they got the legal crash course right?"

Midoriya snorted. "There aren't any legal classes until the third year, and they're elective. Aizawa's pre-internship legal crash course is something that we put together after looking at the class schedules for the next couple of years."

Sato's mouth dropped open, though the students of 1-A appeared bitterly resigned to this bit of information. "Don't we, uh, have to know the laws we're enforcing?"

"That would certainly be fucking logical, wouldn't it?" Midoriya's grumble went unheard as Tokoyami sneered.

"It's the damn police's job to charge the people we stop. Our job is to stop them and turn them in. If the local prosecutors office declines to indict, then the villains that we stop go back onto the street."

Midoriya sighed and again rubbed his brow. "It's a fucked system from all sides. Regardless, we're digressing. If you're interested in this topic, you can join the lectures. Keep yourselves safe, spread the word."

"This is feeling more and more pointless, Midoriya." .

"I get why you told us to be careful what we show off now," Sero said, his tone very clearly exasperated, "but Shoji's not wrong, Midoriya. This is a joke. We could be using our time training, learning something like that medical stuff that we started learning. Hell, we never even got to try out our knowledge on that because we were attacked. We were attacked and we're suddenly moving straight into this, this, fucking expose of the students that were just attacked. We were attacked, someone DIED, and suddenly everyone expects us to show off exactly what we can do to the people that attacked us? Fuck this. "

Midoriya threw his hands in the air. "Yes, precisely, exactly, all the ways that I can say you're absolutely correct. I brought up how awful this is multiple times. But my opinions didn't mean anything to Nedzu on this subject. We are all expected to participate. It's in our student contracts, much to my eternal argument with him."

"Why not?"

Midoriya's expression fell flat. "I've got several guesses. All are bad reasons, in my opinion. For now, just keep your heads down. Give an okay performance by our standards, keep your eyes out for trouble, and give it your all in private when you get called on at the end of the week." Midoriya jerked his head, and Tokoyami snorted. Dark Shadow let out a sound that was very much like a snicker. Slowly, the 1-A students began to trickle past him towards their waiting area. Sato and Tetsutetsu took a moment to digest the conversation before moving to catch up with the rest of 1-A, both offering Midoriya one last fleeting look behind them before they turned the corner.

Midoriya rested his head back against the cold concrete wall for a long moment. The effervescent light coming from the tablet screen forced him to blink several times before the image focused entirely. "Alright, what am I looking at here?" Midoriya kicked off the wall before pulling the tablet up in front of himself again. Flicking through the information, his eyes snapped rapidly from point to point as the dull hum in the back of his brain alerted him to Phoenix's presence in his head.

Tracking data that Shadow has been correlating since the public filtered in. He and Athena have taken over Core Five and parts of Core Six for it. They are feeling… Midoriya felt more than heard the hesitance at the word usage. He could practically taste Phoenix rolling the word on her tongue. Protective of you, she finally settled on, and Hatsume after what happened before.

"And I'm assuming they found something beyond the average bullshit like the CRC, ESM, or AU if this is being brought directly to me instead of just alerting security for dissemination." Midoriya mumbled the words, not that Phoenix even needed the auditory input to determine what was being said.

Right. The tablet flicked, data scrolling faster now than even Midoriya could process unassisted. The scrolling, as quickly as it had started, stopped. Two entries flashed across the screen, and Midoriya took a deep breath.

"Great. So All for One is here. Looks like that conversation is going to have to happen sometime after I get changed and before Minesweeper begins. What's this second one? Traces?" The screen flickered again and he found that he was looking at classified documents that he certainly wasn't going to ask how Shadow had obtained. "Ah, I see. Illusion Decay, interesting name for it."

Do you think she'll be a problem?

"We're sure as hell not going to find her in this crowd."

Not if she doesn't want to be found.

…

Midoriya sat himself down in the seat slowly, finding that he needed to bite back on a groan. With a couple of blinks and a narrowing of his eyes, Midoriya had a pretty good view of the stadium and its field. A glance up and he could understand why the position was chosen. Even if it was in the nosebleeds, the shade granted by the awning ring above was pleasant. The speakers were more than a little loud, but that was the nature of such seats. For a moment, Midoriya wondered how Dabi was doing up there. It had to be scorching in those rafters.

With a sigh, Midoriya let his head drop down and stared at the occupant of the bleacher seat next to him. He seemed amused by Midoriya's movement more than anything as he shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth. His eyebrow quirked up, and Midoriya sighed again.

"What are you doing here, All for One?"

"You sound like an old man when you sit down." The look on Midoriya's face must have given the man the reaction he'd wanted because he chuckled lowly before spilling into a coughing fit that had him shaking his head in disgust at the end of it. Propping his legs back up, All for One continued. "To answer your question, Midoriya, I am simply enjoying a day off. Something I get far too little of. You are all so entertaining, after all, like that one."

The man pointed at the field with a piece of popcorn where the students were assembling for Cannon Tight Ropes. "What happened to that one's legs? The fact that she came back is incredible. Most humans break after traumatic injuries." Midoriya felt the snarl tug at his lip. He swallowed it.

"Uravity is stronger than most. All Might let a student into an exercise with gear he shouldn't have had. A building was dropped on her. She still came back." All for One didn't even react to the barbed poke at him. Instead, he whistled.

"Color me impressed, then. You go, girl." The latter half of the statement was said with such a lack of emotion that it was practically flat. "I can see that blond oaf continues to be a colossal fuck up wherever he goes. You should have seen the number of criminals he hospitalized back in America when he was learning the trade." Another whistle. "Truly impressive." The amount of dry sarcasm dripping from the man's tongue was more than impressive.

"You can't seriously just be here to watch this."

All for One shoveled in another handful of popcorn before taking a sip of a drink that Midoriya was fairly certain he hadn't been holding before. "Sure I can. I watch it every year. Though, this is the first I've been able to watch in person in a number of years." A finger tapped in a knowing gesture on All for One's face.

"Where is Tomura? Kurogiri?" Midoriya's eyes flicked around the stadium, attempting to catch a chance glimpse of the two. All for One rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Well, Kurogiri is likely taking care of the new bar I gifted him. Thank you for that, by the way. He quite liked the last one. And Tomura is in the closet." Midoriya's head snapped towards the man with a confused and mildly horrified look.

"Kurogiri shouldn't have allowed Tomura to attack my class. I also didn't ask for Tomura's se-" Midoriya stopped mid-sentence as he really processed the information that he had just been given. For a moment, he just sat, sucking on his lips with his eyes closed before he spoke again. "You stuck Tomura in an actual closet, didn't you?"

It was All for One's turn to appear confused. "Well, of course. That's how I always saw parents punish their children while I was building my empire the first time. You take something away from them and put them in timeout."

With his head now in his hands, Midoriya groaned as he asked another question. "And how long has he been in timeout without?"

All for One hummed. "Just a few days without his quirk now. He'll get it back soon enough. It was a pretty big deal, after all. Big punishments for big mistakes and all that." Another several bites of popcorn as he returned to watching the students line up for the event.

Midoriya groaned again. "By the gods, it's no wonder Tomura is so fucked in the head. Have you read a single book on parenting? No. Don't answer that. Here's what we're gonna do. Tomorrow night, after the tournament, I'll be raiding the compound of a group torturing a child." All for One stilled. As many lines as he had crossed, there were others even he wouldn't dare.

"You're gonna offer me Tomura and Kurogiri's help with this raid."

"A tempting proposition." All for One had dropped the mockery, sitting up straight for the first time since Midoriya had dropped into his seat. "I assume you have your reasons for wanting Tomura for this raid. I won't ask. You have the government greenlight for this?"

"If I don't get it from the commissioner, I'll go over his head. SAT will be taking part in this strike." One for All scratched his cheek, thinking over the optics of the raid. It would certainly help to repair the bridges that Tomura had lit on fire. Plus…

"And that's all you want?" Midoriya gave him a blank stare.

"We'll start there. We'll see just how fucked in the head Tomura is when he isn't in the middle of a mental break."

He hummed, a noncommittal sound. "Sure, let's go with that." With a short laugh, All for One kicked his feet back up with his popcorn in his lap.

Midoriya narrowed his eyes. "You really aren't here to start anything? You aren't after One for All? All Might again?"

The man grunted at him, shaking his head. "How do I put this… Let's say, I learned my lesson where All Might is concerned. I got complacent with Shimura Nana. The quirk was still growing, certainly, she-"

Midoriya heard a cracking sound in the back of his head, and he flinched slightly as the sound echoed, breaking from his right. Onto the seating in front of Midoriya spilled Shimura, coated in blood and caked in mud. Eyes wild and hair sticking out at odd angles, the woman staggered up to her feet quickly, her eyes flicking around before locking squarely on All for One as he continued to speak. With a screech, she threw herself at the man. She seemed to vanish on impact, but it was already enough to have Midoriya pinching the bridge of his nose. And it had been so peaceful. I'm going to have to deal with that later now, too. Why now?

The why clicked for Midoriya, and the sound he made had All for One raising an eyebrow at him. "You just had to use her full name, didn't you?"

"Who? Shimura's?"

"Yes, her. There is a lot of power in names, and someone as old as you are calling her…" Midoriya trailed off with another sigh.

All for One blinked. "I have absolutely no clue what you are going on about. But what I was saying was that the quirk did something funky when it reached that blond oaf. It got far stronger than it should have. It's approaching singularity, something that shouldn't be possible."

Midoriya grimaced. "You noticed it, too, then."

All for One snapped his head to the side, his expression part amazement, part grudging respect. "I'd say it's more impressive that you noticed. After all, you aren't me."

"Something is keeping the world's quirks averaged out. There are only so many world-bending quirks at any given time. The world's quirkless population is staying at twenty percent. That shouldn't be happening."

A small hum came from the man. "I suppose you are uniquely positioned to notice that, but I doubt that something is keeping it there."

"Regardless, if it's approaching singularity…" Midoriya trailed off as All for One grimaced.

"If it's approaching singularity, then I'm not sure I do want it back, or if I just want to let the quirk implode and do whatever it's gonna do. Even if I want a piece of my brother back, I'm not sure I want to be at the center of whatever goes wrong the next time someone gets their hands on that quirk."

Midoriya thought about the fire in the eyes of the first. Their meeting had been but a brief moment, but he knew the eyes of a soldier resolved to perform his duty. "Somehow, I don't think he'd want to see you again." Though it wasn't his intention, a hint of melancholy dripped through his tone. All for One inclined his head.

"You're probably right. I treated him as something I owned for his entire life. I spent a century still thinking that way. But the thing is, Midoriya, I've been alive a long time. Two-hundred and forty-three years is a long time to reflect. Then you get your face and chest caved in, spend fourteen years of it trapped in your own flesh cage… well."

He didn't need to elaborate further for Midoriya to get the gist, or understand the feeling. "You know, I think Yoichi would have really liked the world as it is right now. Oh, it won't last, not in this iteration, at least. But he would have enjoyed it all the same. Those comic books he picked up were always so precious to him. You know, one time-"

Midoriya blanched as he began to get flashbacks to Kamui woods not even an hour prior. No no no no nooooo-

Notes:

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