Chapter 14

A long time ago, someone once told me that stupidity has little to do with actual intelligence. For the most part, stupidity lies in words, decisions, and actions (or lack thereof); as such, even smart people can be dumb as hell from time to time. Now, not to brag, but I've always been smart; before I fell into this world, I was a straight-A honor student at nearly ever subject, and being around Izuku—who's even smarter than me—only helped spur me to improve further. I had always been rather proud of my intelligence... which only made the fact of my stupidity a billion times worse, because I had absolutely zero excuse.

Now, in my defense, I had considered intervening in canon more directly in the past, but as time went by and the butterflies seemed more subtle I decided on a somewhat laissez-faire approach; after all, canon was what I knew best, and given the fact that All for One's strategic abilities are almost certainly beyond mine, I felt it best not to shake things up too much so I didn't have to worry about having to play chess against a true master. Even the USJ incident didn't worry me as much; after all, it turned out alright in canon, didn't it? Besides, the aftermath of that incident was an important step in Izuku's journey, as well as that of the rest of 1-A; it forced everyone to step up their games more than the other classes, toughened them up, etc. I had hoped that, by focusing on subtle steering, I could manipulate the butterflies until an opportunity showed itself to completely disrupt All for One's plans before he could hatch them.

Then, I broke down at a key moment, Mr. Aizawa died, and while All-Might didn't reduce his time limit, he didn't encounter Shigaraki personally long enough to pick up on the subtle clues that hinted at All for One's existence. Not only that, but with Nomu destroyed, the clues that came with that monstrosity were lost as well.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had been a complete and utter moron; I had assumed the butterflies would continue being subtle, and now the game had changed completely.

Well, no more of that. Both hands on the wheel from now on.

Of course, I still had to take pains as to how I would intervene; I had a few ideas on how to give All-Might the info he needed without looking suspicious, but that would have to wait. For the time being, I had an appointment with the principal, who had asked me to see him in his office as soon as we got back from the USJ.

"Come in, young Midoriya."

I entered the office and bowed to the kind mouse-thingy. "You wanted to talk to me, Mr. Principal?"

"Please, call me Mr. Nezu," he said with a warm smile. "would you kindly sit down on the couch and have some tea with me? There are some things I'd like to discuss with you."

Nodding, I sat down and accepted the tea, taking a small sip as he climbed onto the opposite couch; I had never been a fan of tea back in my old world, but living in Japan gave me an appreciation for it.

After a few moments' silence, Nezu began to speak in his usual calming manner. "Before we begin, I'd like to state that you are not the only student I'm seeing today, merely the first. The incident that occurred was traumatic for everyone involved, and we will all struggle to deal with the tragic loss of Eraserhead. Now, while we do have a guidance counselor, he's mostly just there to handle inter-student disputes and the like; his temperament is too... unstable for delicate situations such as this."

I held my tongue about what I recalled of Hound Dog's rather terrifying personality from canon. "So... what is 'this', exactly? Why am I here?"

"Well, as it turns out, I have more than one PhD, and one of those is in psychiatry. Not only am I a licensed therapist, my adorable appearance and my extremely soft fur are therapeutic in and of themselves!"

The fact that he was able to say stuff like that with a perfectly straight face and a genuinely friendly smile was... odd, to say the least; as I took another sip of tea, he continued. "Now, I intend to meet regularly with you and the other students—though I will spend considerably more time with Kirishima, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Uraraka, and your brother, considering what all of you directly witnessed."

"Wait," I said, noticing a conspicuous absence in that list. "What about Bakugo? Are you not meeting with him?"

"He declined my aid in a manner far more colorful than I believe appropriate for a boy his age," Nezu responded. "I worry for him, to be truthful; he insisted he was perfectly fine, and yet I sensed turmoil from him. Sadly, I can't force him to attend sessions if he refuses the help." The principal sighed for a moment as he poured a cup of tea for himself; taking a small sip, he continued. "Sadly, even with the progress society has made, there is still a certain stigma against seeking professional psychiatric help in this country; people too often decide that they don't need it, or that it is somehow shameful to accept aid when offered. With that in mind, would you be willing to sit with me and accept my help? I assure you, nothing you say in here will leave this room; whenever I am in the role of a therapist, I am bound by doctor-patient confidentiality."

I paused for a moment to consider it before nodding. "Yeah, I'm willing to accept. So... what do we do first?"

"Well, let's begin with something in my report I found rather troubling: your reaction to the villain known as Kurogiri."

I flinched at the memory.

"Hmm, yes, it seems you suffered an episode of some sort upon seeing his quirk. Now, having read your file, it is fairly obvious as to why you had such a response; sadly, you didn't receive much in the way of counseling over the unfortunate incident that brought you to Japan—probably an oversight. But you never sought help until now; why not?"

"Well, there were a lot of nightmares for the first year or so," I said, staring down at my teacup; "I saw a child psychiatrist for a bit and it helped—Mom definitely helped as well—but once the nightmares stopped, it just seemed... redundant, I guess. Mom offered to keep it going, but I figured that if the nightmares were over, I must have been fixed, right? I mean, that was around the time I started actually calling her 'Mom' and myself 'Midoriya' more and more frequently. I thought that meant the problem was fixed and I didn't need any more help..."

Nezu nodded. "A common assumption. So you were feeling quite happy with your life by that point?"

"I was content, yeah. I'd adjusted to living here, I learned to drink tea... heck, I even attended some Tenrikyo* service with Mom and Izuku. I felt like I was fitting in nicely, like the hurt was going away, and I guess..."

"You didn't want to jeopardize those happy feelings by bringing up bad memories," Nezu said, finishing my sentence. "Another common response. But the truth is, just because scars stop hurting doesn't mean they're not there anymore; in a way, you were ignoring them for fear of bringing them up again, but repression only serves to bottle up your emotions; that is why it all came rushing back so painfully today."

As Mr. Nezu spoke, I felt a growing sense of tension; I shivered a bit, and I felt my heart start to beat a little faster as well. I managed to get it under control, but it felt like if I talked any more it would get worse again... and suddenly, something white and furry was next to me on the couch. Seeing that I was becoming anxious, the principal had moved to my couch and sat beside me; without a word, he took my hand and placed it on his head.

"Like I said," he smiled, "I'm therapeutic."

I hesitated a bit, but as I began to pet the principal on the head I started feeling much better.

Toshinori Yagi stared out the window in silence, doing his best to withstand the fear gnawing at his heart.

Young Casey Midoriya had approached him earlier with some thoughts regarding the incident; the lad had impressed Yagi quite a bit with how observant and intelligent he was, but to notice all of this in such a short time, after having suffered such an awful experience shortly beforehand? Truly, the Midoriyas were a special pair, gifted in more ways than one.

"According to Todoroki, those villains seemed to have a coherent game plan, all based around killing you," he had said; "But that hands guy, he seemed too unhinged to have come up with that kind of a plan. He giggled a lot, and when you showed up with the other teachers, he said 'game over'; it's almost like he's a man-child of sorts. No way this was his plan."

In spite of not having been there to personally see it, Yagi had to concur with such an assessment based on testimony from the captured villains, as well as what the other students said about the villain in question.

"Then there's the fact that he managed to beat Mr. Aizawa; from how he described his own quirk, he would have had to fought within close-combat range with him, and Mr. Aizawa is... was... a master hand-to-hand combatant. If this Shigaraki guy beat him, he had to have been at an equal or greater level of skill, and no way that comes naturally. Someone had to have trained him, maybe even the person who came up with the plan."

Yet another astute observation... and another worrying puzzle piece. The final, most horrifying key piece came last, however.

"Then there's the guy's name. 'Tomura Shigaraki'... how many villains use their full name? Especially considering he and his comrades all called themselves something grandiose like the 'League of Villains'. Not to mention the obvious code names... Kurogiri, Nomu... there's no way on Earth that handy-man's real name is 'Tomura Shigaraki'. It's gotta be an alias, even if it's just something like shifting syllables around..."

Tomura Shigaraki. Yagi had shifted the syllables around in his head on a whim; truthfully, he felt that last bit was a stretch, but it was an interesting enough idea that he had gone for it.

Tomura Shigaraki; he cursed that name, cursed the fact that he had bothered to even think of it, because the answer he came to sent him into such shock that he had ushered Casey from the room very quickly indeed, lest the boy see genuine fear cross his face.

Tomura Shigaraki. The individual name could have been a number of possibilities, but the family name, the first one that came to mind? Shimura.

Memories flooded his mind, unbidden, memories of the greatest hero he had ever known, the previous wielder of One for All. Nana Shimura... Granted, it was a stretch, and he could have been overthinking it. But combined with the other clues, it painted a terrifying picture: All for One was back. Toshinori Yagi gritted his teeth; he prayed that these fears were unwarranted, but if not... he couldn't take that chance. He had to step up Young Izuku Midoriya's training, fast.

A storm was coming, and for the first time in years, the Symbol of Peace was genuinely afraid that he would be swept away along with everyone else.

"Grrr... damn those kids... I hate them, I hate them, I hate them hate them hate them..."

"Good. Use that hate, Tomura Shigaraki; let it build up inside of you, store it until the time is right to strike again."

"I want to kill them all now, Master!"

"It can't be helped; I had hoped that, if you were unable to kill All Might, you would at least have been able to learn whether or not his abilities have weakened. Unfortunately, we have no more information than we had when we began, and while the death of Eraserhead has removed a rather annoying opponent, the hero community—and UA in particular—will not take his loss lying down. They will undoubtedly double, even triple their efforts to hunt us down, as well as increase their security; it is unlikely that we will be able to move against them again for some time."

"So we just sit here?!"

"On the contrary. While we cannot move overtly without drawing unwanted attention—I am still not yet ready to make my own entrance—we must recruit new blood as soon as possible; in the event the hero community does track us down before we are ready, we will need all the allies we can get. To that end, I have sent you a number of dossiers for villains that should prove quite useful. This is only the beginning, my student... only the beginning of a long game. And soon enough, the world will kneel before you."

A pale and portly man dressed in a mortician's suit carefully placed the urn on a rack with a number of others. "Don't worry, my dear Shouta; your friends may be receiving a pile of dust instead of your actual ashes, but you can rest in peace knowing you will make a fine addition to my collection!"

As he stood there, admiring the urn, he turned to look at the very large minion standing next to him. "Don't worry, you will have company soon enough; my precious servant will make certain of that. Ohhhh, yeeeeessss..."

Dammit... just stop thinking about it! It's that damn simple!

Bakugo growled and grumbled as he stomped around his backyard in the middle of the night; try as he might, he couldn't banish the images from his mind. They assaulted him every time he closed his eyes.

Stop thinking about it!

Kirishima, smiling at him, defending him from ridicule, then tossed like a ragdoll by his explosion quirk.

It was his fault for not seeing me coming and hardening! Stop thinking about it!

That handy bastard, yelling in rage at him before doing... that... to Aizawa.

He was gonna do that anyway! Stop thinking about it!

Chunks of frozen meat and brains, shattered by his hand.

HE HAD IT COMING! STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!

He'd had enough; stomping over to a baseball lying on the grass, he decided to unleash his frustration the best way he knew how; he'd charge up and throw the ball into the stratosphere, shouting the mantra he used to focus his rage into every attack...

"DI—"

His arm stopped mid-throw, shivering as the word—one simple word, one he'd said a billion times—caught in his throat. So he tried again.

"D—"

Say it... just say it... why can't I...?

Bakugo fell to his knees, cursing his own weakness.

Well, that's the end of the USJ arc. Next up, some lighter fare as the Sports Festival approaches; as hinted at with that tiny little snippet before Bakugo's scene, there will be some OC villains (well, in that case, there are a couple of obscure expys involved, a no-prize to whoever figures it out first) as well. See you next chapter!

*Tenrikyo—a religion of Japanese origin that is unique for the fact that it welcomes non-native converts. Buddhism does this too, but as far as I know Tenrikyo is the only religion that originated in Japan that has non-Japanese adherents around the world.