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Chapter Text

The glass shattered against the white-tiled floor, golden liquid splashes and droplets of whiskey stain his coat, he takes it off and throws it on the side of the couch as he walks past it to the closet full of cleaning supplies. It would be much more helpful if he has the energy to just get his feathers do the cleaning for him, but unfortunately the last mission had left them sore and paralytic.

Besides, Keigo was tired, he was tired of acting, tired of playing puppet to the Commission, tired of betraying the League, tired of faking, tired of smiling, and most of all he was tired of existing. The hero sighed as he rubbed a gloved hand down his face, cringing at the feeling of flaking, brittle talons scraping the inside of his leather gloves.

'You're going to be a hero, Hawks, heroes aren't animals, you can't let these abnormalities show or you will be repulsive to the very victims you rescue, is that what you want?'

Running gloved fingers through his hair, he got up on his feet. He still had to get ready for a debriefing for the infiltration, and he still needed to text Dabi regarding the files on the Nakimura case. He honestly just wanted to crash on the sofa and go the fuck to sleep. He wasn’t even bothered to pick up the pieces of the broken glass, but at the same time it probably was not a good idea to leave it on the floor.

The man was about to pick up the shattered pieces of glass that were scattered across the kitchen floor when his phone pinged. He paused, one hand on the broom and the other hovering over the unlock button of his phone. Hawks tensed at the name of the sender. 

Heromail:

[email protected]

Hawks,

There has been a new development and the team has a new assignment for you, this task overrules the rest of your missions for the remainder of the week and once it has been completed you are to immediately bring the disposed back to HQ.

You are being assigned to eliminate threat #655, aka, the villain Toga Himiko.

This must be completed in the next seven days and if we do not hear from you by then, it shall be assumed that you have been compromised and therefore eliminated by the enemy.

Regards,

Madam President.

Hawks froze where he stood.

Each sentence on the email made his stomach drop lower and lower, like weights pulling him underwater. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, loud enough to drown out any other thought. Kill Himiko?, they want him to kill who basically weaved her way into being his little sister in everything but blood. She was basically the person who reminded him that even the villains the Commission labeled as 'acceptable losses' were still human.

And he was meant to be the murderer. The executioner. The hero.

It would have been laughable if it wasn’t so fucking sickening.

His lungs locked without warning. He didn’t notice he’d stopped breathing until the pressure in his chest clawed its way up his throat. The glass, now forgotten, crunching beneath his boots. The broom fell from his hands, phone scattering to the floor alongside it. Vision blurring, he staggered away from the desk toward the door, desperate for air.

Wouldn’t that be easy? Just stop breathing. Let it end here. The thought slipped into his head, calmly and quietly.

He jolted to a standstill. Golden eyes sharp and predatory looking around, wavering.

Death.

If he didn’t follow the Commission’s orders, then the target would shift to him. On paper, that should be enough to make him hesitate, to make the man doubt his own morality. Self-preservation was something the Commission had conditioned into him before he could even pronounce his hero name. But that wasn’t the reality, was it?

Death wasn’t the threat. God, he’d be long dead if that were the case.

The Commission would never willingly get rid of their prized weapon. They wouldn’t allow their number two to vanish or collapse or take the easy way out. Especially now that Endeavour was number one and he was unpredictable as fuck at times, god knows when he was going to ruin his imagine and drop in the ranks. Ever since Dabi had showed him the dark side of Endeavour, Keigo had learned hatred.

The HPSC wouldn’t even need to kill him. They’d make him forget why dying had sounded like mercy in the first place. They’d break him, rewire him, twist his loyalties until he looked in the mirror and didn’t even recognise himself. He’d end up in a state worse than the Shigaraki’s Nomus.

Suddenly, death felt like the closest thing to freedom he was ever going to get.

It felt right, if he was being honest, it felt like balance. Maybe in a sick sense of justice. He’d always figured he’d end this way, and some part of him believed that maybe… maybe he deserved it.

His life in exchange for Himiko’s.

Keigo thinks like he can be at peace with that.

______

Tomura was half-lying across the couch, thumbs flying over his Switch, eyes narrowed in focus while in front of him, sitting on the floor, Himiko pestered Twice to let her paint his nails ‘just black with red blood drip on the ring finger.’ Kurogiri sat nearby, polishing his glasses with that dad-style, as Himiko likes to call it, calm of his while talking to Compress about which whiskey is better.

Dabi barely heard any of it. He was slouched back on the couch, legs spread, watching some bullshit report about a lowlife hero allegedly assaulting a fan. He couldn’t even tell if the news anchor was condemning or defending the bastard. These fuckers got protected no matter what they did. He would know.

Then his phone buzzed. Twice.

Himiko’s head snapped up instantly like a cat hearing a bag of catnip. She practically launched herself across the furniture. “Dabi!!! Is it Hawksie?! Is it your birdy?!” she squealed, bouncing. Pearly fangs glinted in the warm light.

“Fuck off, Himiko. He’s not my birdy,” the villain grumbled automatically, yet his hand was already going for the phone. “But yeah. It’s him.”

Tomura paused his game with a click of annoyance, but he was listening now. None of them said it put loud, but the bird had somewhat wormed his way into their fucked-up excuse for a family. They all knew he was a double agent. They also knew he didn’t want to be.

“What’d he say? Not that I care!”, Twice contradicted himself, scooting closer despite himself.

Even Kurogiri quieted mid-sentence. Ever since he’d learned how the Commission treated Keigo, something in him had shifted. Dabi opened the text, expecting some snark or maybe intel about the cases. What he read just made his stomach drop.

“He’s acting… off,” Dabi muttered, eyes flicking across the words with growing dread.

“What do you mean?” Tomura asked, scratching his neck hard enough to leave red marks.

“Ugh show meeee!”, Himiko didn’t wait. she snatched the phone straight out of his hand. Dabi snapped at her, but his voice died the moment she started reading. Amber eyes flickering between the words.

“‘Hey hotstuff, Look… I’ll make it short. I’m sorry for lyin to you and the League, I’m a traitor but I swear didn’t tell them nything that would put you guys in danger. I just wanted to tell you guysthat, I’m sorry. Also protct hmiko pls , The commission is after her, they… orderd me to kill her. I refused.’”

Her voice faltered, smile falling right off her face. She blinked away the hesitation and continued.

“‘My real name is Keigo.’”

Silence.

“Dabi… why’s he talking like that?, why is he saying all this, Dabi I don’t like this.” Himiko whispered, voice trembling. Her hands shook as she returned the phone.

“It’s fine, bastard's probably just drunk somewhere”, Dabi scoffed, but the lie tasted like ash in his mouth.

“He says the Commission is after Himiko, and he’s talking like he’s signing off,” Tomura muttered, Switch forgotten, hands twitching. “We already knew he was undercover. So why now?”

“He told us his real name,” Spinner said quietly from the corner. “He’s never told anyone.”

Kurogiri set his glasses down, mist flickering. “We should check on him.”

“Yeah”, Dabi said immediately. His chest was tight, too tight. “We should go. Now.” Even if the stupid bird was lying drunk somewhere, it probably would be a good idea to get him to base. 

Though somewhere in the heart Dabi would forever deny he had, he knew something was wrong.

Kurogiri opened a portal to Hawks’ apartment, and Dabi was through it before the mist had fully formed. The moment his boots hit the floor, a sick, wrong feeling locked into his spine. His breath stuttered. Himiko gasped. The place looked like a hurricane had gone through it. Glass coated the floor like crystalline ice. Feathers lay scattered in places they shouldn’t. The sofa was ripped open like someone had been digging for something inside it. Or someone had taken their anger out on anything in reach.

“Oi? Hawks?!” Dabi called, crossing the space in seconds, his voice harsher than he meant for it to come out. “Get your ass out here-!”

The bedroom was worse, somehow. The lamps shattered, picture frames broken. Feathers everywhere, some stuck in walls, some drenched in alcohol. Pillows ripped and thrown off the bed onto the floor. Twice said nothing, but Himiko’s breath suddenly hitched, her eyes fixed on the bathroom door. “Dabi… I smell blood.”, she whispered, voice breaking.

Dabi didn’t think, he moved. Within seconds he was at the bathroom door. There was no sound. No running water. No movement. Just silence. Fuck.

He tried the handle.

Locked.

“Hawks!,” he snapped. No response.

“Keigo!”, Something cracked in his chest. “Open it.”

When it didn’t, his patience shattered. “Tomura-!”, he called. The other stepped forward, no questions asked, his face grave, and pressed all five fingers to the wood. The door crumbled into dust, and then came the darkness. The bathroom light was off.

At first, nobody breathed.

Then the shape finally registered, Hawks slumped in the bathtub, wings half-spread, feathers dull and molting. His head was lolled slightly to the side, eyes closed, and resting against the tile like he’d simply gone to sleep. His feathers were gone, tossed to the floor, drenched in red. His undershirt was half-unzipped, collar stretched from where he’d probably clawed at it earlier. Sweat clinging to his neck.

One hand was slick red beneath the torn glove, sleeve rolled up, soaked. The other still held a feather, sharpened halfway to a blade, buried into the skin of his own wrist. Blood. God, there was so much blood. It soaked into the white tiles and stained the tub. Crimson dripped down his fingers onto the floor, from where his arm lay limp on the edge of the bathtub.

For a second, the world stopped.

Then begun Himiko’s screams.

Chapter Text

Himiko’s scream tore out of her like something being ripped apart. She vaulted over the counter and fell to her knees beside the tub, knocking over the empty whiskey bottle at his feet.

“Keigo!”, she shrieked, seizing his wrist before he could lose any more blood.

Her hands were slick instantly. She tried pressing her palms over the wound, but there was too much. Too much blood, too much panic, too much silence in his chest.

Dabi’s heart stopped beating for a full second. Then it crashed back to life like someone had throat punched him. He moved before he could even think, crashing to the floor and hands fumbling on what to do. How to fix this.

Tomura stood still in the doorway, eyes wide, breath coming in fast bursts. For a moment, he couldn’t move, he just stared at the slumped figure, the feather still clutched in Keigo’s hand, the crimson spreading across white tile.

‘Boss’ what a fucking joke. He can’t even move.

The villain stumbled forward and dropped to his knees next to Dabi. His fingers hovered uselessly in the air, twitching. He tried to grab the blood-slicked feather, but the moment his fingertips brushed it, it disintegrated into dust, vanishing from Keigo’s palm.

Twice hovered at the threshold, one half of him murmuring reassurances while the other muttered frantic curses under his breath. Spinner stood behind him, white-knuckled and pale, as if his body hadn’t caught up to what his mind was screaming.

“Fuck–!, Fuck!” Tomura rasped, wiping at his hands like he could get rid of the blood on his skin. “Why couldn’t he wait?!, Why didn’t we come sooner?!”

Dabi didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He was already tearing off his coat and pressing it harshly against the wound. His hands slipped once, then steadied with a raw, desperate sort of strength.

Himiko started choking on her tears.

“Breathe”, he snapped at the girl, but she couldn’t, hyperventilating as she clung to Keigo’s sleeve with shaking fingers, her face blotched and red and wet with tears. Dabi shoved the fabric harder against the bleeding, his entire body trembling. “Keigo, open your fucking eyes. Open them!”

Himiko leaned down until her forehead pressed to his arm. “Please”, she whispered, voice shattered. “You pinky promised me you wouldn’t leave. You said I was annoying enough to keep you with the League, remember?, Get up-!”, she hiccuped. “You’re not allowed to break pinky promises!”

Tomura forced himself to move again, wiping his nose with his sleeve and taking in a shaky breath. “Kurogiri!”, he shouted, voice cracking.

There was a flicker of purple before the warp opened fully in the hallway. Kurogiri stepped through and froze only for a heartbeat, just enough time for the mist to flicker around the edges.

“Get him to that Doctor”, Dabi snarled without looking up. His voice was low, unsteady, lethal. “Now!”

Kurogiri nodded once. “Someone needs to lift him.”

Dabi’s arms went under Keigo’s back and beneath his legs with a tenderness that didn’t match the panic in his eyes. The blood seeped into his clothes, staining the staples on his arms, but he didn’t pause for a second.

Himiko didn’t want to let go. Her fingers dug into the leather of Keigo’s glove before Twice gently, hesitantly, pulled her back. She tried to follow when Dabi carried Keigo out of the bathroom, but Twice had both arms around her before she could throw herself at them. She kicked and clawed at his chest, voice breaking.

“Let me go!, Let me go!, he needs me- he needs bloo—!”

Twice didn’t flinch, didn’t argue. His grip was desperate but gentle. “Himi- Himi, stop, okay? You’ll slip- there’s blood- just.. just breathe for me, yeah?”

She didn’t. She couldn’t. Her breaths came out as frantic, wet gasps, eyes locked on the trail of red smearing across the floor where Dabi’s boots had stepped. Crimson footprints left behind, like a path to loss.

Kurogiri appeared in front of them, mist flickering with strain. “We must move now. He won’t last long if we don’t.”

Tomura didn’t wait. His hands were shaking so violently he kept them fisted in the sleeves of his jacket to stop himself from disintegrating the doorframe or the floor or himself.

“Move!” he snapped at no one in particular, grinding his teeth. “Get him to the doctor-!, now!”

Dabi didn’t speak, he thinks if he tried to talk now he’d scream. His jaw was clenched so tight the staples pulled at his skin. His arms were locked under Keigo’s legs and back, cradling him like he weighed nothing. Blood had soaked through the front of his shirt, through the stitches in his neck, down his arms. Some of it belonged to Keigo. Some of it didn’t.

A single broken feather was still tangled in Keigo’s hair.

Dabi stepped through the portal Kurogiri opened, something hot and ugly twisting in his gut. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. He could hear them.

Himiko screaming into Twice’s shoulder, crying hysterically. Spinner cursing under his breath as he gathered up the shattered frames and glass so no one would step on it. Tomura stalking after him slowly, deathly silent, like the calm before a storm.

The portal closed behind them with a crackle of static and mist. The silence left behind in the apartment almost felt mocking.

______

Kurogiri’s warp let them out into the doctor’s underground facility. Everything was wrong, it was too bright, too cold, too clean compared to what state Keigo was in. Blood dripped onto the floor from Keigo’s wrists. Too red, too hot compared to how cold his skin felt to touch.

The walls felt as if they were closing in on them. Dabi’s boots hit the floor hard, but he kept his grip steady, even when his knees nearly buckled from sheer desperation.

Garaki’s eyes went wide behind his glasses the second he saw the blood, moustache twitching.

“What on earth happened—?”

Tomura didn’t let him finish. “Don’t just stand there-!?, fix him!”, he snapped, hands reaching out dangerously.

The doctor scrambled for a gurney, yelling for equipment and Nomu assistants. “Clear the slab.”, the Nomu moved without hesitation. One swept tools and parts off the table. Another flicked on the surgical lights. The glow hit Keigo’s face, making the circles under his eyes look bruised and hollow.

“Lay him flat”, Garaki ordered.

Dabi did as told, he lowered Keigo onto the stretcher with a slowness that felt wrong, his hands hovered for a second longer than necessary before pulling away. The moment skin left fabric, the man’s fingers spasmed like he’d dropped something burning.

Keigo’s head lolled to the side. His lips were pale. There were still smudges of dried blood under his nose and at the corner of his mouth. The red jewels in his ears glinted beneath the harsh light.

A breathing mask was fitted over his face, and Garaki’s hands moved fast, muttering about blood volume, damage to tendons, fragile vascular systems in wings. Dabi only caught half of it. He didn’t hear much over the rush of his own pulse, heavy and nauseating. Tomura stood a few feet back, pacing like a caged animal, scratching at his neck until flakes of skin gathered beneath his nails. His gaze kept flicking from Keigo to Dabi, then back again, rage and fear twisting into something silent and dangerous.

Garaki grabbed a tray and scissors. “We need this suit off. His vitals are dangerously low. How deep did he cut?”

Dabi didn’t answer. He didn’t know, couldn't tell with all the blood. He just grabbed the sleeve and tore the glove off Keigo’s hand, pushing his sleeves up further. The multiple gashes on both his arms were deep and ugly, slicing through layers that shouldn’t have been reachable with a feather.

Garaki clicked his tongue and immediately set to work with gauze and pressure packs. “He’s lost too much blood. His body is already half held together with pharmaceuticals and wing strain— stupid bird…”, he muttered to himself.

A low growl rumbled in Dabi’s throat, sharp enough to make Garaki reconsider his wording.

“Kurogiri", the Doctor said instead, voice leveling, “Bring the transfusion kits. His blood type should still be on record from the last procedure.”

Kurogiri vanished and reappeared within seconds, arms full of equipment.

Dabi didn’t move. Not even when Garaki snapped at him, “I need room to work—! step back before you drip more contaminants on him!”

“No”, Dabi said, low and final.

Garaki stared at him for a tense second, processing, and then gave a stiff nod and continued around him.

A few minutes go by, feeling like hours. Kurogiri appeared beside them, his mist flickering worse than before as he returned from the bar. “Himiko attempted to follow but Twice is still restraining her. She is… distraught, inconsolable.”

“That’s two words for it”, Tomura muttered, voice tight.

Garaki turned, glasses reflecting in the light as he wiped his hands on a blood-stained cloth. Hawks’ blood. “He’s lost a significant amount of blood. I’ve stabilized the worst of it, but any later and—”

“Don’t.”, Dabi stopped him, voice flat. His hands curled into fists so tight the staples at his knuckles strained.

The doctor swallowed and tried again, fumbling. “He needs rest, the lacerations on his arms are too deep to be moving around, the stitches will rip. He most certainly won’t wake up for a while due to blood loss.”

“How long?”, Tomura demanded.

Garaki hesitated. “A few days, at best. Maybe longer.”

Dabi didn’t look away from Keigo.

The doctor cleared his throat. “I assume you’ll want him transferred to your headquarters once he’s stable enough to move?”

“We’re taking him now”, Tomura said coldly.

Garaki froze, eyes widening. He stammered. “N-Now? His condition is—”

“I said”, Tomura’s voice dipped, lowering into something dark and threatening, “We’re taking him now.”

A beat of silence passed.

Then Garaki bowed stiffly, a vein popping out of his forehead. “As you wish, Shigaraki-san”, he nodded and Johnny began disconnecting wires and securing Keigo onto a heavier transport bed. The heart monitor was clipped to the side, still beeping slowly.

Dabi just stared blankly, at the blood, the bandages.

At Keigo.

_____

After the initial panic settled and Hawks was put in one of the spare rooms in the base, and the others finally cleared the room, Tomura stepped closer to Dabi. Slowly, like he was approaching something feral, like an injured wild animal.

Dabi didn’t move. He just stood there, staring at the hero’s unconscious face like looking away might make him disappear.

“I can’t lose him, Tomura…, not again,” he breathed. The words were quiet, but they scraped out of his throat like broken glass. Tomura didn’t press or ask what he meant, the man just placed a gloved hand on Dabi’s shoulder.

Then, without hesitation, Shigaraki Tomura pulled him into a hug.

Dabi’s body locked up, shoulders going stiff, hands balled into fists at his sides. For a second, it looked like he might shove Tomura off. But then something in him cracked, the composure, the mask, the indifference. His forehead dropped against Tomura’s shoulder. Breath hitching sharp and silent like he’d just swallowed a scream. And then, just barely, tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.

Not clear. Not clean.

Thin lines of dark, diluted blood welled up along his lower lashes before trailing slowly down the ragged skin of his cheeks. They traced the seams where metal met flesh, streaking down to his jaw and dripping onto Tomura’s hoodie in faint red smears.

Tomura didn’t flinch, didn’t comment or complain. He just wrapped his arms tighter around him, resting one hand between Dabi’s shoulder blades as if holding him together by force alone.

He was the leader, and this was his party.

If he couldn’t hold them from shattering, then who else could.

Dabi didn’t sob. He didn’t make a sound. He just shook once on the inhale, breath breaking halfway through before forcing its way out shakily. His fingers lifted, gripping the back of Tomura’s hoodie with silent desperation, smearing blood into the fabric. 

Tomura just held him, silently, strongly. A pillar of some sort.

Like a brother would.

Chapter Text

All For One sat in silence, the dim light of the underground room casting long shadows across the floor. His expression was unreadable beneath the mask, but the tension rolling off him in waves was heavy, dangerous, a barely leashed storm.

He had always known the Commission never stopped.

Child soldiers, quirk experiments, indoctrination dressed up as patriotism. They’d only buried their sins deeper underground, polishing their image while the rot spread. At one point, he might have taken pleasure in the irony of it, public-serving heroes built on the same cruelty they condemned in villains.

Not anymore.

Not when it touched his own.

He extended a hand and activated a quirk, one of thousands. Information bled into his mind like ink dripping into water. In a matter of seconds, he saw the cause. The Commission had commanded Hawks, Takami Keigo, to eliminate Toga Himiko.

Not capture. Not subdue.

Eliminate.

He almost laughed. Almost. He would if he still had a face.

They truly believed Hawks would obey. That the hero would stain his hands with the blood of the only people who had shown him something resembling family. Rhat he’d bite the hand that held him. That he would butcher a girl whose worst crime was being shaped by the same world that broke him.

If Keigo had posed even a whisper of real danger to the League, All For One would have erased him long ago. But the boy was loyal, just not to the ones who claimed to own him.

The Commission’s mistake wasn’t in the order.

It was in underestimating who would bleed for who.

He leaned back in his chair and let his quirked gaze fall to the photograph framed on the wall. A woman with emerald green hair smiled wide, her eyes shining with a kind of hope and kindness the world had not yet poisoned. Next to her stood a white-haired man, tired but gentle as he stared to the side in wonder. Between them, cradled in soft arms, a baby with dark curls. 

His family.

The one he couldn’t save.

His hand brushed over the image.

He had failed them once. He would not fail again.

And the Commission, the real demons hidden away in their underground tunnels, cloaked in heroism, they had just signed their own execution orders.

A faint, old-fashioned sound of an ongoing call cut through the quiet.

He waited patiently for the other to pick up.

“Hello. Ah, yes— this is Shigaraki Hisashi speaking”, he said smoothly, using the name the world forgot but will now forever remember. “I have a favor to cash in.”

There was a pause on the other end before the reply came, warm and amused yet a hint of shock in a way that suggested very old debts. Old kinship, of a sort. Hisashi can’t say he wasn’t happy to get the chance to rekindle vintage friendships.

“Well. That is a voice I haven’t heard in far too long.”

All For One allowed himself the faintest echo of a smile.

The world wouldn’t notice the shift at first. Not the tremor beneath their feet. Not the silent countdown already beginning. But they would soon.

The Hero Public Safety Commission wouldn’t see it coming.

But when the dust began to rise and the balance finally broke, it wouldn’t be war. It would be justice.

It was time to spin the world on its axis.

It was time for change.

_______

The blood had been scrubbed from the floor hours ago, but it still felt like it clung to the air.

The League’s base wasn’t quiet often, probably never. Noise was the norm for them, arguments, games, bad jokes, bickering, someone setting something on fire, turning stuff to dust, someone else telling them not to. Tonight the main lounge felt like the inside of a grave. Too still. Too quiet. Too awake.

The only light came from the lamp in the corner, casting shadows across the couches and the mess of jackets, snacks, and half-finished drinks left from earlier in the day. No one had bothered to clean anything. No one cared.

The hallway light flickered once. Dabi stepped back into the room.

He looked worse cleaned up than when he’d been covered in blood. His hair was still damp from washing Keigo’s blood off, and his eyes were rimmed red. His clothes were clean, but the memory of wet warmth soaking through them wouldn’t leave. His stitches were pulled tight from how hard he’d scrubbed.

Dabi sat on the edge of the long couch, hunched forward, forearms braced on his knees.

His gaze was fixed on nothing. Or maybe it was fixed on the image burned behind his eyes, the tub, the feather, the blood. The way he had felt weightless and wrong in his arms. The way that broken breathing barely counted as breathing at all.

Every time his brain tried to replay anything past that, he shut it down.

“He meant it.”, he said, breaking the silence.

Everyone looked at him, wide-eyed.

“That message. The ‘sorry’, revealing his name. He was drunk, yeah- but it wasn’t nonsense. He wasn’t rambling. He thought that was it. That was his goodbye.” His undoing.

Himiko’s breath stuttered and she shoved her face deeper into the blanket. Twice sat crossed-legged on the floor, arms wrapped over his head.

“We should’ve gone sooner— as soon as he texted. We should’ve been there!, why didn’t we go—”

Tomura cut him off, gently but firmly. “Enough. Blaming ourselves won’t change it.”

Twice nodded once, then shook his head because the other half disagreed.

Mr. Compress leaned against the wall near the kitchen, mask off, gloves off, thumb rubbing slow circles into his palm.

“He warned us about Toga,” he said. “Even then. He was still trying to protect us while…”, his voice thinned out. “…While he was bleeding out alone.”

Himiko clapped a shaky hand over her mouth to muffle the sound that clawed out of her. She curled up in the far corner of the same couch, a blanket around her shoulders that didn’t belong to her. Someone, probably Kurogiri, had draped it over her without asking. Her knees were pulled to her chest, chin resting on top of them, sleeves pulled over her hands. Her eyes were raw. She’d stopped crying only because her body didn’t have anything left to give.

She hadn’t spoken since asking three times if he was still breathing.

Spinner muttered under his breath, “The Commission made him think death was the only exit.”, he scoffed as he sat against the wall near the doorway, fingers drumming against his thigh like he needed to move or break something.

Tomura’s smile was humorless and sharp. “Then we show them there’s worse things than wings they can’t break.”, he didn’t sit, he stood behind the couch, one hand gripping the backrest so tightly the fabric had started to fray beneath his fingers. His other hand twitched every few seconds, scratching lightly at the side of his neck, but not tearing skin this time.

Restraint was an ugly, fragile thing on him.

He kept glancing toward the hallway that led to the spare room. He had checked on Hawks twice since they got back. He hadn’t said anything either time. He’d looked at the bandages, at the breathing mask, the IV needles stuck into his hands. At the dull feathers that hadn’t shed any further since the bleeding stopped. Then he walked out before anyone could read his face.

Now, in the middle, he sighed.

Kurogiri adjusted his cuffs, standing behind the bar counter. “They will attempt contact. Orders. Retrieval. Cleanup.”, the man’s tone sharpened. “They won’t accept a missing asset quietly.”

“And they won’t expect him to be with us”, Spinner added with a scoff. “And… what happens if he wakes up and tries.. that again?”

Dabi’s head lifted at that, slow and dangerous. His eyes were darker than the staples along his face.

“He won’t.”

Spinner blinked. “You think he’ll listen?”

“No”, Dabi said. “I think he doesn’t get a fucking choice.”

Chapter Text

It was dark and night had fallen, but Principal Nedzu never truly slept. Beady eyes blinked as they read emails, shining by the glow of several monitors and the soft steam trailing from his teacup. Applications, curriculum changes, reports from the Commission, police intercepts, and the papers of about a dozen half-scrubbed intel threads cluttered his desk.

Ringgggggg

The stoat stilled.

His private line rang. Not the U.A. line, not the Commission-forwarded line, not the encrypted hero network. No, it was the small burner phone sitting in the bottom drawer of his desk. The one only two people in history had ever had access to.

He froze for half a heartbeat, long enough for instinct to flare, memory to sharpen, and then… curiosity won.

He answered.

A silence stretched. Heavy and intentional. Then-

“Hello. Ah, yes— this is Shigaraki Hisashi speaking”

For the first time in over a decade, Nedzu forgot how to smile.

“I have a favor to cash in.”

That voice should have been ash. Gone. Buried under rubble and memory and the lies told in Japan’s wake.

“Well. That is a voice I haven’t heard in far too long.”

A quiet, amused sound, almost a laugh. “You always were quick, Nedzu.”

Nedzu did not speak for several seconds. He could hear his own pulse in his ears.

Four years ago, the news said he was dead. All Might swore he’d destroyed him. The Commission celebrated behind closed doors. And Nedzu, who had once owed that man his life, had quietly mourned him. “You’re supposed to be dead,” Nedzu spoke after a short pause, voice light but edged.

“Hmm”, All For One replied. “So I hear.”

The principal leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing. “You waited a long time to prove otherwise.”, There was a pause, brief, thoughtful.

“I was recovering, and being hunted. Neither state was conducive to a happy reunion.”, Recovering. From wounds so severe even his regeneration couldn’t immediately mend him. No wonder he’d stayed buried in the dark. All Might had barely survived with half of his stomach intact, he couldn’t imagine what state the other party was in.

“And Shigaraki Tomura?”, Nedzu asked carefully. “He knew?”

“Kurogiri handled his care until I returned to him”, Hisashi said, as if discussing logistics, not the hidden survival of Japan’s most wanted man. “The boy was never abandoned, only protected.”

The faintest tension Nedzu didn’t know he’d been holding eased. Just a little.

“So”, he said, tone brightening a fraction, “To what do I owe this resurrection?”

A pause.

“I’m cashing in a favor,” Hisashi said, not unkindly.

Ah. There it was. The quiet weight of an old debt, the kind that never vanished, no matter how many regimes rose and fell.

Nedzu took a slow sip of his tea. “Go on.”

“I want amnesty and protection for my people. Relocation. Rehabilitation under your supervision at U.A. if necessary. They will comply with quirk suppressants.”

Nedzu blinked once.

“…You’re requesting sanctuary”, he said. Not disbelief, but astonishment.

“Yes.”

“For the League of Villains.” Not a question. “For my family”, Hisashi corrected, calm but firm.

Nedzu’s ears twitched. His gaze sharpened. “…You do realize how little incentive the world has to show them mercy.”, the stoat sighed. “You owe me, Nedzu,” Hisashi replied tiredly yet not threatening, but instead reminding. “…And you know better than anyone what happens when the Commission decides someone is inconvenient.”, the word is spit out like venom.

A flash of memory. Blood, sounds of a scalpel, muzzles. Then a hand, warm and ungloved with a small hole in its palm, lifting him free of a metal table. Nedzu’s claws tapped twice on his desk. “You saved me from becoming one of their lab rats. I haven’t forgotten.”

“I’m invoking that debt”, Hisashi said. “Now.”

Nedzu hesitated only once before answering, “Then you’ll give me an explanation to match the scale of what you’re asking.” A quiet exhale, an agreement.

Nedzu’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s start with USJ, shall we?, I’m still rather displeased about your protege strolling into my school and nearly giving my protege a burial.”, Hisashi actually hummed. “You’re still holding onto that?”

“You sent a warp gate and a swarm of villains into a building full of first-years.”, the stoat retaliated, voice deadpan. “You attacked them before they even learned what the word hero even truly meant.”

Another pause.

“If I had wanted your students dead…”, Hisashi sighed, tone cooling a degree, “…They would be dead. Why do you think not one child suffered more than superficial harm?”, a pause. “Tomura went rogue that day. I was not yet recovered enough to leash him properly, and he was out for blood.”

“Then why pull the leash at all?”, the principal hummed, unconvinced.

“Because…”, Hisashi said quietly, “All Might already cost me one family. I had no intention of destroying someone else’s children to soothe Tomura’s spite.”

Nedzu stilled.

Family.

Not weapon. Not heir. Family.

And despite everything— even now, Hisashi was drawing a line. Another realisation slid slowly into place. Like the unraveling of Pandora’s Box. “This isn’t just strategy”, Nedzu murmured. “You want them safe. Truly safe.”

Silence answered him for five long seconds.

“They are all I have left.”

Nedzu sat up straighter. “I will require conditions”

“I expected nothing less.”

“You’ll bring them yourself. No proxies.”, he stated resolutely.

“Agreed.”

“They wear suppressants at all times.”

“That was my offer.”

“And if any of them endanger the students—”

“They won’t”, All For One interrupted. Then, colder, “Especially not the one they were ordered to kill.”

The principal’s fur stood on end. “Ordered?”, he questioned.

“You’re aware of the Commission’s… habits,” Hisashi said.

Nedzu’s paw stilled over his notebook. “I am aware of many things. You’ll have to be more specific.”, A low hum, thoughtful. “Takami Keigo.”

Nedzu’s ears twitched. “Hawks?, the Commission’s golden child?”

“Not theirs”, the other corrected, and that faint edge of possessiveness almost masked the fury beneath. “Not anymore. Perhaps not ever.”

Nedzu said nothing, letting the silence pull more out of the man on the other end.

“They gave him an order”, Hisashi continued. “Not to investigate. Not to infiltrate. Not to restrain.” A pause, as if the words themselves were offensive to speak aloud. “They commanded him to kill Toga Himiko.”

Nedzu didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. But his claws pressed into the wood of his desk as his fangs came out, threatening, dangerous.

“Eliminate”, Hisashi clarified, voice hard as steel. “They used that word. Not capture. Not contain. Eliminate a sixteen-year-old girl whose greatest crime is bleeding the way they made her, and then they told him to bring the ‘disposed’ to them.””

Nedzu shut his eyes briefly. His mind was already sketching timelines, compiling threats, implications, power plays, leverage. “And he refused, I assume.”

“He did more than that”, Hisashi said. “He warned them.”

Nedzu’s eyes snapped open.

“He sent the League a message”, the supervillain went on. “An apology. A goodbye. Instructions to protect the girl they ordered him to slaughter. Then he torn his wrists open with his own feathers.”

For the first time in a long while, Nedzu felt his chest tighten. He didn’t feel empathy for humans, not usually. But this was a child. A child raised in the shackles of the corrupt government, sentenced to end another’s life.

“He is still alive?”, he questioned. “Barely”, Hisashi answered. “My son and his… companions reached him in time. Had they arrived minutes later, I would be informing you of a different debt.”

Son.

Nedzu caught the word more than the tone. “And the Commission?”, he asked, voice borderlining a growl.

“They do not know he survived”, Hisashi said simply. “Nor do they know where he is now, and they will not find him. Your school has a suppression field, yes?, a complete signal scrambler?”

Nedzu narrowed his eyes. “You’re assuming much.”

“You owe me”, Hisashi reminded him softly. “Not in coin. In lives. I am calling it in. All of it.”

Nedzu thought of Keigo Takami. Taken as a child, trained as a tool, sharpened into a weapon, praised as a symbol… and now?, discarded the moment he hesitated to kill a young girl. Hesitated to get the blood of a hurt child on his hands.

“I’m asking you….”, Hisashi corrected, “…To uphold the values you pretend this society has. Or would you rather leave them to the people who taught a child that death was his only exit?”, Nedzu’s whiskers twitched as he answered. “You speak as though the League will accept this arrangement.”

“They will.”

“How can you be certain?”

There was no hesitation in Hisashi’s reply.

“Because they tore through buildings to get to him.”

A beat.

“I have seen the footage from the apartment”, he went on. “Himiko had to be sedated after screaming herself hoarse. Tomura decayed a bathroom door to reach him. Dabi carried him while covered in his blood. Spinner and Twice cleaned the apartment so Himiko wouldn’t see it again. They are villains, yes— but not monsters.”

Nedzu said nothing, though his tail flicked once. “And Hawks?”, he asked after the moment of silence. “What is his current state?”

“Unconscious”, Hisashi replied. “But stable. Their doctor intervened before he bled out entirely.”

“Physically stable, perhaps”, Nedzu mused. “But psychologically?”

Hisashi did not falter. “He believed dying was the best way to protect them.”

Nedzu’s ears lowered a fraction.

“He is not free of the Commission’s leash yet”, he continued. “Their conditioning runs deep. Their handlers will come for him the moment they realize he is missing. And whether they retrieve him dead or alive makes little difference to them.”

“And you want me to make that leash snap.”

“I want you,” the king of the underworld said, “…To cut it.”

Nedzu’s gaze shifted to the framed documents at the edge of his office , founding charters, outdated agreements, records of a society that had never been as clean as it pretended. “You know…”, he said, voice low, “…The public would burn U.A to the ground if they learned we sheltered its most infamous enemies.”

“The public is irrelevant. You and I have both watched them cheer for slaughter so long as it wears a cape.”, The stoat didn’t argue, he couldn’t. If anyone knew how true that statement unfortunately was, it was him.

“You once told me”, Hisashi said idly, “…That your greatest regret was being unable to free the children the Commission stole.”

Nedzu’s claws sank a millimeter into his armrest. “They broke Hawks long before he learned to fly”, the man said softly. “He has been dying for years. He simply chose when.”

Silence passed between them, heavy and cold.

“I can offer you this much”, Hisashi added. “The League will comply with suppressants, curfews, surveillance. They will remain within controlled sectors. They will not run.”

“And if they decide otherwise?”

“They will not.”

There was nothing boastful in the statement. Just certainty. Nedzu’s mind raced across possible futures… some promising, some catastrophic, all fragile.

Finally, he asked, “What do you expect in return for this cooperation?”

“For now?”, All For One started. “Shelter. Protection, and time for Keigo to wake somewhere he is not a weapon.” That was when Nedzu realized something, Hisashi wasn’t bartering for advantage. He was maneuvering for survival.

Not his.

Theirs.

“You want me to shelter the League…”, Nedzu said slowly, “…Including a double agent the Commission believes is dead.”

“No”, Hisashi replied. “I want sanctuary for them all. Rehabilitation. Education. A future. You will keep them out of the Commission’s reach, because you know what happens to children they get their hands on.”

Nedzu’s tail curled once. “You assume I would hide League members in my school. After they shed blood on the very same campus.”

“You will, because if anyone would, it is you. Pro Hero Nedzu.”, Hisashi said calmly.

There was no threat in it, just inevitability. Maybe a fragile sense of trust too. Then, quieter, “They were never your enemy. You just didn’t realise who the real ones were.”, Nedzu didn’t respond. Not yet. But his mind was racing now, through timelines, precedents, opportunities, dangers. Through the haunting memory of a child with blank eyes and hands that shook under the table. Because in the end, the bitter truth was that Hawks didn’t try to escape the Commission. He tried to die because it was the only freedom they’d ever left him.

Hisashi must have felt the shift in Nedzu’s silence, because his next words were measured.

“I’m not asking you to trust them”, he sighed, tired and sounding like a man who had seen the cruelty of the world. “I’m asking you to protect what the Commission failed to break. Starting with the boy who chose death over serving them again.”

Nedzu exhaled through his nose, eyes half-lidded. Takami Keigo’s blood was still cooling somewhere underground, and the world was pretending not to see. Nedzu refused to stand by and watch.

“And you’re moving before they can reclaim him.”

“I’m moving”, the man said, “Before they try to make him finish the job, of either himself or that girl.”

The line was quiet for a moment. Nedzu sighed.

Finally, he straightened. “Very well. I’ll arrange transport and containment. They’ll be treated as wards under restriction, not prisoners. You’ll bring them yourself.”

“I will, and I will send you all the files and information that you need.”

“Very well, and as you know, suppressants are non-negotiable.”

“That was my stipulation.”

“One more thing,” Nedzu added, voice gentler now. “Once this is done- Midoriya Inko deserves the truth.”

A long pause.

“When it’s safe”, Midoriya Hisashi said at last. “I’ll tell her.”

The line clicked off.

Nedzu sat motionless for ten long seconds.

Then, for the first time in years, he set his tea aside and reached for something stronger.

Because a ghost had just asked him to save the villains, the victims of society.

And damn him, Nedzu was going to do it.

______

The faculty conference room at U.A was rarely this silent.

The morning sun filtered through the tall windows, catching flecks of dust in the still air. Nedzu sat at the head of the long table, paws folded neatly over a stack of closed files. His expression was unreadable, beady eyes calm, but too sharp to be at ease.

Aizawa arrived first, capture weapon draped around his shoulders, hair unbound and eyes already narrowed, suspicious. He took his seat without a word but kept his gaze fixed on Nedzu, silently questioning his mentor. Cementoss followed, posture tense but collected. Midnight leaned back in her chair, arms folded, expression unreadable. Present Mic sat beside his husband, unusually silent. Snipe and Thirteen took seats along the side, offering small nods of acknowledgment. Recovery Girl settled last, cane resting against her chair.

Then the door opened again.

All Might stepped in. He gave his usual polite smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Something was wrong, everyone could tell. He sat beside Aizawa, posture stiff and hands clasped over his knees.

Nedzu looked around the room.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice.”

Aizawa’s voice was low, eyes already narrowing. “You said it was urgent.”

“It is indeed”, Nedzu said simply. “It is also extremely sensitive. So I must insist, nothing said in this room leaves it, not until I decide otherwise.”, and that was definitely a threat.

He waited until he got word of agreement from everyone.

“You are here…”, he said evenly, “…Because what I am about to discuss cannot leave this room. Speak of it to no student, no pro hero, no agency, and absolutely no one tied to the Hero Public SafetyCommission. Am I understood?”

Everyone nodded. Nedzu sighed softly.

“What I’m about to tell you is not rumor, not speculation, and not up for dismissal”, he began. His voice was calm, but every ear sharpened. “Yesterday, I was contacted by an individual most of the world believes is dead. He is not.”

The silence deepened.

“That individual is Shigaraki Hisashi- also known to the public as the infamous villain All For One.”

Chairs creaked. Eyes widened. Breath caught. All Might said nothing, face paling and breath catching, his knuckles whitened against his knees.

“What?”, Present Mic rasped. “That- that’s not a joke, right?, because if it is, it’s in extremely poor taste, dude.”

The stoat shook his head. “He is alive. He contacted me directly using an old communication code that only two beings on this earth still know, him and myself.”

Midnight leaned forward. “How long have you known this?”

“Since last night”, Nedzu answered without hesitation. “And before any of you ask- yes, I have confirmed beyond doubt that it was him, and no, he is not threatening us.”

Vlad King narrowed his eyes. “You expect us to believe the boogeymen of the underground reached out politely?”

“He didn’t ask for forgiveness”, Nedzu said evenly. “He invoked a debt.”

That drew another reaction. Glances shifting, frowns deepening. Aizawa’s tone dropped dangerously low as he spoke. “What kind of debt?”

The principal looked at him. “Before I became principal of U.A, I was held by the Hero Public Safety Commission. Experimented on, tortured, you all know that part.”, his voice never wavered. “What you all do not know is who got me out. Shigaraki Hisashi did. Not for power, not for leverage, but because the Commission intended to dismantle my mind. He stopped them.”

A beat of silence. Nedzu continued. “He asked me to cash in that debt now.”

All Might’s voice came out low and dangerous. “That villain—”

“—Is not why I called this meeting,” Nedzu interrupted gently, but firmly. “You will listen to the entirety of what I have to say before reacting further.”

Toshinori’s teeth ground together, but he said nothing. Nedzu’s tail curled behind him, and his tone remained calm. “He is not resurfacing to wage war.”, he stated resolutely. Mic’s throat bobbed, eyes darkening. “And what could someone like him possibly want from us?, I don’t think he’s one who speaks before he acts.”

Nedzu folded his paws. “He wants protection and rehabilitation for his people. For the League of Villains.”

Multiple voices erupted.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Rehabilitation?!”

“They’ve killed people!”

All Might’s voice cut through softly, strained. “Nedzu… what precisely did he request?”

The stoat sighed.

“That the League be brought under U.A’s protection”, he said clearly. “Not as students, not as prisoners of Tartarus, but as individuals in need of sanctuary and intervention. Hisashi intends to remove them from the Commission’s reach.”

Aizawa spoke flatly. “The Commission’s reach?, the League is wanted for terrorism. They’re not endangered, Nedzu, they are the danger.”

Nedzu turned to him, eyes cold. “Yesterday, the Commission issued an execution order for Toga Himiko. Sixteen-year old girl who was ostracised by society and shunned by her family and her peers for having a quirk that did not abide by the societal norms. Not a capture order, but an elimination directive.”

Midnight’s chair scraped the floor. “They ordered a child’s execution!?”

“Toga Himiko…”, Vlad murmured with growing horror. “The missing girl who was on the news a few years back because her quirk went haywire and she accidentally killed a classmate because of her medical requirement to drink blood?”, he questioned, eyes wide, tone steely.

The stoat nodded solemnly. “The very one. Now there is another individual involved.”, Nedzu continued, gaze growing colder, “I need to speak about Hawks.” That name snapped even the silent faculty to attention.

Recovery Girl stiffened. Mic stopped breathing for a moment. Thirteen’s hands curled on their lap.

“Hawks”, Nedzu began, “Was ordered by the Hero Public Safety Commission to assassinate Toga Himiko. Not capture. Not detain. Kill.”

Aizawa’s jaw clenched. Snipe swore under his breath. Vlad looked ready to put a fist through a wall. All Might’s face went pale. Nedzu’s voice didn’t waver. “He refused,” he continued. “They threatened to drag him back, to force compliance, to turn him into a weapon again.. and rather than carry out their command, he broke.”

The room held its breath.

“Takami Keigo attempted to take his own life that very night.”

A stunned, horrified silence followed. Thirteen let out a choked gasp.

“He was alone in his apartment. He’d already bled a significant amount before he was found.”

Recovery Girl let out a horrified breath. Cementoss’ brows furrowed. Aizawa’s eyes darkened instantly.

Present Mic whispered, “Shit…”

All Might looked blindsided. “Hawks… is he—?”

“Alive,” Nedzu said. “Barely, and not by the Commission’s doing.”

He paused.

“Found… by who?” Aizawa asked, voice low.

Nedzu met his eyes, black eyes unwavering.

“The League of Villains.”

No one spoke.

“They received a message from him minutes before he did it. They went for him.”

That hit the room like another blow.

Aizawa finally spoke. “You’re seriously telling us the League saved him?”, voice incredulous.

“Yes”, the principal responded. Nedzu’s voice softened only slightly. “The League found him bleeding out in time to save him. They stabilized him and contacted someone they believed would ensure he wouldn’t be taken back into Commission custody.”

“They protected him?” Snipe muttered, incredulous.

“They did more than that,” Nedzu replied. “In fact, they refused to leave him. They tore apart his apartment looking for him. Toga was the one who found the blood first, she later had to be sedated in order for her to be consoled. Shigaraki destroyed the bathroom door to reach him. They dragged him out of the tub and kept him breathing until Kurogiri warped them out.”

There were no jokes. No outrage now. Just grim, sobering understanding.

“They could have let him die. They could have delivered his corpse to the Commission. They did not.”

All Might stared at his hands.

“Because they are not monsters.”, the stoat finished.

Silence settled like fog. Then, slowly, it broke.

“How many of them?” Cementoss asked, voice resigned.

“Shigaraki Tomura, Dabi, Toga Himiko, Bubaigawara Jin, Spinner, Kurogiri, Magne, and Takami Keigo.” Nedzu’s gaze drifted across the faces in front of him. “We will not treat them as prisoners. Especially when one is being pulled out of a battlefield he never consented to step onto. They will receive medical supervision and psychiatric care here.”

Present Mic let out a shaky breath. “And the others-?, they just agreed to come quietly?”, he asked. “They didn’t come quietly”, the stoat answered. “They’re coming because someone they trust asked them to. Someone who refuses to hand them over to anyone else.”

There was a shift in the room none of them could quite explain, like puzzle pieces were rearranging in the dark.

All Might hadn’t moved. Nedzu waited until their unease settled into stunned focus before he continued. “There are things you must understand before they arrive. Things that will not leave this room. That includes the real nature of their ties and the history some of you have made assumptions about.”

“Shimura Nana had two children,” Nedzu said, quiet but firm. “Her son, Shimura Kotaro, who had two children, a son and a daughter.”, His eyes flicked to All Might, and the Number One hero finally lifted his gaze. His expression wasn’t stoic. It was hollow, as if a man preparing to a sentence he had already received.

The others’ reactions were immediate. Present Mic froze mid-breath. Midnight’s eyes widened. Cementoss blinked. Aizawa went utterly still.

“As you all have heard of, and are aware of the Shimura family tragedy from years ago, they all died of an unknown cause in which nothing but ashes were found. Nothing but dust. Not the two children, not their parents, nothing.”

Aizawa looked sick, as if he’d already pieced it together.

“One of them lived”, Nedzu quietly admonished. “The son. Shimura Tenko survived.”

Silence.

“You all know the name he was given afterward”, the stoat continued, voice low but clear. “The one the world branded him with.”

No one needed him to finish, but he did.

“Shigaraki Tomura is Shimura Tenko. Pro Hero Aerial, Shimura Nana’s grandson.”

The reactions hit in ripples. Midnight’s breath left her like she’d been hit. Present Mic’s chair scraped against the floor. Cementoss shut his eyes slowly. Aizawa’s stare dropped to the table, eyes dark with understanding. All Might didn’t move, frozen, held together by nothing but a single thread that was now decaying.

Nedzu continued, but his tone shifted, not softer, but colder.

“He did not lose his family in an accident. Kotaro, his father in nothing but blood, was abusive, violent, and isolating. Tenko did not grow up safe as a child should, he grew up terrified, neglected, and punished for even mentioning the grandmother who might have saved him.”

Toshinori’s shoulders jerked almost imperceptibly.

“Tenko’s quirk manifested under extreme distress. He was a child, frightened, in pain, and suffocating under the weight of abuse and isolation. What happened to his family was not malice. It was trauma, and the activation of a quirk no one had prepared him to understand.”

Cementoss swallowed hard. “No one found him?, no one… reported it?”, he breathed in horror. Nedzu’s eyes sharpened. “They found the bodies. They did not find the boy, or rather… someone else found him first.”, Aizawa’s eyes flicked up. “All For O—” He stopped himself mid-word, jaw tightening.

Nedzu nodded once in acknowledgment. “He was taken in by Kurogiri, under orders of the man once known as All For One. They did not create the monster society feared, they found the child society abandoned.”

Toshinori’s hands were trembling, hidden under the table. His breaths coming out in shaky, short waves as the other continued on. “Tenko was not nurtured into villainy by ideology. He was gathered from the rubble of his parents’ home with broken fingernails and blood in his throat, sick, traumatised, and convinced no one would ever come for him.”

Midnight pressed her hand to her mouth.

“He was angry”, the stoat spoke gravely, “But more than that, he was hurting. Then someone finally told him his pain meant something. That the world had wronged him. That he was not the one at fault.”

Present Mic spoke quietly, voice uncharacteristically subdued. “So we never saved him… because we never even looked for him.”

The stoat didn’t contradict him. All Might didn’t raise his head. His eyes were fixed on his hands— the very hands that carried the weight of Nana’s legacy, the hands that unknowingly left her grandson to rot in the cracks.

Nedzu went on, voice even.

“He did not grow up with kindness. He did not grow up believing heroes would help him. Why would he, when the symbol his grandmother left her life to protect never came?”, Toshinori flinched like he’d been struck.

“He should have been ours to protect”, Midnight said shakily, eyes teary.

“He was”, Nedzu replied softly. “And we failed him.”, Aizawa breathed slowly through his nose. “And now… we’re asking him to walk into the institution made of the same kind of people that abandoned him?”

“We’re not asking”, the stoat corrected quietly. “We are preparing. They are coming and we will either make space for the possibility of repair, or repeat every sin that shaped them.”

No one argued.

Not because they weren’t afraid, no, but because fear no longer outweighed the truth. Nedzu allowed the room a moment to breathe before he continued. “Shimura Nana did not only have a son,” he added quietly. “She also had a daughter.”

Heads turned. Even those who had remained silent looked up.

“Her name…”, Nedzu took a deep breath. “….Is Shimura Inko,”

All Might’s breath hitched. His head snapped up- eyes wide, disbelieving. Horrified.

Aizawa blinked slowly, processing. Mic froze halfway through turning toward Toshinori. Midnight stared, trying to fit a familiar, gentle civilian woman into the shadow of a legacy she never knew she bore. “As in Midoriya… Inko…?”, Cementoss said under his breath, realization dawning.

Nedzu nodded once.

The silence that followed was heavier than the last.

“And her son, as you all know…”, Nedzu continued, voice quiet but unyielding, “…is Midoriya Izuku.”, and All Might made a sound that wasn’t quite a word. Aizawa’s expression hardened in stunned disbelief. “You’re telling us the grandson of Shimura Nana has been in our class this entire time without knowing?”

“He only ever knew life as a Midoriya”, Nedzu said. “A quirkless boy for most of his childhood. A boy who was told, at age four, that he would never be like the heroes he loved. A boy whose lineage was buried before he could speak.” Toshinori looked as though the world had dropped out from under him. “He carries her blood”, the principal continued. “As does Tomura. Two grandsons- one abandoned by circumstance and silence, the other raised in fear and grief.”, Midnight wiped at her eyes. “So the two of them… they’re cousins.”

“Yes”, Nedzu confirmed. “By both blood and tragedy.”

All Might was shaking now- silently, visibly, unable to look at anyone. He choked, “And the Symbol of Peace,” he whispered hoarsely, voice cracking, “Never even recognized either of them.”

No one dared answer.

“There is one more thing that you all must know,” Nedzu said at last. The air tightened. No one dared shift in their seat. Thirteen’s voice was barely above a whisper. “There’s… more?”, Dread curdled in the air, and it felt as if the sky had dimmed outside as the sun disappeared behind the clouds.

Nedzu’s expression didn’t waver. “Shigaraki Hisashi’s civilian identity is none other than… Midoriya Hisashi.”

“Husband of Midoriya Inko…”, he spoke.

“….And the biological father of Midoriya Izuku.”