Izuku rubbed his hands together as he leaned against the back door. It was cold outside, which was hardly surprising given it was winter but it did make him appreciate the warmth of the bar. It was times like this that made him wish Fire Breath made him fireproof, then he could have simply warmed up his hands by breathing fire on them!
The back door of the bar opened into what passed for a kitchen. He knew some bars served food but Kurogiri preferred to serve alcohol and pre-packaged snacks. That meant the kitchen was for them and instead of coming in through the front door when the bar was closed, Izuku came in the back door after school.
He pushed off the door, moving towards the store room that served as their lounge. It was the place where he did his homework. There was a small TV set up in there with a couch facing it. A table was against the wall and Izuku put his bag down there. He heard a familiar sound and looked towards the centre of the room. Kurogiri was there, but forming a warp gate. Izuku watched as Tomura stepped out of the misty man. He blinked when he saw the older boy.
Tomura was sweaty and the hands which were usually placed on him were absent. His hair was stringy with sweat.
"Tomura?" Izuku asked. He'd never seen the other boy like that.
"Brat," the older boy greeted him. Izuku was used to it.
Kurogiri reformed. "Izuku," the older man greeted him. "I will make you both a snack," he added and disappeared towards the kitchen. Kurogiri always gave him a snack after school.
"What were you doing?" Izuku asked Tomura curiously, noting that he didn't have his gloves on.
"Grinding," Tomura responded, as he took a seat at the table.
Izuku cocked his head. "What does that mean?"
Tomura gave him a look. "Levelling up," he explained in the short way that he had.
"Oh!" Izuku understood that. He had to level up in a lot of the games Tomura let him play if he wanted to actually do anything interesting. He didn't realise people could level up as well. "Can I level up as well?" He asked.
The grey haired boy laughed. He was still laughing when Kurogiri came back into the room carrying a plate of sliced apple.
Izuku sat at one of the other chairs at the table and shifted his bag down as Kurogiri put the plate on the table. He took a piece of apple as Tomura did.
"Tomura Shigaraki, what are you laughing about?" Kurogiri asked.
The boy giggled a bit more before pointing his spare hand at Izuku. "He wants to level up!" he finally managed to get out.
Kurogiri's yellow eyes turned to Izuku and he felt as if he was being measured. "You are young, Izuku but some physical exercise would be beneficial," he decided.
"What?" Tomura demanded, all trace of laughter gone.
"Izuku could benefit from spatial awareness training," the warp gate explained. "You can help with that," he told the older boy.
"What's spatial awareness training?" Izuku asked before Tomura could say anything.
"It is being aware of what is happening around you," Kurogiri explained.
Izuku frowned. "How do I do that?"
"Who cares about that?" Tomura growled. "I'm meant to help with this?" he instead demanded.
"I said you could help," Kurogiri repeated his earlier statement. "Izuku will need lots of practice and he can start by sensing when you are near," the warp gate said.
Tomura's gold eyes narrowed. "Can I touch him?" he asked speculatively.
"With four fingers," Kurogiri replied.
"Bah!" the other boy barked as he rose and stalked away from the table.
"I'll take that as a yes," Kurogiri murmured just before Tomura left the room. The warp gate turned to Izuku. "Spatial awareness is simply being aware of what is around you, at all times," he explained to the green haired boy.
"So what do I do?" Izuku asked, crunching through the sliced apple.
"When Tomura enters the room, even if you are doing homework, you give a signal to say that you know he's there. Otherwise, he will get to touch you with four fingers."
Izuku gulped at that. He knew four fingers couldn't hurt him but at the same time, four fingers was very close to five. He resolved to be on the watch for Tomura.
"Once you can sense Tomura, then we will work on you sensing me and other people."
He nodded seriously. "Is this how Tomura began levelling up?" he asked.
Kurogiri gave him an odd look before he nodded.
Izuku smiled and grabbed the last slice of apple. "I won't let you down!"
-ted-
To anyone familiar with the Emperor of the Underworld, they would be very surprised to see him idly flipping through a child's notebook. The handwriting was unpracticed but it got better as you progressed through the book. The same could be said for the descriptions and words used. All For One was still interested, even in the simplest of the observations. At five, his son was quite the analyst and Hisashi was paying particular attention to Izuku's description of his classmate's quirks, and from there, their personalities.
There were some potentially useful quirks there. He was particularly interested in Izuku's friends. Ochaco Uraraka, Kazue Nakashima and Minato Amano.
Izuku had met the Ochaco girl on the first day of class and the others had come in over the course of the first week. He knew Izuku had tried to make friends with some of the quirkless kids, he also knew that those same kids had driven him away. But it had been noticed by the other children. A cautionary word with the School's Administration had seen to it that they took their bullying policies seriously. The children very quickly learned not to bother Izuku about his choices but by then most of them had decided he was a sympathiser and left him be.
Except for the Ochaco girl and then the other two.
All For One had, naturally, made enquiries about all three.
Ochaco's parents had just begun their own construction company. He could either sink them, or promote them into their own yacht. At the moment, he'd done nothing. There was no need to. But the options were there.
Nakashima's father didn't work for one of the companies he had interests in but the world of business could be surprisingly small, and as for Amano's lawyer mother. She was a defense attorney, and he could control those who applied to her for their defense.
He didn't think he'd need to control them, but it never hurt to have leverage if required.
Izuku had taken notes on all his classmates but the notes on his friends were the most extensive. All For One read through them while his son watched.
"These are very good!" Hisashi praised. It wasn't even false praise. Izuku's notes were good, especially since two of them had rather boring quirks.
Amano's was named Epidermal Variegate which was a fancy way of saying that he could change his skin colour at will. Izuku's notes reported that he could change his skin tone to be anything. While, in this world dominated by quirks, there were no longer unnatural colours, his son had apparently confirmed that the other boy could change his skin colour even to fluorescent colours and others which were not known on humans, even those with quirks. He couldn't change the texture or eye colour or anything else, just his skin colour.
While Hisashi agreed with his son that there were no useless quirks, there were those with only limited use. He could use Amano's quirk, in conjunction with others to potentially create a perfect shape shifting quirk but it was hardly the most efficient.
Even so, Izuku had listed several ways Minato could use his quirk for Hero work.
It appeared the hero loving phase was still going.
"Did you have to help Minato with his quirk?"
Izuku nodded. "Minato knew he could change to the old human skin tones," his son explained, referencing the time before quirks, "but he'd never thought about other colours. We had him change himself to red to test. It was funny! He couldn't change back for the rest of the day." His son smiled at the memory.
All For One nodded and turned the page. Nakashima's quirk was named Feather Hair, and it was exactly what it sounded like. Her hair was composed of feathers and according to Izuku's notes, it didn't have any other functionality but his son was hopeful. He'd written on the page that they simply hadn't been able to find any other functionality at this point in time. "You might want to see if Kazue can concentrate on different types of birds to change the features, and if she can create male and female features," he suggested.
Izuku's eyes widened. Apparently he hadn't thought about that. "I'll get her to try!" he announced and Hisashi knew that his son would. It would be interesting if it did make a difference but ultimately Kazue's quirk was one of the limited ones.
He turned to the page on Ochaco. Izuku had written quite a lot about her! Her quirk was named Zero Gravity and Hisashi, like his son, could see a myriad of uses for it. The most obvious one was to help her parents with construction, though Izuku had noted that she could only carry about 20 kilograms before she got nauseous. All For One knew that limit would increase dramatically if she trained it. Izuku had seen that as well since many of his suggestions had to do with rescue hero work, which in disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis or cleaning up from major villain battles involved lifting a lot of debris. There was an odd note on the side of her page.
"What is this?" Hisashi asked, tapping his finger on it.
Izuku looked over and eeped.
"Izuku?" All For One pressed, amused at his son's reaction.
"She calls me that," the green haired boy admitted.
"Hmm?" Oh, this was fun!
Izuku said nothing. He looked at the floor as Hisashi laughed. "I like it," he announced. "Little Dragon," he added, just to see how his son would react.
He was not disappointed. Izuku flushed. Hisashi hesitated to call it a blush but it was cute. "Was it because of Fire Breath?" he asked.
Izuku nodded. "She said it made me like a dragon."
It was a boring interpretation but Hisashi supposed he could forgive a five year old for the obvious interpretation. "Yes, you are my little dragon," All For One told his son.
He wasn't expecting the reaction he got to that. He thought it would make Izuku happy, instead his son looked down at the carpet again, practically radiating distress.
"What's wrong?" Hisashi demanded.
Izuku looked up at him with tears in his eyes. "I understand now," he said, sniffing, so that he didn't cry.
All For One had no idea what he was talking about. "What do you understand?" He asked more gently this time.
Izuku swallowed but managed to meet his eyes squarely. "Why you took me away from Mummy," he whispered. He'd known for a while now but hadn't been able to bring it up with his dad.
That was not the answer he'd been expecting but Hisashi realised that Izuku hadn't asked about Inko lately. While it may not have been the answer he expected, he would definitely work with it.
"Oh, my Little Dragon," Hisashi breathed as he moved around his desk and picked up Izuku, holding him close.
"She would have hurt me," Izuku sobbed into his chest
That wasn't exactly what he'd been saying but it was close enough. "She did hurt you," Hisashi murmured. "When she didn't support you, she hurt you Izuku and I couldn't let that happen again," he added, wondering what had been the trigger for Izuku to come to this conclusion.
Izuku howled and while usually Hisashi would be disgusted, this was what he wanted and it was best that Izuku be allowed this show of emotion. He didn't like it but he could use it. He rubbed at Izuku's back, thinking it was a good thing that Gigantomachia was on a mission. Over the years he had become a consummate actor, and while he didn't like it, he could do such things as cry on command. It was that skill he utilised now, letting tears, just a few, fall down his face.
"I'm sorry, Izuku. I'm so, so sorry," Hisashi sympathised with his son. He was very much aware of the irony of the words. They were the ones Inko had said to Izuku when she believed him to be quirkless but he had always been a master of timing. Inko had meant well but she had created the opening. He'd just used it.
Izuku kept crying on him and as his tears soaked through to Hisashi's chest, he had to wonder if his son had inherited a secondary quirk from his mother, that of generating tears without risking dehydration. Surely no one cried this long? Despite that, he kept stroking Izuku's back and making a low, comforting croon in his chest as he looked down at his son. Eventually Izuku hiccuped, followed by a particularly long sniff. Hisashi felt him pull back slightly and released him.
Izuku sat back, not leaving his lap but giving him some space and reached up to wipe his eyes. All For One waited for him to speak. Emotional comfort wasn't his forte, and while he had helped his brother in the distant past, it wasn't a skill he had extensively cultivated in the intervening years. So when the silence dragged on, he opted for distraction. Hisashi dragged up a quirk and gently pushed it into his son.
That got Izuku's attention. Green eyes flew to him and widened, probably at the sight of Hisashi's tears but before Izuku could speak and bring back the issue of Inko, he did. "Do you remember seeing the Hero Saberwind?" he asked.
Confusion flashed over Izuku's face but he nodded gravely.
Hisashi gave a small smile. "And do you remember I said you would have done better with her quirk?" he continued.
Izuku's tear streaked face twisted in confusion before he nodded again. "That is an air pressure quirk," he explained. He didn't say it was Saberwind's. He wasn't sure if Izuku knew about the hero's demise and this particular moment was not the time to find out.
Hisashi instead reached out, bunching his shirt sleeve around his wrist as he used it to wipe Izuku's tears. He reminded himself to tell Kurogiri to deliver tissues along with his son in future. "Well, now you can prove it to me," he told Izuku.
Suddenly finding himself in possession of a new quirk did the trick. Izuku's eyes dried and All For One could see the way they went just slightly distant as Izuku felt the quirk. To Hisashi's quirk senses, it was as if green tendrils were poking at the almost transparent quirk.
He'd had high hopes for the woman's quirk when he took it. The ability to control nitrogen was more useful than her skills had displayed but by itself, it was not that useful. He had better quirks for manipulating pressure. All For One had hoped that he would have been able to change the form of nitrogen in the air into ammonia and other such compounds. Then he'd have had an effect he could use for so many purposes but changing N2 to NH3 was not possible. There was enough hydrogen in the air - he'd checked that - but with Saberwind's quirk the manipulation could not be done.
Saberwind could control nitrogen but she could not change its chemical composition, not unless it was already in an unstable form, and atmospheric nitrogen was not. His thought had been that if he could create ammonia - which was a relatively simple change to atmospheric nitrogen, then a more complex change, but still with readily available elements would be to create nitroglycerin. The carbon, oxygen and hydrogen for that were all in the air as well. If only she'd been more truthful about her quirk!
However, Hisashi figured that this would be a good test of Izuku's quirk to see exactly how much of Inko's quirk he had inherited. Thus far, he'd been focused on Izuku's ability to take quirks from a distance - which needed testing to discover how much distance - and not on other aspects of Inko's quirk. Maybe, with practice, Izuku could use part of Inko's quirk in combination with Saberwind's quirk to actually alter the chemical composition of atmospheric nitrogen?
He couldn't wait to find out but that was probably going to take some time, and further understanding of chemistry on Izuku's behalf. His son was intelligent but at five, he had a lot to learn. But with his quirk, he also had the ability to take quirks that had seemingly limited uses, and combine them with other quirks to make a truly formidable ability. His friend's skin colour change quirk, for example, did not change anything else, and thus had limited functionality for espionage work, especially since AI facial recognition would look straight through it. But combine it with quirks to change hair and eye colour - which were stupidly easy to obtain - and maybe one to change facial structure - more difficult but not impossible - and Izuku would have a quirk that allowed him to shapeshift between human forms. And that had huge potential.
Thus it was with Baroload.
"Try it now," Hisashi urged before he got lost in thoughts of the quirks Izuku could create. He picked up a piece of paper to be the target.
Izuku lifted one hand and made a little gesture. His face was twisted in concentration and the paper moved.
"You did it!" Hisashi cheered.
Izuku's eyes widened, as if he couldn't believe it and then he smiled. It was not tinged with sadness but with the joy of accomplishment.
"Practice with Kurogiri," All For One instructed. He couldn't wait to see what his son would do with Baroload. "But do not show it at school."
"What is it called?" Izuku asked as he nodded his understanding of the instructions.
"What do you think we should call it?" Hisashi countered, inwardly cringing. Saberwind's childish name for her quirk had gotten her into that mess, but he supposed he had to trust that Izuku would be more sensible. He was his son.
Izuku thought hard. Hisashi could tell from the crease in his features. He held up his hand again, taking aim at the paper and this time, instead of it just moving, it looked like he'd cut it. That brought a smile to his son's face again. Hisashi gave him an answering grin. Izuku had already figured out that if you could make a generic pressure wave, you could hone that wave down to a very narrow band, making a cutting tool.
"How about Caeli Imperium?" All For One suggested eventually. It was more than that, but Nitrogen Control was descriptive and rather boring.
Izuku sounded out the words. "What does it mean?" he asked, recognising that his dad had used another language.
"Air Control," Hisashi laughed. It was a childish name. Changing the language did not change that, but until they discovered if Izuku had other aspects of Inko's quirk, that was going to be the most effective use of Baroload.
Izuku laughed with him. "It's named Caeli Imperium," he decided.
"Very good," All For One agreed, reaching out to give his son back his notebook. "I can't wait to read your notes, my Little Dragon."