—Cole POV—
Handing Technomancer over to the authorities, I stuck around for a bit to help restore power to the areas I had damaged. Getting everything sorted out by lunchtime, I was offered a free meal for my assistance today. Joining the staff and Pro Heroes in Lunch Rush's cafeteria, I was surprised by how good his cooking was. All these years of cooking for students hadn't dulled his culinary talent in the slightest.
"This is really good, you ever competed in a competition before?", I asked him.
Nodding his head, he informed me that he had won many competitions in the past. As I was enjoying my steak sandwich, I asked Power Loader how badly the computer systems were damaged. I knew he mentioned early that it would take several days to repair, but now that he had more time to survey the damage I was curious if the timetable changed.
"We have computer backups to restore the majority of the school's systems, but Technomaster did a number on the hardware.", Power Loader stated with a defeated sigh, "Several servers are completely fried, and the security system is down too. We will probably be down for at least two weeks waiting on hardware replacements. All our systems are custom built so keeping spares around was just too expensive."
"Just out of curiosity, did he take any data?", I inquired, "I can't imagine he'd go through all of this just to kill a few people."
"The logs are completely wiped out and corrupted, if he did take something we have no way of knowing.", he replied rubbing his forehead, "Thanks to this whole ordeal, we will implement physical shutoffs now so we can isolate intrusions. In addition, I will have to build a completely separate system for my robots to shut them off should someone hijack them. Even though this was an utter failure, some good came out of it."
Nodding my head, I was happy to see that he was still optimistic about everything. Most genius types I had met in the past would have fallen into a depression for some time because someone outsmarted them. It was nice to see a brilliant mind not beaten down by a single defeat. Knowing that this was a good opportunity to brooch the subject of why the attack happened in the first place, I decided to go for it.
"I think it goes without saying, but what was so special about the group this year? This campus has been open for a long time, and from what I recall this was the first real breach of security.", I pointed out, "All staff members were on hand today, and several agencies had scouts here looking for potential new hires. There had to be someone specifically they were after."
"The guy said he was paid to kill several kids to force the school to close.", Endeavor stated, "I don't think there is much more to it."
"Still though, why this year then? I think there is more to it than that, were there any unique individuals here Nezu?", I inquired.
Taking a moment to think about it, Nezu told me that no one really stood out. He admitted that Shoto and Momo might be potential targets, due to their family names, but he was pretty sure they weren't the targets. No one had made an attempt on their lives in several years, and both families had people listening for any potential threats to their children. If they were the targets, the families would have known about it.
Agreeing with his assessment, I asked to speak with All Might and him after lunch. Purposefully keeping it vague, I didn't want other people to try and weasel their way into the meeting. Agreeing to the meeting with confused looks, we finished our meal and headed to Nezu's office. Making sure that we weren't followed, I shut the door behind us and looked at All Might.
"Alright Toshinori, you don't have to put up a front here.", I said with a nod, "You are probably getting close to your limit, you can relax already. I am fully aware you aren't the invincible Symbol of Peace the public thinks you are."
Looking at me with a horrified look, I told him I was well aware that he was no longer really fit to be patrolling the streets. Stating that he had been slowly becoming less active over the past few years, I said it started when he got seriously injured by a certain villain a few years back. Assuring him that I had no desire to expose his secret, I told him today's attack was likely aimed at him.
"What do you mean?", he said reverting to his civilian appearance, "No one knew I was going to be here today."
"All For One knows you won't last another two years at this rate. If you were going to hand off One For All, now would be the time to do it while you can train your successor. He paid Technomancer to cause havoc here to test your current level of strength.", I told him, "Your successor ended up showing that he is far from ready to fill your shoes, I mean poor Izuku is in the clinic because he broke his arm fighting a robot."
"Wait, how do you know all this!?", All Might asked me.
"My abilities extend far past manipulating electricity, I am also able to tap into bioelectricity that every human has. I collected this information from Technomancer's mind, he transmitted the data back to All For One already.", I replied, "For now your limit is still under wraps thanks to me destroying his test."
Clenching his fist, I could see the pain on his face. There was a lot more I could tell him right now, but if I did he'd probably exhaust himself trying to fix things. His mentor's grandson was already far too gone to be saved now, All For One had seen to that. I would keep this information a secret for now till his Quirk was gone, then I would tell him. I knew it was cruel, but telling what Shigaraki went through would only break his heart.
"So is All For One able to fight right now?", Nezu asked.
"No, he is still currently laid up from his last fight with All Might. That said someone has been helping heal him…the memories from Technomaster show him hooked up to an IV drip and several other medical devices.", I advised.
"Hmm…this changes things quite a lot.", Nezu said, "Do you have memories of who helped him breach our security?"
"Unfortunately not, he loaded himself onto a thumb drive and waited for someone to plug him into your system. Since he couldn't see the world around him, I don't know who plugged him in and where the initial intrusion happened.", I replied.
Thanking me for providing the information to them, Nezu inquired why I didn't want to share this with the other people at lunch.
"Simply put…it had to have been someone that knew All Might was going to be here.", I remarked, "Izuku isn't the culprit, All Might isn't, and you aren't the culprit as you know his secret. If you were the mole, there would have been no need to test All Might."
"How would they have known I would be here though?", Toshinori questioned, "I didn't tell anyone about my visit today."
"Easy…you need to learn to train him in a more private setting.", I chuckled.
Letting out a sigh, Toshinori held his face in his hands. It really never occurred to him that someone would have seen him on the beach with Izuku.
"Izuku applied for UA, it's not that far stretched to figure out someone tipped him off for a reward.", I told them, "If All Might picked him as a successor, he was going to show up today to watch over him."
Seeing the full picture now, both men felt conflicted about how to proceed. On one hand, they wanted to find who the traitor was, but on the other hand, they felt bad for suspecting their colleagues. Trying to figure out how to proceed with this newfound information, I saw Nezu's eyes light up for a moment.
"Kessler, how would you feel about working here?", Nezu asked.
"Uh…I have been a Pro for less than a week, you sure you want to hire me?", I questioned.
"I think it's a good idea, you were personally trained by one of the State's former best Heroes. There are a lot of things you could teach the students about that most couldn't.", Nezu insisted.
"You do know that I have to patrol regularly to maintain my International License, right?", I replied.
Telling me I could teach part-time, he seemed insistent on me working here. Since it worked out in my favor, since I could be on campus when Shigaraki and Nomu showed up, I decided to accept the position of part-time teacher. After filling some paperwork out, I headed out to go on patrol for a bit.
—3rd Person POV—
"Why did you offer him a position like that out of the blue?', Toshinori asked Nezu.
"We need a neutral party assessing things, you and I would overlook things since we have personal relationships with the staff.", Nezu remarked looking out the window, "Now only that, I get the feeling that he is hiding his true power for some reason. I don't think he is a bad person…he just has a lot of pain buried behind a facade."
"I should probably pay his grandfather a visit.", Toshinori admitted.
"He's with Gran Torino right now, why don't we invite them over?", Nezu suggested.
Agreeing to it, Nezu made a quick call to their mutual friend. Requesting that Lightning Jack and he come to see them at UA, Gran Torino asked if something was wrong. Telling him that the test had to be rescheduled due to a security breach, Nezu assured him that none of the children were seriously harmed.
"That's good to hear.", Lightning Jack said over the phone.
"It was all thanks to your grandson, I invited him here this morning and he was the first on the scene to help.", Nezu told him.
"Cole did!?", he gasped.
"Yes, I wanted to review some things with both of you that he brought to our attention. Can you be here in twenty minutes or so?", Nezu requested.
Stating that they were only two blocks away at a diner, they said they would head over immediately. Showing up ten minutes later, Nezu told them about what happened and how Cole devastated the training dummies with ease. Showing the security footage of the fight, Jack's face grimaced when Cole spoke about fake heroes. His grandson had never spoken to him about this but knew exactly why he thought that.
He knew his son prioritized fame, power, and wealth above his own son's happiness. Admittedly he knew that Cole had suffered a lot while he and Cole's mother stood idly by. For the sake of her marriage she gave up trying to protect Cole, and he had just followed the same path he took with David because it's all he knew how to do.
"Jack are you okay?", Gran Torino questioned seeing his friend's conflicted expression.
"Yeah I am fine, I am happy our training paid off. He may have gone a bit overboard, but it was for the right reason.", Jack said with a fake smile.
"He has accepted a part-time position here at the school, I am thinking of putting him in charge of urban combat training.", Nezu stated, "That was something you excelled in so I am sure Kessler is the same."
"He is far better than I ever was, it's like second nature to him.", Jack chuckled, "He's been training for over ten years now."
Jack knew he had to talk to Cole tonight, and have a heart-to-heart with him. He felt partially responsible for his viewpoint on Heroing. Knowing he had failed his son David growing up, Jack wanted to try and help Cole before he went down the path his father did.