"Yes, Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri answered. His purple mist expanded and surrounded Shigaraki and the purple monster, and then, to Izuku's horror, a section of it spread towards him and wrapped around him.
"No…" he groaned, trying to roll out of the way. His ribs protested and he flopped weakly onto his back again.
The mist clouded his vision and he closed his eyes as he felt a sickening warping sensation, focusing on not throwing up. The sounds of USJ suddenly disappeared and Izuku groaned, opening his eyes again. "Fuck." They were in what looked like a bar, with dim lighting and dark wood floors. At this point, Izuku was too tired to move, and he was losing blood faster than he would have liked to admit.
"Sensei," Shigaraki snapped, taking off one of the hands on his arms and flinging it across the room. "Entropy just killed Nomu."
"Impressive," came an amused sounding voice. Izuku felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. That was not a nice voice.
"He ruined all our plans."
"I see that."
"Can I kill him?"
"Can you think of anything better to do with him?"
Shigaraki thought for a moment as Kurogiri disappeared again. By the time Kurogiri returned, arms full of bandages, Shigaraki seemed to have come up with another idea. "Turn him into a nomu," he suggested.
Well that sounded awful. Izuku coughed and struggled to sit up, gasping when the world tilted a little. "If you don't mind," he said through gritted teeth, "I'd prefer you drop me off at the nearest hospital."
Kurogiri crouched down next to Izuku and started to wrap a bandage around his torso. Izuku swatted at him, trying to get him to go away. He pulled back, holding the bandages pointedly over several spots on Izuku's body that needed medical attention.
"Hospital," Izuku repeated.
"No," the voice said from who-knows-where. "Can you think of nothing else to do with him?"
"I know what you want me to say and I don't want to do that," Shigaraki said, crossing his arms in a pout.
"Very well. Kurogiri, bring the boy to me."
Before Izuku could so much as say a word of protest, he was enveloped in purple mist again and dropped rather unceremoniously in a room so dark it took his eyes almost thirty seconds to adjust. It was lit by a computer screen across the room, and filled with the sound of a heart monitor beeping.
Izuku didn't like this at all. When he'd mentally run through scenarios of how USJ could end up going, he hadn't considered this as an option. He didn't have a plan for it, and he honestly didn't know what was going on anymore. Kurogiri disappeared.
"Come here, boy," came the eerie voice from somewhere by the heart monitor.
"No thank you," Izuku said, climbing slowly to his feet and biting back several winces as pain coursed through his body.
"I said, come here."
"I heard you the first time," Izuku said, starting to look for a way out. "I'm still not going to--"
He felt a strange sensation, like something was grabbing the back of his shirt, and he was yanked backwards across the room. He was stopped just before hitting a hospital bed, shirt holding him rather unceremoniously in place by the arms.
"I said," the voice cooed again, this time uncomfortably close, "come here."
Izuku's eyes trailed up the body and fell on the face of the speaker.
This time he almost did throw up.
Shouta was tired. He'd been fighting for what felt like an hour, although it was probably more like ten minutes, and now he was in a pool of water, fighting off a bunch of water-quirked villains. He had eighteen-- now nineteen kids to protect and not enough energy to do it.
He really should have had another cup of coffee this morning.
Erasing someone's tentacle quirk, he started swimming for the surface, lungs screaming. Someone else grabbed his ankle and he glared at them, kicking them away when they faltered at their missing quirk.
His head broke the surface of the water and he gasped for breath, shooting a strand of his scarf to the ship. It wrapped perfectly around the railing and he yanked himself out of the water, flying straight into the wall of the cabin. Coughing up water, he started climbing around the ship, looking for some way back to shore.
All Might appeared at the front with his signature booming laugh, and he felt himself relax slightly. As blundering as the man could be in class, he was a good hero, with an effective quirk. Entropy was going to be fine.
The boat Shouta was on started to sink and he climbed to the highest point he could, looking for something, anything solid to shoot his scarf to. He was still looking, cursing how barren the USJ rescue zones were, when something grabbed him by the collar of his neck and flew through the air holding him. He turned to erase the quirk of whoever it was and stopped short when he realized it was All Might.
He'd managed to deescalate the situation that quickly?
"He ran," All Might explained, doing an extremely dramatic superhero landing that had Shouta fighting the urge to roll his eyes. He set Shouta down. "The one with the hands and the purple one disappeared, taking the big purple monster and the green kid with them."
"They took Entropy?" Shouta asked sharply, feeling panic start to rise in his chest. Not the kid. They can't have taken the kid.
"I didn't get to them fast enough," he said, sounding somewhere between angry and sad. But he was still smiling. It was annoying. Some things couldn't be smiled through.
"They took Entropy," Shouta repeated, angry. "You let them take Entropy."
Smile finally dropping, All Might gave him a helpless look. "Even I can't save everyone," he said, defeated.
Fighting the urge to punch him, or scream at him, or do anything at all, Shouta turned away, pursing his lips together. There was a teenager somewhere out there in the hands of two villains who undoubtedly had a grudge on him now. He was half-dead and alone. Because Shouta hadn't been strong enough, because All Might hadn't been fast enough, because Nezu hadn't been smart enough. Shouta hated this part of being a hero, that feeling he got when he wasn't good enough. He had to do better.
All Might turned, smile plastered on again. "I will get rid of the rest of the villains! You, find the EMT and look after your students!"
"Check all the rescue zones," Shouta called after him as he bounded off. He started walking to the front, rolling out his shoulders and checking himself over for injuries. As far as fights went, he'd done pretty well during that one.
If only he hadn't lost the kid.
Katsuki wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now. The police were here, a lot of pro heroes were swarming everywhere, and everyone was talking about Deku, or, as they called him, "the green kid." People were asking where he was, who he was, how they could follow up, because apparently the stupid nerd had gotten himself kidnapped.
Katsuki knew a lot of the answers to their questions. But if he spoke out about it, if he told them about it, then they would ask him how he knew Deku. And if he told them that…
Two students in Aizawa's class had already been expelled. Katsuki really didn't want to be the third.
Tsukauchi Naomasa was a man who had seen a lot in his time. He'd seen many villain fights, he'd seen many hostage situations, he'd seen too many kidnappings to count. That didn't make this any easier.
Aizawa had left the building a few minutes ago, looking absolutely dejected, with the news that Entropy had been taken, beaten and bloody, to wherever the villains had warped to. Naomasa had already requested a nation-wide manhunt, but this was a mess. Aizawa was barely keeping himself together, All Might was still fighting villains in USJ, and the students were panicking.
"What happened?" he asked Aizawa as soon as the man had a minute. Nezu walked over, eyes sharp and curious.
"Villains warped in. I'd assume Entropy figured out some way to get warped in with them, because he knocked out the warper, Kurogiri, from behind while I engaged some villains in the front. The guy with all the hands, Shigaraki Tomura, ordered this big purple monster thing to attack Entropy and I had my hands full…" Naomasa had never seen Aizawa look this distressed or guilty in his life. "The monster started hitting the kid, and I don't know how he did it, but Entropy somehow managed to stick a knife in its brain. I would guess that killed it. Entropy started fighting Shigaraki, and then I got warped away. I don't know what happened after that, I would ask All Might."
He looked exhausted.
"Do you have anything more regarding his identity?"
Aizawa shook his head, looking more miserable. "No. But I don't think his quirk is quirk negation anymore, because Shigaraki disintegrated a hole in his back."
"Fuck."
"Tsukauchi-san…" Aizawa said dejectedly. "I think we're going to have to accept that this kid isn't coming back."
"Do you have something to say, Kirishima-kun?" Nezu said abruptly, sharp eyes looking at something behind Naomasa. He turned to look and saw a kid with bright red hair standing hesitantly a few feet away.
"Yes," Kirishima said, glancing away and then back. "It's just, everyone's asking who the green kid is? Bakugou-kun knows him."
Truth.
Naomasa's eyebrows shot up. "Why do you think that?"
"Because he said so. He called him 'stupid Deku,' like he was someone he knew really well."
Deku. Naomasa had heard that name once before, and he'd thought the villain was misunderstanding the question, or had Entropy mistaken for someone else. But maybe Entropy had multiple names he went under, a million things people called him. But why 'Deku' of all things?
He glanced at Nezu who was looking curiously around in search of Bakugou. Aizawa frowned. "Why wouldn't he say anything? Bakugou-kun's always been stubborn, but he wants to be a hero, so why would he hide this?"
"He's over there," Nezu said, pointing a paw. "Why don't we ask him?"
Aizawa raised a hand and beckoned Bakugou over.
The kid didn't look particularly nice. He had a huge scowl on his face and he looked like there was nothing in the world he would hate doing more than coming over to talk to the three of them. "Tch, what?" he demanded as he came up.
"Got somewhere else to be?" Naomasa asked dryly.
Bakugou glared at him.
"So how do you know the green kid?" Aizawa asked.
The change that came over Bakugou's expression would have been hilarious in any other circumstance. His skin turned ashen and then bright red and he looked somewhere between shocked and angry. And then in a second, all that was gone again, replaced by his scowl. "I don't."
Lie.
"You called him 'Deku,'" Aizawa said.
"I thought he was someone else."
Lie.
Aizawa glanced at Naomasa for confirmation and he shook his head. The kid was lying through his teeth. "You're lying," Aizawa said, turning back to Bakugou. "Do you know his name?"
Bakugou hesitated, wavering in place. Then, scowling harder, if that was even possible, he nodded. "We grew up together," he said slowly. "His name is Midoriya Izuku."
Truth.
Nezu grinned. "I knew it."
Truth.
Naomasa rounded on him. "You knew ?"
"He got recommended to U.A. this semester. Anyone who's ever been in the same room as the kid would probably recognize him. He's exceptionally intelligent."
"Wait a second," Naomasa said, feeling slightly overwhelmed. "This semester? Are you suggesting that Entropy started being a vigilante as a middle schooler?"
"He did!" Nezu said,grinning with delight.
"Why?" Naomasa asked, completely baffled. Most vigilantes started just after failing entrance exams. Almost all of them had some sort of hero training. So why would a middle schooler with no professional training at all decide to be a vigilante?
"I would assume it has something to do with his quirk status," Nezu said lightly.
"What's his quirk?" Aizawa asked.
Bakugou scoffed. "He doesn't have one, stupid."
Both Naomasa and Aizawa stared at him while Nezu nodded cheerfully.
"No…" Aizawa said.
Chapter End Notes
I can't write Mineta to save my life. Yes, I know I am missing a golden opportunity to make Izuku disgusted with heroes, but… I can't do it, I just can't be that much of a perv in my writing. So, yes, he's been expelled. (this might be changed later if I suddenly have a really good reason to add him in, but I don't think I will, so for the indefinite future, yes.)
Just a reminder that the next chapter will be out next Sunday, not Thursday.
Lies
Chapter Notes
Happy Sunday :)
You know what I just realized? You know the one Nomu at USJ that had regeneration? Why on earth would All for One have given that quirk away??? He clearly needs it?
tw// pain and I guess gore again?, mentioned death of a family member, discrimination
The man in front of Izuku didn't have a face. Or he had one, but it looked like skin had melted over his forehead and eyes and hardened there, so the only thing remotely intact was his mouth, which was curled up cruelly, revealing a set of perfect teeth.
"What is your name, boy?" the man said, words coming in a silky, vaguely menacing voice.
"Midoriya Izuku," he murmured, still in total shock, heart beating faster than should be physically possible.
His shirt released and he took a half step back, not going any further. He couldn't take his eyes off the man, now that he was looking at him.
"Midoriya Izuku…" the voice purred. "What is your quirk?"
"I'm quirkless," Izuku said shortly, anger over discrimination overstepping his fear for a moment.
That seemed to amuse the villain, whose lip curled up even further at the news. "Of course you are," he sighed. "How interesting."
The man lifted a hand and Izuku stared in shock as it reached out toward him, only taking a step away as he realized the guy was trying to touch his hand. "My arms are broken."
"I am aware. Hold still."
His shirt tightened again and he struggled weakly against it, trying to get away . The man's hand finished its journey through space and brushed against Izuku's arm.
Izuku gasped in pain as he felt his bones snap back into place all at once, his skin regrow on his wrist and back, his bruises disappear. And then all the pain flooded away and he felt a strange sense of relief as his body continued on, perfectly healed.
What the hell is this guy's quirk?
"Um…"
"How would you feel about joining us?" the man said, hand withdrawing.
"Why on earth would I do that?"
"I assume you hate heroes?"
Izuku frowned, flexing his hands as he looked for an escape. "I don't hate them." Strongly disliked them now, maybe, but it wasn't hate.
"You will, though. You'll understand. And when you do, I ask that you come back. We have the resources to further your goals, and I believe you have a bit more… direction than Tomura. You would be useful to me."
Izuku snapped his attention back to the man, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. This was not how he expected this conversation to go at all. He'd expected some torture, some mutilation, and some evil cackling, not this. Was he actually… "Are you letting me go?"
"Yes," the man said simply. He flipped a switch to his right. "Kurogiri?" he said into a microphone.
Kurogiri appeared again in a cloud of purple mist and the man flipped the switch off again.
"Take this young man back to wherever you got him from, will you?"
Kurogiri turned his glowing yellow eyes on Izuku. "Where did you come from?" he asked politely.
"U-um…" Izuku's mind scrambled for somewhere to get Kurogiri to send him that wouldn't implicate Dabi. "Just get me somewhere close to Aldera…" he said. That was far enough from home he would be safe, and very far away from Dabi.
Purple tendrils reached out and the pressure changed in the room. As his vision swam with purple, he felt a sickening warping sensation. The purple disappeared and he looked around. He was right in front of the gates of Aldera. The villain and the warper were nowhere to be found. It almost felt like all that was nothing but a terrible dream.
He screamed a little and started brushing himself off, trying to get clean of whatever just happened. He checked over his bones and his skin and his ribs. Perfectly fine. Maybe even better than they had been before. He screamed again, dragging his hands through his hair. He was lucky to still be in one piece. That was the last time he was going to go meddling in UA's business, for sure. He wasn't a fan of dying.
Gasping for air again, he recollected himself and started home. If he was lucky, he could get there before his mom realized anything was wrong…
Inko could handle a lot of shit in her life. She had handled a lot of shit already, and she knew he could take a lot more. But having an entire police squad show up at her house in the middle of the day was pushing it.
The man who knocked on the door, who introduced himself as Tsukauchi Naomasa, took off his hat and she almost screamed because if he was doing that, that meant Izuku-- Izuku had died? Izuku had-- what, where was Izuku?
"Can I help you?" she asked, voice wobbling slightly.
"Are you Midoriya Inko?"
She nodded, holding onto the door tightly. At this point, it was the only thing holding her up.
"We had a few questions."
"S-sure."
"Can we come in?"
"Do you have a warrant?"
He smiled a little. "No, ma'am. We can continue this conversation here, if you prefer."
She nodded. Izuku would probably tell her not to let them into the house.
"Is your son home?"
She opened her mouth, hesitating as she searched for the right words. No, he wasn't home, but he'd be back soon? Yes, he was asleep? The first one would be bad if Izuku decided to sneak in through the window, the second would be bad if he came up from the front… But maybe the second one would be better because she could pretend she hadn't known he'd gone out? But if this was the human polygraph person Izuku was talking about…
"Mom? What's going on?" came Izuku's voice from behind her, sounding exceptionally confused.
Inko jumped a little, because he definitely hadn't been in the house before this conversation. Then it hit her that it was Izuku speaking, which meant he was alive and fine, and everything was fine. She could have cried. He wasn't dead, first of all, and second, he was saving her from what would most likely be a painful conversation with the police.
Tsukauchi stared at him over her shoulder with wide eyes, looking like a fish out of water. "Oh, you…"
Izuku came to the door. He was wearing a black hoodie with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, looking nothing like he did when he was in costume. And he was perfectly fine.
"Your arms aren't broken," Tsukauchi said, staring at him in shock.
Izuku frowned. "Should they be?"
"You… are you Entropy?"
He looked very confused now. Inko tried to match his expression. "Who?"
Someone in the hallway cackled and Izuku's expression changed to one of anticipation, and in a way, excitement. "Is that Nezu-san?"
"I don't know how you did this, Midoriya-kun," came a highly amused voice from knee height. Inko looked down and saw a white animal, looking a bit like a tiny bear in a suit. "But I am very impressed. Are you sure you don't want to come to UA?"
Izuku smiled at him like the two of them shared a secret. "Very sure, sir."
"Are you a vigilante?" Tsukauchi asked, looking bewildered.
Izuku looked him dead in the eye and smiled sweetly. "No."
Nezu started cackling again.
"Can we help you with something?" Inko asked again, deciding now was a good time to step in. Izuku sent her a grateful look.
"No--no, sorry," Tsukauchi said, bowing a little. "I think we made a mistake. My apologies."
"That's fine, have a good day!"
"Of course, and you as well."
Inko nodded and pulled back, closing the door with a smile. She immediately turned to Izuku, hands on her hips. "You broke your arms?" she growled.
He nodded. "Both of them, in multiple places. Also four ribs, I think, and one of those ribs punctured my lung."
Inko shook her head. "We're going to the hospital."
He shook his head right back, holding his arms out so she could see them. They looked perfectly fine, not even bruised. "We don't need to. Someone healed me. One of the villains."
"Reiki-san?" she asked. Every day she reminded herself how grateful she was that Izuku had made friends with that girl.
He shook her head. "Someone else. I didn't know him."
"Then we're still going to the hospital," she said, adamant. "I don't trust some random villain's quirk."
He gave in, nodding. "Okay."
Sighing in relief, Inko stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug. "Let's not do this again, okay? Please tell me where you're going."
He nodded into her shoulder. "Okay. Sorry, yeah. I almost…" He didn't finish the sentence, but Inko didn't need him to. He almost died. And she wouldn't have known about it.
"Just please tell me where you're going," she repeated.
"Okay," he whispered.
They stayed like that for maybe longer than Izuku felt comfortable with, but he seemed to understand that she needed to be close to him right now. Finally, she pulled away. "Hospital," she said firmly.
He nodded. "Hospital."
"You let him go?" Tomura shrieked. It had been a while since he'd last raised his voice at Sensei, years, even, but this was a dire circumstance. It had taken a lot of effort to kidnap that annoying green kid. And now all that effort was wasted because Sensei had for some reason decided it would be a good idea to let the kid go.
"I did," Sensei said, and his voice was annoyingly smooth.
"Why would you do that? I worked hard to bring him here!"
"Tomura-kun," Sensei said in that condescending tone of his. "Do you not trust me? Do you not think I know what I'm doing?"
"I trust you," he said, scowling. That didn't make this any less annoying.
"I'm making the right decisions for us," Sensei said. "That boy will be much more useful to our cause if he's alive and out and about, I can promise you that."
"But he's annoying," Tomura whined.
"He is," Sensei agreed. "But remember he's annoying to both us and the heroes. He's helping us, even though he doesn't realize it."
Tomura could admit that was true, yes.
"And you can do whatever you want with him as soon as we get him to help us," Sensei continued soothingly. "He's essential to the plan. Patience is important at this time."
"But when we're done with him, then I can destroy him along with everything else?" Tomura asked.
Sensei smiled and Tomura felt himself relax a little. That smile meant everything was still going according to plan. It meant nothing was wrong. For him, it meant safety.
"Of course, Tomura-kun."
Tomura felt a grin creep across his face.
Many students had come and gone from UA high school during Nezu's time, but he had never met anyone who he wanted to train more than Midoriya Izuku. He was quirkless, yet the most determined person Nezu had ever met, with probably one of the sharpest minds of his generation, and an eye for quirks. He was smart, he knew how to fight, and he was, incredibly, mostly self-trained. He had confidence, he had skill, he had resources.
How had he done it? Aizawa had insisted he had broken both his arms and All Might insisted he had been kidnapped by the villains, and yet he came to the door of his house, completely intact and unkidnapped. His mother was clearly relieved to see him, so he most likely hadn't been home all morning. He was so obviously Entropy it was ridiculous, and yet there was no way to prove it.
"I feel stupid," Tsukauchi said bitterly. He was driving back to UA, Nezu in the seat next to him.
Nezu threw him a curious look. "Why?"
"Can't believe I thought for a minute that someone quirkless could be one of the most wanted vigilantes in Japan."
Nezu shook his head. Humans were so naturally judgmental. It was tiring, dealing with all their hatred. "I'm stepping out of this case," he said.
Tsukauchi slammed on the brakes. "Why?" he said, staring.
"Because Midoriya Izuku is Entropy. The case has been solved. Now all that needs to happen is for you to catch him."
Tsukauchi looked concerned. "Nezu-san, I have great respect for your mind, but that little kid clearly isn't Entropy. He's quirkless, his arms are perfectly fine, and he was at home. It's impossible for him to have cleaned up that quickly."
Someone honked and Tsukauchi started driving again, waving a hand over his shoulder apologetically.
"And he said he wasn't a vigilante. He wasn't lying."
That was easily explainable. Midoriya by all accounts wasn't a vigilante. He was quirkless, and anyone who'd read the law would know that a vigilante as defined by the law was a person who used their quirk to engage in heroics without a license. Midoriya didn't fit in that, because he didn't use a quirk. Nezu didn't want to explain all this, and he wanted to see where Midoriya would go next. It didn't seem like Tsukauchi would listen if he did say anything anyway.
He sighed. "I'm stepping out of the case. When you rediscover that he is, in fact, Entropy, then you can come back to me, and I'll help you."
Tsukauchi frowned. "And if we prove that he isn't?"
Nezu smiled. "You won't."
Reaction
Chapter Notes
Hello!
Tw// mentioned major injuries, mentioned killing, mentioned kidnapping, mentioned drugs
See the end of the chapter for more notesAfter some deliberation, Izuku decided to wait a day or so before going out as Entropy again. He figured that wasn't a good idea, especially since the police had somehow figured out Midoriya Izuku was a contender for being a vigilante. Izuku didn't think Nezu had ratted him out, so they had to have figured it out some other way. Katsuki maybe? He didn't know. But he didn't think it was a good idea to show up with two working arms the day that Midoriya Izuku had been seen with two working arms. A little time was needed between those things, enough time that Entropy could feasibly have escaped and found a way to get himself healed. A few days for Entropy to recover before he got back in the game.
He told his mother and she seemed relieved that he was stepping back from it all, even if it was just for a few days. As it was, he was relieved too. He had a lot to do, and trying to be Entropy while figuring it all out was going to be a bit too much for him. He needed to do research into that purple thing and he wanted to find out who the creepy man was and he had to find out more about this League of Villains. And in the meantime he wanted to see the first year Sports Festival. He was curious about the people he would have been classmates with if he hadn't rejected his acceptance to UA. He wanted to know how competent they really were. And he wanted to see Todoroki Shouto again, to make sure he was still doing okay with… Endeavour.
But the Sports Festival wasn't for a while, so he contented himself with research for now.
The League of Villains was headed by a shadowy figure, presumably the person Izuku had met. Izuku hadn't been able to find anything on him, except rumors of someone who could take people's quirks, which made sense in context. Izuku suspected he wouldn't be able to find anything else on him unless he hacked into the police network, which he was trying not to do since Entropy was supposed to have two broken arms and a punctured lung right now.
The purple monster thing had no information on it at all. There was no record of anything like that in history, and no scientific journals of any kind on the subject. Izuku had no idea what that thing was. He assumed he'd killed it, by stabbing it in the brain, which was horrible.
He was shocked by how little he cared. It didn't feel like something human he killed, it didn't even feel like an animal. It felt more like a robot. And it wasn't like he'd had blood on him from it or anything. All the blood he'd had on him was his own. But… did that count as a first kill? That was kind of a gross thought…
Moving on!
There was nothing else to be found on the League of Villains, beyond what Izuku already knew.
So all that was a waste of five hours.
Seething, he snapped his laptop shut and curled up in bed, about ready to go to sleep and die there.
His phone rang.
Sighing heavily, he reached over and patted around for it, curling his fingers around it when he finally found it. He squinted at the screen. Stain? Why, though?
He answered it. "What."
"Your face is on the news," Stain said casually.
"I am well aware," Izuku said, grabbing his pillow and smashing it over his face.
"Did you see what they're saying? Teenage vigilante kidnapped by the League of Villains."
"Well, I'm perfectly unkidnapped."
"I can hear that, yes."
"Why are you bothering me?"
"I was worried about you."
"Ugh, gross."
"I'm thinking about going to Hosu."
Izuku sat up, rubbing his forehead. Stain was going to move away? "Why?"
"Well you clearly don't need me anymore," he said drily. "And I think it's time I started branching out again."
"Mm…" Izuku didn't really have anything to say to that. His views on Stain's methods were already perfectly clear between them. "Why Hosu?"
"Stingdrop, Native, Ingenium, Talisman--"
"Ingenium?" Izuku asked, leaning his head against the wall. That wouldn't be a hero he would add to the list.
"Big agency, nepotism…"
"Hmm. I'm not sure about that one."
"I didn't ask for your opinion."
"Thanks."
"Anyway, I thought I'd let you know," he said lightly.
"Okay."
"The League of Villains contacted me."
Oh, shit. If Stain decided to team up with the League of Villains… "No. They kidnapped me and they have a really scary leader. Don't get on their bad side, and definitely don't get on their good side."
"I'm going to see what they have to offer."
"Don't, Stain."
"I'm going to."
"Stain."
"Bye, Deku."
"Stain!"
"Talk to you later."
Izuku sighed. "Bye. Be careful."
"Sure."
He hung up.
With a heavy groan, Izuku turned and buried his face in his pillow again. This was not a good couple days he was having here. This sucked.
There was a knock on the front door and Izuku nearly screeched into his pillow because why was everyone bothering him at this godforsaken hour of the afternoon? All he wanted was peace.
He heard his mother answer the door and, grumbling to himself, he rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head so he didn't have to listen to whatever was happening over there. He'd almost died several times this morning, and now all he wanted was to sleep, forget, and never leave his house again. The world was too horrible for him to look at right now. What would it take to get some real change around here? Some good?
There was a knock on his door and Izuku sighed, flinging his pillow at the foot of his bed. "What?" he said shortly.
"Que?" Reiki said and Izuku shot out of bed to answer the door.
"You're here!" he said, hugging her immediately.
She snorted, patting his head. She caught his bare wrist with one hand and Izuku knew she was doing a check for injuries. He didn't have any, though-- even the hospital had said there was nothing wrong with him-- and she dropped his arm a second later. "Glad to see you're alive. Think about calling next time, okay?"
He scowled. "I got caught up in some stuff."
"Like…"
"Ugh." He let her into his room, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "Do you know anything about the League of Villains?"
She made a face. "Yeah, they're all over the news."
"I mean, beyond the fact that they kidnapped me."
"I hadn't heard of them until this morning…"
"Well I can't find anything on them either," he said, plopping down on his bed and tucking his legs up in front of him. "They have some scary villain as their head and then there's Shigaraki, the puppet ruler, and that's all I've got. I don't like not knowing things."
Reiki looked unsympathetic.
"What?" he asked at her judgmental look.
"Imagine what it feels like to not know things," she said dryly and he saw what this was about now. "Imagine what it feels like to not know if this fifteen year old you recommended for the UA entrance exam--"
"I get it, I get it," he said.
"Could you please call next time?" she asked, voice cracking a little. She cleared her throat. "I thought you'd died, Deku. Entropy was all over the news and he had been taken by this huge villain organization and I didn't hear anything from you. When I knocked on the door I thought I was going to have to apologize for your death to your mother. Call me."
Izuku frowned. "I was fine."
"Deku, please."
He waved her off. "I'm not going to do anything like that again anyway."
" Please ."
He sighed. "Okay." And sue him but he'd never had anyone who cared about him enough to want to know if he was all right before. He'd never had someone to call, other than his mom. So he honestly hadn't thought it was important to call Reiki. But he wouldn't make that mistake again. Izuku knew he could trust Reiki. And that meant he could tell her about something else that was bugging him, something he wouldn't tell his mother even if the world was ending.
"Reiki," he whispered. "I think I killed something."
Her eyes widened. "Oh no."
"It was this big purple monster thing and I don't know what it was but it had a brain that looked human, Reiki, and I stabbed it several times. What did I kill?"
"Why did you kill it?" she countered.
"Because it was killing me, and I couldn't do anything to hurt it…"
"Then I think it's fair."
"I don't care if it's fair!" he whisper-shrieked. He really didn't want his mom to know about this. "I don't care if it's fair, because I killed it and I don't even know what it was! What if that was a person…"
"Midoriya…" Reiki stepped forward and put both hands on his shoulders so he had to look at her. "In a life or death situation like that, I know that you tend to make the right decisions. So if you're adrenaline-addled brain thought it was a good idea to kill a big purple monster thing, then it was probably right. You're smart enough for that."
"But--"
There was another knock on the front door, a very aggressive knock and Izuku made a loud, mostly incoherent expression of his exasperation. He was sick of visitors and based on the quality of that knock, he knew exactly who this was. Gritting his teeth together, he stormed out of his room and pulled the front door open.
"Bakugou Katsuki," he said, glaring. "Get out of my apartment building. Out."
Katsuki stared at him like he was looking at a ghost.
"I don't know why you're here, asshole, but you can leave now, bye."
"Izuku!" Mom admonished. Her tone was somewhat drowned out by Reiki's stifled snickering.
"Bye," Izuku repeated.
"You're alive?"
"Bye." He shut the door.
"Deku you piece of shit!" came Kacchan's muffled voice through the door. Izuku turned away, brushing off his hands.
"Screw it," he said, locking eyes with Reiki. "I'd do it again."
She knew what he was talking about.
--
Several days passed without any word of Entropy and then somehow he showed up again. Naomasa couldn't believe it. He appeared on the streets, stopped a drug battle single handedly, and then disappeared again. Naomasa wanted to believe he was holding his arms a little stiffly, but it was hard to tell. He couldn't see his torso under the swaths of green hoodie, so he couldn't find any bruising, and Entropy didn't stay long enough to chat.
His method of dealing with the drug war was honestly impressive. He dropped out of nowhere into the middle of the war, gave each side a scolding and then walked away. Something about that was enough to make both sides stop fighting. They ran, so Naomasa hadn't been able to detain as many as he would have liked, but the end of the battle was enough for him.
The real question was how was Entropy okay again? He would have had to escape the League of Villains single handedly, which was somehow impressive and terrifying at the same time. And then he'd healed his arms somehow… He'd taken a couple days of recovery time, so maybe that was his quirk? Maybe he had regenerative healing. That would explain a lot about him.
Nezu was still convinced he was Midoriya Izuku, but Naomasa couldn't believe it. There was no way a quirkless person was Entropy, and he felt stupid for thinking that might be possible. A quirkless person couldn't have escaped from the League of Villains and healed both his arms within an hour of the original fight. Not even Midoriya Izuku, a de facto UA student, would be talented enough for that.
So Naomasa was stuck again. He didn't know who Entropy was, and he didn't know where Stain had gone, and somehow villains were getting free medical assistance and Naomasa didn't know who any of these people were. This was exhausting.
It was only a matter of time before he caught Entropy, though. He knew that for certain.
Chapter End Notes
lol keep telling yourself that naomasa
EDIT: Hi so it is Sunday and I am Not Feeling It, so the next chapter is probably going to be out tomorrow instead, sorry!