Danger First Chapter 21
Can also be read on AO3.
Sorry for the weird spacing, I'm posting this from my phone.
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Hizashi stopped outside the cafe, carefully scanning the area for anything unusual or out of place. Finding nothing, his eyes returned to the ‘Secret Cafe’ sign above the door. He could almost hear Shouta complaining about what a terrible joke the name was, Tensei telling him to lighten up, Kayama making an even worse joke about the secrets of youth and how appropriate the rose logo was, and Oboro following up with how the secret wasn’t exactly well kept.
He hadn’t been here since he was a student. After Oboro it just seemed… wrong. And teachers generally preferred Dax’s.
The interior was more or less the same as it had been the last time he’d been here. Some of the furniture had been replaced, and there were new photos on the walls - of both current and former UA students - and, of course, the people crowding the cafe, mostly UA upperclassmen and their families, were different, but otherwise, it was like stepping into the past.
He navigated to the front counter. As most of the clientele were students, no one got overly excited by his presence. To them, he was just a teacher. If they were thinking about him at all, they were probably wondering if he was here to eat.
The elderly woman running the takeout counter, however, was another story. Her face lit up as soon as she saw him. “Hizashi! It’s been years! Do you still like chicken sandwiches?”
Hizashi loved chicken sandwiches - especially American-style ones, with fried chicken - but that was neither here nor there. “Sorry, Ms. Inoue, I’m here on business.”
Her face fell immediately. “Is something wrong. Was there an… attack?” she said the last in a hushed, tense voice. “When I heard about what happened at the USJ–”
“Nothing like that,” said Hizashi, quickly. Or so he hoped. “Have you seen Ingenium? Iida Tensei? He would have been with his younger brother.”
Hizashi’s heart dropped as Ms. Inoue shook her head. “I haven’t seen him in almost as long as it’s been since I’ve seen you.”
Which meant that whatever had happened, it had happened between here and UA. He nodded. “Thank you. Do you have any security cameras?”
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As soon as Kacchan walked out onto the field, Izuku regretted not warning Tsuburaba about him. He was clearly furious, as angry as Izuku ever saw him, as angry as– Well. As angry as he’d been in the bathroom.
That was dangerous.
Kacchan had told Izuku that he’d beat him to the point of Midnight calling the match, holding back just enough so that he could keep beating Izuku. Would he do that to Tsuburaba, too?
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. His whole body felt like it was vibrating with Danger Sense… Or at least, with anxiety. Intense anxiety.
… Super anxiety?
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“Hikage, I’m more than happy for my nephew to have your quirk, but if he gets your sense of humor, I’m voting you off the island.”
“Yeah, that’s just egregious,” agreed Banjo, nodding.
En raised his eyebrows. “How does a thuggish guy like you learn a word like ‘egregious?’”
“Well, you see, I went to school–”
“I hate to say it,” said Third, hooking his thumb over his shoulder as Yoichi launched himself at Banjo, screaming something about the honor roll, “but I agree with those guys.”
“Understandable.”
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Danger Sense twinged just in time for Izuku to avoid Hatsume’s arm as she forcibly inserted herself between him and Tokoyami. Dark Shadow stuck out her tongue and oozed (for lack of a better word) behind both of them to squeeze against Izuku’s other side.
“Um,” said Izuku, who was now effectively sandwiched between two girls, a scenario he’d never expected to happen in his entire life.
(“Strawberry,” said someone behind him, he didn’t know who.)
“Is it the end of the first round already?” Hatsume asked.
“This is the last match, yeah.”
Hatsume huffed. “Do any of you know what happened to Iida? The teachers asked me soooo many questions, and then I couldn’t find Todoroki anywhere in the stands, either. Is there, like, a special event for legacy kids? Do you think I could get in to advertise my babies?”
“We don’t know what happened to Iida,” said Yaoyorozu. “He and his brother seem to be missing. Present Mic came to ask us if we knew where they might have gone not long ago.”
Hatsume’s face fell instantly, revealing her earlier, casual speech as a facade. “For real? You, too? I thought– Hoped, I guess… You don’t think that happened to Todoroki, too, do you?”
“Todoroki just doesn’t hang out,” said Kaminari. “He’s a pretty standoffish guy. Except to Midoriya, I guess.”
Izuku held up his hands, then immediately regretted doing so. He didn’t have anywhere to put them with Dark Shadow and Hatsume both so close. “That wasn’t really a personal thing. That was just, like, rivalry stuff.” Because he’d already told Mr. Yagi and Mr. Aizawa about the quirk marriage stuff. He wasn’t going to share that with the class. He might be socially incompetent, but he wasn’t that socially incompetent.
“That sounds personal,” said Kirishima, “and man–”
A huge explosion made all of them look at the arena again. Kacchan had started with a huge explosion, of course, clearly intended to be as decisive as Todoroki’s glacier.
“Wow,” said Jiro, unimpressed. “D’you think he’s compensating for something?”
“Poor Tsuburaba,” said Dark Shadow.
“Do not assume our erstwhile companion has fallen just yet, Dark Shadow,” said Tokoyami. “Let us wait for the smoke to clear.”
“Todoroki, though,” said Kirishima. “Do you think something happened to him, Hatsume?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really talked to him, but even with my quirk, I couldn’t see him in the stands.”
“He’s probably staying underneath,” said Izuku, spotting Endeavor’s bright flames across the stadium through the smoke. Izuku obviously couldn’t see his face, but his body language looked unimpressed.
Several fire-cracker-like pops sounded from down below, and Izuku caught a hint of movement through the thickening smoke. Wasn’t it a little unnatural for it to linger like this? Or… was it getting caught by Tsuburaba’s quirk? What an interesting use, Izuku would have thought that smoke would inhibit Tsuburaba’s quirk,
“Did you know that the American B-17 bomber, also known as the B-17 Flying Fortress, dropped more bombs during World War Two than any other aircraft?” said Mr. Yagi over the announcement system, for lack of anything else to say. “Although the name was assigned on the basis of seat number, it is appropriate. Although some might say it is an interesting choice for a Japanese hero.”
“Okay, Americanophile,” said Mr. Aizawa.
There was an infuriated scream from down below, and a larger explosion, followed by the faint sound of several of Tsuburaba’s solid-air constructs collapsing. This time, Izuku spotted it when smoke was trapped by Tsuburaba’s shield. It was a very interesting effect.
“We could go look for him,” said Izuku.
“Huh?” said Kaminari. “Who?”
“Not explody down there,” said Ashido.
“No, Todoroki,” said Izuku. “If you think something might have happened…”
“Do you think something has happened, Midoriya?” asked Yaoyorozu, concerned.
“Midoriya thinks something happened?” asked Uraraka, if possible, with more concern. She, Shouji, and Monoma were on the walkway above their seats, having just returned.
“I don’t know,” said Izuku. “I didn’t notice anything with Iida, either, but I thought it was just regular anxiety, instead of, you know…” He gestured with his hands apologetically. “Super anxiety.”
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“Hikage, you’re a dead man.”
“Aren’t we all?”
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“I really don’t know my quirk as well as I should. What if it only goes off if something bad is going to happen to me? All sorts of things could happen, and I wouldn’t even–”
“That’s definitely not how your quirk works,” interrupted Hagakure. “Remember, you got in on rescue points?”
“Or if there’s a distance or time limit?”
“You kinda knew the USJ was going to happen before we went, though, didn’t you?” asked Kaminari. “That’s way further from here than just across the stadium or whatever.”
“There might be some kind of combined limit, though,” said Yaoyorozu, pensively, tapping a knuckle against her lower lip. “For example, perhaps you can only sense things that you will, in the future, be physically close to.”
“... That’s actually what I think is most likely, yes,” mumbled Izuku. It was one of the theories he’d written in his notebook. But in the moment, with . “But that just means something could have happened to Todoroki, too.”
Tsuburaba climbed out of the smoke cloud on an air ladder, Kacchan rising like a rocketship behind him. Both were heavily bruised and covered in soot. Tsuburaba blew out a barrier below him, but Kacchan didn’t even raise his hand to explode it, instead breaking it with his face. It didn’t even slow him down. A second later, he was pulling Tsuburaba back down by the ankles.
“It would be the manly thing to do,” said Kirishima.
“I could come up with some kind of search grid,” said Yaoyorozu.
“I can go listen for him near the ready rooms,” offered Jiro.
Everyone started to offer their contributions to the search, until Monoma said, “Isn’t he in literally the next match? Why don’t we wait for him to actually be missing, first?”
“Oh yeahhhhhh,” said Hatsume, who had taken out some kind of mapping and tracking gadget. “That was why I was looking for him. I wanted to see if he’d do an ad with me.”
Rather shamefacedly, everyone sat back down.
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“Hey, Yoichi, doesn’t that remind you of that one time we were looking for Second?” asked Third. “You even trashed that one Western mafia hideout looking for him, and we were all ready to hold a funeral, but then the bastard walked in with Quiznos?”
“I don’t remember anyone named Second,” said Yoichi. “After all, someone who hates my nephew just because of who he’s related to never could have become friends with me.”
“Mafia hideout?” asked En. “First snuff ball, now this… Why didn’t you tell that story instead of the Dumas one?”
“They probably weren’t literally the mafia,” said Third.
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
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“We should try to nail down the specifics of your quirk, though, Midoriya,” said Yaoyorozu.
“Y-yeah,” said Izuku, shoulders slumping. “I’m working on it with Mr. Aizawa… Quirk counseling…”
There was an especially loud explosion, and, incredibly, the smoke began to clear, propelled by the strength of the explosion. Kacchan was standing in the middle of the ring, the sleeve of his uniform ragged and burnt, and Tsuburaba was near the far end, his whole uniform full of holes and burns.
Izuku winced. He knew exactly what those kinds of burnt - burns back by significant blunt force - felt like.
A sort of gasp rose up out of the stands, and then people started shouting. Izuku was only able to hear snippets. Something about brutality, about stopping the match, about some injuries just being too much.
These people clearly had never met Izuku’s middle school teachers.
“Stop that,” said Mr. Aizawa. “You’re disregarding B12’s resolve to continue fighting. He could step out of the ring whenever he wants. That he doesn’t is a testament to his will.”
The voices quieted, but there was still an air of intense unhappiness in the stands.
“Wow,” said Hatsume, shading her eyes. “That is pretty gnarly.”
“Did you know,” said Mr. Yagi, “there is a vitamin called B12. It’s very important for healthy nerve cells, red blood cells, and DNA? B12 deficiency is one of the risks of strict vegetarianism.”
“What is he talking about?” asked Sero, incredulously.
“Hey, nutrition is important,” said Sato.
Izuku nodded. “He has a degree in nutritional and health sciences.”
“Your All Might knowledge is kind of surreal sometimes,” said Ashido.
“I like it,” said Uraraka.
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“I’ve just had a horrible thought,” said Banjo.
“What is it?” asked En.
“What if, when Eighth gets here, he’s the same way about that degree that Hikage is about being a building inspector?”
“We didn’t even know Hikage was a building inspector until this year?”
“Yeah, but now he won’t shut up about it,” said Banjo. “It was all a ploy, you see.”
En looked over at Hikage, who was stoically watching Izuku’s perspective and not saying anything at all. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever you say.”
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When it became obvious that Tsuburaba, breathing heavily and bracing his hands on his knees, wasn’t going to make the first move, Kacchan snarled and charged forward, hands raised in sparking claws, in front of him so that the explosions could take care of any air walls.
And then he tripped.
Izuku realized what had happened instantly. Tsuburaba must have made an invisible air wall, low enough that the explosions in Kacchan’s hands wouldn’t break them.
Taking advantage of the opening, Tsuburaba… jogged over. Slowly. Clutching his side.
Ah. Being out of breath was certainly a problem for Tsuburaba, wasn’t it?
By the time Tsuburaba was halfway to Kacchan, Kacchan was up and rocketing forward once again, his fist aimed directly at Tsuburaba’s nose. Tsuburaba made a valiant effort to create a shield, but all he managed to do was deflect Kacchan’s punch into his jaw. He collapsed.
Midnight waited half a second, then raised her flag. “VICTORY TO B17!”
“Oh, no, I’m up next,” said Hatsume. She got up, then looked back at Jiro. “How bad was being frozen actually?”
“It was pretty bad,” said Jiro. “I’m still cold.”
“Cool, cool,” said Hatsume. “I guess I’ll see you at the end of the next ice age. Bury my babies with me.”
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To everyone’s relief, Todoroki stepped out of the tunnel and into the arena at the scheduled time. Hatsume, almost unrecognizable under serious combat armor and carrying a huge weapon, entered on the other side and entered the ring across from Todoroki.
“START!” called Midnight.
Todoroki started by sending a wave of ice off with a wave of his hand, albeit a much smaller and slower one than what he’d used against Jiro.
Hatsume responded with her flamethrower.
“Holy crap,” said Kaminari. “Maybe this isn’t going to be an automatic win for Todoroki.”
“AND THAT’S THE BRIGID BRAND BEST FOR YOU, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! NOTE HOW MY SUPERIOR SUPPORTWARE WORKS EVEN UNDER ADVERSE CONDITIONS– Ack!”
Instead of going for a straight attack, Todoroki had instead made ice grow up under Hatsume’s feet, tipping her over.
“SEE HOW THESE ALL WEATHER CLEATS ALLOW ME TO RUN ON–”
This time, Hatsume only cut off because Todoroki had thrown a spear of ice through her loudspeaker. However, she could be heard even without it. “Hey! That’s super uncool of you, frosty! How’re my future customers going to hear about all the great features my babies have?”
Izuku saw Todoroki say something, but he couldn’t hear it at all. Hatsume swept the area near her with the flamethrower one more time, then turned to Midnight and said, clearly, “I surrender!”
Which meant–
“Oh, no, my match!” Shinsou was probably already down there, waiting. Izuku should’ve left as soon as Hatsume and Todoroki’s match started. But seeing Hatsume’s gear and Todoroki’s quirk in action–
“Good luck, Midoriya!” called Uraraka as he ran past her up the stairs to the path.
“Th-thanks!” he called back, waving.
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“Distracted by a quirk, huh,” said Banjo.
“And the technology!” shouted Yoichi. “Don’t forget the technology!”
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Slightly out of breath, Izuku stopped in the tunnel. He should probably stay down here to wait for the next round, if he was going to get so distracted. He didn’t want to be late!
Of course, that assumed that he actually beat Shinsou, which wasn’t a given.
Especially when he still wasn’t sure what the activation requirements for Shinsou’s quirk were. He’d had some opportunities to study it while they were training, but he hadn’t wanted to test Shinsou’s boundaries. Now that he’d actually experienced the quirk, and seen it in action, he had some more ideas about it.
Looking out across the arena, he couldn’t see directly into the opposite tunnel, couldn’t see Shinsou. It was the light, mostly, but also the way the ring in the center was slightly raised. Izuku wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Shinsou tended to call out to people, or to be in some sort of conversation with them before using his quirk. That indicated one of four possibilities.
One, he needed to make eye contact with his target, or that the target needed to see him. Izuku thought this was the least likely. While he couldn’t be entirely sure, Kacchan had been pretty focused on Izuku during the first round, and in the second round, it should have been much easier for Shinsou’s group to get ahead and stay ahead if the activation requirement was something like that.
Two, the target needed to hear him, which would explain why Shinsou had to talk to the people he wanted to affect, but it still had the second round problem. If it was like that, Shinsou would only have to shout to take over anyone he wanted.
Well, maybe not anyone. Kacchan’s explosions could be deafening.
Three, the person he was affecting needed to be paying attention to him. If this was the case, Izuku had already lost. There wasn’t really any way to fight a one-on-one battle with someone and not pay attention to them.
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“That’s not completely true,” said Yoichi. “There was this one time I was fighting my brother, but he was focused on a quirk–”
“A little like Ninth was a minute ago, don’t you think–”
“And technology! And technology!”
“Do you think we’ll wind up seeing Ninth in here again?” asked Nana. “If he’s affected by Shinsou’s quirk?”
Hikage shook his head. “Danger Sense should keep him from responding.”
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The fourth possibility was that Shinsou needed someone to talk to him. That made the most sense… and it was the only one Izuku could actually combat.
Now, if he was allowed to have gear beyond his uniform and shoes, like, for example, earplugs, or if he’d practiced fighting blind, that would be a different story. But he wasn’t and he hadn’t.
As for getting out of Shinsou's quirk, from his experience, a physical disruption of some kind, like when Tokoyami shook him, would probably do it. Although he didn’t have any way to arrange one of those, either…
Out in the arena, Midnight gave the cue for Izuku and Shinsou to come out. Izuku practically bolted from the tunnel, but after a moment forced himself to slow down and walk.
He stepped into the ring at the same time as Shinsou. Shinsou looked almost as nervous as Izuku felt, but he raised his chin and looked Izuku right in the eyes.
“Hey, Midoriya,” he said, as Midnight’s rules speech started to reach its end. “Would you say…”
“START!” called Midnight.
“... are we friends?”
Stunned into silence, Izuku gaped, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Shinsou… did he really…?
As he watched, though, Shinsou’s face began to twist, his lower lip disappearing and his eyebrows pinching together. Oh, no, he’d waited too long to respond—
“Of course! We’re–!”
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“Nice,” said Banjo, leaving off teasing Yoichi. “Nephew incoming.” Correction. Changing how he was teasing Yoichi.
Yoichi, for his part, turned his attention to his massive pile of imaginary Wonder merchandise and chewed hats. “I have to get rid of all of this. We have to clean–”
“The kid is already being brainwashed, how are we going to clean a mindscape?”
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“I’m sorry, Midoriya,” said Shinsou, looking at his feet, “don’t hate me for this, okay? Even if… we won’t get to be friends. I just… You really are a nice guy.” He looked up, meeting Izuku’s eyes. “Turn around and walk out of the ring.”
Robotically, against his will, Izuku turned. He took a step forward. Did Shinsou really think that Izuku would end a friendship over something like this? He wanted to turn back around, reassure him, congratulate him, because that was a genuinely clever strategy, but he’d have to wait until he’d officially lost, it seemed.
… What was that in the shadows of the tunnel?
Abruptly, the shadows rushed forward, surrounding him. Eight colored flames loomed out of the darkness, then resolved into human shapes. Well, seven of them did, anyway. The eighth remained a suspiciously All-Might-shaped yellow fire.
“Oh, no, not another hallucination,” he said. He really needed to talk to Mr. Yagi about these. They were starting to worry him, even if he was only having them when he was under the effects of Shinsou’s quirk.
“We’re not hallucinations!” said a hallucination with a spiky ponytail.
“You know,” said another hallucination, “that’s exactly what a hallucination would say.”
“Actually, we're more like ghosts haunting One for All.”
“Hey, kid, you want a quirk that'll get you out of this?”
“Banjo, we've talked about this.”
One possibly-not-a-hallucination, a tall white haired man with brilliantly green eyes, grabbed Izuku's hands. “I'm so happy to finally meet you, Ninth. There's so much we have to tell you–”
“If we don’t do something soon, he’s going to lose the round.”
The white haired man made a sort of strangled sound. “What? Already?”
“It's not exactly like he's running a marathon.”
“What can we do, though?” mused the one woman, who was probably supposed to be Shimura Nana. “Pinch him awake? Shock him?”
“Let's try it!”
The next thing Izuku knew, he was being punched in the face.
“I said pinch, not punch!”
“They sound really similar!”
“Not in Japanese!”
“I know what would be shocking,” said the man with scars across his face, glancing sidelong at what looked like a vault door that no one ever acknowledged or had anything to do within any way, although Izuku didn’t know how he got the last part.
“Oh, no, we're saving that for when he isn't in the middle of an important sporting event.”
“I was wondering why you weren't going all crazy uncle–”
“Later!”
“I also know what would be shocking,” said the man who had offered him a quirk, earlier.
“Not in the middle of a nationally televised sporting event!”
“Aww, you're no fun.”
“If only the stockpile was fully active, then maybe we could use it to break your fingers or knock you over or something.”
“You can turn parts of One for All on and off?” asked Izuku, choosing to ignore the finger-breaking comment.
“Yeah,” said the one who'd punched him. “We are haunting it.”
“Then why don’t you turn on Float, then drop me?”
Ms. Shimura slapped a hand over her face. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
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Hitoshi watch with some resignation as, one step from the ring border, Midoriya abruptly bounced up in the air and then came crashing down.
He should probably rush forward, try to push Midoriya out while he was still disoriented, but instead, he got into one of the fighting stances class 1-A had taught him. “Your quirk is really weird, you know that?”
Midoriya didn't answer him - because Midoriya wasn't stupid, no matter that Hitoshi tricked him once - but nodded and gave Hitoshi a wobbly grin. He also stumbled slightly as he tried to step forward.
A sprained ankle?
Maybe this match wasn't as lost as he'd thought.
“Plus Ultra,” he said, under his breath, and ran forward into the fight.
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Iida followed a very precise bedtime schedule, going through exactly the same steps every night and tucking himself into bed in exactly the same way and, therefore, waking up in exactly the same way, so when he woke up he immediately knew that something was very wrong.
… Although, anyone waking up in the dark on hard, damp ground that smelled of cleaning supplies and alcohol would likely reach the same conclusion very quickly.
Iida sat straight upright, eyes snapping open. It was dark. Very dark. There were shapes in the dark, but they were blurry, unfamiliar. Tenya touched his face. His glasses were gone.
How in the world had he gotten to such a disreputable place?
Was this a villain attack? So soon after the USJ?
The last thing he remembered, he was participating in the second round of the sports festival. Had he been knocked out by one of his opponents? No, that was nonsense. UA wouldn’t leave a student in such a place.
And his team had finished the race… Hadn’t they?
He ran his hand over his head, probing for injuries. He didn’t feel anything. Which meant that he probably hadn’t run into a wall and knocked himself out, although little was certain in the age of quirks.
(Tenya hadn’t done anything like that since he was in elementary school besides.)
His team had finished the race. Then, as scheduled, the lunch break had begun. He had, of course, met up with Tensei–
Tensei.
“Tensei?” he called, tentatively. He’d been with Tensei when… when whatever this was happened.
Thinking that a villain had defeated Tensei so quickly that Tenya couldn’t even remember the fight was… unsettling, but he wouldn’t have left Tenya in the hands of a villain.
There wasn’t a response.
Tenya swallowed and revised his thought. Tensei wouldn’t have willingly left Tenya in the hands of a villain.