Howdy y'all, thanks for all the love and support I've been sent on this fic! I honestly didn't expect this fic to be my most popular one, I figured my Doctor Octopus or Xiaolin Showdown fic would get more views, but I am pleasantly surprised to know I have plenty more Pussycat fans out there in the wild! I was also shocked to know that it seems no one had done a fic like this, where Izuku suddenly wound up in All for One's body. But hey, at least I have some original ideas, unlike all my other stories that have been inspired by others. Hope you all continue to enjoy my ramblings in any case!

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing in the fic below me, and all rights to the characters presented within go to their respective owners.

I'm not All for One, I swear! It's me, Izuku!

Chapter 3

C'mon guys, you know me! Okay, I know I'm not exactly the same as before, but…

Eraserhead was tired.

More tired than usual, anyways. Trying to balance being a teacher, watching over a small child with the capability of erasing literally anything she touched from existence by rewinding time itself, and then adding Hero-work into the mix… well let's just say Aizawa had given up carrying around his yellow sleeping bag around in favor of buying several copies and planting them around strategic locations he frequented.

While the staff meeting room at UA did indeed hold a sleeping bag he'd stashed away for emergencies, the cabinet where he stored the yellow bundle inside was currently smashed to smithereens, courtesy of one enraged All Might.

Aizawa wished he was back to his skeletal form once more, at least then when he got angry he wouldn't accidentally break anything. The cabinet seemed to be on purpose though. The teacher had been… ragged, for lack of a better term, since the death of his successor.

Initially, Aizawa had simply suspected that the reason All Might seemed to pay special interest to Midoriya was due to the freckled teen being his secret love child, the byproduct of a one-night stand. After the child died in that unfortunate accident and All Might suddenly regained the ability to use his Quirk… things got complicated.

The teacher was all but forced to reveal the truth to all of UA's staff about One for All due to the development and Aizawa was… less than pleased at Toshinori's teaching habits. Still, he never yelled at the man, or even brought it up with the rekindled Symbol of Peace, because he mourned for his green-eyed student more than anyone else in the entire school.

Even now he hadn't fully recovered, but he had snapped out of the depressed stupor the man had been trapped inside for a good three months. Apparently, he decided that the best way to honor his student's legacy was to continue being the Symbol of Peace for just a bit longer and locating another successor for the Quirk. He'd apparently considered Mirio for the job, but the perpetually smiling teen had refused the offer.

He wanted to accept it, but he feared Eri wouldn't be able to use Rewind on him to restore his lost Quirk if he did. As of right now, All Might still eyed Mirio for the job but both parties were at an impasse. The Symbol of Peace wasn't getting any younger, he couldn't hold onto his Quirk forever. As of now his Hero time-limit was capped at about 2 hours a day, a noticeable decrease from when he last possessed his Quirk, truly possessed it. Not when he just held onto a slowly emptying pitcher of the power.

The sound of a chair being crushed under the man's currently massive fists snapped Aizawa back into reality, and he subconsciously scooted himself a bit further away from his colleague.

Okay, it was a very conscious decision. He wasn't keen on being near the angry man right now.

The rest of the staff in the room were managing their anger in far more… constructive ways, though Snipe probably shouldn't have been whirling his gun around in the air and pacing back and forth like he did. First rule of firearms was don't point them at anyone you don't want to shoot.

Hizashi was being Hizashi, practically vibrating within his chair as he rapidly bounced back and forth between multiple tabs on his laptop to read as much news on the incident as he could. Midnight, Cementoss, and Powerloader were all crowded behind the Voice Hero, scanning over whatever it was he had on screen at the time.

Nezu and Vlad King seemed to be the only ones maintaining a semblance of calm, though the Quirked animal had a slight frown on his face and Vlad king was clearly twitchy, ready at any moment for a fight.

To be fair, they were expecting one. As soon as word that Tartarus had fallen reached UA's ears, everyone was set on beyond high-alert, patrolling every square inch of the school's grounds and religiously guarding the dorm rooms.

That was nine hours ago.

The school had finally managed to acquire a decent amount of back-up, and several hired Pro Heroes stood guard outside, relieving the UA staff from their duties so they could finally have a proper meeting to discuss the situation rather than frantically shouting at each other through cell phones and dashing around the campus whenever they suspected something of being slightly unusual. Everyone was tired, both physically and mentally, but this discussion needed to happen. Despite the early morning light shining brightly through the windows of their meeting room, everyone there wanted nothing more than to acquire a few hours of sleep.

"I think it's time we began a realistic assessment of the situation at hand." A cutesy yet tired voice rang out, instantly silencing the entire room. Say what you will about Nezu, he knew how to make people shut up. "Personally, I find it highly unlikely tha—"

"He's alive."

All eyes turned towards All Might's hulking form, his electric blue eyes staring straight into Nezu's beady black.

The Quirked animal gulped from the sheer intensity of his stare.

The most anyone knew about the incident currently was simply whatever had been reported on the television. All for One had managed to bust out of Tartarus, thanks to the Villain Muscular killing power to the facility itself, powering down all the defenses that kept the Quirk thief trapped in his chair.

Communications from the complex had been spotty at best, as the inmates had taken time to bust out their fellow prisoners in order to overwhelm the guards. Tartarus was too far away from Mustafu for any of the UA staff to get there in a reasonable amount of time, which meant they were forced to simply watch the aerial helicopter footage of escapee's laying waste to many of the guards and hoped that the Pro Heroes who arrived on the scene would be able to retake control of the prison.

It seemed like the entire complex had fallen at this point, if the video on Mic's laptop showing inmates trying to fight their way off the bridge that led onto Tartarus's artificial island was any indication. It made many of the Pro's cringe when they witnessed a few of the convicts literally fly away from the area with their Quirks and several others simply jumped off the island into the waters below.

Eventually the situation would be resolved, of that UA's staff had no doubt… but they wondered just how many Villains had managed to break free. What would be the cost here? Tartarus held Japan's most dangerous criminals, to be thrown in your Quirk had to have exceptionally destructive potential, or you yourself had to be one of the most unrepentant psychopaths in existence.

The room had quietly held onto the belief that All for One wouldn't survive escaping, as it was common knowledge that the man required a particularly advanced life-support apparatus simply to breathe. He was kept imprisoned by those guns just as much as he was by his horrendous physical health.

But no one knew All for One better than All Might… so his declaration that the man was somehow still alive sent chills down the spines of all present. The hulking figure elaborated on his reasoning when it seemed everyone was waiting for that with baited breath.

"If I know one thing about All for One… he wants to live. He wants to finish what he started. If he wasn't absolutely certain that he could've gotten out of their alive, he wouldn't have taken the chance to escape. He'd have continued waiting for someone to rescue him. The fact that he got away means he found some way to overcome his injuries. I suspect he may have forced some of the medical staff to re-create his helmet." All Might explained solemnly, casting his saddened gaze around the room.

"He may not attack right away… but he's planning something. He's gathering strength. He's either going to head straight back to Shigiraki and regroup, or he's going shopping."

Almost everyone in the room leaned back at the man's declaration, no one more so than Aizawa himself. Shopping? Was All Might actually so exhausted that he couldn't think straight?

"Uh… did you say Japan's most dangerous criminal… is going shopping?" Present Mic incredulously asked, cocking an eyebrow at the man. He shrunk back into his seat when the Symbol of Peace stared right back into his eyes with an expression that conveyed nothing beyond complete and utter seriousness.

"He's going shopping… for Quirks."

The room paled as the implication set in, but none could deny the likelihood. If All for One couldn't get back to Shigiraki instantly, then there was no telling what he'd do along the way as he meandered back towards his protégé. That man didn't care about anyone besides himself and his cruelty knew no bounds.

All Might knew him though. At this very moment in time he knew exactly what that man was doing. He'd haunted those who possessed his Quirk since its very inception, so he had an innate understanding of One for All's tormentor.

Right now, at this very second, if he wasn't in the act of murdering someone or taking their Quirk, he was about to do it.

Izuku was going to kill this buffoon. Literally. He was seriously about to march over to that car, rip the door off its hinges, and strangle that man to death with his bare hands. He wouldn't even use any of his Quirks for it.

Actually, scratch that. He was going to shove a breath holding Quirk into the man, and then strangle him just so he could suffer for longer as he stared into whatever was left of Izuku's single green eye.

Oh, it fixed itself already. And his right eye grew back in! That was particularly painful…

Izuku slowly pushed himself up off the asphalt, near deathly silence surrounding his warped form as the bones within him shifted back into place and his organs sutured themselves together.

Super-Regeneration really was a hell of a Quirk.

Forcing himself onto his knees, Izuku cracked his deformed jaw back into place so that damnable power could attach everything back together just a little bit faster.

All around the intersection, cars were stopped. Pedestrians refused to breathe as they watched the undying zombie force himself off the ground. Lights swapped from red to green, yet nobody moved. There were no shouts, no surprised gasps, no crying or wailing or the sound of police sirens threatened the quiet. Not a soul was even honking their car horns. Well… nobody except for that man.

"H-heyyyysyhy! Getsh a mooove on alreadyyyyy! I gottaa geta worksh!" the moron slurred, sticking his now bleeding head out of the battered car's window, his hand wailing down upon his car's horn. The silver hood of his car and his grill were now dented and splattered with blood, and the man's windshield had suffered similar treatment when Izuku's body had rolled up atop it and crushed the laminated safety glass.

Willing his neck to crane upwards, he was quite pleased to see that his newest associate, Arata Haruki, had trundled across the street and picked up the catalyst of this situation, a small, orange haired girl with twin pigtails and one of those rainbow hats with a propeller atop it.

While Izuku would've liked to see the girl's smile, the only thing upon her face was a frown, her pink eyes wide with fear. Seeing Izuku's body contort itself like raw pretzel dough probably played a part in that

Using the camera function on Arata's phone, Izuku was able to properly give himself plastic surgery this morning. It was a good thing he did, because he was certain this was being recorded. Initially, Super-Regeneration actually did refuse to accept the alterations he'd made to his face, but Izuku quickly found a way around that.

Super-Regeneration didn't belong to All for One originally after all, and from what was left of the man's memories, he looked like this for all his life. So, Izuku simply asked Arata to hold onto Super-Regeneration for a moment, Overhauled himself a new face, and then took Super-Regeneration back from his friend.

The Quirk seemed to accept his altered features as the new 'default', and now Izuku didn't have to worry about All Might ever seeing him in an online video by accident or getting singled out in a crowd of people due to unfortunate circumstances.

Izuku didn't do much to his face, he simply wanted to have it slightly different to match his personal preferences. He'd turned his angular chin into a more rounded version, much like his old body once possessed, and he even figured out how to apply a few freckles to his face. He'd given himself five o'clock shadow thanks to the hair growing Quirk it turned out he did possess; and just to add a touch of something original, he'd taken a knife that was heated up in Arata's fire barrel and applied a small scar across his left eyebrow, branding the flesh and preventing Super-Regeneration from fixing it. He looked like an amalgamation of his old body and All for One that had aged several years, but there was now enough difference between his current looks and the original that no one should be able to recognize whose body he resided inside.

It was pretty perfect, in Izuku's mind. He'd always had a baby face, and now he found a way to fix that! He even found himself admiring the physique his strength enhancer Quirk's applied to his body, the muscles granted him a sense of familiarity with his old form. Even his leg—

Oh right… his leg probably shouldn't be bent that way, should it?

Izuku reached down and twisted his limb until his foot pointed in the correct direction, finally allowing his Quirk to fix the damage. Quite oddly, Super-Regeneration seemed to have an easier time regenerating completely lost tissue rather than fixing damaged tissue. Perhaps that was why it was called 'Super-Regeneration' and not 'Super-Repair'? It seemed to have some amount of trouble moving his bones and muscles back into position so they could fuse together properly, but it still got the job done.

It took the Nomu who possessed this Quirk all but two seconds to regenerate its lost leg and arm at the USJ, but it took Izuku's mangled form twenty entire seconds to finally stitch itself back into working order.

He'd take a quick peek inside himself with Overhaul later, he didn't want to take any chances that his organs may have healed improperly. Right now though… he had murder to commit. It'd be nice and slow, and anyone who tried to stop him would be blasted away with an Air Cannon. By the time the Pro's arrived he'd be long gone.

Not many patrolled this early in the morning, it was mostly underground, night-time Heroes who were getting ready to end their shifts. He'd—

"Whatshhya matterrrrrrrr big guye? Ou lost 'a sumthin?"

Izuku slammed his fist into the cracked road beneath him upon hearing the imbecile's continued jeers, wincing in pain as three of his fingers broke upon impact. It only took Super-Regeneration four seconds to heal those, though.

Ignoring the lingering aches and soreness wracking his body, Izuku shoved himself into a seated position, barely paying any attention to the mortified crowd; many of whom looked ready to vomit after witnessing his body writhe and bulge unnaturally while the Quirk repaired all the damage.

WhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWh—

He knew why.

The answer was always there.

His new, altered mind may question his methods, it may make him rethink everything he's ever done in a new light, but Izuku was still here. He was standing. He was himself.

He was walking with Arata to the public library so the man could charge up his phone and the two of them could put their minds together to think through a few plans when he saw it.

Again.

It was like the day he died on repeat, a terrible stereo. This time, it wasn't a semi-truck about to smash into the side of a small child, no, it was a drunk driver, swerving all over the road, going far faster than the speed-limit allowed and completely ignoring the red light his lane was subjected too.

It happened. Izuku saw it, the man barreled straight through the red light, causing two other cars who were obeying the law to swerve and smash into each other just to avoid slamming into the maniac who just… kept… going.

She was at the crosswalk next to Izuku and Harata. The girl's mother was on the other side, holding her arms open and waiting for her bundle of joy to run and jump into them when his car skidded into view.

Her father was holding her hand and tried to pull back before the metallic death trap careened into them, but the other pedestrians who panicked upon seeing the vehicle speeding towards their position had knocked the man away from his child in their own desperate attempts to relocate.

The man had attempted to lunge over the frantic crowd and grab his daughter, but he found himself continually pulled away by the mass of people going the opposite direction. He was a salmon swimming upstream without any fins.

It was hopeless.

Purple flames erupted from his maw as he screamed his daughter's name, smoke mixing in with the sheer desperation emanating from his frantic form. Across the street, the mother had quite literally turned into what appeared to be a puddle of jelly, the purple and blue of her clothing mixed in with the clear slurry of her form, like tie-dye in a bucket.

They could do absolutely nothing but watch as the silver grate of the car inched ever closer towards their offspring. Izuku was close enough though. He still had his strength enhancers applied.

That didn't stop him from applying five others into his legs just to ensure he'd be fast enough.

Just like that horrendous day one year, four months, three weeks, five days, nine hours, thirty-two minutes and eighteen seconds ago… Izuku flung himself at the child, shoving her out of the way and taking the blow himself.

Just like that horrendous day one year, four months, three weeks, five days, nine hours, thirty-two minutes and twenty seconds ago… everything within Izuku broke.

His organs all but disintegrated upon impact while his ribs shattered and punctured anything that remained marginally functional after the initial blow. As this wasn't the flat front of a semi-truck, Izuku then found his limp body rolling up the car's hood to bash into its windshield as the vehicle continued barreling forwards, only stopping when it smashed into the side of the coffee shop at the intersection's corner.

He'd been lying behind the car on the road after the impact, everything inside him broken and twisted when Super-Regeneration had kicked in and started the healing. That stopped when the man backed his car out of the shop window and ran Izuku over again, shattering both his legs and rebreaking his previously healed ribcage.

Perhaps the worst part was that the man had backed up into an empty lane of traffic and was now angrily honking at Izuku to get out of the road.

After all, the light in his lane was green. He had the right of way.

Sparing a glance at the coffee shop itself, he could see the barista behind the bar still pouring a drink, but not paying attention. His eyes were solely focused on Izuku even as coffee literally overflowed from the cup he was filling up and the liquid cascaded over his hands. Even the patrons that were forced to dive away from the window had picked themselves off the ground to stare at Izuku in horror as he repaired himself. There were two cops standing by the barista's counter, their mouths hanging open in shock and their bodies frozen in place.

Nobody moved. All around the intersection, there were shops, cameras, people who watched what just happened… and every single one of them was terrified.

Powerful healing Quirks were an exceptional rarity in society, and quite often they weren't pretty to look at. What Recovery Girl made people's bones do when they broke, Izuku could do to himself. He was a self-assembling jigsaw puzzle. A corpse that refused to stay put.

He should have died instantly. The impact of his skull upon the ground certainly cracked his dome open if the blood-stained white hair flopping in front of his now-clear vision indicated anything. But that Quirk kept him alive. It was his savior, his last resort, his trump card.

It was his greatest torturer.

Another blare of the man's horn broke the horrified silence of the intersection, everyone beyond the drunkard still too shell-shocked to move, render aid, ask questions, help others, or do anything at all. Only Arata had secured the child and was sitting down with her by the destroyed coffee shop, doing his best to check the girl for injuries.

She seemed to be wincing and holding onto her ribs. Izuku must've bruised her when he shoved the girl out of the way.

He'd have to apologize for hurting her right after he siphoned whatever Quirk that subhuman waste of space behind the wheel of the car had before choking the life out of that pathetic, scrawny, useless sack of flesh that somehow had the audacity to harm him.

With an eerie calmness, Izuku forced himself onto his feet. Glancing down at the tattered remains of Arata's jacket, he decided it wasn't really worth keeping it on anymore. He only had to slide one arm out of the bloodied fabric before the rest basically crumbled off his body, its torn threads unable to support itself upon his form.

There was a scream of terror from behind, and he turned around to witness two people wearing middle-school uniforms, a boy and a girl. The girl looked particularly green and was holding a hand to her mouth to stop herself from vomiting while the boy beside her pointed a shaky finger at Izuku's stomach.

Looking down, he finally saw it. The car's hood ornament.

From what was sticking out of him, it appeared to be some kind of animal, likely a horse or something if the hind-hooves protruding from his flesh was any indication. He grabbed onto the golden ornament and ripped it straight out of his body, blood spewing out of the wound before it quickly sealed back up. He didn't even notice the pain. It certainly wasn't comparable to having everything inside you explode.

Izuku would know. It'd happened to him twice now.

The girl vomited. The boy fainted. Someone screamed in the distance.

Perhaps the silence was only in his mind? It was as if ripping the ornament out hit a button and un-paused the universe, as life suddenly kicked back into action with renewed vigor.

Cars sped away from the scene, suddenly not caring about what their light seemed to say. People either ran away or rapidly approached Izuku, grabbing onto his shoulders, tugging him this way and that way, either trying to force him to lie down, sit up, or take him off the road. No one could come to a consensus.

A few people had marched over towards the drunk's car and yanked the door open, forcing the man out of his seat and turning the car off before it rolled away.

They looked angry. Some were frightened or unsure, but the majority were angry.

Good.

Maybe they'd kill the man before Izuku did. That meant he wouldn't have to create another new face for himself to wear after doing the deed. He quite liked this one, it suited his current state of mind. Izuku's original features didn't feel like himself anymore. All for One's face definitely didn't match, it just screamed 'cruelty'. This… this one was a nice middle ground.

He scowled slightly as the two previously petrified police officers dashed onto the scene, calling for back-up with their radios and moving in to check on people. Unfortunately, thanks to there only being two of them, there wasn't much they could do.

So much for staying unnoticed.

One of the officers had crouched down next to Haruki and the girl, and with some reluctance, he allowed the child to be examined by the officer. Her mother had seemingly reformed herself from the puddle of goop she transformed into and was shakily standing by, clearly desiring to touch her daughter but unwilling to risk the possibility of injuring her further. She simply settled for bawling uncontrollably as Haruki awkwardly stood around.

The other cop had elected to check on the drunk, possibly because Izuku seemed no worse for wear after the accident. Physically, that was true. Everything felt perfectly fine now, beyond the painful aftershocks such rapid, large-scale regeneration had caused. He still felt like everything in him had been broken and was then forcibly shoved back into place… which wasn't a nice experience.

He'd live, he was sure of that, but the real question was did he want to? He needed to find Ragdoll fast before he ran out of juice.

Izuku was snapped out of his stupor by the crowd being forcibly shoved away by someone, all of them protesting but not resisting. Izuku cast his dull green eyes up towards the newest arrival, his lifeless greens meeting the near-glowing purple orbs of that girl's father.

As a matter of fact, his eyes were glowing, Izuku was sure of it. Smoke seemed to be billowing out of his mouth too. It brought back memories from Izuku's childhood when his Dad was still around, blowing out little circles of smoke to amuse his excitable son.

It's too bad Izuku Midoriya died. He probably would've loved to see someone with such a similar Quirk as his father.

The man had crouched down next to Izuku, a hand tentatively resting on his bare shoulder. The man's eyes were watery and his whole form trembled, but he could sense the relief pouring off of him. His daughter had just been saved by a total stranger after all, so it was a natural emotion.

The noise died down again. Perhaps there really was something wrong with Izuku, maybe his head took a bigger hit than he thought. The man was saying something, but Izuku heard nothing at all. The world was dead silent yet again. It was a good thing he could read lips.

'Are you alright?'

What a funny question. He'd been asked that by pretty much every adult he ever met outside school. His mother was a constant source of said inquiry as it was thrown at him every time he came home with new bruises from Bakugo or any of the other bullies at school. When he was training on the beach with All Might, he'd been asked that plenty of times too.

That idiot mistook— NO!

All Might wasn't an idiot, he was his Hero. Yet for all his talk, that man was less than adept at reading social queues. Izuku'd show up to training covered in cuts or bruises, sometimes he'd cry or weep over what'd been done to him at school, and the question would always be the same. But Izuku couldn't show weakness. He couldn't be a burden. He refused to be a burden.

The Symbol of Peace didn't want to hear about Izuku's life problems, his lack of friends, or how he felt like he wasn't worthy of inheriting One for All. He had to keep up the façade. He always repeated the same mantra in his head over and over and over.

'You'll grow into it. It'll get better. You just gotta hold out a little longer.'

He always had a weapon up his sleeve. It'd gotten him through elementary and middle school, and it was going to get him past All Might too.

'I'm fine.'

It worked. It always worked. For a time, he even believed it when he went to UA. He'd received some friends somehow, managed to become… respected, and his life seemed to be on track. But he knew it was all false. He was popular not because of himself, but his Quirk. The Quirk that wasn't his. Without All Might's power, he'd be a nobody. Those people he called friends would never know he even existed without it.

He'd been sent to Hound Dog by Aizawa and other teachers more times than he'd ever care to admit. They weren't stupid, they could see he wasn't doing alright. But Hound Dog never got anything out of Izuku. Now that he was dead, he never would. It was always the same whenever he had to sit in that furry man's office.

'Your teacher has informed me that you seem particularly jittery around your… explosive classmate. Tell me, are you alright?'

'I heard you broke both your arms to save someone at the training camp, and now you've been informed that you're on the cusp of permanently damaging their remaining functionality. How does this make you feel? Are you alright?'

'Mr. Midoriya what you witnessed occur to Sir Nighteye was undoubtedly a tragic experience, I find it hard to believe you're handling things well… are you alright?'

'Midoriya, please, talk to me. I can't help you if you refuse to share anything. Eri herself has said you seem… troubled. Are you alright?'

'Are you alright? You were found crying in the stairwell by your friends, they're quite concerned for your wellbeing. Come, let's talk.'

'You look like death itself, Izuku. You're not alright. You can't be. What's bothering you?'

'… Izuku? Are… are you alright? You… launched yourself out the classroom window because Bakugo slammed his hands on your desk. You can't tell me there's not more to this story here.'

He'd sigh. Just like the last time, the time before that, and the time before that. Hound Dog never got it out of him, and for every one of those questions, he had the same answer. The mantra he repeated to himself and at least 3 separate individuals on a near-daily basis.

'I'm fine.'

Izuku heard sirens. Looking around, he could see all the concern on everyone's faces as they stared at the man who threw himself in front of a truck to save some kid. Was he muttering again? They didn't seem any more terrified or confused than they were before, perhaps he'd just spaced out. The sound of snapping fingers drew his attention back towards the girl's father.

"Hey, hey stay with me buddy. Can you hear me?" he questioned, tear-stained purple eyes filled with a fiery determination. Izuku merely nodded. The sound was slightly distorted, like he was listening to someone talk while his head was underwater, but he could hear.

"Are you alright?"

WhyWHyWHywhywhyWHyWhYwhyWhywhyWHYwhYwHywhy—

What else could he possibly say? There really wasn't anything else for him to do now, was there? Perhaps everything had led up to this exact moment in time. It was always a lie, saying he was fine. He never was. But he couldn't be a burden. He wouldn't. He wasn't going to bother anyone with his worthless problems. That was why he had to be the best, so no one would ever care about him.

All Might never got asked if he was doing alright, he was #1. Of course he was alright. When Izuku got to that point… he'd finally be at peace.

Perhaps it was a good thing he no longer particularly cared if he was a burden to others. He looked into those purple eyes, stared at the concerned faces of everyone surrounding him, and he even noticed Arata peering over some shoulders to get a better look at Izuku himself. The only man who knew the truth in the entire world was looking at Izuku with concern.

It wasn't happening like it normally did. So many people staring right at him, he was sure he'd be having a panic attack right now. It's what old Izuku would've done. Hyperventilation, overthinking kicked up to maximum, migraines, lack of air, the world collapsing around his scrawny worthless form… but not new Izuku.

All he felt was an eerie calmness. He knew what needed to be done now.

"…no."

Perhaps he had run out of steam after busting out of Tartarus, and that emotional shell he'd erected around himself finally shattered. He'd hidden inside of it all his life as Midoriya, but it no longer fit in his new body.

He cried.

Old habits die hard, he supposed. Couldn't remove the Midoriya from Izuku, even if he desperately wanted too. Even as he broke down and sobbed into a complete stranger's arms, he was plotting. He was mentally collecting all the Quirk's he'd need to fabricate himself an entirely new life right in front of a bunch of police officers and medical professionals who were going to demand ID and take DNA samples to identify him.

They'd never remember anything that occurred though. Just that they assisted the self-sacrificing man who threw himself in front of a car. The details of what they'd done… he'd lock all of them away. Only Haruki knew the truth, and it was going to stay that way.

"I'm fine."

"…"

There it was again. The silence. The judgement. The 'I don't get paid enough for this and you're the one who's paying me' look.

"Really, I'm fine. It just… shocked me." She lifelessly replied, knowing full well how she truly felt on the inside. It wasn't fine. How could it be fine? Nothing about this was okay. But it didn't matter.

She was Quirkless now. Worthless. She was a burden to her former team, and now she was making a burden of herself at the psychiatry office she was 'gently escorted' into after she'd apparently entered a minor catatonic state in her hotel room.

"… Tomoko I find it hard to believe that you're doing fine, considering the state your family found yo—"

"They're not my family." Tomoko interrupted, perhaps sounding a bit harsher than she intended.

Why did everyone always assume they were a family? People always said that, but then when they wanted 'the team' to swing by or make an appearance, they'd be confused when Tomoko showed up with them. Like she was some step-daughter unwillingly dragged to a family dinner to meet people she wasn't related too.

True to her professional nature, the therapist managed not to alter her impassive face at all upon Tomoko's interjection, but she stopped fiddling with the pen in her hand.

Tomoko knew all her tells by now. She had a great poker face, but the rest of her was quite expressive. Her foot bounced up and down upon the floor when she felt tired. She'd hiccup and bubbles would pop out of her mouth when she got scared. She was constantly spinning around a pen in her off-hand, so if it stopped twirling, that meant she was startled, or disappointed. Usually disappointed.

That's all anyone seemed to be with Tomoko nowadays. She didn't want to be here. Someone else who needed this type of help should be in her place, all she did was waste space now.

"Tomoko, Tartarus prison right off the coast of the Chiba prefecture, surely having… that man break out so close to your current location was alarming. Something like that is a perfectly reasonable cause for emotional distress." The therapist 'explained', using that same condescending tone of voice.

Tomoko hated those angular, old lady glasses she had on her face, they seemed to only serve the purpose of sliding down off her nose whenever she spoke, forcing the woman to constantly push them back up. It gave her that 'holier than thou' aura that made her very skin crawl whenever she tried to 'level' with the former Pro.

"I'm fine. There's no reason he'd come and attack me, I've got nothing he wants anymore. So why would I be worried?" she drawled, undaunted by the woman's 'reasoning'.

There it was. Tomoko admitted to gaining a small amount of satisfaction whenever she succeeded in doing it, making the therapist frown. It was quite rare, she was good with that poker-face, but sometimes Tomoko could upset the stoic woman.

It was the little victories that counted.

She knew the truth of what happened to Tomoko, but she didn't understand. Couldn't feel that soul-wrenching, mind-numbing pain of having a Quirk ripped out of your unwilling body. Quirks are like muscles, and having it forcibly removed was like someone reached inside of her and tore Tomoko's skeleton right out of her entire body. Her fingers were numb for weeks after the 'incident'.

The incident.

Hah…

What a funny thing to call the worst thing that could possibly happen to someone. Trying to minimize what it actually was.

A low buzzing noise echoed round the room, the source emanating from the woman's pocket. Finally. Time was up for the emergency session. Why did she have to come for this garbage? She was paying extra to do something she didn't even want to do.

Oh right, Shino and Yawara all but forced her, while Ryuko had gone back to their shared apartment to feed her cats while she recovered.

Tomoko hated that too. A shared apartment.

It was hers, damnit. Ryuko basically lived there now to 'watch out for her sis'. All that meant was she interrupted Tomoko's quiet time, forced her to watch random garbage she never actually wanted to see in the first place, ate all her candy, and even sometimes brought guys back to her apartment after a date.

It was HER apartment!

NOT RYUKO'S!

Why couldn't she take her latest fling to her own damn apartment, it wasn't even that far away from hers, maybe a block or two.

'Your apartment's so nice though Tomo! C'mon~, you know it's far too big for one person. I'm just filling it up!'

Ryuko never could seem to understand that perhaps she was okay with her admittedly large apartment being empty, she wasn't trying to fill her life with someone else right now.

She tried that a few months back, it didn't work. Sure, it was kinda fun to just let loose and give into her impulses, but after the third girl and fifth guy passed through her bedroom… she just started feeling lonely. No one stuck around in the morning or asked for a second date. Not that the bar's she frequented really counted as a first date but still…

Admittedly, this was Tomoko's own fault. She never asked for anything further and considering they were all one-night stands, she didn't expect her partners to do so either. Perhaps that was why it hurt so much though, she couldn't even impress them enough that they'd want more.

She was sexy, damnit! Ryuko didn't get to have the monopoly on dating! How come she got chased after all the time while Tomoko didn't?

She shuddered.

It was probably because Ryuko was a shameless flirt 24/7, while Tomoko only engaged in the act when she felt like it. Plus, she didn't blatantly ogle anyone who so much as glanced in her general direction. She introduced herself, gave off a sweet smile, made sure they were single, and then shamelessly ogled them.

Professionals have standards.

Ugh, maybe she should get a roommate. An actual one. That'd give her an excuse to kick out Ryuko, at least. She couldn't bring herself to just tell her former teammate off like she wanted to, so a roommate would give her a plausible excuse to kick the woman to the curb. She was getting fed up with her antics at this point. Even if they were fun at first.

Tomoko was snapped out of her introspection with a sigh from the therapist, who's brow was furrowed at some message she was reading on her phone.

Odd. She rarely showed any emotion, that poker face was great. What could the message say that shook the impressive foundations of emotional callousness the woman had erected?

Still, formalities were formalities. The two quickly stood up, exchanged a bow that carried absolutely zero emotion as they'd done so hundreds of times before, and then exited the room together. Tomoko decided to hold the door open for the woman this time, she'd held it open for Tomoko at her previous session.

The pair made their way down the small hallway that comprised the therapist's building, nothing but white and beige colors surround the pair interspersed with other doors and paintings.

The mundaneness of it all bored Tomoko half to death. It was the world's most generic therapist's office, like a stock image was magically transformed into a real-life example.

There was a group waiting for her doctor in the waiting room it seemed, and Tomoko busied herself signing all that boring paperwork and handing her credit card over to the nearby receptionist. Another paper for her already large medical file.

Great.

Idly, Tomoko tried to distract herself from the boredom of the elderly receptionist lifelessly fulfilling her duties by eavesdropping on the conversation nearby. A police officer had moved forward to talk with Tomoko's doctor and was whispering in her ear with the most bored expression she had ever seen another human being wear. The doctor cocked her eyebrow and looked over the officer's shoulder, peering into the waiting room behind Tomoko.

Turning around herself, she noticed a small group shuffling about the waiting room. One scruffy looking man with an equally scruffy beard and ragged clothing, likely homeless. Next to him was a police officer who was remarkably still.

Tomoko had seen statues that looked more life-like than that police officer, his dull eyes gazing off into nothingness. She wasn't even sure he was breathing to be honest. It was probably the man's Quirk, he'd be good in interrogations. She certainly didn't want to be in the room with him right now, he was pretty creepy.

Next to the police officer and the vagrant was another individual, who was similarly motionless. He seemed rather out of it, but at least Tomoko could tell he was breathing. Lifting his head up, the man seemed to scan around the room before his eyes settled on herself, while they widened in… fright? Recognition? Something like that, she was sure.

The white-haired man had exceptionally dull green eyes, like life itself had been sucked out of them. They were so… familiar, but she couldn't quite put her finger on why. All she could say was that they looked haunted.

Now that she looked at the man, everything about him seemed kind of familiar. He had freckles, a round-ish face, a bit of dark stubble around his jawline, and somewhat pointed nose. Oh, and he wasn't wearing a shirt, just what appeared to be a blanket that the firemen occasionally gave people when they needed to be covered or kept warm.

Odd.

Ryuko would've liked a piece of him, Tomoko could say that much from what bits of his skin were visible. His legs and arms had a healthy amount of muscle, so it stood to reason the rest of him would be marginally fit as well. No scars though, Tomoko was a bit saddened by that. Scars were sexy! Oh, scratch that. White-hair had a little cut right across his eyebrow, leaving behind a strip of skin where no hair would grow.

It was actually kind of infuriating, looking at the man. He was… so damn familiar, those eyes specifically seemed so much like… like… someone? Ugh, she hated when her brain did this. It was like the answer was dancing at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't quite voice it. It was like forgetting how to say a simple word, like 'surprised'.

She took a glance back towards her therapist and the other cop, who also seemed to be particularly out of it. He barely moved. Even the therapist had a slightly concerned look on her face, though she didn't mention anything. Perhaps they just had a bad morning.

Tomoko dec—

"This really is the best decision I've ever made." A voice right behind Tomoko sounded out, startling the former Pro.

She turned around the find the shirtless man from earlier had stepped up behind her, leaving behind his odd posse. Behind him she could see the homeless man with a huge, clearly surprised smile on his face, like he'd just won the lottery and couldn't believe his luck. The other police officer still continued to stand there like a statue though, completely emotionless.

Odd.

Redirecting her attention towards the man in front of her, Tomoko's heart froze in her chest. Now that they were closer, those dull, green eyes seemed so much more lifelike. It was like she'd somehow lit a fire behind them with her appearance alone. Now practically glowing green, they seemed so damn familiar, and his name was on the tip of her tongue… but it still wouldn't come to her. They were… so familiar, yet she still couldn't put her mind to it. What made her heart freeze though… was the man's hand. He had a huge grin on his face, cheeks pushing upwards on his freckles with eyes wide as saucers, an open palm held out towards Tomoko herself. In his palm… was a notebook.

"C-can I have your autograph, R-ragdoll?"

…

… what?

"Arg… sorry, that's probably a weird way to say hello, isn't it? Urgh, I-I'm really sorry about that. I-I'm just so excited to see you again! You have no idea how happy this makes me. I have been dying to meet you for… well not forever, but it certainly feels that way. Guess I really did just need to start being honest, huh? I can—" the man started, before suddenly slapping himself with his own notebook.

Quite startled, Tomoko took a step back from the strange man as he… composed himself, she supposed, taking a deep breath and giving her an apologetic smile.

"Ah, s-sorry about that. I… I can ramble a bit when I get excited… I uh... I'm working on it." he explained, managing to somehow look bashful.

While he was certainly a weird one… Tomoko had dealt with worse. She let a small smile come to her lips and relaxed a bit, he was clearly just an excited fan.

…

She still had fans? No, she must've misheard the man earlier. Smiling sadly, the former pro shook her head.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, I'm not Pixie-Bob. That's my friend. We're going to a convention in Mustafu next week if you'd like to swing by though, I'm sure she'd love to meet you there!" Tomoko explained, throwing on that cheerful voice she used when talking to the press or promoting the team to others.

Her smile crashed when the man tilted his head in confusion and cocked a scarred eyebrow at her.

"Pixie-Bob? I know you're not her, you're Ragdoll! Tomoko Shiretoko, right?"

The sound of the pen she held in her hand hitting the ground was quite literally deafening to Tomoko, and time semmed to grind to a halt around her. Someone who wasn't a paparazzo or an interviewer on a TV show… actually recognized her?

Apparently the confused look on her face startled her… fan… because he immediately began waving his hands around while blushing redder than a tomato.

"Ah! S-sorry, I didn't mean to sound creepy there or anything, I-I just used to be a, well… kind of a Hero-Otaku when I was younger, a-and I still have a really good m-memory so it wasn't that hard to r-recognize you. I-I didn't mean to frighten you or…"

For the first time… well, probably over a year at this point, Tomoko felt something bubbling up from her chest. She'd not experienced something like this for a while and because of that, she couldn't stop the corners of her mouths from upturning slightly.

She giggled.

A real, honest giggle. Not a laugh, there wasn't anything that funny in front of her, but seeing a grown man acting like some teenager who got called out for hoarding dirty magazines under his bed… well it was humorous enough to elicit some response from the former Pro.

The man's eyes shot up towards Tomoko as she hid her mouth behind a hand, doing her level best to will away the chuckles. She was brooding, damnit. She didn't need to smile right now! The man at least seemed to have a measure of social awareness and straightened himself once he realized Tomoko wasn't upset with him, shooting back a small smile of his own.

The white-haired man offered her the notebook. For once, Tomoko didn't question what was going on around her. She reached out to take the book, and the man's pointer finger grazed the side of her palm as the object exchanged hands.

Taking another bite of her food, Tomoko allowed a small smile to come to her mouth as she ate the bento, pouring just a little extra ginger sauce over her salad. She wasn't counting calories anymore to fit in her Hero uniform, she could splurge a little. The beef stir-fry was quite delicious too…

Wait…

Slowly, almost like a robot, Tomoko's head lifted up from her lunch and gazed around the shopping center she sat down inside, trying to gather her wits.

Wasn't she… just at the therapist's office? She was! How did… no, no she wasn't. She was there this morning… and… yes, there was that nice white-haired man there, her fan.

A smile crept up her face as she remembered him, it felt nice to be… recognized. He didn't even call her a 'former Pro' or 'retired'. Just called her by her Hero name. She'd entirely forgotten how good it felt to hear others call her that.

Shaking her head, Tomoko did her best to focus herself. What happened exactly? How did she get here?

She… ah, that's right. She signed the man's notebook (she'd jump up for joy about that fact later when she was somewhere private), and then… no, no that wasn't all…

Oh right!

Taking her cat-themed phone from her pocket, Tomoko quickly searched through her contacts and pulled up Shino's number, smacking the call button with a thumb. She idly grabbed some of her stir-fried veggies and some rice with her chopsticks, shoving the mixture into her mouth as she waited for her friend to pick up.

It took exactly two rings before Shino answered.

"T-Tomoko? Is everything alright? You never call, what's going on? Are you hurt? Do yo—" Shino began, only to get cut off by the sound of Tomoko's giggling.

Giggling twice in one day, jeeze that must be some new record. Still, she pressed onwards. She had a very important question to ask.

"Ah, no, no, sorry to bother you Shino, everything's perfectly fine. I was just wondering if you could grab me a few extra tickets for that Mustafu convention? Two of them? I ran into some fans earlier and… I uh…" why was she doing this exactly? Why did she want to get the pair tickets? Oh, right! White-hair would get along great with Pixie-bob, she loved boys with scars. Right? That had to be why she was doing this, it made sense.

Right? Right!

"You good, Tomo?" Shino asked, snapping the former Pro out of her trance. Maybe she was just really tired or something, that'd explain why she couldn't seem to keep her train of thought going.

"Ah, yeah, sorry. Just… been a long day, you know? A-anyways, I ran into some fans who were really nice, and wanted to invite them to our Mustafu convention next week. One of them's a nice piece of eye-candy, I'm sure with a little push we can use him to keep Ryuko out of the tabloids for another week." Tomoko explained, and was rewarded by chuckle from her friend.

The team had a habit of selecting individuals to 'entertain' Ryuko's strange mannerisms in the past, because if they didn't pick someone for her, it was guaranteed that she'd go to a bar and shamelessly hit on every guy she met until she scored.

It was also guaranteed that the paparazzi would be following her every step of the way while she did so.

"Uh, yeah I can grab a pair of tickets for them. Will you be handing them off yourself?"

Huh. Tomoko didn't think of that. How was she… oh right! She gave that man her phone number! But… why? They just met, right? He did seem kind of familiar but… oh yeah, of course! She had to give them their tickets, why else would she hand off her number?

And why else would she have invited the man to her apartment tonight? It was weird to just give your address away to a total stranger, but… he was nice, and these were extenuating circumstances. She'd just pass off the tickets and they'd go their separate ways.

"Mmhm! I'm meeting with one of them later tonight, do you think I can have the tickets by the end of the day?" the sound Shino made after Tomoko said this made her regret her life choices.

"Oho~? Tomo's on the prowl now, hrm? Bribing people to satisfy your own desires again? You better tell me his name first, at least. I'm not letting you and Pixie hog all the handsome ones~!" she leered, much to Tomoko's dismay.

Normally, she'd spit back a spicy retort and tell her to shove it up her tail… but the second she tried to think of the man's name her head started to pound. Did he even say his name? Argh, what did he even look like? He had… white hair, green eyes, freckles, and… and….

Tomoko shook her head and growled into the speaker. She'd meet the man later tonight anyways, she'd remember what he looked like then. For now, she had food to eat and a certain lecherous cat to kick out of her apartment for the evening.

She did not need Ryuko drooling over her fan tonight. She could do that next week when Shino and Tomoko locked the pair of them in a room at the convention.

"J-just get me those tickets if you want me to come." She spat, and hung up the phone before Shino's infectious laughter reached her ears.

What was going on with her head? Everything about this morning was just so… fuzzy. Sighing, Tomoko simply finished her meal at a leisurely pace, before making her way back towards her apartment. She needed a nap. Or maybe some aspirin?

Or both. Both is good.

"I don' believe it."

Izuku chuckled. He readily agreed with Arata however, this was… unexpected. The odds of this occurring were astronomically impossible, yet here they were.

In a therapist's office surrounded by puppets under Izuku's control for the next… twenty or so minutes, with Izuku's target lifelessly signing her name in a notebook and jotting her number down underneath it.

"I suppose I was being punished for not being honest. The second I start being truthful, everything comes up aces!" Izuku shouted. He couldn't help himself really, his hands were clasped gleefully in front of him and the only thing preventing the man from jumping up and down with joy was the lingering pain still shooting through his body.

He'd live, though.

"Err, why can't we jus' shove 'er Quirk back in right now?" Haruki whispered, glancing nervously around the office space and staring at the various zombies his boss had created.

The two cops from earlier were still zoinked out of their minds, standing as still as statues in the back. For some reason neither of the men could fathom, the office's therapist seemed particularly shocked that Ragdoll was laughing and had hurriedly walked over and started shining a flashlight in her eyes after Izuku already put her under. Seems her college degree wasn't just for show.

In any case, the doctor found herself under Izuku's spell just as quickly as everyone else had, and the shocked receptionist soon followed. He used two Quirks he termed 'Mind-Guidance' and 'Direct-Control' to apparently alter their conscious actions and allowed Izuku to manipulate them. Mind-Guidance allowed him to muddle their memories and would make anyone under its control easily influenced. Coupled with Direct-Control, which allowed Izuku to directly influence people's actions and thoughts, he had created a combination that allowed him to force people to do whatever he wanted, and then when the Quirks wore off, they'd believe everything they'd done under his control had been their own conscious decisions.

Or at least, that's what Izuku said should happen, it wasn't like he'd tested it out before.

Haruki wasn't going to question All for One, who was now apparently a 18 year old kid from UA, anymore than he had too. He'd have scoffed at the man's story and told him to shove off… but he had a Quirk now. A real, honest to goodness Quirk.

Who knows what other weird, twisted Quirks resided within that Villain's body? For all Haruki knew he could've had some mind-swap Quirk that caused Izuku to end up as he was now. He'd believe the man for now, he wasn't being beat up or robbed for whatever he had on him, so it was working out pretty well so far.

Though he did need a new phone now, Izuku had confiscated his so he could exchange contact info with Ragdoll.

"One, there's cameras all around this office. What's going on here isn't too suspicious, since it looks like we're conversing with the therapist and Ragdoll, but if the camera recorded me shoving a Quirk into Tomoko here… I can't really think of a good excuse for that. Secondly, I can't use Direct-Control on someone twice in one day. If I gave Ragdoll her Quirk now, she'd snap out of her funk, and then we'd probably have to fight her. We'd win of course, but once again, cameras." Izuku explained, taking his now signed notebook back from Ragdoll and ordering her to go get something to eat and acquire the pair of them tickets for the Pussycats' Mustafu convention next week.

"So… why are we goin' to Mustafu now? Ain't 'chu afraid of gettin' near UA again, sir?"

Izuku merely shook his head as he waved away the police officers, telling them to go file their reports and leave Izuku's name and other information out of it. He'd already forced the medics checking him out not to take any DNA samples or bring him to a hospital, so his tracks were pretty well covered at this point. Izuku spoke once more.

"I admit it's not the safest move I could make… but I have to know what's going on. There're some people I wish to check up on as well. Maybe… maybe once I get some closure I can finally leave behind the old me."

Ah.

Of course.

He still wanted to see his mother again. Haruki supposed he could respect that, even though it was a terrible idea to go visit a city full of your old friends/enemies. The convention tickets were simply Izuku's cover for getting into the city.

"Ah, Ragdoll." He suddenly stated, causing the former Pro's lifelessly retreating figure to stop and turn around. "… text me your address. I'll be swinging by your place tonight to give you… a gift."

Arata smiled. At least he was going to get that stuff out of the way now and not wait till the convention. Ragdoll gave no indication she heard him, only turning around once more and shuffling out into the world.

"… you gonna tell her?" he asked.

"… maybe. We'll see how she takes the news. Worst comes to worst I can knock her out, and by the time she comes too I'll be long gone with a new face."

Arata nodded in understanding. Either they'd gain another ally tonight, or they'd be relocating far, far away from Japan ahead of schedule.

The die was cast.