It didn't take more than a glance, literally, to drag Shoto Aizawa away from death's door.
That's it.
One blink, and the man's torn-apart flesh knitted itself back together like rewound film, every snapped tendon and shattered bone threading itself into place under the purest golden glow I'd ever seen manifest from Hysh. The radiant light clung to him like a second skin, snakes of magic writhing over his body and suffusing his very soul with the White Winds; luminous, sacred, and way too holy to be used so easily by someone like me.
Evil Eye was never meant to utilize spells, necessarily - at least, not in the traditional sense, but I'd long since become well-versed with breaking the mold. There were no incantations needed. No gestures. Just willpower, presence, and a spell I'd bound to my magical sight well in advance. I was only able to 'program' spells of a low complexity and power, but that was hardly an issue for me nowadays. The moment my glowing eyes had locked onto his form, Healing Light activated, and Hysh surged like white-hot honey from my gaze into his failing body.
I'd been curious on whether or not the magic cast through it would fall beneath the same 'scaling amplifier' Holy Hexes put on all of my other magic-based abilities, considering the hands-off way in which it worked, but judging by the speed in which the dark-haired man's body repaired itself…
'Fuck yeah,' I chuckled inwardly, an appreciative glimmer in my eyes as I tasted the syrupy-sweet potency of Hysh on the air, 'Not bad for a test-run. Need me some more of that.'
There were worse things to be addicted to than infinite magical power, right? At least this one didn't make me smell like existential despair and a dirty ashtray.
"S-sugoi…"
Aha. I recognized that word.
The kids, because that's the only thing I could see them as, considering their youthful faces and short, thin bodies, watched the pseudo-resurrection with the sort of slack-jawed awe usually reserved for the truly outrageous and unexpected. Considering Overhaul and Recovery Girl were the only two people I could remember from the anime with the ability to heal - with both abilities possessing tangible side-effects for their usage, I guess some random ass black guy with fire manipulation, flight, a magical spear, and glowing eyes that shot healing rays was something completely unheard of.
Shit, a single one of my Holy Hex-empowered spells probably counted as a potent 'Quirk' in and of itself in this world, and I could bullshit those up on the fly.
Midoriya, thank Hecate, had already sucked back up his tears. Now he simply looked constipated, biting his lips with enough force to nearly bloody the flesh as he glanced between me, my spear, and his glowing teacher. Next to him, Tsuyu blinked slowly, one eye after the other like an actual frog, her throat visibly working as she swallowed down and choked on her own befuddlement. Mineta, the last of the ramshackle trio, simply stood there, short arms limp at his sides, mouth opening and closing but no words coming through.
And then Aizawa moved.
His spine straightened with a sharp pop, cracking his neck side to side as if he was just someone waking up from a long nap instead of a man freshly brutalized by an inhuman monster. The golden light of Hysh faded slowly from his frame, retreating in glittering, prismatic trails like sunlight spilling from broken stained glass. He looked down at his freshly healed hands, clenching and unclenching fingers that had only just been bloodied and torn raw from scrambling against stone.
For a moment, the man seemed paralyzed by disbelief and confusion-
But then his eyes rose and found mine.
His gaze was hard - both thankful and analytical, a deep, dark black the color and the sharpness of obsidian. I could spot the exact moment his confusion turned to calculation, when his head tilted and his mouth thinned into a line that practically said, in so many words that went unspoken, 'I appreciate the save, but I don't trust you. Who the hell are you?'
Hidden Intuition's silent agreement confirmed my insight.
But I didn't blame him. I'd probably be put-off if he'd trusted me right away.
"You are… American hero, yeah? Unknown. Strong. Help me protect students from villains now, we talk later." The dark-haired hero worked his scruffy jaw with a calloused palm, thickly accented English darting from between his lips in deep, raspy bursts. His eyes were as dark and flinty as fractured shards of obsidian, analyzing me not unlike the way I'd been analyzing him- only, he didn't have magic backing his insight.
But I liked Aizawa, for what little I managed to see of him in my very brief watching of the anime. He was a hardass at the best of times and, honestly, kind of a dick, but I knew without a shred of doubt that he truly cared for his students. Not many people would get their asses creamed by an army of villains and a bird-brained Frankenstein for a class of uppity, wanna be superheroes.
I smirked at him, and the sharpness in his expression was replaced by a distant bemusement.
"That was the plan, unc, now that you ain't about to die on me. Stay here, stay safe, and guard these twerps; I'll go ruin a couple dozen more nights, no 'prob."
It was clear that he was significantly more trained in the English language than any of his students. Mineta, the little fucking perve, looked completely and utterly lost, while Tsuyu glanced between the two of us with a look of concern and curiosity. It was, surprise surprise, Midoriya himself who forcibly pushed himself into the somewhat one-exchange, determination practically wafting off of the boy in waves as he faced Aizawa.
I didn't need to know Japanese to figure out what he wanted.
And that was absolutely not going to happen.
Without even a second glance-
I turned away, and disappeared without a sound.
____________________________________
I'd already wasted a precious couple minutes dealing with healing Aizawa and his students.
This was an episode I actually remembered in its entirety thanks to my perfect recollection, and I knew that Iida had left at some point during Aizawa's bullying, with the help of the other students, to go and get help from All-Might and the other faculty at the high school. Assuming I was right on the money with my memory of his fifty meter dash time, which was roughly thirty-seven miles per hour, and the bus ride they took to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint Facility was only a few blocks away on UA's massive campus grounds, then…-
All-Might will arrive in approximately three minutes and fifty seven seconds.
My tongue clicked against my teeth.
"I can beat that time."
Was it greedy of me to want more perks, even with the awe worthy amount of power I already possessed?
Maybe.
But maybe I could indulge myself just a bit for once. After all, the biggest threat here - the Nomu - was already taken out. I still had some of his corpse ash on the hem of my cloak.
And I wanted that perk.
From my position in the 'sky', high above the waterside spot that I'd left Aizawa, Midoriya, Tsuya, and Mineta, I swiftly moved my gaze across the 'battlefield'. The USJ was an extremely unique piece of architecture, composed of a double-doored entrance that stood atop a massive set of stairs, a scenic central plaza with a beautiful water fountain and perfectly trimmed hedges, and six extremely expansive Zones in and of themselves that were meant to simulate actual disaster areas a hero would comes across in real life.
I'd always thought that that was such a sweet ass training idea, and now, seeing it all spread out before me like a disaster-filled jigsaw puzzle, I found a very small part of me - the old, nerdy Jason from Louisiana - wanting to drop the whole 'magic hero Demi-God' role and just fanboy over what had only just been an anime world to me.
But that wasn't who I was anymore. Not really.
I had to lock in.
A precious three seconds were used on taking in the entire facility.
All-Might will arrive in approximately three minutes and fifty three seconds.
Another five were used to catalogue what few students, Pro Heroes, and petty, unimpressive looking criminals that I could see in the central plaza, as well as the few Zones that weren't entirely obstructed and sealed away by color-coded domes. I hadn't registered their presence properly at the time, but there had already been a bunch of goons lurking around the area I'd killed Nomu - background characters.
Mooks.
But they'd immediately scattered as soon as I'd turned the purple chode into barbecue meat, and were already merging into a much larger group that retreated back towards the entrance to the 'Conflagration Zone'.
They were like motherfucking cockroaches. Nearly made my skin itch. Dozens, if not close to a hundred of the rat bastards; and that wasn't even counting the ones already hounding the kids in their various zones.
Aizawa, as befitting his efficiency and professionalism, had already gathered what scattered students remained in the plaza area and forced them back towards the staircase beneath the entrance, where Thirteen - the chick in the phat astronaut costume, lied stomach-first the ground with her back blown the fuck out. They were sort of like ants to me at this distance since the ceiling of the USJ was so fucking high, but I could see them talking worriedly to each other, some blatantly jabbing fingers up at me.
All chatter ceased when Aizawa barked an inaudible order, and the big guy with the winged limbs - Shouji, I think - gathered Thirteen in his arms, and the entire group began slowly edging back towards the staircase. Aizawa seemed discontent, alternating between looking at me and looking at the gathering army of villains.
And his worry was understandable, all things considered. I sure as hell didn't remember this many insects, and the shift was throwing me off a bit. I sure as hell wasn't worried about losing to these weaklings, but there were a lot of pieces here that I'd have to keep in mind. Kurogiri was hiding away like a complete pussy, probably waiting to pull something nefarious at the very last second, and I still didn't have eyes on half of Class 1-A. Nuking wasn't an option unless I wanted to roast a bunch of innocents.
Maybe-
"JAY!"
My heart nearly blasted out of my chest.
Cassie's voice roared through the building from what sounded like every direction- no, not from everywhere, but from the PA systems - because of course she somehow hacked into the USJ in the midst of a battle. The only thing that stopped me from nuking the whole fucking place was the fact that she didn't actually sound like she was dying from the cheese touch.
"Whatever you're thinking about that's making you hesitate, stop it and SMACK these motherfuckers! Introspection later, pew pew to bad guys now! Look- I even got some battle musiiiic~!"
I blinked, narrowed gaze flickering towards the fountain; the last place I'd seen my girlfriend, zapping the fuck out of a smoking Shigaraki-
Only to see her standing there with her platformer boots on the back of the NEET's neck, both hands stretched out high overhead towards me in the universal signs for 'victory'. Judging by the amount of smoke wafting up from the body, she'd either killed him or put him in a state so close to death that it probably didn't matter unless I went over and healed him ASAP.
Which wasn't happening.
So instead, I found my attention drifting towards the 'battle music' blasting through the speakers in lieu of her voice.
Dootdootdoot-doot-doot-
It was motherfucking MEGALOVANIA.
All-Might will arrive in approximately three minutes and forty four seconds.
I couldn't help it-
The giggle bubbled up from the very depths of my core, transitioning into a deep-bellied, spine-tingle guffaw that barked against the walls of the colossal facility like the raving laughter of some mustache-twirling supervillain. I could see both the heroes and actual villains stiffen in fear at my apparent lapse in sanity, several of the mooks raising various mutated body parts to blast at me from afar, but if anything, that only made me laugh harder.
How did no one else see how fucking funny this was?
Here I was, a Multiversal Archmage stepping into the world of My Hero fucking Academia, and MEGALOVANIA was playing on the PA systems as I faced down a miniature army of third rate loser villains. This was fucking insane.
What did it matter if things were different here from what I remembered?
Reality would be my bitch to fuck around with, no matter the dimension.
That was what it meant to be Jason Black.
"Hehe… Oh shit, man." My laughter blew off into quiet, bemused chuckles as I watched the air become filled with hundreds of projectiles of various shapes and sizes; porcupine quills, forearm-sized thorns, bullets made of bones, actual bones, rock shrapnel, fire blasts… Hell, I even saw pencils in the mix. Large, yellow No. 3 pencils - like the ones from high school.
There was a guy down there with a literal eraser head. I could only guess the pencils came from him.
Quirks were so… quirky.
But these guys were slow.
Astronomically slow.
Minor gaps to the left of the fire blasts, which will allow you to dodge 100% of the stone shrapnel if you turn your head ninety degrees to the right and-
I dialed Hidden Intuition down until its voice was nothing more than a passive, subconscious feeling in the back of my brain. This was light work.
I stepped into the onslaught.
My body moved on its own, entirely piloted by magical, subconscious hints that were less of a whisper and more of an instinct. I tilted my head to the right, allowing a rippling barrage of silver blades to sail harmlessly past my ear, while my entire body shimmied to the left just enough to dodge the deadly, drill-like spin of a giant No. 3 pencil.
My hand reached out and gripped it by its bright pink eraser as I moved by, and I grinned as my arm turned into a blur of motion, the pencil flitting back and forth to knock five large, heavy mushroom bombs down into the lake below - where they proceeded to explode with enough force to shake the entire Water Zone. There wasn't a moment where I wasn't moving, my body completely controlled and in perfect synchronization with my mind and my magic as I twisted and juked through the air.
Unbeknownst to my dimwitted enemies, I was channeling my mana into the sky above the rooftop of the USJ, mounting my own counterattack at the same time I was defending against theirs. Bright golden light began to peek through the glass ceiling, but it blended together with the glaring glow of the midday sun, shielding a sight so overwhelming that it would have immediately broken what little confidence the villains possessed. I felt the drain on my reserves, but it wasn't so drastic that it took my breath away.
My magic was singing within my veins, and I just kept dodging. It sorta felt like a dance now. One that made my blood sing every time a lethal attack missed my body by mere inches or centimeters.
All-Might will arrive in approximately three minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
In only a scant few moments, I'd already two-stepped my way through the villains' entire volley of ranged attacks. The pencil I'd just been wielding was now nothing more than remnants of smoking wood that I tossed to the side, letting it fall hundreds of feet down into the water below. Hidden Intuition tingled in the back of my mind, probably just itching to whisper about how scared and intimidated the villains were now that I'd stepped through their attacks without a scratch on me, but now wasn't the time for sadism.
I looked down into their shell-shocked faces, raised my hand high above my head, and allowed my will to connect and feed into the innumerable lances of pure, soul-destroying magical power that loomed overhead.
"This may be overkill," I mused, knowing full well they couldn't hear anything I said, "But you're here to jump a bunch of fuckin' kids, so it is what it is."
One of the villains towards the front - a tall, bulky man with the head of a hammerhead shark, screamed something back at the rest, but it was far too late.
High above us, the sky wept gold.
Now, I wasn't sure how I'd been expecting Holy Hexes to affect my Weapon Magic. For the longest time, it had been my go-to offensive response to any run of the mill mook, exactly like these guys. The golden spears moved as fast as arrows shot from a bow, were able to attack both the soul and the physical body, and didn't cost much mana unless I purposefully overcharged them to increase their speed. In other words, they were more than enough for a bunch of cannon fodder rejects.
But what came from the ceiling, phasing through the glass in countless, rippling pools of glimmering golden energy, were hardly the eight foot long spears I was used to. These things were at least double that size, glowing so brightly beneath natural sunlight that it nearly blinded me to even look up at them. And the magic contained within each one was several times as dense and potent as dozens of my previous Soul Spears.
They hovered there at my beckoning, nearly vibrating within their undulating pools of gold. Hundreds. More than I'd meant to summon. And each one had enough raw power to tear a man's soul out twice-over.
I clicked my teeth.
So much for going nonlethal. I'd given it a fair shot.
"Sayonara."
Half of the villains - the ones who hadn't fallen to their knees in puddles of piss and shame - were already turning to flee back into the Conflagration Zone. Smart, but ultimately useless. My magic didn't give a shit about cover. I was tearing through any and every-fucking-thing.
When my hand came down, it was like the swinging blade of a guillotine. My spears hummed, thrumming, preparing to blast forward at the speed of missiles and turn the USJ into a hellscape of golden retribution-
But immediately, alarm bells rang through my head. My very own Gate of Babylon had barely even started its massacre before a cloud of grape purple smoke filled the air between me and the cowering villains, covering nearly half of the facility in an instant. I could've brute-forced it in the hopes that one of the countless spears pierced his neck bracer - hell, I could see it glinting near the corner of the wall of smoke, lit up by my Hidden Intuition - but that wasn't even necessary.
I knew he'd pull this shit and show himself if I made a big dick display.A wry grin split my lips.
"I GOT IT!"
And Cassie knew as well.
CRAAACK!
For the second time in one day, I was forced to withstand the frizzy, heart-bursting feeling of active, angry blue lightning skewering the very air molecules beside my head as my hacker girlfriend somehow turned her normal Destruction spell into a railgun-esque missile of electromagnetic energy. It happened in less time than it took to blink the black spots out of my eyes; an ear-splitting crack, a shriek of agonized, disembodied pain, and then an explosion of lightning so powerful that it turned Kurogiri's neck brace into molten shrapnel that rained down upon his former minions.
When the static-charged cloud of mist faded away, half of the villains were already inside of the Conflagration Zone. The rest stared up at me in sheer horror, and yet they made no attempt to move. Maybe they couldn't. It didn't really matter to me.
All-Might will arrive in approximately three minutes and twenty seconds.
I tilted my head and pointed downwards with my index finger.
"Go."
And the facility shook with the earth-shattering sonic boom of hundreds of magical spears falling upon the villains…
Like golden stars descending from the sky.
____________________________________________
For a precious few seconds, Midoriya knew only three things; sound, force, and the color of the sun.
He was barely even cognizant of Shoji aggressively wrenching him back into a huddling mess of his fellow classmate's interlocked arms and bracing bodies.
The crack of that strange, black-haired girl's lightning attacks, or the blaring of her strange 'battle music', was practically nothing compared to the earth-shaking boom of the American hero's- Jason, she'd called him over the speakers - gargantuan, multi-faceted attack. Midoriya hadn't even gotten the chance to see it land; the instant Aizawa-sensei had called out the fact that the girl was getting into a sniper's stance, and they saw that she was aiming into scary mist villain's massive cloud of purple, well, mist, the call for them to take cover had already been made.
Jason had helped them. He'd used his fire Quirk to incinerate the Nomu, with white-hot fire that had to be hotter than even No. 2 Pro Hero Endeavor's, before utilizing what Midoriya had originally thought was some high-end American-brand Support Gear to fly and teleport away to take on the rest of the villains.
He'd even healed Aizawa-sensei, too!
A mere minute ago, Midoriya had thought that he was simply a super strong underground Pro Hero, like Aizawa, who used teleportation and flight gear to get around. Maybe his teleportation tech screwed up and he ended up inside of the USJ instead of… wherever he was. Maybe that was why he seemed so confused, coming out of that strange, prismatic portal. Heck, that cute punk-looking girl who walked out of the portal after Jason - the one with the super strong lightning Quirk… Maybe she was the one who'd designed and created his gear?
But then… Everything went downhill. Jason's partner started blasting the villain over and over again, making him scream and cry and wail until he'd gone completely silent. Midoriya hadn't had the heart to even look over and check on what had become of him, because somehow, deep down, he knew he wouldn't be able to stomach what he saw-
And then, Jason had taken on all of the villains at once, laughed about it like some sort of battle maniac, and proceeded to dodge and weave between what had to be hundreds of attacks, all at once. When Jason gestured towards the ceiling, and Midoriya saw that the entire rooftop was being covered by undulating pools of molten gold, where huge, glowing spears began to slowly emerge like something from an epic fantasy film… He realized that maybe, just maybe, things weren't as simple and clean as his overactive imagination had been dreaming up.
That perhaps 'Jason' wasn't a lost Pro Hero from America, after all.
Or even a Pro Hero in the first place.
It scared him.
He wanted to do something - anything to not be useless - but there was nothing else he could do but obey, clench his gloved fists against Shoji's webbed appendages, and grit his teeth.
The explosions didn't last long.
"It's over," Aizawa-sensei, their only rock in this horror-filled chaos, spoke quietly from above their huddled heads. His voice, Midoriya distantly noted, was softer than usual; warm, patient, and comforting in its own way, despite its general raspiness. "Shoji, I'm going to unravel your body from my scarf. Continue to face the entrance and keep your classmates shielded until I say otherwise. No using your Quirk to sneak a peek, understood?"
"Understood, sensei." The white-haired teenager inclined his head, his deep, hushed voice utterly calm in spite of the situation. His face was visible from inside his 'shield', however - and the sweat running down his brow, soaking in the dark fabric of his face mask, betrayed his own nervousness. Their eyes met for a moment, dark green meeting onyx black, but there was hardly any comfort in Shoji's gaze. He blinked through droplets of sweat, his brow furrowed in gritty determination, and closed his eyes.
Aizawa ducked out of the shield.
"This freakin' blows," Seto grumbled, a nervous tremor to his voice. "Why couldn't our field trip involve eating ice-cream and hot dogs instead?"
Tsuyu croaked unconvincingly. "I'm allergic to dairy, kero. It burns my intestines."
"Dang, really? Bummer, dude."
Banter.
It was meant to relieve some of the tension, but below the lanky boy's knees, Mineta whimpered like a frightened mouse. Midoriya felt Uraraka - because it could only be her beside him, judging by the s'mores-scented perfume she always wore - grip him even tighter. Searching for some measure of comfort. Through the beams of golden light that shone dimly through the darkness, their gazes met as well… Only, this time, locking eyes with the chubby cheeked brunette didn't make his heart skip a beat out of embarrassment or nervousness.
Instead, he only felt hollow.
He did his absolute best to swallow down the primal, unadulterated panic that had long since taken lodging in his throat, offering his crush a warbly, artificial grin instead - one that she responded to with a more genuine, yet infinitesimally smaller smile. If he wanted to be a hero like All-Might and keep people like Uraraka safe, he'd need to learn how to keep his calm in these situations, right? He knew this, intrinsically, but this-...
Wasn't this a bit too much for their first field trip?!
"Shit…" Aizawa-sensei's whispered swear drifted woodenly from outside of the huddle.
Immediately after, Shoji flinched and shuddered. Violently. A choked gasp tore from his mouth, but he tried his best to bite it off and muffle it towards the end. Midoriya and the others - Uraraka, Mineta, Tsuyu, Sato, and Sero - stiffened, but there was no second ball to drop. There was no second explosion, or another bout of deep-voiced, maniacal laughter to send chills down their spine. They waited with bated breaths, but as the seconds trickled by…
It was only their tall classmate's heavy breathing, and Aizawa-sensei's grim silence, that greeted their ears.
"You looked, didn't you?" The man didn't sound upset, or disappointed. Just tired.
Shoji paused. His eyes, which had fallen open again, seemed distant. Listless. "Yes, sensei. I'm sorry. I-"
"It's fine." There was another beat of silence, before, "You can let them out. There's no use in keeping the kiddie gloves on after these same villains sought to end your lives today. This, too, is part of being a Pro Hero."
"... Yeah, not sure if that makes me want to look," Sero whispered nervously, squeezing his eyes shut.
"K-kero…"
Truthfully, Midoriya was of the same mind… But he'd had enough of hesitating today. If Aizawa-sensei said that they were ready to look, then he'd trust his teacher, open his eyes wide, and take in whatever destruction Jason had wrought upon these villains. He felt Uraraka squeeze his forearm again, this time gentler - and when he turned his gaze to look at her, her doe brown eyes were wide and determined. He knew, without a shadow of doubt, that she felt the exact same way he did.
That was all the push he needed.
When Shoji sighed and released his hold on their little class-huddle, Midoriya hesitated for only a fraction of a second before turning and looking directly at ground zero.
…
And, almost instantly, he wished he didn't.
"Oh my-," Mineta gagged, staggering to his hands and knees. "They- They're-... URK!"
Tsuyu, her face nearly as green as her bodysuit, reached down with her large, frog-like hands and began rubbing circles on the small teen's back as he began puking up Lunch Rush's Triple Pepperoni Surprise. Midoriya couldn't even gag at the smell or the sight, because his full attention was stuck on the sight before him - like watching the aftermath of a horrible car crash, knowing full well you couldn't do anything about it.
It was a golden graveyard.
At least, that was the only way Midoriya could think to describe it.
The… The battlefield before them looked like something straight out of one of his mother's old fantasy dramas. Not just the ones with the magic and monsters and adventures to find legendary rings, but also the gritty, scary, R-rated ones - the ones that used to air way past his bedtime as a kid. The ones where knights bled out in bloody trenches, where dragons reduced cities to ashes, where soldiers screamed with guttural finality before the evil wizard glassed them with a wave of his staff and one echoing magic word.
Only- this battlefield wasn't made of mud, or ash, or glass.
It was made of light.
Golden spears littered the plaza like glowing Halloween ornaments from a bygone era, jutting up from the stone ground, bored through railings, and embedded in the walls, turning what used to be a relatively clean-looking facility into a macabre, oversized pincushion. They weren't uniform, but each one - at least, what he thought was each one, considering the fact that there had to be hundreds here - were terrifying in their own right. Maybe twenty feet long, the width of two of All-Might's fists put together, with a wicked, scythe-like head that looked sharp despite being made of some sort of unknown energy.
They glowed so brilliantly that Midoriya was able to see the veins of white-hot power pulsing within their translucent shafts.
They hummed.
Not like the hum of a machine, but a resonance. A vibration he could feel in the soles of his shoes, in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't loud, but it was all-consuming. Invasive. Maddening. It was the kind of sound that got into your head and stayed there, like the song that never ended, except this wasn't some harmless, annoying song. This was real. And it made him feel… small and afraid and useless.
But that wasn't even the kicker.
That wasn't what made Mineta start puking, or Shoji shudder, or Aizawa swear, or Ochaco grip his hand hard enough to grind its little bones together.
No, it was the fact that, skewered through each spear… Was a villain.
Or- no. That wasn't quite right. Not anymore.
They were husks.
Dessicated, withered remains of what used to be an army of villains raring to tear them apart and kill All-Might. Like someone had taken all the water and all the light out of them and left behind the shell.
They weren't bleeding from physical wounds, but it didn't take a Quirk Researcher to realize that Jason didn't only deal with the physical.
There was no gore, no viscera, no mess. Just bodies - shriveled, sunken, mummified. Their faces were deathly pale, locked in overwhelmingly terrified expressions and eternal screams, limbs twisted and stiff, as if death had frozen them mid-seizure . Some were impaled clean through the chest, stakes down into ground and left dangling. Others were bored through their shoulders, their bellies, their spines, pinned to the entrance of the Conflagration Zone.
Some… weren't pierced at all. They were just lying there, as if the residual energy from those maddening, humming spears had killed them by proxy.
Dead.
There were so many of them.
And Jason was nowhere to be found-
That is, until he heard another explosion, several hundred feet away to the Northwest. The Downpour Zone.
"He's cleaning up the other Zones," Aizawa muttered, the previous soft warmth in his voice replaced by a cold, tired finality. He paid Mineta only one passing, pitying glance before gesturing towards the graveyard before them with the slightest incline of his head. "I'd… hoped to spare you kids the gruesome details of certain Pro Hero work. Not until your Third Year at least, when you start brushing shoulders with all sorts of your future 'colleagues'. A license to use your Quirk for the betterment of others doesn't give you the right to simply kill as you please, but in some cases, it's simply unavoidable. As what people call an 'Underground Hero', I've… experienced those cases a few times in my career. And I've regretted each and every instance."
Aizawa-sensei… killed before?
Midoriya felt a tremor travel from his knees up to his jaw, clattering against his molars. He forced his teeth to stay shut. Forced himself to breathe. He couldn't look away. None of them could.
It was Ochaco who spoke up into the tense silence, her normally flushed cheeks splotchy and swollen from holding back tears, "A-are you saying this guy is an Underground Hero like you, Aizawa-sensei? Is that why he k-killed all of those villains?"
The glance he sent her was as sharp as a dagger and shot red with exhaustion. He worked his jaw for a breath, eyebrows scrunched together, before he deigned to speak. "I would've heard something if the WHA sent a Pro of his level over to Japan. If not me, then the Principal. Especially if he was coming to Musutafu. But I don't recognize him at all. His Quirk, his gear, his efficiency… He's definitely Underground. Either that, or-"
Aizawa-sensei went silent. Something like a weary, darkly amused smile curling at his whiskered lips before fading away. The man cracked his neck to the side and rolled his shoulders "… Anyways, it doesn't matter. Your safety is our highest priority right now. With him out of the way, I want the five of you to retreat back up the stairs. Take Thirteen and wait for All-Might. He should be here any moment now."
Immediately, uncomfortable murmurings went through the small group of students. Midoriya, in particular, felt his anxiety and concern spike, and he immediately made it known. "Sensei, you were already hurt really badly by that purple monster! I-If Jason ends up turning on you-"
"He won't," Aizawa-sensei interrupted him, looking entirely too certain of his words. "I will have words with him when this is all over. I'm sure both the Commission and the PD will, too. But he's definitely a Hero. Besides, the other kids aren't back yet. I trust him not to target them, but if he's throwing around this much power…"
"Don't worry; I've got your lost little ducklings!"
"Holy shit!"
"Is that…? No way."
At once, everyone turned at the sudden sound of new voices - both familiar and unfamiliar. Aizawa-sensei was front and center in a flash of movement, long black hair coiling into tendrils of gravity-defying locks as he narrowed his gaze at the new face-
And, unsurprisingly…
It was Jason's partner.
What was surprising were the students trailing after her like, as she referenced, lost little ducklings.
The teenager, now that she was close enough for Midoriya to actually analyze, was very much not intimidating in the slightest - which made her takedown of the scary gray-haired villain all the more insane.
She was probably as short as Tsuyu, with short black hair cut in a fashionable bob, a small amount of black makeup, and… very revealing clothing that made her look like one of those 'bad girl' types that his mother would probably never approve of. Her hands were encased by black and pink gloves with little kitty paw beans on the underside, and her face was enshrouded by a bright blue and pink visor that flickered with LED lighting. Sleek black cat ears glinted from the top of her skull, attached to some sort of high-tech headset.
Beside him, Mineta - apparently recovered from his nausea attack - let out a high-pitched gasp.
The girl sent him the most reviled, 'don't even look at me' glare Midoriya had ever directed at another human being.
Aizawa-sensei stepped in front of the blushing midget, and her gaze flicked up to take in the significantly taller man. "You can relax with the whole 'Papa Bear' routine, y'know? We're good guys. Relatively. Depending on where you're from, I guess. Regardless- we saved you and your brats a lot of trouble in the future. Trust me."
"…"
He didn't even bother responding, turning his crimson-lit glare over to the students behind her. Half of them were gawking at the 'destruction' Jason had left behind in his wake, while others - like Todoroki and Yaoyorozu - had already turned around to engage in the conversation. "Are all of you safe?"
It was Yaoyorozu who stepped forward, easing past the girl with seemingly no real concern of getting zapped in the back. Her face was lined and furrowed by what she'd seen, but there was a confidence in her stance and a light in her eyes that Midoriya found himself strangely envious of. "Yes, sensei. Cassie-"
She touched the girl on the shoulder, who looked up at her with wide, googly-eyes, "-came to find all of us once those explosions started going off. She said that she neutralized two of the main threats, and that her boyfriend-"
"Who is totally into dark-haired Asian girls like yours truly," 'Cassie' butted in, fluttering her eyelashes proudly."-Was taking out the rest of the villains." Yaoyorozu paused, withdrawing her hand and sending a highly concerned look towards Aizawa, whose Quirk had already deactivated midway through her explanation. "I see now that 'taking out' was meant… Literally. Sensei, I-"
He raised a hand before she could even get the apology out. "Save it. You did as well as you could have with the information and context clues provided to you." His glare shifted back to Cassie, who seemed entirely at-ease despite the potent tension thickening in the air. "As far as I'm aware, 'Cassie' and 'Jason' are both here to help. But where-"
"-is the loud, insecure, spiky-haired chihuahua who 'prolly peaked in middle school?" Cassie finished for him, much to his visible ire. She shrugged her shoulders and gestured lazily at the air behind her, where the golden shine of the spears had practically turned the ambience of the half-destroyed USJ into some alien-like, otherworldly dystopia, "Dunno. You can ask Red Rocket back there; he was the first one I found. I tried to get them both to come with me, and he said… What did he say, Eijiro?"
"U-uh," Kirishima inched forward, his head still half-turned towards the area with the corpses. He scratched at his chin, licking his dry lips, before clearing his throat and fully locking in on the conversation at hand, "Sorry. I tried to tell him to relax, Aizawa-sensei, but y'know how Bakugo gets when he's all fired up. We had just been talking 'bout hunting down the creepy mist dude when Cassie came in and said she blasted him already. And that her 'super strong bf' was about to take out the other hundred or so bad guys."
Midoriya winced. Kacchan wouldn't have liked that…
"What did he do?" Aizawa sighed, pinning both Kirishima and Cassie with a strict glare.
The two glanced at each other - the girl with an amused smile, and Kirishima with a nervous one.
"U-uh," the red-head chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck, "He mighta said something about 'not believing some random midget bitch' before kicking down the back door and blasting away."
Aizawa slammed his palm against his forehead.
"I almost smacked him with a Sparks for calling me a bitch," Cassie grunted, crossing her arms beneath her, well… beneath her chest.
Midoriya swiftly averted his eyes up towards the ceiling before his gaze could linger on the smooth, milky whiteness of her tummy. The last thing - the absolute last thing - he wanted to do was piss someone like Jason off because he was caught pulling a Mineta on his girlfriend.
"Great," their sensei grunted, running a hand through his hair, "I'll go and find-"
WOOSH.
He arrived before Aizawa-sensei could even finish his statement.
It was impossible to miss him.
Jason appeared in their midst in a whisper of displaced wind and the crackle of some unknown energy that still sent arcs of gold and bluish-silver fluttering across the hem of his black cloak. It wafted off of him in what felt like heatwaves; a pressure and presence that squeezed at Midoriya's chest with the slightest of force, compressing his lungs just enough to make him have to manually release an exhale in order to continue passively breathing. The hood of his mantle was down, his golden crown lopsided atop a head of long white dreadlocks, and for the first time, his full face was revealed-
Brown skin. A lightning bolt-like scar- or was it a tattoo? - trailing up the side of his neck, neck, and directly through his left eye. A face that was both chiseled and youthful, like dark, polished bronze carved by a master craftsman. His lips were tugged down into a disinterested frown, but when Midoriya met his silver and black gaze, there was a certain light in his eyes that betrayed his curiosity. Before, when he'd only killed the purple monster and healed Aizawa, Jason's presence had been comforting. Mysterious, sure, but safe.
Now, Midoriya only wanted to back away and hide from the intensity in his stare.
But it was the bittersweet familiarity he felt towards the limp body casually thrown over his shoulder that shoved the urge to cower all the way into the back of his mind.
He gasped. "K-Kacchan!"
Aizawa-sensei was already moving before the childhood nickname left his lips.
His hair flew upwards, eyes wide and glowing crimson as he stepped forward and sent his prehensile scarf flying towards the laidback foreigner. Jason tilted his head, his free right hand lashing forward in a blur so fast that Midoriya couldn't even track it with his naked eyes. One moment Aizawa-sensei was moving to save Kacchan, and the next, he'd been tugged forward by his very own weapon, twisted around, and placed in a one-armed, rear naked chokehold. Aizawa-sensei struggled viciously, his teeth gritting together with the effort, but Jason didn't even seem to notice.
It happened so quickly, no one had time to even regret trusting these strangers.
"Premature," he said - in Japanese this time, Midoriya realized off-handedly. The language he used was a bit archaic and dry, but it sounded natural. Effortless. "The kid isn't dead, jackass. He's unconscious. Jumped me while I was trying to figure out this translation spell, so I knocked him out. He's fine."
Midoriya's brain, however, had already hyper-fixated on the new word now that he knew that his rival/bully was safe and not, in fact, dead. "Spell? L-like fantasy magic? Is that what you call your Quirk…s?"
Too bad that brought Jason's attention right back to him.
He nodded his head slowly, his crown tilting with the motion but somehow not obeying the law of physics and falling off. "... Sure. Something like that. I'd give you a crash-course, but your 'Number One Hero' is going to be here soon, and your teacher's put me in an awkward position. Don't really have any more time to waste here, so…"
"You had my student's unconscious body slung over your shoulder when you teleported over," Aizawa-sensei muttered dryly, having completely stopped struggling after realizing Jason possessed super strength in addition to his other tricks. "You should've known what image that would make."
The foreigner snorted, releasing the choke hold and taking a full step back. "It was either that, put him in my Archway, or leave him knocked out near a buncha unconscious villains. Now catch. I don't wanna get sucker punched in the next ten seconds 'cause of a stupid misunderstanding."
Aizawa-sensei raised an eyebrow, one hand rubbing his neck. "What-"
He was cut-off by Bakugo's body being thrown directly at him, at the exact same time something big, heavy, and strong battered against the massive double doors of the USJ entrance with enough power to cave it completely open. The shockwave struck them all, bracing winds and thrown dust buffeting their bodies, even from all the way down the staircase as the doors flew off into the distance and crashed noisily against the ground.
Smoke billowed. Wind howled. A pillar of sunlight gleamed through the swirling dust.
And then-
"Don't worry!"
A silhouette. Tall. Broad. Larger-than-life.
Midoriya, alongside the other students and even Aizawa-sensei, who carried Bakugo's body like a sack of potatoes, turned to watch as the Symbol of Peace, All-Might himself, stepped through the mangled entrance of the USJ. He'd clearly been alerted whilst in the middle of work, clad not in his classic blue, red, and white hero costume, but khaki pants and loafers, with his white dress-shirt nearly bursting at the seams from his tense, bulging muscles.
Even with his mouth curled into a scowl and the veins on his neck pulsating with anger, no one could deny the sheer presence his arrival brought. His shoes slammed against the concrete with the weight of some sort of earthly God, his loud, boisterous voice booming across the plaza like brass trumpets, but…
"It is fine now… Because I Am HE-"
He was too late.
The smoke cleared.
All Might stopped at the edge of the staircase.
And that signature grin that had slowly been building on his lips to replace his furious scowl… It disappeared..
Because All Might, Japan's Symbol of Peace, was staring at a battlefield he hadn't saved.
His arrival would normally be greeted by slow, hopeful smiles and the cheering of people who knew, then, that they were irrevocably saved. When you grew up on the very real tales of how infallible and strong and perfect All-Might was, your default reaction to his presence tended to be 'Everything is going to be alright now'. It was practically hard-wired into the brain of your average joe nowadays, that All Might equals Safety.
Salvation.
Even knowing what he knew about All Might's condition, Midoriya still held onto that belief in his heart - the belief that All Might would be there to save the day, no matter how strong the opposition was. Until the day he breathed his last breath and grinned his last grin, the No. 1 Hero would be a vanguard against all that was evil and dark.
But right now, in a field of cooling corpses and golden light… No one was able to muster up a grin. Not even a smile.
All Might was here, but so was Jason.
So was Cassie.
And because of them, despite their… permanent methods, all of the danger had already passed.
Truthfully, Midoriya realized with a sinking realization of guilt, they all probably just wanted to go home, sleep, and recover from the day's stress. All Might didn't save the day today, and that was fine.
He just really, really didn't want this to turn into another fight.
CRACK!
One step, one cratered staircase, and All Might was suddenly in their midst, his sheer size like a void that kept everyone at arm's length… Everyone except for Jason, whom he loomed over like an adult preparing to lecture a naughty kid. All Might's face was like stone, his eyes hidden beneath the shadows of his furrowed brows. Jason was tall. Taller than even Aizawa-sensei. But All Might was tall, and with the crazy size difference, Midoriya was suddenly struck by the chilling realization that the man who'd destroyed all of those villains and defeated that big, purple thing…
Was probably somewhere around their age.
If you squinted, the youthfulness in his face gave it away.
"Young man," All Might spoke slowly. Quietly. His customary loud, boisterous facade was nowhere to be seen, reminding Midoriya an awful lot of when he became deflated and tired. "Are all of the villains dead by your hands?"
Jason had to tilt his head back to look the much larger man in the eye, but he did so without hesitation. "Not all of them, but the majority? Yeah. I did that."
Somehow hearing it confirmed aloud was even more of a whiplash than seeing it right there.
Aizawa stepped forward, having already passed Bakugo's unconscious body to Sato. "He healed me and prioritized the students' safety, All Might. A fight now would be-"
All Might said nothing. He only raised one large, skull-sized hand, and Aizawa went silent.
The tension was so thick that Midoriya genuinely thought he'd end up choking on it.
"Why did you do it?"
The question was simple.
Unjudging.
But somehow, the weight behind it seemed so much heavier than its bluntness implied. Todoroki murmured something beneath his breath, but it was too quiet for Midoriya to pick up on. He wasn't sure if he would've heard it even if the boy had screamed it at the top of his lungs. That's how focused he was on the scene before him. All of them were - even Cassie, who, for the first time since they'd met her, actually seemed somewhat nervous. She kept fiddling with her hands, too.
Jason tilted his head, appearing entirely bemused. "... My Quirks have gotten an upgrade recently. I have a lot of 'em. I get more pretty frequently. The latest one basically amplifies each one in turn. I attacked, underestimated its power, and made the call to full-send it instead of drawing back and risking my life, my girlfriend's life, or the lives of your students."
He paused. "The head honchos, though? Kurogiri, Shigaraki, and what they referred to as a 'Nomu'? That was intentional. Straight up. Guys like that don't deserve a second chance to ruin even more lives. Trust me; been there, seen that. And for what it's worth, while it's unfortunate that I couldn't play this more delicately for the kids, I don't regret what I'd done. If it's between a bunch of crooks okay with killing high schoolers, and a group of high schoolers… I'm not losin' sleep over saving the latter."
…
The words hung in the air like a guillotine suspended over every neck in the room. Someone let out a loud, stuttering breath. Midoriya belatedly realized that it had been him.
That was… So much to unpack. And that was without touching upon the moral conundrum of killing that he wasn't even sure he had the mental capacity to entertain right now.
Even then, his brain began working in overdrive.
How did he even know the names of the villains? That purple monster was a 'Nomu'? He-… He had 'multiple' Quirks? What kind? It debunked his Support Gear theory, but it also introduced dozens of more questions, like if his Quirks all followed the same theme? Or if they were a byproduct of Quirk Marriage, and if so, did his parents give birth young and were also the byproducts of a eugenics plan? But, no. There were absolutely no Quirks that could just give you the ability to develop more Quirks over time, so how-
"You're mumbling, Deku," Ochaco whispered in his ear, sending lightning straight down his spine.
Midoriya flushed in embarrassment. "S-sorry…"
All Might's jaw was clenched tight, but it didn't seem to be an expression crafted from hostility or aggression. Instead, he seemed introspective. A sharp tic pulsed along the side of his face, synched perfectly with the way his chest rose and fell. Each breath was like a thunderclap in the brittle silence, blowing Jason's hair back every time he exhaled, but if the foreign hero was bothered, he didn't show it. The golden light from the spears, as far away as they were, still shimmered around the facility like a holy field, casting shadows that danced eerily along the USJ's ruined walls.
"I didn't say you were completely wrong," All Might finally said, his voice nearing a whisper that still, somehow, filled the room. It was an unfamiliar tone that sent a chill straight through Midoriya's bones. "But neither are you completely right. I asked why, young man. Why take this on yourself? You could've collaborated with Aizawa instead. You could've waited for young Iida to find me. You didn't have to do all of this. Stain your hands with the blood of these villains. You didn't have to fight alone."
Jason's response was immediate. Unapologetic.
"I wasn't alone."
With that, Cassie moved over to stand at her boyfriend's side, her pink and blue visor glinting in the ambient light. She said nothing - no off-the-wall quips or witty, cat-like jokes. She just shifted her weight and watched the towering Number One Hero with a flat, unreadable expression, her fingers still fumbling with something that no one else could see. Her presence alone grounded the statement. Reinforced it.
Jason wrapped his arm snugly around her waist - a gesture that made her 'serious' expression flicker with a blushing smile - before turning his attention back to a pensive All Might.
"Besides, I don't wait on people to do what I can do myself. I've got power. I've got free will. I make my own calls." He paused again, as if weighing something heavier than any of them could see, then continued with a wry half-smile. "And I don't like leaving things unfinished. Which brings me to my next point."
All Might's bushy eyebrows, if it was even possible, furrowed even more.
Jason rolled his shoulders, his black mantle swaying faintly behind him. "You're hurt."
The shift in the air was immediate.
Midoriya blinked, startled and completely thrown off balance. The same could be said for everyone else in the Class, including Aizawa-sensei, who swore beneath his breath again. The other teenagers began murmuring to each other, tentatively at first, but the fear of being in the middle of yet another scary battle had already been silenced by the civility in the ongoing conversation. It didn't take long for rumors to begin flying in hushed, anxious whispers.
All Might, in his defense, didn't outwardly react beyond narrowing his eyes. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. Regardless, you have killed a lot of men today. On U.A. grounds, no less. I have heard your story, and while I believe I have a good grasp of your character, there are things we must discuss. Now. If you'll-"
"Cut the shit, All Might. You're hurt," Jason repeated, more forcefully this time. All Might flinched back as if the words being said a second time struck him harder than the first. "You're hurt bad. I noticed it the moment I laid eyes on you. You don't even have a fucking stomach anymore, man. Busted spleen, half your rib cage is gone, your lung, your intestines, your kidney's smoked…-"
The whispering between his classmates came to a slow and insidious halt the more Jason spoke. Somewhere in the back, Mineta was once again gagging.
Midoriya felt himself grow nauseous, tears beginning to prick at his eyes.
All Might hadn't told him it was that bad.
CRACK.
All Might glanced down at his fist, his eyes downcast. Exhausted. "Enough."
"I can fix it."
At the pure certainty in Jason's tone, the Number One Hero straightened his back from the slump it had inadvertently fallen into. His muscles tensed with wariness, straining even harder against his dress shirt and Midoriya saw something flicker in his eyes - uncertainty? No, not quite. Something like alarm. Or fear. Of what, he didn't know.
"You're offering to… heal me?" He asked, carefully enunciating each word like it might bite him.
"Yep."
"Why?"
"You ask that question a lot, homie."
All Might suddenly chuckled; a quiet, almost raspy noise that sounded closer to a cough than actual genuine laughter. "Young man, in all of my years of duty to this world- and I mean this with no arrogance on my end… I can count on my two hands the amount of people who have gone out of their way to save another person's life with complete and utter selflessness. Forgive me if I'm off the mark, but despite your young age, you seem much too jaded to heal me completely out of the kindness of your own heart."
Jason opened his mouth.
Paused.
Raised a finger.
Paused again.
At his side, Cassie snorted and smacked him on the ass. "Hehe… He's got you there."
He sighed. "Fuck it. Call it good karma. Or maybe I just don't like seeing legends fall apart and become shadows of their former selves. Whatever it is, I was offering it up free of charge. You've got a lot of good left in you, even if your body's trying to quit before your heart does. But since my selflessness has been questioned, I'll sweeten the pot for myself and offer you a trade instead."
All Might crossed his arms across his broad chest. It seemed as if the both of them had completely forgotten about the peanut gallery - either that, or neither of them cared. "I am listening. But if it involves you not answering to the authorities for your unsanctioned actions here today, then I'm afraid I won't be able to oblige."
It was Jason's turn to chuckle. This one, however, was more amused than tired. Dark, velvety, and distinctly villainous-sounding, like before.
At the corner of his eye, Midoriya saw a couple of the girls' cheeks flush red. Denki made a gagging sound from his spot between Jirou and Yaoyorozu.
"I don't need you to get me outta anything, All Might," he grinned lopsidedly; an expression that immediately changed his face from cold, mysterious killer to rebellious bad boy. "No, you won't have to go all 'corrupt hero'. I'll heal you fully, no bullshit… If you agree to spar with me after I'm done with my business in Musutafu. Let's say… Later tonight, 9 PM. I'll find you."
Silence.
A full, pregnant pause that seemed to stretch on forever.
"W-what?" Midoriya whispered brokenly, gripping the side of his head. "Whaaaat?!"
"He's crazy," Jirou muttered to Momo, who appeared pensive and hesitant. "Hot, but crazy."
"I don't know…" The tall, dark-haired beauty murmured, chancing a half-cringed glance towards what Midoriya was starting to dub the 'Golden Graveyard' in his head. "He's clearly powerful. And he apparently has several other Quirks that we don't even know about. If it is only a spar, he may be able to pull out a trick that gets the best of All Might-sensei."
"Who cares who wins?" Mina hissed, hip-bumping a gaping Denki out of the way and throwing both of her arms over her girl friends' shoulders, "I just wanna be in the room where it happens, if you catch my drift…"
Jirou sent her a deadpanned glare. "I showed you the musical one time, Mina. You can't keep-"
"Lalalala, can't hear youuu-"
"Ahem!" All Might cleared his throat, and immediately, all side whispers ceased, replaced by an embarrassed and shame-filled silence. He gave it a moment to linger before turning his gaze back to an amused-looking Jason, who was watching the females of Class 1-A with a half-lidded stare. "I just want to make sure that I understand correctly. You, Jason, want to spar… With me?"
He nodded, utterly cool in the face of the Symbol of Peace's utter bafflement. "Not a duel to the death or anything. Just a spar. Three minutes, tops. Long enough for you to stretch your freshly healed body, and long enough for me to see what the big man of Japan can do at full strength… Hell, maybe I'll even learn a thing or two. But after that, we're gone. We've got places to be, people to save, all that jazz."
"Back to America?!" Kirishima blurted out, physically unable to contain his curiosity. He'd been watching Jason ever since Cassie had led him back over to the staircase, and it wasn't difficult to see that, despite him attempting to be low-key about it due to Jason's… polarizing actions, the red-head was already finding yet another idol in the nonchalant foreigner.
He just gave the teen a small, contained smirk. "Something like that."
It was so surreal, so utterly absurd, that for a moment Midoriya thought he was dreaming.
A random, unknown, superpowered stranger with no known Quirk type - hell, multiple Quirks at that, no recognizable affiliation with any hero agencies or schools… Offering to heal All Might, the Symbol of Peace, in exchange for a sparring match where he'd probably get creamed?
This wasn't just unprecedented. It was unthinkable.
And yet…
Jason didn't feel like a liar.
That was the craziest part.
He was cool. Confident. Almost to the point of it being cocky. But there was a sincerity in his tone that Midoriya couldn't deny. As far as he could tell, Jason wasn't taunting All Might with his knowledge. He wasn't trying to manipulate him. He just… wanted a good fight. And he wanted to help.
All Might exhaled slowly.
The air around him rippled slightly; an imperceptible twitch of suppressed power that Jason, for all his casual bravado, didn't miss. His smirk remained intact, but something subtle in his stance shifted: the barest roll of his shoulders, the way his fingers curled and uncurled, as if practicing the innocuous gesture. It wasn't fear. Not even wariness, really. Just readiness. Recognition. It was the same way two apex predators circled one another at the watering hole, half-respect, half-curiosity, all instinct.
"I should say no," All Might rumbled at last, voice rough like gravel dragged across the bottom of a pond. "I should hold you here, report you to the Hero Public Safety Commission, and let the authorities decide what to do about this mess. About you. That would technically be the correct thing to do..."
Jason didn't flinch.
"But…" The older man tilted his head slightly, just enough for the light to catch in his eyes. There was something ancient behind his gaze. Not in age, but in wear. In the bone-deep understanding of what it meant to fight for the world while your own body was crumbling beneath you.
Midoriya could hardly even grasp what it meant to have those eyes.
"You saved my students. You saved Aizawa. You even…" All Might looked, again, to the ruins of the USJ, to the charred ground and the glimmering field of spears still faintly humming with magic and power. "I don't agree, but you did what you felt had to be done in the moment to save both yourself and innocent lives."
Jason dipped his head, just a fraction, acknowledging the words without either pride or shame.
"I've had my fill of monsters," he continued, muttering. "It doesn't make it easier. But I know what it means when there's no time for mercy, young Jason. It is a rare and unfortunate occurrence, but it can happen. I see the darkness in your eyes, but I also see light. So much light. I may be making a mistake here today, but I am trusting your light to counteract that darkness. I want to believe you, and believe that you can truly help me. So I will stake my honor as the Symbol of Peace on that trust."
"... Does that mean we have a deal?" Jason asked impassively, tilting his head.
All Might stared a second longer… then gave a slow, heavy nod.
"At 9 PM, meet me at the gates of U.A. I will have a training facility cleared and… reinforced for our spar," he said gravely, "But know that you are my responsibility while you're in Japan, up until the moment you leave. I do not take my position or honor as the Number One Hero lightly, young Jason. I won't threaten you, because I do not enjoy intimidating the youth… But if I find that you've betrayed my trust in you, I will not be happy. Am I understood?"
Jason grinned. "Crystal."
And with that, there was a sudden, collective release of tension in the atmosphere..
Midoriya wasn't even aware he'd been holding his breath until his lungs started screaming for air. He choked on his own gasp, hand over his chest, and looked around to see the rest of Class 1-A doing much the same. All Might was still frowning, but his stance shifted slightly. He eased back, his shoulders loosening the barest amount, and let out a breath that sounded like it had been held since the second he crashed through the door.
Jason, for his part, looked completely unaffected; like a magical storm had just rolled past, but it missed him entirely. He tapped Cassie once on the hip, a silent signal, and she immediately stepped closer into his side, one hand drifting beneath her visor to adjust something. Her other hand moved to grip onto his belt loop; a lazy, intimate gesture that spoke of comfort and seamless familiarity. Midoriya had never really believed in 'true love' himself. Especially not as a kid, when he'd been treated like the scum of humanity for not having a Quirk. But with the way these two looked at each other…
Maybe true love wasn't as much of a fantasy as he'd thought?
"We've got work to do," Jason said simply, flashing a two-fingered salute to the assembled group. "Sights to see, people to… educate. I'll see you at 9, All Might."
And just like that, their forms blurred.
A rush of displaced air surged outward with a dull pop, like the cracking of a pressure seal. There was a soft flash of golden light, warm and harmless, and then they were simply… gone. Vamoosed. As if they'd never been there at all.
Wind tugged at Midoriya's curls. Silence fell over the plaza once again.
But only for a moment-
The approaching wail of sirens began to echo through the ruined dome of the USJ. Distant shouts could be heard. The rest of the faculty. Police. Medical responders. The world was catching up.
Still stunned, Midoriya slowly turned to look at All Might. The man who had, for so long, embodied the pinnacle of strength. The man who was supposed to be the end-all, be-all.
He didn't look defeated.
But he did look... old.
Aizawa stepped forward, brushing dust off his sleeves, his dark gaze sharp beneath his wavy mess of black hair. "You should get the students checked out, Toshinori. I'll sweep the rest of the building with the MPD, make sure he wasn't lying about sparing the other villains."
All Might nodded mutely.
No one else spoke. Not immediately.
It wasn't fear. Not really. But the presence Jason and Cassie had left behind still clung to them. It was probably something they would carry with them for a very long time. A scar of a different kind, neither positive or negative in nature.
One by one, the students turned and followed Aizawa up the steps, towards the gathering crowd beyond the doors.
Midoriya lingered last.
He stared at the place Jason had stood. At the faint crackling of energy still lingering in the air. At the cratered stone.
He didn't understand him.
But, after everything he'd witnessed today, he found that he… Sort of wanted to?
And that-
… Well, that probably scared him the most out of everything.