Chapter 2: Cleaning Up
Takoba Municipal Beach Park was a name that was at best fifty percent correct. It was Takoba and Municipal, yes. But the beach was there only occasionally, and it was at this point anything but a park.
It was, frankly speaking, an illegal dumping site. Add some waste brought by the sea, and suddenly nobody was visiting it. Unless it was done to dump some more junk at what was once a popular dating spot.
Hitoshi Shinsou liked it that way. Because for as long as it was an illegal dumping site, they could live there without heroes or the police noticing them. Sure, it wasn't a good life. They were going to have to look for an alternative when it got closer to winter. But for now, they had a place to call their own.
Even if it was a closed space between two ruined fridges, with a tarpaulin for a roof. And the entrance door.
Even if they were slowly dying from unresolved medical needs, that he really had no idea how to address. He could somewhat deal with his own by stealing from the pharmacies, but it was only delaying things. He needed particular drugs to feel better, everything else was just him almost overdosing on sleeping pills regularly to, like, not die of that freaky form of insomnia he had.
They were around for something like two months (with three more until it was going to get too cold to survive, then again they were probably not going to survive that long either way so who cares, right?) when the most impossible thing started happening.
Someone started to dismantle their home.
Not their sleeping place itself, thank whatever god is looking over outcasts like them. But the Takoba Municipal Beach Park began to be cleared by someone. Not even by some professional group of cleaners. But by a young kid (probably their age) who was cleaning it one piece of junk at a time with a guy looking like a skeleton that the kid referred to as 'dad'.
Though the latter was mostly operating a truck. And sometimes shouting some words of encouragement and praise. And sometimes coughing out a lot of blood.
It was odd.
It was infuriating, really.
After he returned from his bi-weekly grocery run (okay, theft, but he was on the last legs, alright? it's not like a fifteen year old runaway without documents can actually hope to earn money), he saw the duo finish with a segment of the beach. There was a fierce high-five between them, and then the parent left on a truck, looking to do… well, whatever with the junk. Shinsou didn't care.
The kid, oddly enough, remained and seemed to be taking a brief break. Ten minutes in, Hitoshi decided that it was less of a break and more of a low-intensity period of work, since the kid was gathering small parts of junk near the place where the truck normally parked.
It was the right time to figure out what to do with the intruder.
He approached him.
"Who are you?" Hitoshi asked, startling the other kid. It was the simplest thing to do, provoking a reaction. He wasn't going to activate his quirk right now, the last thing he wanted is the kid connecting him to a string of thefts in the area. People finding out that they can't control their body were a common thing in Musutafu, even if most of the stolen things were food.
"Oh!" The kids exclaimed in surprise. He actually jumped back (that was fast) but he landed rather flexibly. "S...sorry, I didn't notice you. What did you say?" Someone was deep in thoughts, it seemed.
"I asked who are you." Hitoshi said. The basic prerequisites for his quirk activation were already done, if they came to blows, he could just freeze the kid and flee. In a different direction, obviously. He wasn't going to betray where they were living.
"I'm Izuku Midoriya!" The kid replied with just a hint of an irritating enthusiasm. "And you?"
"Aoi Miyake." He replies, because obviously he isn't dumb enough to tell the kid his real name. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I'm cleaning the beach with my dad." The kid positively beams when the word 'dad' is mentioned, and Hitoshi is just slightly more angered. "I'm training for the UA entrance exam, and we've decided that doing some community service together will be good training."
Great, Hitoshi decides. His lifelong dream of proving people claiming that he is a villain wrong by becoming a hero dies a year before he has a chance to realize it, and then he ends up living on a junkyard that's slowly cleaned by a kid with some flashy quirk that will probably get to become a hero. And it's probably just to wave some community service around on the exam for bonus points..
Way to rub salt in the wounds, life.
"And you?" Izuku asks back, while looking at Hitoshi curiously. No actual hostility, oddly enough. Despite Hitoshi looking a bit like a tramp. His clothes had seen better times.
"Nothing interesting. I live nearby." He replies and doesn't add that nearby should be taken quite more literally than Izuku thinks. Or that he is, technically, a small-time villain. Not important enough to get noticed, as it will probably last until his inevitable death in a few months.
Which, somehow, is still preferable to landing back in his foster family.
"Uhm, please don't mention me doing this to anyone!" Izuku clasps his hands and is fidgeting just a little bit. "We're trying to make it anonymously. Dad and Uncle Chizome are very particular about heroes working to help others not for popularity, and… I don't do well with groups of people." He scratches his head a bit. "I would prefer to do that without an audience."
Okay, at least he isn't evicting them and making them die on the streets for a popularity stunt.
WOW WHAT A RELIEF THAT IS.
"I won't." Hitoshi sniggers just a bit. "You keep doing that." He wants to say something exactly opposite to that, but it's not like he has an alternative.
"Alright! Thank you!" Izuku completely ignores the negativity in Hitoshi's voice and takes his words for true encouragement.
He is way too positive in Hitoshi Shinsou's opinion.
She looks… not that bad when he returns to their home. But he knows that this is temporary. But he isn't leaving her like that, even if it will be the last thing that he does in his life. He wants to be a hero to someone at least once in his life.
***
Midoriya felt like a dumb kid, but he proved that he was anything but dumb few days later. Hitoshi thought that he fooled Izuku with his 'oh I'm just a local concerned citizen' play, but no. There was more to the kid than that.
He was observing him at work a few times (always afraid that Izuku was going to find their little hideout this time), but he wasn't the only one doing the observation. He realized it when at the end of the workday, Izuku suddenly turned towards Hitoshi's observation spot, waved towards him (he was like a hundred meters away from him and well hidden, damn it!), and pointed to something on the ground.
Hitoshi waited until the truck departed to check what it was about. He found a thermos filled with food (actually WARM food).
Izuku knew that he was homeless. Hitoshi considered just fleeing from the beach and looking for a new place to stay, but she had one of her bad days and that made travelling impossible. They ate the food instead. It was delicious. He left the emptied (and cleaned up) thermos on the cleaned part of the beach soon before the kid arrived to continue his training.
***
Neither side seemed to be willing to acknowledge the existence of the food donation bit. Izuku Midoriya was leaving the food at the end of his work, and then picked up the thermos after arriving at the beach.
He wasn't doing anything else than that. Hitoshi was kinda relieved. The amount of food delivered was narrowly enough for the two of them (did Izuku know? or was he just so generous for a single person), so while it wasn't super comfortable, Hitoshi could cut down on the grocery thefts.
The weird thing is that nothing else happened.
Izuku Midoriya didn't try to find them, didn't try to strike up a conversation. He was just leaving the food there. All while slowly but surely evicting them from the sad excuse of a house they had.
He wasn't always arriving with his father. From time to time he was instead with a scary looking man without a nose, who was referred to as 'Chizome-san' or 'Uncle Akaguro'. A few more times Izuku was instead accompanied by a brown-haired and slightly weird acting man referred to as 'Sako-san' or 'Uncle Atsuhiro'.
Izuku had a lot of uncles, evidently. Each and every one of them looked completely different. Were they from different sides of his family? Then again, skeleton-man wasn't similar to either of them.
Eventually, it was Hitoshi who decided to start the conversation. And he had once again emerged from the junkyard to confront Izuku Midoriya, while his current caretaker was absent.
"Thank you for the food." Hitoshi said and Izuku, once again, was startled. Odd, if someone were to ask him. Especially for someone this observant.
"Oh, no problem!" Izuku replies with a kind smile. "You looked pretty hungry back then, and I saw you watching me for a few days so I asked my mom to prepare something for you. She is already cooking for me, my three siblings, my dad and whatever uncle or aunt drops by for dinner, so one or two more portions aren't that much."
"That's one large family you have." Hitoshi comments and Izuku shrugs. "What do you want from me? You have an agenda in all that."
"H...huh?" This somehow startles Izuku again. He actually stares at Hitoshi while blinking rapidly. "No, I told you that heroes do good deeds wanting nothing in return. You looked hungry and I think you are homeless, so I decided to help."
Is this kid really THIS pure? Hitoshi doubts it. The thing is, he would normally throw that option through the nearest window right at the start. But with Izuku, he only doubts it. It's still on the table. He is surprised at himself.
"You should sleep more, though." Izuku adds, and Hitoshi does his best not to snarl. "The bags under your eyes are kinda… large."
"I know." Hitoshi deadpans. What is he supposed to say? 'Well, I have that weird neurological disease that kinda makes me unable to fall asleep without using a lot of sleeping pills and it's going to kill me sooner or later either through accidental sleeping pills overdose or through staying awake for too long'?
Way to bring child services on your head. And then, bam, back to the foster family. Probably THAT foster family.
"Hayes-Wilczak Syndrome?" Izuku asks and Hitoshi almost trips despite standing straight.
"What?" He manages to speak. How does this kid… this kid that he is literally meeting face-to-face for the second time in his life… know what the disease that's killing him is?! Isn't it rare? Extremely rare?
"You clearly have no mutant quirk, and you don't seem to have any signs of mutations associated with the majority of physical transformative and emitter quirks." Izuku promptly replies. "This indicates either quirklessness, some really weak quirk or something strong, but subtle. You carry obvious signs of some really bad insomnia, and I don't think that it's because you are homeless. So my theory is… you have a mental quirk, but it grew up wrong. Your brain is constantly receiving meaningless input from your quirk, so it stays active and you can't fall asleep. So, Hayes-Wilczak Syndrome."
He finishes his lecture, and only now realizes that Hitoshi is looking at him like he just saw a ghost. Or a teacher that cares. He panicks.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to pry!" Izuku says, while hiding behind his hands as if he expected Hitoshi to attack him. "I'm just really interested in quirks and mental quirks are super awesome. Mom and dad say that I have a knack for their analysis, but… I'm not sure if they are right." He looks kinda conflicted over it.
"No, you… probably have a knack for it." Hitoshi decided to admit. "You are really something else. I had to visit three different specialists before one of them figured out what it was, and you just took one look at me and made a correct diagnosis."
"Thank you! Uhm, can I ask… what's your quirk?" Izuku asks.
There is just so much innocent curiosity in Izuku's face that somehow, just somehow, Hitoshi is compelled to answer. He knows it's borderline suicidal, considering his whole villain in hiding status, but…
"It's called Brainwashing." Hitoshi replies. "When I speak to someone and they speak back, I can issue an order to them and they will be compelled to follow it." He braces for inevitable revulsion, but instead IZUKU. FUCKING. BEAMS. Like someone just told him that Christmas came early.
"That's an awesome quirk!" Hitoshi stares, feeling his jaw drop. There is not even a hint of being weirded out on his face. "Have you ever considered becoming a hero? You could de-escalate a hostage situation just by talking to the villain! You should work on the naming, though. Brainwashing sounds kinda grim."
Hitoshi stares. Izuku grows increasingly uncomfortable and starts to fidget slightly. Hitoshi keeps staring for a few more seconds before his brain manages to compute what he just heard.
"Where?" Hitoshi finally asks. "Where were you my whole life?" Izuku looks a bit like a rabbit caught in the headlights, he is freaked out and has no idea what it is about. "Everyone kept telling me that I have a villainous quirk. For years. Now I'm homeless, I live in a junkyard and that's where and when I meet the first person to ever say that my quirk is great."
"Errr…" Izuku clearly doesn't know how to answer that announcement. "I… was probably too busy being tossed around my school for quirklessness to be able to tell you that." He tries to smile but it falls flat in front of Hitoshi's stare. He isn't buying self-deprecation jokes, at least not from a kid who is this goddamn pure.
"You're quirkless and you are trying to get to the UA?" Hitoshi says finally. "I mean, I'm totally going to cheer for you, if only for what you just told me, but… it's kinda… impossible?" He heard of the robots. What was he going to do, even if he got there? Brainwash them? UA was never an option for him.
"Apparently I'm a late bloomer." Izuku replies, looking away and scratching his head nervously. "Some form of strength amplification quirk, but it doesn't activate due to some built-in security measure. I'm most likely too weak to bear it, and my body keeps it offline to make me, uhm, not damage myself. I'm working to pass the threshold before the exam, so that it actually works."
He was still 'tossed around his school' for quirklessness before that. Hitoshi heard of cases of supposedly quirkless people suddenly late-blooming powerful quirks. While, typically, wanting only to see the world burn at this point. Some of the worst villains were born that way.
Considering that they were talking about a powerful strength-amplification quirk on a kid that just guessed Hitoshi's quirk-related diseases and managed to narrow down his quirk to a mental one by SEEING THE BAGS UNDER HIS EYES (like, once, unless he figured it on the spot today), it was probably good that Midoriya didn't seem to hate society.
Good for society, that is. Brains and brawn were a terrible combination to face.
"That sounds kinda cool." Hitorshi replies. "What's your opinion about quirks that make you drink human blood?" Hitoshi decides to ask and studies the reaction. Surely, there has to be a limit to how accepting this kid is, right?
"Like uncle Chizome's quirk?" Izuku asks back and Hitoshi realizes that there is probably no limit to speak off. "I mean, it's just a quirk-dictated alteration to dietary needs, yes? You just have to register it officially and then you are eligible to receive blood from the nearest blood bank. It's nothing weird."
Too pure. Just… too pure.
Hitoshi is blinded by Izuku at this point. He doesn't know how to deal with being blinded.
"I… see." He says. If his calculations are correct, one of his uncles should be here soon. He doesn't feel comfortable around adults. "I'll be going."
"Drop by next time!" Izuku waves at him and returns to cleaning the beach.
***
The day after that, he came out to collect the usual food donation only to find a much larger thermos filled with food, a packet of Hayes-Wilczak Syndrome medications and a blood bag. All placed on the sand right before Izuku left.
Hitoshi Shinsou hadn't cried in a long while. And he never in his life cried happy tears. Both things changed on that evening. He did that for a second time when he saw the colours returning to her face.
***
Hitoshi came out to hang with Izuku a few more times. Always when his uncles and dad weren't there. They never mentioned the things that Izuku was leaving on the beach. It was just random, meaningless smalltalk.
It was after a week had passed since THAT day when Hitoshi began to understand what Izuku was doing. He was luring Hitoshi in. Not in any malicious way. All he had to do was to just… call the heroes. Or villains. Or whoever else he knew. And Hitoshi would be out of the picture.
He was seeing Hitoshi as an abandoned kitten, who clearly didn't trust people that tried to take them to a vet. So he was trying to build his trust. Trust to… do what exactly? Was he waiting for Hitoshi to actually ASK for help?
What help could he actually offer to a small-time villain? They were going to end in juvie, and that was the best case scenario. Returning to whatever family they had left was way worse of an option.
Sure, he cut down his thefts to the minimum. Midoriya was providing him with everything that they needed to survive, at least before the winter came. But there were still things they occasionally had to get from somewhere, and it's not like he had any money to spare, right?
He felt kinda guilty about it. He considered asking Midoriya to provide him with just a few more things, or perhaps… actually asking him what he TRULY wanted from Hitoshi (in other words, what help can he offer), but then, of course, things happened.
He stole himself a new pair of boots (because the old ones practically broke on him) and that's when he ran into a hero. Nightshade. He heard about him from someone who had a really bad meeting with him (namely, his one and only companion) and Hitoshi knew why exactly he couldn't get caught.
So he ran. He was quite fast, and Nightshade was never the fastest of heroes. Things got a bit worse when he was joined by Redwing. Hitoshi had no idea why those two heroes were in Shizuoka, much less Musutafu, but he had no time to think about it.
He eventually managed to lose them, before circling around back to Takoba. It's the time for Izuku to be working there, but Hitoshi ignores it. Instead he dives straight for his little home.
"Himiko!" He says while pretty much jumping inside. She was sleeping, curled up in the corner. But she jerked up from her sleep at his voice. "We're going, now!"
"W...what? What's happening?" She started to receive sensible dosages of blood recently, and she started to act… more sanely, had some of her strength back but still looked pale. And her resistance to UV light was still practically zero.
"Nightshade is here." Her face pales even more . "I lost him, but if he is in this ward, he will find us sooner or later. We need to leave, NOW."
She is weak, but not weak enough to be unable to move. She grabs her backpack (they are always, technically, ready to escape at a moment's notice, it just wasn't an option when she was so blood starved), and he grabs his.
He leaves first, just to see Nightshade, Red Wing, and Thunderbolt, the FUCKING NUMBER THREE HERO, standing in front of them.
"Well, your ability to run is decent enough." Nightshade says with a smile that's just a tiny bit sadistic. Hitoshi knows they are dead. Nightshade had almost beaten Himiko to death for having a villainous quirk right after she escaped from her home. If Hitoshi wasn't around to brainwash the hero, he would have just murdered her. Red Wing is apparently a friend of his and Thunderbolt… "But you've run for long enough, little villains."
Yeah. With Thunderbolt's speed, they can't hope to escape. Himiko clings to his back, and he would really want to save her, but this time? No, this time they are done for.
"To have to call me for two kids, hmph." Thunderbolt shakes his head. "Well, have your fun. You still owe me. A lot."
Then the beating starts.
***
"What. Are. You. Doing." Hitoshi hears a familiar voice saying. A familiar voice that he never heard - never even imagine - to carry so much sheer fury.
He can barely lift himself from the ground, and that's mostly because Nightshade stopped casually beating him around with a riot baton. It was still a better option than having him beat Himiko (Red Wing was mostly watching and Thunderbolt was playing on his phone, and Nightshade could only beat a single person at once), all things considered. So he persevered. Most of his teeth did as well.
Himiko crawled into the corner again, holding her head, the sunlight burning her, the girl left to be the dessert. Hitoshi wasn't even disappointed over her not even trying to help him, really. He remembered how long she was plagued by nightmares about Nightshade after they got away last time. She was facing her worst fear, and it was strange to expect a different reaction. She was still whimpering each time Hitoshi felt another blow on himself.
But he still manages to lift his head enough to see Izuku Midoriya stand a few meters away from the scene. With his uncle Atsuhiro standing right behind him, with an expression of sheer, livid fury on his face.
"Oh, great." Red Wing sighs. "Witnesses."
"Well, you've done fucked up, friends." Thunderbolt announces and hides his phone. "Now we'll…"
"I asked you." Izuku stares at Nightshade. No, he doesn't stare. He glares. With so much hostility and raw anger that despite not being a target of it, Hitoshi still feels his heart stop for a second. Nightshade actually takes a step back under the glare. "What are you doing?"
"Teaching some villains a lesson before arresting them officially, of course." Thunderbolt replies calmly. "We are…"
"Are you so blind that you can't even see that I'm speaking to Nightshade?" Izuku Midoriya says. Hitoshi can see Thunderbolt go slackjawed. A fourteen year old kid just casually ignored him. More than that, it sassed him and treated him as unworthy of mention, despite him being the Number Three Hero.
A kid that had absolutely no signs of his standard jittering left in him. Just absolute fury. With a small hint of personal hatred.
"Kid, I don't know who the hell are you, but…" Thunderbolt makes a few steps towards the kid. It's an intimidation thing, really. His superspeed quirk allows him to cross a kilometer distance in a second or two if there are no obstructions. He is just trying to make the kid stop talking.
"I'm Izuku Midoriya." Izuku replies, finally facing Thunderbolt. His face is one of pure fury. Then he takes a step forward… and Thunderbolt stops his advance. "Son of Yagi Toshinori, personal assistant of All Might, the Number One Hero. The child who has All Might visit his family for dinner a few times a week. The child that has just recorded you playing on your phone while another hero is beating two defenseless children. The child that made sure that the recording from his bodycam is being sent real time to his father, who will no doubt send it to All Might and Principal Nedzu. The child who has just murdered your career and is looking forward to you landing in jail, you fake." The last word is practically coated in venom. Then Izuku turns his head from Thunderbolt (who, somehow, MADE A STEP BACK during the monologue) and looks back at the thoroughly frozen Nighshade. "Now, I'll ask again. What. Are. You. Doing?"
"You son of a …" Thunderbolt clearly doesn't buy it. And is furious at being intimidated. He lunges at a kid, his hand clenched into a fist, not using his superspeed quirk but… then he disappears. He just vanishes without a trace.
"Well, that was an enjoyable spectacle. Until you attacked my wonderful assistant." Atsuhiro announces and Hitoshi realizes that despite noticing him at the beginning, he somehow failed to notice him still being there the whole time. Did Midoriya drag so much attention to himself that he somehow… "Now time for the encore, my dear little fake heroes!"
Hitoshi ends up seeing Atsuhiro ramming Red Wing's head into a broken fridge (and then the hero suddenly disappearing). Right before he deftly dodges Nightshade's baton (which seems to hit him, but no, it's just his jacket, because Atsuhiro crouched and left it hanging above him in the air, somehow) and makes him vanish as well by tapping him lightly on his knee.
Himiko and Hitoshi stare at the people in front of them. Hitoshi has so many questions. Starting from 'Izuku knows All Might personally?!" and going all the way to 'did his uncle just DEFEAT THE NUMBER THREE HERO and two other heroes like it was no big deal?!'.
"Uncle Atsuhiro." Izuku gulps nervously, and he is clearly back to his normal, anxious self. "When I told you to follow me, I kinda… like… expected you to offer me vocal support. On the body-cam bluff. Not, technically, kidnap the Number Three Hero."
"Well…" Atsuhiro scratches the side of his head. "... Plus Ultra?"
Even Hitoshi thinks that the kick to the ankle was well-earned.