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Kyoka couldn't sleep. So much had happened ever since she'd come to UA. A lot of bad stuff, but she had a lot of really great friends and classmates now, and that was great. She had a provisional hero license, and the thought made her happy.
However, she was restless tonight. She didn't know why. And then the explosions and noise started, and Kyoka jerked up, confused and a little fearful. It couldn't be a villain, right?
She decided to check it out even though she wasn't supposed to leave the dorm. She'd just take a peek to make sure it wasn't a threat and then she would sleep.
It became clear that it wasn't a villain, just Midoriya and Bakugo fighting. Even though she'd told herself she would go back to the dorms and sleep, she heard some of the words being thrown around and couldn't help but listen. Bakugo was angry because Midoriya got so much stronger. Midoriya had always been following Bakugo around.
Some of the things that Bakugo said were straight up concerning. Referring to Midoriya as a punching bag? That definitely raised some alarm bells. And then the whole survivor's guilt thing Bakugo had going on. Kyoka was not equipped to handle any of that.
The crackling from Midoriya's quirk and the giant explosions were having her seriously contemplating whether she should step in or not when they ended it with one last giant explosion. Then, it got quiet.
Kyoka peeked out from where she was hiding and found the Bakugo had Midoriya pinned, one hand gripping an arm and the other planted on Midoriya's face tightly. Both of them were panting hard.
She figured she could leave now, they seemed to be about done and she would be able to sleep, but then Bakugo spoke about Midoriya having All Might's power. Which... didn't make any sense. Maybe he meant that Midoriya's level of power was on par with All Might? But as Bakugo continued, Kyoka didn't think that was the case.
And then All Might stepped on scene in all his glory, and proceeded to give Kyoka the last pieces of the puzzle. He'd chosen Midoriya over Bakugo, and Midoriya had been "powerless" before? And All Might had given Midoriya power. So Midoriya was quirkless before and then he got a quirk. From All Might. Her brain blanked for a minute at that revelation.
But it made so much sense now. Midoriya breaking so many bones because he couldn't control a brand new quirk, something that only dated back as far as a "sludge villain incident", which Kyoka was sure she could find footage of. It explained the bond between them too, the similarity of their quirks, because they weren't just similar quirks, they were the exact same one.
When All Might and Bakugo started talking about how important it was to keep it secret, Kyoka realized that it would indeed be catastrophic if anything got out about it. But still, she didn't think she could keep it to herself. Maybe... maybe she would tell Momo. She knew Momo could keep it secret, and she was a lot smarter than Kyoka when it came to this kind of thing. She'd know what to do.
Kyoka snuck back to the dorms, moving carefully away from the aftermath of the fight with all the stealth training she'd gotten. She was so close, and then a hand clamped down on her shoulder and she jumped.
Aizawa-sensei glowered down at her. "And what are you doing wandering around out of the dorms at this time of night?"
Kyoka's earphone jacks clinked together nervously. She told a partial truth. "Well, I heard explosions and stuff outside. And I wasn't sure what it was, so I went to make sureitwasn'tavillain," Kyoka explained, blurting out the last part of her sentence in a rush. She prayed that her sensei would accept that.
He glowered down at her for another few moments, and then sighed. "I'll let you off the hook, but next time, I won't be so lenient." Kyoka nodded and gulped at the glare he leveled at her, and then hurried inside.
If she knew one thing for sure though, it was that she had no idea what to do with the information she had just received. Ignorance really is bliss, she thought as she laid down in her bed again.
Momo very calmly took a sip of her tea. And then another. She set down her teacup delicately with a clink. "So if I understand you correctly, Midoriya's quirk was previously All Might's, who somehow has a quirk that allows him to pass it down to someone else. Midoriya now has this quirk, which is why he had such a lack of control at the beginning of the year. And Bakugo knows about it. Midoriya was quirkless before he was given a quirk, and All Might was inspired to pass on this quirk to him through a sludge villain incident." Kyoka nodded.
"I... see," Momo said in a tone that conveyed that she was very out of her depth, but would try her best to understand anyway. "But how would All Might know that his quirk could be passed on?"
Kyoka paused.
"Aizawa-sensei, may we speak to you?" Momo asked.
"Oh no, what is it now?" the tired man groaned. He suddenly looked 10 years older.
"Well, you see, we've recently discovered extremely sensitive information regarding Midoriya's quirk..." Momo proceeded to explain the entire thing.
Aizawa-sensei let out a long, drawn out sigh when she was done. "Thanks for telling me," he grumbled. "You're right, I didn't know this information before. I'll have to speak with All Might about sharing necessary information, it seems." The ire was evident in his tone, and Kyoka edged away slightly.
"Is that all?" Aizawa-sensei finally asked after a pause. Momo opened her mouth to respond, but the door slid open and Shoji and Tokoyami poked their heads in, along with Dark Shadow.
"We're sorry to interrupt, sensei, but if you're speaking about Midoriya's quirk, we happened to overhear him and All Might speaking about it. They weren't very subtle about it," Shoji said quietly after they'd come into the room.
Aizawa-sensei facepalmed. Kyoka wanted to do the same thing. "And how long have you known about this?" the man asked in a longsuffering tone of voice.
"I heard the first mention of it on the day of the battle trials. Midoriya told Bakugo that his quirk was given to him from someone else. He didn't say who, but after that, his meetings with All Might kind of gave it away," Shoji provided.
"I heard about it during the sports festival. I believe Recovery Girl also knows about this power, as they were speaking about it in the infirmary. I was going to pay a visit, but thought better of it when I heard them talking," Tokoyami said. Both of them relayed the information they had heard. All Might also having had the quirk passed down to him from someone else, the name of the quirk, One For All, and some sort of connection with the supervillain, All For One.
Aizawa-sensei rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and then stared at all the kids in his office with a forced measure of calm. "Right then. I'm sure all of you understand how dangerous this would be if it got out. So keep it to yourselves, and be careful of what and where you talk. If that's all, then you're dismissed." As they moved to go, he tacked on some praise as an afterthought. "Good job bringing this to my attention."
Operation "Pretend to Know Nothing about OFA and Related Topics" went well for a week. Then Todoroki barged into Momo's room with a notebook in one hand and waving a piece of paper in the other. "Momo, I think I found Midoriya's ancestor who had a quirk like All Might's."
Momo exchanged glances with Jiro, who had been sitting there drinking tea and holding an easy conversation with her. "That's great, Todoroki!" she smiled, hoping it didn't look strained. "So what did you find?"
Todoroki looked excited. At least for him. His face was a little more expressive than usual. "Look," he set down a picture on the table, of a lady with a yellow cape and a black bun, smiling. "This is Shimura Nana, who bears a resemblance with Midoriya's mother and who had a strength enhancement quirk and could levitate. She was a pro hero from the last couple generations."
Todoroki proceeded to explain that said lady was probably related to Midoriya's mother somehow, since Midoriya's mom had a minor telekinesis quirk that she probably got from Shimura, and both women looked somewhat similar. Then again, it might just have been the hairstyle.
"So if All Might had a child with Midoriya's mother, Midoriya would get the similar super strength and that would be why all 3 of them fight somewhat similarly. Shimura probably mentored her son in-law to help him become a better hero, and then All Might passed these teachings onto Midoriya," Todoroki finished, nodding along with his own words.
The takeaway from that: Todoroki managed to find out All Might's predecessor, AKA the one who had One For All before the Symbol of Peace, except he didn't know that, he thought he'd uncovered more evidence to the "Midoriya's All Might's secret love child" theory. Momo mourned the good days where she could rest easy and not know about any of this.
"Ah. Well, that does seem plausible," Momo decided to say. Actually, using Todoroki's theory would actually make a good cover story. "Maybe you should ask Midoriya about this Shimura character?"
"Thank you Momo," Todoroki nodded solemnly. "I'm going to do that." He picked up his evidence and scribbles and left as abruptly as he came. Momo glanced at Jiro, who looked shellshocked.
"That did not just happen," Jiro finally deadpanned. "He did not just uncover all of that and then use it for a conspiracy theory."
Momo could only sigh and shake her head. She had thought once that Todoroki was the standard that everyone should hold themselves up to, the perfect hero in training. What she hadn't seen was that Todoroki had his own special brand of crazy, and now Jiro was getting a full dose of it.
Shoto, buoyed by adrenaline and Momo's approval, quickly elected members of the Bakusquad to help him out with his project. Kaminari, Sero and Ashido were on board as soon as he mentioned a conspiracy.
"Okay, so what have you figured out so far?" Sero asked eagerly. Shoto was proud to pull out his corkboard and begin his explanation.
"... And that's why Midoriya is clearly All Might's secret love child," he finished with a flourish, gesturing at his cork board set-up.
All three looked mildly terrified. Sero had dropped his jaw halfway through and hadn't seemed to remember to close his mouth yet. Ashido was just alternating her wide eyed stare between him and the cork board, and Kaminari appeared to be vibrating in his seat.
"Dude," Kaminari finally said emphatically.
Sero finally closed his mouth, and slid out of his seat and down to the floor, landing with a thump. "Why does it make sense?" Ashido whispered from beside him, her voice sounding a cross between horrified and awed.
"So... are you going to help me gain more evidence for my theory?" Shoto voiced. His question seemed to snap the others out of their stupor.
"Hell yeah, of course we will dude!" Kaminari exclaimed enthusiastically, the other two nodding along. "I mean it's pretty solid already, plus doing this sounds like a lot of fun!" Shoto deflated in relief.
"Where should we start?" Sero voiced, snapping Shoto out of his relief.
Shoto pulled out some more red string out of his pocket. "So for starters, I was thinking we could start with this..." he started, looping more red thread around some of his meticulously placed pins.
Tooru just wanted a glass of water.
She had been creeping downstairs to get herself the water she wanted when she heard hushed voices coming from the living room.
While Tooru knew that she shouldn't eavesdrop on private conversations, a few words caught her attention, and she couldn't help herself. I'll just listen for a bit, she told herself unconvincingly, as she hid near the wall and paid attention to the hushed conversation occurring between Tokoyami and Yaoyorozu.
"How has such a secret remained hidden for this long?" Yaoyorozu wondered. Tooru perked up slightly. A secret was good for gossip.
"I admit, it's surprised me that Todoroki hasn't inducted himself to the darkness," Tokoyami answered in his typical Tokoyami-speak.
"Midoriya and All Might are going to get caught with their shared quirk at some point, it's only a matter of time," Yaoyorozu hissed back. At that point, Tooru decided that some things were best left as secrets, and left as fast as she could. It wasn't until she was almost to her room that she realized that she had forgotten about the original reason she had gone downstairs in the first place.
The thing about a secret like this one was that once some people knew, it spread around rather quickly. Once Todoroki and his fellow conspiracy theorists got on the scent of a fresh trail, there was no stopping them from finding the twisted web that stretched as far back as two centuries.
Once they found this out, there was nothing stopping them from telling everyone in the class. The only reason it wasn't spread to the entire school was because Aizawa-sensei found out and managed to swear the entire class to secrecy, explaining bluntly exactly what would happen if it got out.
Midoriya and All Might remained blissfully oblivious to Class 1-A's knowledge. The chaos of everyone finding out and freaking out seemed to have completely gone over both of their heads. Aizawa-sensei had looked physically pained when both Midoriya and All Might had completely missed anything out of the ordinary, like the completely unsubtle, loaded glances everyone was suddenly shooting at each other.
("Shouta? Are you okay?" Hizashi asked, watching in concern as the raven haired man banged his head against his desk in the teacher's lounge, before just laying his head on the flat surface and groaning.
"How can All Might be a hero, let alone a teacher with so little situational awareness?" Shouta muttered to himself bleakly. "What has the world come to?" he hadn't even noticed the Voice hero's arrival.
"Ookay, I'm just gonna... leave you to it then," Hizashi decided, edging back before fleeing, leaving Shouta to his crisis. Shouta just pressed his forehead to the desk and suffered.)
For a few weeks after everyone found out and was sworn to secrecy by their exhausted homeroom teacher, 1-A witnessed Aizawa-sensei dropping the least obvious hints ever in an attempt to get Midoriya to spill the beans.
"Problem Child, if there are any issues or things you want to tell me about your quirk, just let me know," he said once in direct earshot of Bakugo and Kaminari, the latter bursting into a highly suspicious coughing fit.
"Why is Deku so fucking dumb, this is so fucking sad," was Bakugo's commentary to the situation as he watched Midoriya try to help Kaminari recover his breathing. Aoyama, staring at them from some distance away, made eye contact with Bakugo, and they shared a commiserating glance.
They also got to see Aizawa-sensei's passive aggressiveness with All Might. "I hope you're not withholding information from me about Midoriya and his abilities, given you have similar quirks and all," the teacher told him lowly, staring the man down. The retired number 1 hero gulped and looked away nervously.
Kirishima winced from a few feet away. Hagakure broke off her conversation with Ashido to look in the adults' direction.
"Of course not, Aizawa-san," they finally heard All Might reply faintly. This time, the girls joined Kirishima in wincing harshly. All of them made the smart decision to leave before Aizawa-sensei blew a fuse or something.
When Midoriya and All Might made the decision to break the news to Aizawa and the rest of 1-A, they were prepared for a lot of questions and disbelieving reactions. They were not prepared for what they got instead.
"HA, I win the bet, suck it losers!" Bakugo cackled as the rest of the Bakusquad sulked.
"It took you long enough to tell me, your homeroom teacher, and the one responsible for your wellbeing and your training," Aizawa-sensei told the two sullenly.
"Are you sure you're not father and son?" Todoroki asked.
"Yes, Todoroki, oh my god, how many times do I need to tell you that All Might and I aren't related?" Midoriya responded, exasperated.
"You better not break any more of your bones, Deku," Uraraka told him sternly, Iida nodding behind her and ready to launch into his own lecture, complete with his unique hand motions.
"Why isn't everyone more surprised?" Midoriya finally questioned, confused.
Yaoyorozu took pity on him. "We already knew, Midoriya."
"Before you ask, I didn't say anything. You both just suck at being subtle," Bakugo butted in.
"Indeed. Many of us simply overheard you speaking about it," Tokoyami added.
"Yeah, what he said. After that, Todoroki came up with a theory that spread to the entire class, and then Aizawa had to tell everyone and then swear them to secrecy to prevent misinformation," Sero explained.
"And who told Aizawa-san?" All Might asked, frowning.
"A group of students came and told me what they overheard. That's not important though. What is important is that they had to be the ones to tell me, and I wasn't made aware by you first," the man scowled.
"Oh, well, you see," All Might faltered under Aizawa's unblinking glare.
"I don't see, Yagi. Enlighten me." The words sounded like a threat.
"Um, my secretary is calling me, gotta go!" All Might blurted out and then ran. Aizawa followed him, undeterred.
Midoriya was left with the class, completely caught off guard by these unexpected events. "What gave us away?" he asked weakly.
"Oh my gosh, he doesn't even know," someone whispered.
"I'll make some tea while we break the news to him," Yaoyorozu volunteered. Uraraka ushered Midoriya to the couch, and the class followed, intent on making Midoriya understand how bad he and All Might were at subtlety, and then teaching him to be better at it so they didn't have to suffer like that again.