-Rain of Sins-
-Arc Start: Down the Rabbit Hole-
-Down the Rabbit Hole: Chapter 1-
Kurogiri had been having a good day, he really had. The sun was shining, the next episode of his favorite TV show came out, no fights had broken out in the bar, and he had even gotten an abnormally high tip from one of his regulars (not that he really needed it). It had just been an all round good day.
So of course it had to go horribly wrong.
Let it be known, Kurogiri liked his bar quite a bit. It was his work, his hobby, his passion, and his house all in one, with the first story being the bar, the second being guest rooms, and the third his own private sweep.
His bar was his own little place in the world, and overtime it had become something of a staple in the criminal underworld. It was the place where everyone could come, enjoy a nice drink, play a game of darts, and just relax and unwind, far away from the hardships of life.
Mobsters, gangs, murderers, thieves - anyone and everyone was welcome as long as they didn't disturb the peace his bar offered, not that anyone ever did. His bar was full of the type of people who you really wouldn't want to run into in an alleyway, and these people were more than happy to, err, let's say escort, any trouble makers away from their "leisure spot".
So you would think that with a small army of thugs, mercenaries, and killers, no one would be dumb enough to barge in, and try to take over his bar.
Except of course… someone was. And even worse than that, they somehow succeeded.
The warp quirk user placed the glass he had been polishing back in it's freshly cleaned cabinet, and took a glance at the bar's only other current occupant.
Tomura Shigaraki. The light blue haired man had barged into his bar covered in hands, and flanked by ten black armored men. He had brazenly declared the bar was now "under his ownership", and that all the customers needed to get out.
What happened next was predictable, everyone laughed at him and the biggest guy in the room, a friendly mercenary everyone nicknamed Big-Bob, had gotten up to throw him and his lackeys out. They quickly stopped laughing after Tomura turned Bob, the man who had been gushing over how he was going to be an uncle not a minute beforehand, into a pile of dust.
That's when it all went to shit. His customers all jumped to their feet and pulled out a myriad of weapons, knives, pistols, crowbars, etc, and rushed to avenge their friend. The armored men pulled out rifles, and Tomura dashed forward.
A minute and a half later and his beloved bar was covered in layers of blood and dust, his customers all either dead or fled. On the bright side of things, six of the ten men Tomura had brought were dead, with another seriously injured. Kurogiri could thank David for that. His very first customer and most active regular had drawn his revolver (a gift from his grandfather, he would often brag) the moment Tomura opened his mouth, and managed to take three of the body guards down on top of putting a bullet to Tomura's shoulder before being dusted.
After the gruesome spectacle, Tomura had sat down at the bar to nurse his shoulder, close enough to grab the warper if he tried to use his quirk, and the remaining bodyguards had brought in and hooked up what appeared to be a vintage TV.
The men had then picked up their fallen comrades and left. Before Kurogiri could say anything though, the TV flickered on.
On the screen a masked man had appeared, he introduced himself as Tomura's teacher, giving a name to the red eyed man who had done nothing but glare at the bartender since he sat down.
Oh how Kurogiri was so sorry for Tomura getting shot in the shoulder, it's not like the idiot had decided to take on an entire bar full of pissed off thugs and mafia members with only ten men as backup.
This "teacher" had gone on to "clarify" a few things. He explained that those were his men, that he had a lot more of them, and that Kurogiri was to listen to Tomura's orders from now on.
When he had questioned as to why he should listen to the man who had killed his entire customer base not five minutes prior, the TV man simply laughed and calmly proceeded to give a very vivid description of what would happen to him if he failed to comply.
Now Kurogiri was a reasonable man, and while he could firmly say that he had no qualms with tweaking his daily routine for the foreseeable future in order to not get killed, he was still under the opinion that he should have had at least five minutes to gather his thoughts on everything before being hauled off to have his quirk examined by a doctor named Daryma Ujiko. A "doctor" mind you, who had lost his license a few years back.
After only a few minutes with the man, Kurogiri could honestly say he understood why he had lost it. To put it simply, the doctor was very… well he sounded like a mad scientist out of some fantasy book.
"Your quirk is far too fascinating to not research!" the man had explained "If I can find out how it works, it will bring me one step closer to creating the perfect masterpiece for my master!"
What Kurogiri found the oddest about the man wasn't the way he worshiped his "master", but instead his willingness to answer all of Kurogiri's questions. He loved to go on and on about the "artwork" that his research allowed him to gift his master, and how he hoped to one day create the perfect masterpiece.
The Doctor had then gone on to inform him that Tomura was the man's successor, and how powerful this "All for One" was in physical strength as well as political influence, and sheer cunning. (Terrifying the mist made man to the core in the process)
After all the tests were done with and all his questions were answered, the one's he had been willing to ask at least, Kurogiri was allowed to return home.
Well, perhaps "allowed to go home" was too kind of phrasing.
One of the Doctor's assistants had broken something and Kurogiri had been kicked out so the mad scientist could yell at them.
As he walked back to his bar, far to mentally exhausted to use his quirk, he realized something. The doctor, obsessed with his work and slightly off kilter he may be, was actually the nicest person he had met that day. He hadn't killed his customers, pointed a gun at him, or threatened to string him up by his intestines.
…
If that didn't say how bad his day had been, he didn't know what would.
Kurogiri let out a sigh and could only hope that someone out there was having a better day than he was.
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku was not having a good day.
Three and a half weeks had passed since he first asked his question, and he hadn't found anything.
Websites were just as bad as his biology book had been, vague at best and purposely misleading at worst. Social media and hero threads had proved to be even more useless, the results ranging from people brushing his question off and telling him to not worry about it, to openly laughing at him. A week in and he had finally gotten fed up enough to start messaging actual doctors about it, but that plan of action had lost its footing almost as quickly as it had gained it, with most not bothering to respond and the few that actually took him seriously clamming up when they realized he didn't have a quirk.
He had emailed college professors, scientists, and head directors of several research labs, his sheer number of emails sent guaranteeing him at least a few replies, only to meet the same result. They didn't take him seriously because he was quirkless. His latest reply from a doctor of St. Luke's International Hospital seemed to sum up all their thought processes.
"Why bother with wanting to learn about quirks? You don't have one and aren't going to develop one. The only thing I can think of is that you want to see if there's a way to give you one. If this is the case, and I highly suspect it is, then I'm going to have to ask you to stop wasting important people's time with your childish fantasies"
Izuku gave out a tired sigh and sunk into his textbook. Finding a way to gain a quirk would be wonderful, it really would, but that wasn't even what he was asking, he just wanted to know what a quirk even was! At this point he would take literally any answer he could find.
How hard was it to explain what caused such rapid genetic mutation in the human populace, how it affected animals as well, how it happened everywhere on earth at the same time, how it incorporated artificial technology into these mutations, how it seemingly fused different species DNA at random, how it was able to break quantum physics at will (Nullifying gravity for example), and how it was able to do all of this with a time frame of a week at best and over one night at worst.
… Ok so maybe it was a little difficult to explain all that, but explaining how nuclear fission worked was also a little difficult, and that didn't cause people to brush it off and go "Oh well".
The poor boy, after having realized he wasn't going to get any answers simply by asking around, had decided to start doing his own research.
Was it a good idea? Kinda.
Pros: He was now much more knowledgeable on the subject of genetics, would probably never have to study for another biology class unless he majored in it, could pick out what type of quirk a person had by looking at a graph of their DNA (Emitter, mutation, or transformation), and had memorized the entire human evolution chart.
Cons: He had now gone ten days without a full 8 hours of sleep at night, his grades were slipping (except biology), and he may or may not have developed a slight fondness for coffee.
Results: Lots of cool knowledge, but still no answer.
Unfortunately it was that second one that Izuku really cared about.
Now that's not to say everything had been for nothing, far from it, he might not have had an answer quite yet but he was much closer than before. He could feel it. His new knowledge had put him on the right track, and while it wasn't on par with any actual scientists, it was far above anything he was going to learn at his current school. Though he didn't realize exactly how far above the standard curriculum he was until he took a biology test two days ago.
A 96, the highest grade in the class by an entire letter grade, and when he looked to see what he got wrong well… On the back there was an eight point SAQ that asked how quirks were passed down from parents to children. Most of the class had gotten the question right, simply copy and pasting the two sentence answer they got in class the day before. Izuku meanwhile, may or may not have gone a bit overboard.
An hour into the test and his entire page was crammed full of giant paragraphs detailing how different types of quirks pass on differently, examples of how two parent quirks can fuse to create a "child" quirk of the two, quotes from several different studies and scientists, a graph of probability chances, and several of Izuku's own hypotheses on the subject matter, all in tiny handwriting.
His teacher had put a big question mark on the page and given him half credit.
Izuku shook his head, trying to get his thoughts back on track as well as fight off the drowsiness that had snuck up on him.
Coffee was a good substitute for sleep, but it wasn't a perfect replacement and the teacher's mundane droning wasn't doing him any favors either.
His research had given him answers, but not the ones he needed. The two main problems he found in his methodology were A) his lack of access to any form of information that wasn't either on Wikipedia or a study/interview he could find online. And B) how every time he found something that seemed it would lead somewhere, it turned into a dead end.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
At least until last night.
Last night, when looking for some more obscure researchers who would be more likely to at least send him a response email, he stumbled upon a scientist who had immediately piqued his interest.
He was a well learned geneticist who had also been through medical school and was a certified doctor. But what really caught Izuku's attention was his work, the man had focused solely on better understanding how quirks worked, and how they affected the human genome. Further research revealed that many of the more advanced theories on quirkology were first written by him.
Granted "how do quirks work" is slightly different from "what is a quirk", but hey, it had been almost a month and Izuku was just taking what he could get at this point. Besides, the fact this man was actually looking into the mystery of quirks instead of just brushing it aside, like everyone else, was more than enough for the exhausted teen.
But there was a small problem.
The short list of information he had on the man was all there was.
No date of birth, no pictures, and no records that the man even existed besides the two research papers Izuku had found, the fact his name was credited in small text on the newest renditions of quirk theory, and an old news article saying the man had somehow lost his doctors license- of course it hadn't mentioned why he had lost it, no that would be too helpful. The man was practically a ghost.
And as Izuku drifted off to sleep, he was at least able to take satisfaction in one small victory.
He at least knew the man's name.
Ujiko Daruma.
The creator of the Quirk Singularity theory.
-Rain of Sins-
Bakugo was thinking.
Despite what most people assumed from his personality, Bakugo was more than some brainless brute. He might not be the Einstein of his generation, but he was definitely more than a few steps ahead of the extras he was surrounded by in class, he had to be if he wanted to be number one.
"Brawn without a brain is like a car with no engine, while brain without brawn is like an engine with no car. Neither will move alone, it takes both to get anywhere in life."
His mother had told him some variation of that when he failed his first test back when he was very young, but he hadn't listened to her first lecture. Two weeks later and another F, she had tweaked it the second time around to the one he remembered today. She made it appeal to his dream of being the best. He knew this, knew she was trying to manipulate him, but even then-
It worked.
He hadn't failed a single assignment since, and his average for any class never dropped below a B. He was going to be the best, he was going to be number one no matter what it took. Which was why it was always so fucking infuriating that no matter how long he studied or how hard he tried, when the end of the grading period rolled around, he always came second in his grade's ranking. Right behind Deku. Every. Single. Goddamn time.
Which was why he was thinking.
He had gotten second place ever since they first started ranking the students, all the way back in the end of elementary.
Always fucking second. Always behind fucking Deku.
It was one of the reasons he hated him so much at times. Deku was smart, really fucking smart, but he didn't try to expand beyond his intelligence. And despite the fact he was an engine with no car, Deku had managed to beat him every semester. It was like a broken record that kept repeating itself over and over.
But not this time.
When they had gotten the results back this morning, He was on top, not Deku.
Normally this would have been a time to celebrate, to rub it in the loser's face that Bakugo was the best. After all of these years he had finally won, finally proven that he deserved to be number one.
But it was all wrong.
This wasn't the glorious victory he imagined, this wasn't a triumph, no this past semester had been his worst semester in years, barely scraping by in history with a B-, but that wasn't even the worst part. Deku, the quirkless nerd who he had lost to again and again for years, wasn't in second place, wasn't even in third.
Deku was 6th.
And so Bakugo was thinking.
Deku had started coming to school with bags under his eyes, started missing homework, and started sleeping through classes. Deku was fucking sleeping through class.
Something was wrong with the nerd, he was starting to act like an extra, which Bakugo knew he wasn't.
He didn't like Deku by any stretch of the imagination, but the wannabe had beaten him, even if it was only in their grades, that automatically put the nerd above the sea of extras.
What would cause the idiot to nosedive so suddenly? It was almost like he wanted Katsuki to beat him!
The explosion quirk user pushed his thoughts out of his mind. Just thinking around in circles wouldn't do anything, UA's entrance exam was in nine months and Bakugo needed to start doubling down on his training.
If Deku wanted to become an extra, so be it.
Katsuki Bakugo was destined to be number one. Deku never had any part in that.
-Rain of Sins-
Izuku groggily opened his eyes to find an empty classroom, lit only by the evening sun. No Teacher, no students, no Bakugo.
A quick glance at his phone informed him that his face hadn't been written on, and that class had ended half an hour ago.
'Of course they didn't wake me up.' Was the first thought to run through his mind. 'I'm just a nobody to them.'
"But I can change that." he mumbled through a yawn. "I'll prove I can be just as good of a hero as anyone else."
"No. You can't be a hero without a quirk."
But how could he? How could he even hope to be a hero when the number one pro, the man who had inspired him to become a hero in the first place, blatantly told him that he couldn't.
How could he help anyone when he couldn't even save his childhood friend from a villain he helped escape?
How could he prove to his mother that he could be a hero without her worrying!?
How could he-
His downward spiral was interrupted by his phone buzzing.
'Later' He told himself. 'One step at a time, I'll find an answer, then I'll think about everything… Just...Just not right now.'
His mother was messaging him asking him where he was and if he was ok.
'After school study group.' He texted back, It would let her know he wasn't in any danger, and get him out of any trouble at the same time.
Izuku wasn't a compulsive liar by any means, in fact the phenomenon was quite rare, but everyone lied every once and awhile. Izuku was human, and as such was no exception.
But as he started typing his reply, two very different phrases echoed through his head.
"Everyone can be a Hero!"
"No. You can't be a hero without a quirk"
Liar.
‘I fell asleep in class, just woke up.’ He typed out instead.
The green haired boy didn't want to think about All Might right now, but one thing was for sure.
'I'm not lying to anyone like that.'
A few minutes later, and he was walking to the grocery store to pick up food for dinner tonight.
His mom had chewed him out about sleeping in class, and tossed on his slipping grades as the metaphorical cherry on top, to drive the point home. Halfway through her rant she stopped herself, told him to go pick up groceries, and said that they would finish their chat when he got home.
At first glance from an outside perspective it seemed a bit harsh of her. Izuku had been at the very top of his class since elementary school, now one bad semester and she was freaking out. But Izuku knew she wasn't trying to be mean, she was just stressed, and more importantly...
She was just worried.
Izuku knew from a young age that his mother worried about him, and when he got a bit older he realized how stressed she was, but it wasn't until a few years ago that he realized how bad it really was.
When her husband first got sick, she picked up a job to help pay bills. After he died she had picked up another. When Izuku had come home one day and innocently asked what college was, she picked up two more. When Izuku was declared quirkless, she dedicated almost all her free time to being at home for Izuku, pushing away all of her friends and related family to make time for her son, only staying in contact with Bakugo's mom because he was friends with him as a kid. She cooked, cleaned, worked four jobs, and desperately tried to pay bills that always seemed just out of budget, often going entire weeks just eating scraps so Izuku could have a full stomach, this transitioned into the stress eating that had destroyed her figure when their budget became more stable
The problem wasn't that she didn't care about Izuku, it was that she cared too much.
And now his grades were slipping for the first time in his academic history and she went full momma bear mode, worried something was wrong, and angry at herself for not preventing it.
A sad smile graced his face.
He'd have to calm her down when he got home, maybe even cook dinner for her so she could relax.
But that was later. Right now he had to pick up some groceries.
-Rain of Sins-
Kurogiri was not in a good mood.
Not only had he lost his bar that morning, but when he got back from the Dr's lab (an old warehouse down in the middle of nowhere) Tomura had complained about all the blood and dust everywhere and told him to "clean all the filth up".
Well excuse him, but that "filth" was his former customers, it wasn't Kurogiri's fault they were all dead. No, the blame for that lied on another person's head. The same person, might he add, that was telling him to clean it all up.
But that wasn't all, no no no, Tomura just had to make everything more difficult.
When he had gone to simply warp everything away into the ocean, Tomura had flipped out.
"You can't use your quirk yet!" he had yelled "We're only on the starting level, we need to keep all out secret abilities hidden so the bosses can't prepare for them."
A few things.
1)What the Fuck?
2)This was Kurogiri's quirk, he was the one to decide how he used it.
3)His quirk was already on the quirk registry, it was registered when he first developed it as a child, so the pros and law enforcement in general already knew about his quirk, it was why he had never used it to steal anything or do anything criminal with it.
4)What the Fuck?
So now here he was, browsing the cleaning section of the supermarket because the anti-vacuum cleaner decided to put dust everywhere and make him clean it without his quirk.
Kurogiri didn't even have any cleaning equipment besides the sanitizer he used for his tables and alcohol glasses. He had always just warped any mess away, but not this time apparently.
He had table polish, did that count? Did Tomura want him to just polish the dust away!?
That’s not how TABLE POLISH WORKED! That’s not how any of this worked!
Kurogiri let out a sad sigh, as he came to terms that the stress from all this may have been impacting him a bit more than he would have preferred. And even if it wasn’t, he wasn't usually this negative, but today was proving to be an exception for basically every rule he had.
He started counting up how much everything would cost while double checking his small basket as he turned a corner.
Only to drop said basket when someone ran straight into him.
The bartender just stood there for a few seconds trying to understand what happened, his mental math now floating around his head like a puzzle that had fallen and smashed itself to pieces on the floor.
Looking down he was greeted by a groaning teenager with a mop of green hair spiraled out on the ground. His cleaning supplies were on the floor, mixed with a large array of various ingredients such as carrots and onions. Kurogiri's first instinct was to scold the kid for not looking where he was going.
'No.' He scolded himself. 'I was the one who turned the corner so suddenly, there's no way he could have seen me coming. No one is at fault here.'
‘Just because I've had a shitty day doesn't mean I have to make someone else's day shitty too.'
Reaching down he grabbed the boy's phone which had landed next to his foot, he was about to hand it back when something curious caught his eye.
On the phone several news articles were opened. Two were articles on quirkology, the rest…
Kurogiri's eyes narrowed dangerously.
'Why is he searching for information on Dr. Ujiko?'
It was a very good question, one that required an equally good answer if the kid was to stay out of any trouble.
He cast another look at the young man who was picking himself off the ground, this time looking for clues. His eyes caught sight of a book that had fallen from the boy's backpack.
"Advanced Quirk theory Vol: 5, by Steven Joseph" the book read.
Now Kurogiri knew something was definitely wrong, that book was far beyond the reading level of just any random student. He hadn't even understood half of what the first volume talked about when he read it a year or two back, and now some middle schooler comes by, just casually reading highly advanced material while searching for information on Dr Ujiko. Something was up, but what could it pos-
And then it clicked.
Dr Ujiko had spoken at great lengths about his several assistants, and how he hoped they would one day help him create his greatest masterpiece. Now, the Dr was a bit odd at times, but even then, wasn't this kid a bit… young, to be an assistant?
And why was he in the grocery store of all places? You would think an evil genius would have better things for his great assistants to do, than run errands- wait.
Was… was the kid lost?
The lab was in the middle of nowhere, and the Dr seemed like the type of person who forgot to give out directions every once and awhile. Combine that with the fact Ujiko had said he had multiple labs around Japan, and often had people moved between them and well…
Kurogiri may have had a bad day, but that didn't mean everyone had to.
-The Rain of Sins-
"Ow." Izuku mumbled as he pushed his way to his feet, he had known running through the store to get home quicker was a bad idea, but he had wanted to get back home to his mom as fast as he could.
He had gotten all the ingredients without any problem though, so he figured he could try to multitask, looking up some info while he ran to the checkout line.
It obviously hadn't worked.
Looking up he was greeted by a strange sight. A man seemingly made completely of mist was holding Izuku's phone out to him.
"T-Thank you!" He said as he grabbed his phone from the man.
"No problem young man, I'm sorry I caused you to drop your things, please allow me to help."
"S-Sure." he responded, not really sure what else to say.
A minute later and Izuku, with the help of the man, had collected all his stuff and put it neatly back in his basket. Deku was about to thank the man again before he broke the silence.
"By any chance, would you be looking for Dr. Ujiko's lab?"
"Wha- I-I mean absolutely!" He hadn't been, but now he knew about it he most certainly was.
The man gave a good natured chuckle. "I thought so, wait just one moment." He spread out his hand and opened- wait was that a portal!?
Izuku didn't get the chance to observe anything more, because after a second the man pulled out a pen and a small scrap of paper, closing the portal afterwards. He jotted down something on the paper before holding it out.
"Here." He said, offering it to Izuku. "It's where his lab is, I was there earlier today."
Looking at the paper revealed an address that Izuku wasn't immediately familiar with, he looked back to the man to thank him, for the third time, only to find him walking away.
"W-Wait!" he called "What's y-your name?"
"Kurogiri." the man answered as he turned around "Yours?"
"I-Izuku M-Midoria!"
"Well then Mr Midoria, it was a pleasure meeting you, have a good day." Kurogiri said with a small bow, before turning back around.
Izuku stood there, watching the mist man as he walked away, before finally dragging his eyes back down to the small scrap of paper in his hand.
A grin spread across his face.
"I have a lead!"
The butterfly had flapped its wings, and now the storm was brewing.
-End Chapter-