-Rain of Sins-
-Down the Rabbit Hole. Chapter 3-
Despite what the outside of the building implied, the inside was very much not abandoned, full of people in lab coats running around doing various tasks.
Izuku wore a gobsmacked expression on his face as he was led through the stale white hallways of the lab by Dr Ujiko. It wasn't a grand tour of the facility by any means (He didn't even know where he was being led to), but even just the things he could glimpse through cracked open doors and clear windows had him speechless.
'Woah, is that a DNA sequencer?! I almost didn't recognize it do to how advanced it looks! Are they setting up a cryogenic storage facility over there!? Holy crap, that's a CRISPR machine! I thought they stopped developing that tech back whe-! Wait, what are those giant glass tubes!?'
The green haired teen had his eyes opened as wide as they could go, determined to see as much as possible in the underground lab that looked like something straight out of a sci fi film.
Of course the irony of this was, despite how determined he was to see everything, he didn't notice the giant metal door locking behind him when he entered the building, the small squad of guards that had fallen into line on either side of him, or the giant lizard like creature with an exposed brain stalking him from the air vents, ordered to pounce if it sensed the boy activating his quirk… Ironically the scariest of those three was also the least dangerous to the very quirkless Izuku.
Despite the amazing situation (Or perhaps because of it), Izuku's curiosity was still strong enough to rear its head at the worst of times.
"U-Um e-excuse me Dr U-Ujiko." He stuttered "W-Why are they w-working when the lab i-is, well, y-you know…"
Izuku had been lead down to the third level of the lab, and while this floor alone had enough machinery and scientific know-how to put most professional institutions to shame, the second had been filled with half done wiring, partially set up lab equipment, and various machines covered in plastic tarps, and the first floor… Well, there were enough boxes that Izuku hadn't realized he was being led into a lab, until the second level.
"They're behind schedule on getting the lab completely set up, but they still have the common sense to get started on their other projects." The scientist huffed "They just missed one deadline, they're not suicidal enough to miss two. Now be quiet, we're almost there."
Now Izuku didn't exactly know where this "there" was, but his social anxiety assured him that he didn't need to ask, so instead he focused on observing the man in front of him instead.
People always say that when you meet a celebrity in real life, they're almost always shorter than you imagined them being. Izuku had never really believed in those sorts of myths before but Dr ujiko was, err, well he wasn't exactly what you would call a tall person.
From what the teen could tell, the man was standing somewhere around 5 feet tall (1.524 Meters), not a midget, but considering Izuku, a middle schooler, had to look down when talking to him, it was definitely a noticeable factor. The man had a fair amount of weight, an amount that would usually look relatively normal on anyone else, but that was further exemplified by his short height, giving him a slightly egg-like appearance. The man hadn't a spare hair on his head, it had seemingly all migrated to his very bushy, and very unkept, mustache. Toss on some steampunk-esk goggles and a lab coat to top it all off, and you have the very unique appearance of the famous Daruma Ujiko. A man who, Izuku could firmly vouch, had no right being so damn intimidating when he looked like a mini Dr Eggman from the Sonic games.
Approaching the end of the hallway, a large metal door slid away to reveal what appeared to be a breakroom of sorts. Crisp blue cushions covered couches that lined the sides of the room, a microwave with several fish pastries in it sat in a corner, and in the center of the room several metal chairs were strewn around a coffee table, all angled so that they were facing the TV on the wall.
Ujiko nudged Izuku into the room and gave him a shooing motion, the boy took this as an invitation to sit down on one of the couches.
"Stay still and don't touch anything." The doctor said as he fished his phone out of his pocket. "Don't be loud either, I'm making a call."
The guards that had been following them took positions on either side of the door, and the doctor grumbled something along the lines of "Couldn't get the lab ready in time, but of course they got the break room done." as he started pushing buttons.
With armed guards standing around menacingly, and his "host" of sorts impatiently tapping his foot as he waited for his phone call to connect, Izuku was left to his own devices.
Looking around the room (what else was he gonna do), the teen was greeted with two people he hadn't seen at first.
Two lab employees had been on their break when Izuku and co had entered, they had peaked up in interest before quickly agreeing that it was "Above their pay grade" and quickly went back to their conversation.
"I'm telling you man, All Might's quirk has gotta be a mutation type, there's no way a normal human could ever punch that hard."
"No way, it's definitely a transformation type quirk. Think about it, in all his years of Heroing we've never seen him without a full body suit, I guarantee you that whenever he activates his quirk - Don't give me that look Fred, we've had this conversation before, he yells out his smashes as a way to activate his quirk! When he activates his quirk, I guarantee you it does something to his muscles, kinda like a 'Turbo boost' of sorts."
"U-Um excuse me."
The two friends looked up from their small debate to the source of the disturbance.
"A-All Might's quirk i-is actually an e-emitter t-type." Izuku nervously stated while scratching his neck.
"Look kid, this isn't a playground, the adults are talking, now shoo."
"Oh come on Fred, don't be such an ass, the kid's only trying to give an opinion." The second scientist motioned to the green haired boy "Now you said an emitter quirk? Why would that be?"
"W-Well y-you see, i-if you look at when All Might does any of his smashes, you'll notice t-they all share one key detail that most people tend to overlook." Fumbling out his phone he started to flip through various photos, looking for an example to use. "H-Here! What do these four pictures have in common?" He held out his phone which showed All Might using various special moves in combat.
"Uhhh, I mean he's punching?"
"W-Well yes, but that wasn't what I was talking about. Here, look closer!" Zooming in on the photos he showed them again, this time even bringing up a video for reference.
"... Look kid, I really don-"
"Steam." Fred was cut off by his friend "Fred it's steam! Look, he's making steam!"
Fred leaned in closer, squinting at the photo before his jaw dropped "Holy shit!"
"Exactly!" Izuku was in game mode, stutter completely gone. "Every time he attacks he gives off steam! I don't know for sure, but I believe that, since he's never shown any form of heat related abilities, it's a byproduct of his quirk, and what's the type of quirk that has been scientifically proven to have the highest chance of giving off a byproduct?"
"Emitter quirks." The two men responded, their voices a whisper as the realization dawned on them.
"Exactly!" Izuku answered.
'At first I thought it was a transformation type.' He reflected. 'After that show on the roof, how could I not? But he said he's been deteriorating since his fight two years ago, meaning the difference between his two forms must not have originally been so drastic- If there was any difference at all, but now that there is such a big difference, he's pushing his quirk the extra mile to save face and keep the public happy, which would also explain why his time limit is so short.'
A rare frown graced the boy's face as he thought back to the roof. 'I know he said it's for the best, that he's doing it to keep society stable, but he's lying to millions of people. Has been for years if he's to be believed… '
"Kid."
Izuku was snapped from his thoughts by Dr Ujiko, who had walked over at some point during the conversation. A cautious but undoubtedly curious look filled his eyes, his phone held closed and forgotten at his side.
"Come here."He gestured for Izuku to follow, and led him out into the hallway, out of hearing range of the two employees.
"Alright kid." The doctor turned to the boy. "You show up at my lab in the middle of the night, ask a stupid question that even a kindergarten teacher could answer, and then immediately afterword proceed to run mental circles around some of my best employees as if they were children." His eyes narrowed "You have 30 seconds. Explain."
"I-I w-well y-yo-you s-see I-I."
"No stuttering! It wastes time and is incredibly annoying. 25 seconds left."
Izuku opened his mouth to speak, paused, closed it, took a deep breath, and began again.
"I-I'm quirkless sir!"
Ujiko raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue.
"I'm quirkless. I'm quirkless, and I was born into a world where that's seen as a disability!" He clenched his hands "No matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I work, no matter what I do, it always comes back to quirks!"
The things he had been pushing off, the things he didn't want to think about, were coming back to him, but this time there was no 'I'll deal with it later' to help him.
"It doesn't matter if it's authority-"
"Kid, you have a second pinky toe joint. It's very unlikely you're ever going to get a quirk"
"Friends-"
"I Don't want your friendship!"
"Family-"
"I'm so sorry sweetie"
"Or even if it's the person I always wanted to be!"
"No. A quirkless person can't be a hero."
Faces flashed through his mind. Dismissive, Angry, Sad, Disappointed.
"It doesn't matter who, it doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter where! It always comes back to me being quirkless! It always does, everytime! And so I just want to know…" Tears were streaming down his face, the emotions he had been bottling up, finally spilling over. "JUST WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES ME SO WORTHLESS TO EVERYONE!?"
His cry, filled with years worth of emotions and grief, seemed to deafen the entire lab.
For a few moments everything was perfectly quiet.
Then Izuku fell like a puppet with its strings cut, just barely managing to catch himself on the closest wall, silent sobs racking his entire frame.
Ujiko watched the entire ordeal silently before checking his watch.
"30 seconds exactly." He "Hmmm"ed as he glanced at the boy
'He has a good head on his shoulders, is plenty knowledgeable, a quick thinker, and from what I can tell, has a decent grasp on quirk theory.' A crash followed a muffled shout from the construction on the floor above had the him internally cringing 'And considering the lab was supposed to be at least operable a week ago and most likely won't be for another 5 days, I'm behind schedule, a few weeks at best and a month at worst, it would definitely be helpful to bring on some more hands to help speed everything up, especially someone who has shown they can outdo my current employees, and outdo them by quite a large margin. Hmmmm, you know, with a bit of training…'
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"Alright kid, you've earned yourself a single shot. A chance at a chance, if you will."
"Wha-?"
"But I ain't handing out charity here, you gotta at least know what you're doing, and I don't have the time to go interviewing every nutjob who has half a brain." The doctor pulled a small towel from his lab coat, the kind used to clean up spilled chemicals, and handed it to Izuku. "You need to prove that you deserve it," He continued as the aspiring hero wiped the wetness from his face, "So I have something to determine just that!"
"Wh-What's that?" Izuku managed to get out between hiccups
"A question. One question, here and now, no preparation. If you get it right, I'll answer your question." Izuku's eyes widened. "But there's no partial credit, either you get it right," Ujiko crossed his arms "Or you don't."
"Th-That's…"
"Unfair? Unreasonable? Life doesn't care about any of those things, it doesn't care if you're ready," He looked Izuku in the eye, "And it doesn't care if you're quirkless. So, do you accept?"
"I-I.." Midoria gulped as he straightened himself and finished wiping away the last of the tears from his face "Yes." He answered, pulling his emotions together as much as possible "Yes, I do!"
"Alright then." Ujiko stroked his mustache in thought "Let's see, you clearly know your stuff when it comes to quirks, let's work with that."
As the elusive scientist was thinking, Izuku was scrambling to prepare himself.
"What is a quirk?" He had spent a month searching for an answer to the question, he had spent a month writing letters to anyone who would listen, he had spent a month constantly being laughed off by people, he had spent a month researching countless articles only to find nothing, he had spent a month trying to answer the one annoying question, only for it to all come down to one single shot.
Call it petty, call it him being overly persistent, but he was getting an answer damn it!
"What" Ujiko started.
'Here it comes!'
"Is the most important part of any quirk?"
…
'What?'
Did he mishear him? That was a-
'No.' Izuku cut off that train of thought as quickly as possible, "What is a quirk" was also supposed to be a simple question and look where that led him. 'There's definitely something deeper at play here.'
Most people would respond with "How powerful it is", "It's usefulness in combat", or even "How 'heroic' it was" but those views were all based on how society views quirks, not quirks themselves.
It's usability? No that's too vague. It's uniqueness?
Water quirks are relatively rare and are highly sought after as firefighters, meanwhile strength quirks are a dime a dozen, meaning only the extremely powerful ones ever really make a huge name for themselves.
Izuku opened his mouth to give his answer, only to snap it back shut. 'No, that can't be it either, the question specifically states "any quirk", not just specific types'
He gave a quick glance back towards the doctor, hoping for a hint. The man instead huffed, pulled out his phone and set a timer for 20 seconds.
'Crap! That just made it worse!' He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget about all the stress that had just been put on him 'Think Izuku, Think! What's the most important type of any quirk? You've been researching quirks for a month now, surely you've read something about this!' The timer was now making audible ticks as it counted down, signifying that it was almost done. 'Ok, ok, calm down, you can do this. Work backwards!'
13. 12. 11
'All Might's quirk is one of the most incredible ones out there, what's the most important part of it? It's power? It's limitations? The way he uses it?'
10. 9. 8.
'Think, damn it, think!'
7. 6. 5.
'You've literally have done nothing but look at quirks all your life, why can't you answer the question!?'
4. 3. 2.
'Wait…' His eyes shot open in as inspiration struck him like a bolt of divine lightning.
'What if it's not about quirks?'
The Alarm went off and Ujiko sighed.
"Time's u-"
"I'VE GOT IT!"
…
"E-er, t-the answer I mean…" Izuku clarified "I-I have an answer."
"Uh, well what is it?" The scientist asked, a bit off put, how the previously quiet boy had suddenly gotten very loud very fast.
"The most important part of a quirk… Isn't the quirk at all!" A smile spread across his face as everything started clicking together in his head "It's the Pastry!"
Ujiko blinked as Izuku continued.
"Quirks are like a microwave, and the person is like a pastry!"
The two scientists on break weren't the only thing he saw when he was looking around the breakroom, no, off in the corner was a microwave heating up some pastries. And that was cause for his sudden inspiration.
"Microwaves heat up a pastry, just like how quirks power up people!" Izuku, not realizing how odd his analogy sounded (as per usual), was at this point making hand gestures to help 'visualize' it.
"If it works out well, you get a heated pastry, just like how heros get an awesome power! But if the pastry can't handle the heat, it blows up! And you can't have a person blow up because of their quirk, so the most important part to any quirk is the pastry!"
Ujiko, seeing what Izuku was getting at (kinda), grinned and started to say something.
"Because it's actually a super pastry!"
Only to be interrupted by Izuku's rambling.
"Think about it. The microwave makes pastries better by heating them up, but in order to handle that, they already have to be super!
"Like the pro hero Edge Shot, his reaction time is unparalleled in the world of heroes, but his quirk has nothing to do with that! Or heroes in general, they're thrown through walls and hit with tons of blunt force almost everyday, but if you look at medical textbooks that sort of force should kill people almost instantly, but heroes can get up without anything worse than a few bruises!
"Even heroes without fire quirks for heat resistance have taken blasts of fire that should have roasted them alive, and while they were hurt, that's still a far cry from being dead!" He paused for a deep breath "So, the most important part to any quirk, is that just by having one they automatically boost a person's natural limits!"
Izuku looked, with a confident grin covering his face, to Dr Ujiko whose face was about as blank as they came. The construction seemed muted, scientists weren't running through the halls, everything was silent.
Then Dr Ujiko started to chuckle.
Then he started to laugh.
"Pffrhaha"
"Uh?"
"Hoohahoohoohahaha"
"S-Sir?"
"P-Pasties!? Bwahahoohahahooahha"
"You know." The doctor said through the glove he now had covering his mouth "That -Hehaha- That wasn't what I was going for at all !"
Izuku's stomach twisted. Had… Had he really gotten it so wrong to be laughed at?
"I was -Haha!- I was thinking of the built in mental barriers. What's the point of having a fire quirk if you *Snicker* if you fry yourself by burning hotter than your quirk's heat resistance goes?"
"S-So I… I-I was wrong?"
"From the rules I set, yes!"
Izuku suddenly felt like he had swallowed a lead brick.
His head fell.
"But that's the thing, your answer was so much better!"
Only to shoot back up in surprise.
"It's a proven, if obscure, fact that humanity's newest stage in evolution has given us much more than flashy powers." Ujiko stated "In order for people to use these powers, human bodies have to be able to adapt to the extreme forces they create. This adaptability works in conjunction with mental barriers to keep people with strength quirks from blasting their own arm off every time they throw a punch. However! Very few people actually realize the extent of humanity's new adaptability. Get punched enough and you'll adapt to become more durable, get burnt enough and you'll adapt to have basic heat resistance. People go to the gym quite often these days, but they don't realize their true potential.
"They stop lifting weights when they feel 'fatigued', but if they instead keep going, keep pushing until their muscles are ripping themselves from the bone, and then do it again every week, the body will be forced to adapt to the training just like it would be forced to adapt to a strength quirk. Now you'll never get to the level of someone with a strength enhancing quirk just through training, but!" He grinned "Several of my experiments have shown just how close you can get!"
"This is why schools like UA have so much of their curriculum based around physical fighting." He held up his hand "The entrance exam, hero classes, the sports festival, final exams," He listed off on his fingers, "Even the hero licensing test! All of these have students beaten down to become more resilient!"
"So yes, your answer was much better than the one I expected!"
He let out a laugh.
"And your passion" Ujiko's smile slanted at an angle that just seemed wrong. "It reminded me of myself when I speak of my art! Haha! Talent is a dime a dozen these days, kid. People pop up with some quirk and suddenly they're a prodigy, but It's so rare to find true unbridled Passion!"
"And PASSION!" He shouted as he threw his arms in the air "Is the most important part of art!"
"S-So I d-did it? I-I won?"
"If that's what you want to call getting the question right, then sure!"
Izuku couldn't help the small smile that came to his face. Sure saying "I won" after getting a question right did sound a bit dumb, but now he'd get an answer to his question, and that was a victory. A small victory for sure, but when was the last time he really had one of those?
When he was diagnosed quirkless?
When he lost Bakugo as a friend?
When he made his mother cry?
When he met All Might?
'No.' He answered himself as he wiped away the small amount of tears that were stinging his eyes. Getting his question answered was a very small victory, but after a lifetime of failures, it felt like it was as big as a mountain.
Izuku couldn't help but laugh when he thought about his situation. He had purposely thrown himself into trying to answer his random question of "what is a quirk" as a way to distract himself from his meeting with All Might on the roof, but his horrible way of coping had actually wound up giving him exactly what he needed. A spark of hope.
If he could learn an entire field's worth of material that was way above his head, contact scientists from all over the globe, track down a ghost of a man in the middle of nowhere, all to get some random question answered, and all in a month, then what was getting a 70 on the U.A. entrance exam? He didn't have to get the highest score after all, he just had to pass.
It was a small victory, but that was all he needed, small victories, because with enough of them, even small victories could change the world.
"Three days."
Izuku looked up in confusion
"T-Three days?"
"Three days." Ujiko repeated "I want you back here, at 5 PM sharp, in three days."
"B-But why?"
"I don't have to tell you why!" He said as he started pushing Izuku towards the nearest set of stairs. "I'm the genius of the century, you're just some random kid who turned up on my doorstep. I don't have to tell you anything!"
"B-B-But m-my q-question!"
"You're question is why you're gonna make sure to come back. You don't come back, you don't get an answer. Capiche?"
"B-But you s-sa-"
"I said I'd answer it, I never said when I would." They passed floor 2 and continued upwards. "Learn to read the fine print before you go making random deals, especially with shady people you met up with late at night."
"B-B-B-Bu-"
"Now go home, get some sleep, etcetera etcetera. I don't care, just be back here in three days!" He pushed Izuku through a set of double doors, into a hallway filled with boxes, and pointed down the hallway to a large steel door. The same door Izuku first knocked on.
"And stop stuttering!" He yelled as he gave the boy a small shove to get him moving. "It's annoying!"
-Rain of Sins-
Ujiko stood in front of several large monitors, and watched the green haired boy walk off into the night, the freshly installed cameras finally doing what they should have been doing for over a week now.
The stakes of that question had been riding a lot higher than he had let on. After all, he never said what would happen if the kid answered wrong .
He had expected the kid to get it wrong.
But the kid hadn't, instead he had over performed to the extreme.
"Super Pastries? Really?" He chuckled to himself.
'I was the one to prove how humanity's new adaptability was crucial in the use of quirks, and I was also the one who later proved just how much potential humanity's new adaptability had… although I had lost all my credibility at that time so no one really took me seriously.' He frowned in thought, that period of time had been an especially low point in his life, if his master hadn't found him when he did…
'But much more pressingly, that second bit of research was all erased when Master erased my presence from the world. He couldn't have found anything on it online, he had to have come to that conclusion by himself. But I spent years on that theory, and I was one of the most capable scientists in the world at the time, so for a kid to catch onto it, even if it was only the basics…'
"He's definitely someone to keep an eye on…"
"Sir, what should we do?"
"Hmmm?" The mad scientist sent a lazy glance over his shoulder at the new head security officer behind him. He had fired the old one back when he was in the breakroom. What idiot lets a secret lab get snuck up on, by a middle schooler of all people!?.
"Focus on getting the security system completely set up and running, but other than that nothing for now."
"What about the intruder?"
"The kid? What about him?"
"Sir, he found the lab, are you really just going to let him go?"
"I hardly think putting three different trackers on the boy, each with a microphone to let us listen in, and having several teams ready to be deployed to take him down at any time, can be considered 'letting him go'."
"But what if he was working with the police, or a villain group? Shouldn't we have killed him?"
"You're thinking too short term." Ujiko responded flatly as he brought up a new screen, this one a map of the city with three dots on it, one for each tracker put on the boy.
"If he was working for someone, and we killed him, it wouldn't solve the problem. They would still know where the lab is, and even worse, they would have known it was one of mine just by the question they had the kid ask. 'D-Does D-Dr Ujiko w-work here?'" He mocked the kid's stutter.
"Killing him was a no-go, capturing and interrogating him for information wouldn't have been any good either. He was sent out alone, that means he's expendable, and expendable people aren't kept in the loop. Therefore the only logical move was to let him go and watch his moves. Sending a team to shadow him is too noticeable a move, and would raise immediate suspicion, so by process of elimination putting trackers on him was the only viable option."
"But what if he disposes of them somehow?"
"Pshhh" The doctor waved his hand in a dismissive gesture "I put one on his jacket, one on his shirt, and one in his hair, they're microscopic and are sticky as hell, I should know I helped make them. The only way he gets them off is by washing them off with hot water. And the only place he's likely to take any sort of shower or wash his clothes is at home, where the trackers will helpfully show us the location of."
"And if he doesn't come back in three days, or leads us to a hideout?"
"If he doesn't come back, then we send in a team and kill him. If he leads us to a hideout then we send in a team, shoot the place up, and then kill him. Easy as cake. The only loss for us would be having to relocate the lab."
Which would put him even further behind schedule… again.
But that was for later, right now he had given himself three days to gather information and see what was up.
'Great, now I gotta go get a bunch of info diggers to get ahold of the kid's records, see if he's working for anyone. Then I need to get some form of surveillance system set up outside wherever he leads us to.'
He sighed. The kid had potential, but the whole damn thing just screamed of a set up. He hoped the kid's story held up, that he was just some random teenager who wanted his question answered- and even that was fishy as hell. But if it somehow did turn out to be true, it would save him so much work.
But if life had taught him anything, the odds of something actually causing him to have less work…
“I'm not getting any sleep tonight, am I?” Ujiko sighed.
-Chapter End-