Warning: This chapter contains minor spoilers for Manga Chapter 218.

Symbyosis

Chapter Fifteen: Analytical Diversions

After leaving Kamino ward, Akuto had made it as far as a city at the edge of Shizuoka and from there the bustle of the city had become too much for him. Mustafa was about as impressive as any other city in Japan that wasn't Tokyo, so he'd taken his usual approach and pilfered as much money as he could without alerting any of the authorities. Pickpocketing pedestrians, grabbing cash from open tills, and even smashing open a few vending machines had given him enough money to hole up in one of those internet cafes with the private booths for a few nights. He knew it would take him several days to make it back to Saga, and he should have been using his ill gotten gains to further that goal. The problem began after the USJ attack by the League of Villains, when the entire area had been put on high alert.

U.A. High School was located here in Mustafa and the place had a metric tonne of heroes per square meter. Even All Might was hanging around the area teaching at his old school. That made it much harder to stay under the radar and move about unnoticed. Akuto had to discard all of the bone ornaments from his skin to blend in, and he hated every minute of it. If it hadn't been for his pale complexion and red eyes he'd almost look like anyone else. The thought of looking like all those freaks that wanted to be normal soured his mood even further. As it was he had been passing himself off as a run of the mill albino, and while that rankled less than being normal he still sneered at such a mundane description.

He had learned at a young age that 'normal' was a code word for 'safe'. If you looked normal, or acted normal people would stop thinking of you as a threat. If you looked like everyone else you got a free pass to be whoever you wanted as long as you kept it out of sight – if you didn't, you had to act like everyone else to get your free pass. Akuto hated all of it, every sickening second of the normalcy act. He hated it even more because he knew that nothing was normal behind closed doors.

"Rule Number One," he repeated for the thousandth time in his screwed up life, "If you don't look out for yourself, no one else will." He could tell there was a manic grin plastered on his face as he recited the code by which he lived.

His mother had died from a rare kind of cancer when he was three. He had been too young to understand why she had left, and he had been sad. His father was hit hard by his mother's passing, and with hindsight he could understand his father's actions. That didn't excuse his behavior or make Akuto hate the man any less. When his quirk had manifested his father couldn't stand it. His was a mutation of his mother's quirk – she'd been able to change the structure of her skeleton at will, a skill she had used to make herself into a beautiful and well liked stage performer.

He had inherited his mother's pale complexion, but the white hair and red eyes of his father's lineage made him look like a ghost. When his quirk had manifested and he'd started growing bones over his skin instead of being able to restructure his skeleton like his mother, his father had snapped. The elder Honeshiro hadn't been an overly kind or generous man to begin with, a notorious spendthrift by nature and a self centered narcissist by choice the man had more than a few problems.

It had only taken a year for the man to become abusive, his sorrow and anger driving him to the bottom of the bottle. He drank like a sailor and started yelling like one too. The anger had lasted maybe a year, then the sadness and depression took full hold of him and instead of regular beatings Akuto had suffered from neglect. At age six he'd had to start fending for himself, petty theft became his only source of nourishment and the best way to keep himself from dwelling on his circumstances. He'd been caught easily at first, and his father had been able to keep up the image of a proper parent by 'disciplining' his delinquent son for the next two years. By then he'd gotten much better at stealing and sneaking, but he'd still gotten caught on one of his more daring attempts at self preservation.

It was at age eight that his father could no longer care enough to keep up the charade. Instead of receiving discipline of some sort, the older man had simply thrown him out of the house with only the clothes on his back and a command to 'stay out of his life'. That year had fully cemented Rule Number One in his mind. No one was going to do anything for him, just as no one ever had since his mother's death. If he was going to survive, it would be by his own skill and perseverance.

"Rule Number Two," he mumbled to no one in his dimly lit cubicle, "Don't trust anyone who offers you the world on a silver platter." Akuto couldn't help but rock back and forth, clutching his knees to his chest as he forced himself to relive the worst times of his life much as he had so many times before.

He'd taken up with a gang of misfits around Saga pretty quickly. There wasn't any kind of structure to the group, just everyone trying to make due in their own way. Some kids had quirks that made their lives easier by giving them a way to get what they needed. Others used their innate talents to make a living, earning money or other currency through their efforts. Akuto had always relied on the skills he'd built up during his early years of neglect.

It hadn't taken long for some charming snake to try and manipulate them, and most of the kids had gone willingly when the woman had appeared. She offered them safety and security at her 'business', and a lot of the other kids had taken her at her word. Akuto had been skeptical of the woman at first, her sharp eyes and silver tongue stirring uneasiness in him but she was persistent, and over time she had won him over with her honeyed words and gentle touches.

He'd barely made it out of that hellhole alive.

What the woman had been doing was unspeakable, and he still couldn't bring himself to think too hard on what he'd seen at the tender age of ten. A few kids he might have thought of as friends back then were destroyed by that woman's hand, and while he was no fan of heroes even he had cheered when they finally tore apart her operation. As it turned out, the experience had given him another important rule to live by – if anyone came bearing an offer that sounded like heaven and ambrosia, leg it as fast as you could in the opposite direction.

"Rule Number Three," his voice was barely audible to his own ears as he clicked on articles left and right, "The more important someone makes themselves out to be, the bigger the fool they really are." So many people he'd met were undone by their own self importance, and he'd been more than happy to exploit those flaws for his own gain time and again. His eyes had glazed over hours ago, but still he kept on clicking.

Heroes were fools. They thought they could save everyone and acted like they were the pillars of society, and All Might was an especially large fool for becoming something as ridiculous as the Symbol of Peace. Endeavor was an even bigger fool for trying to surpass All Might. Akuto snorted at yet another article extolling the virtues of the top ten heroes on the billboard charts crossed his momentarily cleared vision. People were obsessed with heroes and it disgusted him, the constant fawning over who was the best and which hero was most popular sickened him.

Self proclaimed villains were even worse. There were idiots like Shigaraki who followed the orders of the manipulative chess masters like good little pawns. The 'leader' of the League of Villains – the stupidest name for a villain organization he'd ever heard – was a child throwing a tantrum because the world had abandoned him. "Couldn't be bothered to learn Rule Number One so he just waited for that gargoyle to snap him up and turn him into a toy to play with." There was a note of contempt in his voice as he spoke to himself.

Then there was Stain, a wannabe hero turned wannabe villain. He fancied himself a savior of the corrupt hero society, but he was just a crybaby who couldn't accept that he couldn't hack it in the world of heroes and decided to take out the so-called 'fakes' – the ones who had learned to play the hero game. Akuto almost laughed as he thought about the Hero Killer's warped ideology, a petulant cry for attention in the face of a reality he couldn't handle. "Better a fool like All Might who at least tried to make a difference than an idiot who decided it couldn't be done from the inside."

The only ones he had any real respect for were the Meta Liberation Army. Still, they were a bunch of fools who thought that change could only be achieved by extreme measures and weren't really any different from the League of Idiots. The only real difference was that they had themselves an honest belief that gave them all hope that things could be made better for them. Time would tell if they'd end up fools like the heroes or fools like the villains. Re-Destro had a good eye for talent and a skill for organization, but he was a low level player trying to make it in the big leagues. "Good ideas, but that will only take them so far."

The click of the mouse and the hum of the tower were the only sounds in his little world at the moment, and it comforted him that no one would bother him for hours yet. He'd spent some time already just reading articles and trawling forums looking for distractions. He would get back to his haunting grounds in time and things would go back to the way they'd always been, but he had to wait until the dust settled before he could move about without attracting attention from the police or the heroes.

The click-click of the mouse brought him to another article, this one of particular relevance to his plight. The UA Sports Festival was coming up, and once it was over the commotion would die down and he would be able to get home. Just a few more days and he could get out of this city and away from the scheming of morons, back to his self-focused way of life.

If only he had known how all this would turn out, he might have stayed in that cubicle forever.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Mineta," Tsuyu's voice echoed across the gymnasium. She had spoken much louder than normal, not quite a yell but clear for all to hear. "Do you know what 'defenestration' means?" Izuku watched somewhat confused as Kaminari and Sero squeezed their knees together. He was a little worried about them, but was more interested in how Mineta simply nodded wide eyed at his classmate's question. "If you finish that sentence now, or ever try to speak it to a female where I can hear you again it will be your punishment."

Izuku blanched at the thought. He didn't know what Mineta had been about to say as he was halfway across the gym from where he had chosen to train that period, but he didn't want to know what would make Tsuyu want to throw him out of a window. The girl with the frog quirk had proven to be one of the most levelheaded people Izuku had ever met. She stayed calm under pressure and could think about things quickly and from interesting perspectives. Whatever his diminutive classmate had been about to say had to be bad to rile her up so much.

He watched as Mineta scurried away from where he had been standing nearby both Tsuyu and Ashido. The smaller boy's mischief was distasteful but ultimately harmless – most of the time. Izuku couldn't really say he liked Mineta, but he didn't have any especially hard feelings for him either. Besides that, the girls and especially Tsuyu, managed to dish out comeuppance whenever he overstepped his boundaries. Izuku glanced around at his classmates as things went back to the way they had been before the interruption.

His eyes did catch on something that had been nagging at his curiosity for a while now. Tokoyami was off in a more distant part of the gymnasium than most of the others but Izuku was probably closest to him, and it seemed like Dark Shadow was giving him a hard time. The bird-shadow was the only quirk Izuku had ever laid eyes on that seemed to have a mind of it's own, and the idea had set his curiosity aflame with questions and speculations. He found his fingers twitching in motions resembling pencil scratching, a clear indicator to anyone watching that he wanted to be writing things down.

In spite of himself Izuku felt himself moving closer to his dark and mysterious classmate, and before he could stop himself he was standing just a few arms lengths away from Tokoyami and Dark Shadow. "Obey this instant insolent shade!" Tokoyami's voice was low, but filled with frustration. Izuku could barely tell, but Tokoyami's brow was furrowed in concentration.

"Not happening," Dark Shadow crossed its arms – or were they wings? – and turned from its owner – partner? – in a huff. "I refuse!" Tokoyami grit his teeth, something Izuku had been very surprised to find the boy even had, and furrowed his brow even deeper in concentration. There was a barely noticeable pull around the area where the two connected but despite his efforts Dark Shadow remained steadfastly apart from its master.

"Is everything okay Tokoyami?" Izuku had spoken before he realized, but instead of shrinking back or apologizing as he would have normally he simply waited for an answer. He felt a little nervous as both of them turned to look at him. Tokoyami seemed a bit startled, but Dark Shadow had a strangely curious expression on its – would you call that a face? There was a moment of silence as both boy and quirk mulled over his interruption.

Tokoyami cleared his throat and straightened his posture. "There is no dire problem Midoriya," he said it in that deeply melodramatic tone that seemed to be his default, "I am merely attempting to subdue my demon back into its cage." Dark Shadow looked over its – shoulder? – and stuck its – tongue? – out at Tokoyami.

"I told you, I don't want to!" Dark Shadow turned away from its master and extended over to where Midoriya was standing. The bird-shadow seemed to look him over, which creeped Izuku out just a little before the entity seemed to approve of him. "Fumi wants to shut me away," the bird-shadow gave Tokoyami a short glare, "But I want to stay and play." Izuku's mind was flitting back and forth between all the questions he wanted to ask about Dark Shadow and what he could do to help.

"Does this happen often?" Izuku's fingers were twitching again, but he ignored it in favor of holding a hand out to Dark Shadow. To his surprise, the bird-shadow nuzzled into his hand and let Izuku pet it. He felt himself let out a small chuckle, and noticed that Tokoyami seemed a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. Izuku wasn't sure but he thought maybe he saw a bit of red under the soft feathers on the other boy's face. Touching the quirk manifestation felt a little like he was running his hand through a particularly thick patch of smoke or fog, but with enough resistance to make it almost solid.

"It happens on occasion," he moved over to where Izuku and Dark Shadow were so that they could talk properly. "Dark Shadow is intimately tied to my emotions, and when my emotions are heightened I have less control over him." Izuku nodded and took note that Dark Shadow had a gender and was male. That made some sense. "I have been somewhat stifled in my training as of late and I have found my frustration has made it that much harder."

"Fumi wants to train with others, but he is afraid that I will hurt them." Dark Shadow's mood seemed to shift from defiantly upbeat to downcast in a matter of seconds. Tokoyami sighed and his head dropped as well. Izuku felt himself getting a bit distressed at the almost forlorn expression on the other boy's face.

"I have reached something of a wall in my training, and I feel that perhaps if I were to spar with someone else it would benefit my advancement." Izuku found that Tokoyami's manner of speech was passingly familiar to Kish's, but while his mentor's style was just as measured Tokoyami's speech seemed to aim for flair rather than evenness. "Unfortunately," he continued, "Dark Shadow can be quite strong in dim lighting and I do not want to risk injuring any of my classmates."

Izuku continued stroking the shadow mass as he thought. Surely there was a way that Tokoyami could train with others without risking injury to them. "Well," Izuku hummed, "What parts of your skill set do you think is the weakest then?" Before Tokoyami could respond however, Izuku had descended into rambling. "Kirishima and I could possibly help you with your power, since we have primarily defensive quirks. You could train with Iida if you want to work on speed and accuracy since he's fast, and it would help him with his evasion." Izuku didn't notice that Dark Shadow seemed to be getting excited as he spoke. "You wouldn't have to hit Iida or anything, just arrange a condition that means success. You could also work on maintaining Dark Shadow's power in bright lights if you asked Aoyama for help, or Bakugo if your feeling brave..."

"Midoriya!" Izuku's mouth snapped shut at the sound of his name, and he turned abruptly to see Aizawa standing over him. He hadn't even sensed his teacher come over to them, even though he'd been working on his awareness in addition to everything else. As always, his teacher seemed to loom over them in that menacing way that could be intensely intimidating when someone had done wrong. Thankfully the looming was benign at the moment.

"Sorry," Izuku said.

"Not that any of your suggestions were bad," Aizawa sighed, "But I think you were starting to overwhelm Tokoyami a bit." Izuku found his hand rubbing the back of his neck again in that nervous twitch he'd been trying to get rid of. "Though I'm impressed that you could come up with so many ways to train Dark Shadow with so little information." Aizawa's eyes swept back to him for a moment and Izuku stifled a flinch at the scrutiny.

"Oh," Izuku blinked. "I just thought that since Tokoyami was worried about hurting his classmates, we could find ways to train without having to make contact." He went back to his training area and came back with one of his notebooks. "With myself or Kirishima, that would kind of be the point," he flipped the notebook open to a page showing a drawing of Iida with lots of hastily scrawled notes in the margins, "But I thought Iida would benefit from training with Tokoyami since it would give him some practice with evasion and sudden changes in his momentum."

Without a word Aizawa plucked the notebook from his hand and in a repeat of his encounter with Kirishima the previous week and Izuku had a flashback to several months ago when Bakugo had done the same thing. He was sure that Aizawa wouldn't destroy his analysis notes, but he wasn't entirely sure he would get them back. He watched apprehensively as his teacher paged through his notes. Once again he thought he saw some kind of glint in Aizawa's eyes, but it was gone before he could make sure just like last time. His nerves were starting to get the better of him when the notebook snapped shut.

"This is good work Midoriya," he said it in that deadpan manner just like every other time he spoke, "But make sure you're getting the other students' permission before you dive this deep into their abilities." Aizawa handed the notebook back to Izuku and he tried not to hug it to his chest, but still gripped it quite hard none the less. "Pro heroes are one thing since they put themselves in the spotlight, but your classmates are still private citizens." He merely nodded at his teacher's words.

"You have fifteen more minutes left before class ends." Aizawa turned away from them and stared across the gym to where Mineta was moving around, and his eyes locked onto the smaller boy. "Put it to good use, unlike some of your classmates." Then he was just gone, and the startled yelp of a small boy with purple hair echoed across the room.

Izuku shook himself out of his stupor and took a calming breath. Then he turned back to where Tokoyami and Dark Shadow were still watching the spectacle of Mineta being strung up by Aizawa's capture weapon. "Would you mind if I took notes on your quirk?"

Tokoyami arched an eyebrow at him, but Dark Shadow gave him a hearty thumbs up.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Shouta had been blessed with more than just a supremely useful quirk. He had inherited a photographic memory from someone in his family, and he'd be sure to thank them when the next Obon Festival came around. He sat in the teachers lounge, school having already let out for the day, and was sketching and scribbling an exact replica of everything he'd seen in Midoriya's notes. He was still somewhat astonished at the level of detail the boy had gone to in his analysis of his classmates' quirks.

"Whatcha got there Eraser!" Shouta winced at the volume of his long time friend and coworker. Yamada Hizashi's voice was one of those things that you either loved or hated, but Aizawa found himself fluctuating between the two whenever he spoke to the man. He spared Present Mic a glance and fought the temptation once again to scoff at all that hair that stuck out like a sore thumb.

"Loud..." He continued his recreation of the notes as he spoke. "Can't you be a little more quiet Hizashi?" He didn't look up from his task this time, but he knew without question that UA's resident English teacher had struck a ridiculous pose. He didn't even want to know how bad it was, but he knew that the way those sunglasses sat on his pointed nose made it even worse than he could imagine.

"How long have we known each other?" He was about to reply with 'too long' when Hizashi continued, "You know that I just can't keep my enthusiasm bottled up! It's part of my charm." He was sure that more than one strange pose had been made during the entire spiel.

"Long enough to know that you read too many bizarre manga," he replied, "But as for your question, I'm replicating a notebook that Midoriya showed me this afternoon." He flipped to another page and began sketching a perfect copy of Midoriya's drawing of Kirishima. He could feel his long time friend peering over his shoulder and braced himself for whatever over the top comment was incoming. The only warning he got was a minute intake of breath.

"Yowza!" Shouta absently wiggled a finger into his now ringing ear to try to ease the pain. "I knew the Green Bean kept meticulous notes and his grades certainly show it," Hizashi plopped down into his seat at the next desk over and shrugged, "But that is some kind of creepy!" There was something of an amused smile on Hizashi's face, solid evidence he wasn't as bothered by it as he was making it seem. Hizashi seemed to be made of energy and hyperbole.

"I already warned him about asking permission," Shouta said, "But I'm frankly impressed with his intuition." He glanced at Hizashi for a moment, finding that irritating grin on his face he got when he was about to say something particularly annoying. Now that he thought about it he had a love hate relationship with his friend's face too and the needle was swinging back to 'hate' at the moment. That ridiculous mustache twitched in the most irritating way before the man spoke.

"Oh?" Shouta already knew what was coming, and he cursed himself for inviting it. "So the ever so impartial Eraserhead deigns to acknowledge the potential we all saw back at the entrance exam?" That infernal grin grew even wider and the sarcasm dripping from his voice made it so much worse. "Poor Midoriya has finally passed the scrutiny of Aizawa's all seeing eyes?" He draped the back of his hand over his face in a dramatic fashion that annoyed Shouta even more. Not for the first time since getting to know Hizashi, Shouta considered punching him in the throat, but he didn't want to bruise his knuckles on that elaborate speaker system so he didn't.

"I never said he didn't have potential," he said, "I just didn't think judging him on a single performance was rational. I've expelled plenty of students that were one trick ponies with no room for growth." Hizashi clicked his tongue and he had to resist the urge to kick his friend's teeth in. He knew that if anyone could hear his thought process when talking to his best friend, they would probably wonder if they were friends at all. Even through all the annoyance Shouta could still say without a doubt that he and Hizashi were indeed friends.

"As I recall there was a whole class a few years back that you deemed 'all flash and no substance' if I'm not mistaken." The Voice Hero's facial expressions were just screaming to be punched right in the nose, but Shouta was a professional. "Where was this practicality on opening day that year, huh?"

"As I recall," he retorted, "Every single one of them failed out of their second choice schools a year later." Hizashi sighed and shrugged once again. Shouta once again prided himself on his restraint. "What have you been up to anyway. You're usually headed home by this time." A dark expression passed over his friend's face this time and he actually turned to face the other man. He raised an eyebrow in a rare show of honest curiosity.

"Nemuri caught me in a discussion that turned into her fantasizing about us again." Shouta's eye twitched. "Every time I so much as look at you for too long she starts going on about how we'd be perfect for each other," he ran his hand across his face, careful not to poke himself on all that studded leather, "It's been going on since we were students here!" He threw his head back in an exasperated sigh that Shouta found a bit too melodramatic for his tastes. Even so he could still appreciate the sentiment.

Shouta resolutely went back to copying Midoriya's notes. "As much as I value our friendship Hizashi," he said, "You would be a terrible domestic partner and I'd never be able to put up with your volume control issues long enough to even be your roommate." Shouta's ears were ringing again moments later.

"HEY!" The indignant expression on Hizashi's face was almost reward enough. "Just what is that supposed to mean?"

A/N: A deeper dive into the mind of my villain OC, the students continue getting ready for the sports festival, and Aizawa deals with the absurdity of teaching - joy. Mineta continues to be a butt monkey, and Midoriya gives in to his desire to analyze Tokoyami just a little bit. He's just trying to be helpful, really. Eraser and Mic showcase the kind of friendship they have - the non shippy kind in this fic.

Any thoughts? I know fishing for reviews/comments is bad form and more than a litte hippocritical of me, but it's just hard to get an idea of how people are taking the story from a view count alone. I should probably start interacting with the stories I read more often too, lol. Old habits die hard I suppose.

At any rate, the Sports Festival starts next chapter. Excited? I really have to stop draggin my feet on finishing the second event so I can get onto the tournament section. Gonna have to re-draft the tournament matchups because of changes to the way things are going to end up, and I think I made them too close to cannon anyway. Question is do I want to match the candidates randomly and work out who wins based on characters, or just try to make up interesting matches for you guys to read about? So much work to do!

Hope you enjoy!

~AQ