The Successor Ch. 66 (My Hero Academia) (Patreon)

A/N: Izuku has a talk with Shouko. Things don't go quite as planned.

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He’s very tempted to blow Shouko off. He has so many good reasons after all! There’s Midnight, for instance… though it’s entirely possible he was reading too much into that wink she gave him. But even if he discarded Midnight as an option, there was still the rest of his team to consider as well! Momo, Itsuka, and Mei had all earned the chance to celebrate with him, had they not?

Finally, there was also the matter of this Shinso Character. Izuku was not used to going in blind when it came to his opponents, and while it was entirely possible he wouldn’t even face Shinso in the final battles, it was equally possible that he would. Looking into what the other man was capable of just made sense if he wanted to continue to stay on top.

… But he HAD made a wager with Shouko before this whole thing began. And now they were well on their way to having the opportunity to have their fight and find out who would defeat the other, once and for all. On top of that, Izuku was well aware that Shouko Todoroki had broken her own rule. She’d used the fire part of her Quirk.

He was under no disillusions about that, of course. He wasn’t expecting her to thank him for finally breaking a mental block or something. No, while she didn’t look as angry as before, she was still glaring at him quite intensely. Still… he probably owed her at least a word or two.

“Very well.”

Looking to his teammates, Izuku smiles at them all.

“Ladies, don’t let me stop you from celebrating our victory. Whether we face each other in the upcoming event or not, I wish you all the best of luck.”

Amusingly enough, it’s Mei who protests, even as Momo and Itsuka both blush and nod.

“What?! But we need to celebrate the successful tests of all my babies! It won’t be the same without you!”

Laughing a little at the pinkette’s exuberance, Izuku waves her off.

“We’ll celebrate later. If not before the final battles, then after the Sports Festival entirely, alright?”

Mei Hatsume pouts at this and he gets the feeling she’s quick to latch onto people. Especially people who don’t get turned off by her excitable over-the-top attitude, he supposes. Still, she lets Momo and Itsuka lead her off in one direction, while Izuku lets Shouko lead him in another direction entirely.

Soon they’re all alone and the taciturn young woman whips around to face him, her eyes narrowing as she crosses her arms over her chest.

“… You made me break my pledge, Midoriya. You made me use that man’s fire.”

Izuku raises an eyebrow at that, able to control his reaction because he’d been half-expecting this from her. But just because he’s in control doesn’t mean he’s going to placate her.

“I didn’t make you do anything, Todoroki. Your actions were your own and if some part of you instinctively realized that you needed to use the full breadth of YOUR Quirk in order to beat me, that’s not my fault.”

His matter of fact tone and unwillingness to back down cause Shouko to tremble. Her teeth grit together, her eyes narrowing even further until they might as well be slits. The scarred young woman looks on the verge of blowing up or even attacking him for a moment before finally reeling herself back in and letting out a huff.

“… I thought you of all people would understand, considering that you’re HIS son.”

For a single moment, Izuku all but freezes time. He wouldn’t say that his heart stops in his chest or anything as overly dramatic as that, but he has the ability to rapidly speed up his perception and Shouko’s words definitely trigger his instinctive use of that ability as he turns her words over in his head again and again.

Surely not, right? There was no way that the young woman knew he was All for One’s son. How would she have even found out? And if she knew, did that mean Endeavor somehow knew? Izuku definitely didn’t like that…

… But no, the longer he thinks about it the more he realizes he’s being stupid. Nothing he’s done should have given away his true parentage. However, plenty that he’s done had likely given Shouko Todoroki the entirely wrong impression. She didn’t think he was his father’s son. She thought he was All Might’s son.

That realization calms Izuku down significantly. She was wrong of course, but not completely off base. Letting his perception slow back down to normal speeds, Izuku chuckles and states her assumption point blank.

“You think I’m All Might’s son?”

Annoyed by his amused tone, Shouko nods sharply.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. Your Quirks are just too similar. And I’ve seen the way that Nana Shimura looks at you. She was All Might’s mentor, was she not?”

It’s a rhetorical question, one Izuku doesn’t bother answering. Instead, he shrugs and gives Shouko a grin.

“Maybe I’m not All Might’s son. Maybe I’m just some bastard who stole his Quirk from him like a vampiric parasite who drained him dry.”

Heh, closer to the truth then Shouko’s assumption had gotten. And yet, Shouko just scoffs, shaking her head at what she clearly thinks is just a joke on Izuku’s part. Then, she turns more somber.

“… Tell me, Midoriya. What do you know of my circumstances?”

Quite a lot, but Izuku doesn’t want to come across as a stalker. Instead, he gestures to her invitingly.

“Why don’t you tell me what you think I should know?”

Shouko doesn’t hesitate to launch into a rather sordid tale about Quirk Marriages. Despite growing up in a financially stable home with a roof over her head and all the necessities she needed to survive, Shouko Todoroki had not had a particularly easy life. Her father had married her mother specifically because he was looking to create a more powerful Hero. Specifically because he wanted to surpass All Might but realized he never would.

Shouko and her siblings had suffered for this, each in their own way. But Shouko… well, life had been particularly hard for her because she was the ‘success’. She was the one that Endeavor pinned all of his hopes and dreams on. And in doing so… she was the one who earned her mother’s hatred when the poor woman had a psychological break.

Izuku felt for Shouko. Really he did. Being scarred by one’s own mother because one’s own father broke her down over the years, eroding her sense of self bit by bit with his negligence and expectations… it was a lot for someone as young as Shouko had been. At the same time…

“… And so that’s why I refuse to use that man’s flames. I will be a Hero with nothing but my ice, to prove to my mother that it was her Quirk that was always the stronger of their joining, not Endeavor’s. I thought you might understand, seeing as you’ve been quite careful to hide your connections to All Might. You don’t want to live in his shadow either, do you?”

Izuku hums for a moment, trying to decide how to respond to that. In the end, he goes for blunt honesty.

“I won’t live in his shadow. I have no intention of letting those who came before us dictate my actions, Todoroki. Not in the same way you’ve let them dictate yours.”

Shouko stiffens at that, but Izuku bulldozes right over her, continuing on with the same speech he’s been giving her all along.

“Your flames are your own, Shouko. I find it telling that you call it YOUR ice, but Endeavor’s flames. Clearly some part of you understands that your Quirk, Fire and Ice, is YOUR Quirk.”

However…

“That said, I understand wanting to get back at Endeavor. I understand not wanting to dance to his tune. I just think you’re going about it all wrong.”

Shouko looks a little confused by that.

“What do you mean?”

Izuku grins.

“I’m glad you asked. Basically, you’re rebelling against Endeavor right now by only using one half of your Quirk. Yes? This is defiance, plain and simple.”

Shouko hesitates for a moment, but slowly nods. She can’t really deny it after all. It IS defiance. It IS rebellion. And Izuku doesn’t begrudge her it either. It’s just the wrong kind in his opinion.

“The problem isn’t that you’re rebelling, Shouko. The problem is that you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

The old idiom takes Shouko a second to process but once she does she begins to scowl again. Izuku just continues on though.

“I’m serious. You want to get back at Endeavor? Fine. You want to rebel and defy him? Good, frankly. But doing it the way you’re doing it is hurting yourself more than it’s hurting him. Your flames are YOUR flames. You should use them without a care in the world what he thinks… and get back at Endeavor in other ways that don’t harm your personal growth as a Hero. Become the strongest Pro Hero you can be… AND spit in Endeavor’s eye at the same time.”

Now Izuku can tell that he’s finally got her attention. Shouko actually looks to be listening to his words for once, digesting them and turning them over in her head for a few moments. But she still seems uncertain, leaving Izuku to sigh and roll his eyes at her.

“Surely there must be some way you can defy Endeavor without completely rejecting a part of yourself in the process, Shouko.”

She hesitates for a moment more before shifting from foot to foot.

“I… refuse to attend Endeavor’s training sessions. I train on my own instead.”

She sounds almost adorable with how hesitant she is. Not quite seeking Izuku’s approval but tossing out the idea to see what he thinks of it all the same. Of course, part of Izuku wants to point out that refusing training from the Number Two Pro Hero is kind of also shooting herself in the foot… but at the same time, based on what he knows of Shouko and her father’s relationship, any training that Shouko forced herself to go to might do more harm than good anyways.

Besides, he’d take his victories where he could get them.

“That’s a good one. And why can’t you continue doing that while also using your flames? Just because you train alone doesn’t mean you can’t find ways to use Fire and Ice together in battle.”

Shouko ponders this for a moment, but Izuku doesn’t want to give her too much time to stew in her own mind so he snaps his fingers.

“Alright, come on. What else? There has to be other ways to displease Endeavor without stifling your own growth.”

The young woman standing across from him hesitates for a moment and then looks at him with an unreadable expression.

“… Yes. There is.”

Before Izuku can ask her for clarification, Shouko gives it to him… by abruptly surging forward and grabbing the front of his shirt with both hands to pull him into a sudden kiss. Their lips crash together and it’s immediately obvious Shouko doesn’t really know what she’s doing. She’s trying to kiss him, but there’s a lot more to kissing then just ramming two sets of lips together.

Still, after a moment she pulls back, flustered and panting for breath as she looks at him with an interesting spark in her eyes.

“… Well, that’s certainly a choice.”

“Endeavor would never approve. Even if he didn’t know your true parentage, he wouldn’t approve of you. He probably expects me to let him marry me off to someone else for a Quirk Marriage just like he had with my mother, to continue making the strongest possible offspring. But I won’t dance to his tune. I refuse.”

Izuku smiles and nods… before pointing out the obvious.

“You know I’m dating Momo, right?”

Shouko deflates a little, clearly having forgotten or simply not thought about that fact. Of course, Izuku isn’t done.

“I’ve also fucked about half of our class by now. And I’m fucking Momo’s fellow Class Rep, Itsuka Kendo, on the regular as well.”

Jolting, Shouko looks at him with wide eyes, clearly not having expected that blunt honesty. Izuku just shrugs.

“Momo knows of course. She doesn’t care. In fact, she encourages it.”

He thinks to Momo’s sister Yor when he says those words, but he doesn’t plan on telling Shouko about HER… nor about the teachers he’s fucked at this point as well. Best to keep some secrets.

“I’m saying all of this because… well, I wouldn’t mind getting with you, Shouko. But like I said before, you need to find ways of getting back at your father that don’t hurt you in the process. Is leaping into bed with me something you want, or is it something that you’ll regret later?”

Hesitating, the young woman seems to ponder Izuku’s words for a time. Or at least, he thinks she’s pondering them. The next words out of Shouko’s mouth make him think that his last few sentences went in one ear and out the other.

“… A harem… yes, Endeavor would hate it if I joined a harem…”

That wasn’t what Izuku meant at all. And really, it probably would be a harem if Momo got her way, but he wasn’t sure what he’d said to make Shouko think he had one NOW… even if he probably did if one counted those like Rumi and the others, not to mention Nana and Yor… sheesh, when did his life get so complicated?

Still holding him by the front of his shirt, Shouko comes to a decision and grips all the more tightly on him as she looks at him with a somewhat wild glint in her eye.

“Izuku Midoriya. I w-wish to join your harem! Have sex with me, right here and right now!”

… He should have just followed Midnight after all.

But hindsight was twenty-twenty, and with Shouko practically on top of him, there didn’t seem to be any real escape. Well, aside from saying ‘no’. But that felt like it would set Shouko back a fair bit. He was finally making progress with the young woman, managing to turn her away from hurting herself just to spite her father.

If he was going to do this though, it was a question of how. It was undeniably Shouko’s first time, so he should probably be slow and gentle with her-

“Ruin me, Midoriya! Ravage me!”

… Though she might fight him on that if he tried to go that route, apparently. Fuck.