Chapter 15: Into The Woods

The children gathered around in the dining room sitting at one of the tables.

"Alright! What do we do!?" Kei asked.

"We call the heroes," Fu said.

"We save Caretaker!" Kiba said at the same time.

The two looked at each other, Fu giving Kiba a raised eyebrow and Kiba giving him a fierce glare.

"We can't wait for the heroes to show up! By than Caretaker could be bird food!" Kiba said.

"Bird Food!?" Eri cried. She was probably the most shaken about the situation. Kioku had tried to comfort her, but given the fact that she was also crying her eyes out it wasn't all too effective.

"I agree with Kiba. Adults are all stupid and they might never save dad." Shiruku said. Given that her only experience with adults is with the O.P.C.C.C., it would be easy to see how she would think something like this. "We're all strong! Let's save him ourselves."

"Yeah yeah!" Sansan nodded. Izuku didn't manage to give her the full dose of her chemical, meaning that only her outer layer was non-acidic.

"Yeah but we're also not allowed to use our quirks to hurt anyone." Fu pointed out. "If we get caught we could get in trouble, and Izuku would probably get in trouble too."

"Better to get in trouble with the heroes than have Izuku become bird food!" Kioku shouted.

Fu looked and saw that most of his siblings were seemingly against his idea.

The zombie boy sighed. "Fine. Well, I guess I can't really stop you. So, how about Kioku and Eri stay behind and call the heroes just in case, and the rest of us go try and save Izuku."

"Why us?!" Kioku asked in outrage.

"Because you're the only two of us here that can't really fight...well Eri technically can but I don't think she'd be comfortable erasing our enemies from existence."

Eri shrunk into Kioku's embrace. Her reaction seemingly gave away her response.

"Alright well if that's settled that we have no time to waste!" Kiba jumped up from the table and started running out.

"You don't even know where he is!" Fu shouted, making Kiba turn around, run back towards the table and sit back down.

"We need to find out where he went!" Kiba shouted, pointing out the obvious.

"The bird went straight after it picked up Izuku. So it's probably somewhere in that direction in the forest." Kioku observed.

"Alright! So we have a plan! Let's go!" Kiba got up and started running again.

"You're running in the wrong direction!" Kei pointed out.

"That girl isn't very smart is she?" Shiruku asked.

"She has a brain, she just chooses not to use it," Fu explained.

Meanwhile, at U.A.

All the teaching staff of U.A. was gathered in a meeting room, after being called by the principal, Nezu.

"Thank you all for arriving on such short notice," Nezu said to start off the meeting. "I apologize for the suddenness of this meeting, however, we've been given a notice by the government."

"A notice?" Aizawa asked. "What kind of notice. Are they going to complain about my expulsions again?"

"Well they did do that but that's not the main point," Nezu explained. "They want us to start working with the O.P.C.C.C. and Izuku Midoriya."

"Ughhhh." Thirteen groaned. They had first-hand experience with the O.P.C.C.C., and they were not impressed.

"The O.P.C.C.C? What do they want now?" Present Mike asked.

This wasn't the first time U.A. had been asked to work with them. Last time they attempted to help teach the children there, however, due to the overall incompetence of the O.P.C.C.C and the children's attitudes, the collaboration ultimately fell through.

"And who is this Izuku Midoriya?" Cementoss asked.

"Izuku Midoriya is the head of the Midoriya family. The O.P.C.C.C struck a deal with him, and now he adopts all the children gathered by the O.P.C.C.C." All Might explained, much to the shock of the others.

"Oh? Have you met him already All Might?" Nezu asked him.

"He's actually a friend of mine." All Might stated.

"So their solution to people not adopting the kids is to just have one guy adopt, all of them." Midnight facepalmed.

"Taking care of that many children, in general, is overwhelming, and given their quirks, it evolves from a bad idea to a calamity waiting to happen." Aizawa sighed.

"Although if this Midoriya person has any sense of reason or cares for these kids in any way, he'll probably have better results than the rest of the O.P.C.C.C.," Thirteen said.

"Well, Midoriya is a very caring and pure-hearted individual. And he's very competent for his age." All Might said.

"For his age?" Aizawa asked. "How old is he exactly."

"Well…" All Might was hesitant to answer.

"Fifteen," Nezu answered in his place.

"WHAT!? Shouted most of the U.A. staff.

"Midoriya Izuku is a fifteen-year-old boy, recently graduated from middle school," Nezu said.

"How did they think this is a good idea!?" Present Mic shouted.

"I don't think I know a fifteen-year-old who could effectively raise one child, let alone a couple dozen!" Midnight added.

"Yeah, this feels borderline illegal." Snipe said.

"It's all perfectly legal, unfortunately, and even more unfortunately they already had him sign a contract stating he'll be doing this for effectively the rest of his life." Nezu shook his head. Hearing that the government which he technically served doing something shady and unethical always made him upset, but this was just blatantly stupid.

"Well does he at least have some kind of quirk that would help him deal with the kids if their quirks go haywire?" Aizawa asked. Under no circumstance did he approve of a child taking care of a horde of younger, more dangerous children, but if he at least had a quirk that made him suited for it, something like Aizawa's own quirk than maybe he could at least understand what lead to the government to do something so scummy.

"Um." All Might didn't want to tell them but he had a feeling Nezu wouldn't hold his tongue.

"He is quirkless," Nezu stated.

More facepalming ensued.

"I didn't even know there were any quirkless children left in Japan!" Present Mic shouted.

"Is there anything else about this kid that points to this being a terrible idea?" Aizawa asked.

"Funny you should say that. Do you recall those principals and teachers we arrested recently?" Nezu asked.

"Yeah, we arrested them because they were discriminating and allowing abuse against a...quirkless...kid...son of bitch." Present Mic said as he put it all together.

"So I'm guessing this kid, who has endured years of physical and mental abuse, is not exactly mentally healthy." Aizawa rubbed his head trying to make the headache go away.

"He shows signs of depression that if they got much worse he would be on a suicide watch list. He seems to have very low self-esteem, and his self-preservation instincts are basically non-existent." Nezu explained.

"So...to clarify. They found a fifteen-year-old, quirkless, abused, mentally unstable, child. And they decided, let's allow him to take care of our mentally unstable, extremely hazardous children." Thirteen summed up.

"That's about right," Nezu confirmed.

Just when it looked like the teachers were gonna lose it, All Might spoke up.

"To be fair, none of the children currently under his care were given to him by the O.P.C.C.C." All Might revealed, not knowing about Shiruku. "All of them were found by him in an extremely bizarre series of events."

"Yes, it is quite strange," Nezu confirmed. "Do you all recall how the Yakuza was taken down?"

"If I recall, the Yakuza were using a little girl's quirk to make their quirk erasing bullets, however, the girl escaped and a...young boy found her and got evidence of them breaking into his house witch gave them enough evidence to launch a full investigation on him...that it's the same kid isn't it." Snipe said putting it all together.

"That's correct," Nezu confirmed.

"Well, at least he's a smart kid," Aizawa commented. "I'm guessing afterward the two of them got attached to each other and the boy adopted her?"

"Correct again," Nezu repeated.

"Hey I just realized, where is this kid's parents?" Present Mic asked.

"Well, his mother is trying to use the money they've gained to start her own business to secure their newfound wealth. This means that she is unfortunately not around, very much. " Nezu explained. "And his father...well his mother will tell you that he went to work overseas. On paper, however, his father abandoned their family after finding out his son was quirkless. It's possible Mrs. Midoriya is in denial about this fact, however."

"Lovely." Aizawa deadpanned.

"So are you saying he just happened to run into other children with dangerous quirks by happenstance?" Midnight asked.

"Yes, about 5 excluding Eri," Nezu revealed much to the surprise of the others. "One of them he adopted after saving her from another villain. Two he encountered while he was selling food in the park, one he found in a pile of trash on the beach, and another one broke into his house and begged to be adopted. This all happened within the span of a few months."

"How does that...what are the odds of that?" Present Mic asked, confusion covering his face.

"Young Midoriya has...strange luck. I wouldn't describe it as bad luck but I definitely wouldn't call it good." All Might explained.

"But that just brings up another question, why does this kid even want to take care of this many kids?" Thirteen asked.

"Young Midoriya is...a very kind and generous soul. Quite brave as well." All Might praised. "He wanted to be a hero however...he was diagnosed quirkless."

"And? Being quirkless doesn't stop you from being a hero. It would make that very difficult I'll admit, but not impossible." Aizawa argued.

"Well...many other people didn't see it that way. And all Midoriya ever heard growing up is that he couldn't be a hero. This combined with the constant bullying destroying his self-esteem, and he became convinced he couldn't be a hero." All Might explained, fighting off the guilt eating away at him for contributing to that. "Afterwards he became...hopeless. Directionless. Left without and purpose in life. He had a drive to do good but he didn't know how."

"So when some children in need came knocking on his door, he was more than ready to do anything to help them." Aizawa finished after figuring out where it was going.

"And I'm sure the O.P.C.C.C. was more than happy to give Midoriya a direction to go in." Thirteen said with no short amount of disgust in their voice.

"So what does the government want us to do here? Aside from trying to keep this from failing horribly." Midnight asked.

"Well aside from that, they also want us to interact with the children frequently, and try to steer them on the path to becoming heroes," Nezu explained.

"So they want us to indoctrinate young children with powerful quirks into becoming heroes." Aizawa summarized.

"That would be the not so hidden agenda yes," Nezu affirmed. "As this is an order from the government we can't exactly refuse it, but we don't have to try all too hard. We just have to invite them over to watch some training exercises, give them a tour, and give them tickets to the sports festival."

"So we just have to keep an eye on them from time to time." Midnight said. "I don't see a problem with that I-"

BRRR BRRR! BRRR BRRR!

Everyone looked at All Might, whose phone was ringing.

"Sorry." All Might apologized as he took at the phone to look at who was calling him.

To his surprise, it was Izuku.

"It's Midoriya." All Might announced.

"Well speak of the devil." Snipe said.

"You can answer it," Nezu told him.

All Might gave him a nod, before answering the phone.

"All Might?" He heard Izuku's voice on the other side.

"Hello, young Midoriya. Did you need something?" All Might asked him. Izuku almost never called him, due to his fear of bothering the hero. Despite his assurances that it was fine.

"Uh, you see...I kind of got kidnapped." Izuku told him sheepishly.

There was a small pause before All Might asked. "Was it by a child?"

"...Yes," Izuku admitted.

All Might sighed. "How does this keep happening to you?"

"I really don't know," Izuku said. "The kid seems to be feral and has a quirk that lets him create and control monsters."

"Are you going to be alright?" All Might asked, getting a bit more concerned than he was previously.

"He doesn't seem to be hostile. Towards me anyway." Izuku told him. "So I think I'm alright. I'm in a cave not too far from the house. The kids probably called the heroes...actually they might have just decided to try and save me themselves...oh my god. All Might please help!"

"Sorry. I used up all my time for the day! But don't worry, I'll send the other heroes immediately!" And with that, All Might hung up.

"What happened?" Nezu asked him, almost sounding concerned.

"Midoriya has been kidnapped...by another child." All Might revealed.

"You're joking right?" Aizawa asked.

"Unfortunately, no, I'm not. He says he's fine but he's afraid the children might try and save him themselves." All Might explained. "Given their quirks, they should be fine, but Midoriya has always been overly worried about the safety of others."

Thirteen sighed. "Well at least he cares...someone has to."

Meanwhile, with the kids.

"Are we there yet?" Kiba asked, sweating heavily.

"You asked that five minutes ago. No." Fu answered slightly annoyed.

The children walked through the forest at a steady pace. Much to the annoyance of some of them.

"Why don't we just run!" Kiba complained. "If we did then we'd definitely make it there faster."

"Yeah, I could probably just swing through this whole forest!" Shiruku added.

"Because not all of us have super speed." Fu reminded them.

"Sorry." Kei apologized sheepishly.

"Don't be, me and Sansan can't run as fast as them either," Fu said.

They walked for a bit longer, going further into the forest yet finding no trace of the bird that stole Izuku.

"Ugh! HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME WALK IN THE SUNLIGHT! COME OUT AND FIGHT ME YOU STUPID BIRD!" Kiba shouted out in anger, her powerful lungs making it resonate through the forest.

For a while, there was nothing but silence.

But, a few moments later, there was a rustling past the bushes.

"I think you're screaming woke something up," Fu noted.

"Is it a snake!" Kei started getting excited and ran over to the bush.

"Kei wait!" Fu tried to warn her.

However, Kei was already looking past the bush.

"Ohhh. Guys I have good news and bad news!" Kei turned to her siblings. "I found something that might help us find Izuku."

"Really!?" Kiba asked, seemingly getting back some of her energy.

"What's the bad news?" Shiruku asked.

"It's a demon bear that looks like it wants to kill us," Kei explained.

"ROARRRRR!" The demon bear roared coming out of the bushes and looming over Kei.

"Kei!" Shouted all the children.

Sansan stretched out and grabbed Kei, pulling her away from the bear just as it was about to swipe her.

"No one tries to hurt my sister and gets away with it! Prepare to perish beast!" Kei shouted at the bear, prepared to fight it.

The others all got ready to fight, but Kei stopped them

"Wait!" Kei told them. "Don't kill it! If we hurt it then it might go back it's nest with the bird!"

"Smart," Fu commented.

"Alright! Then I'll just tear it's arms off!" Kiba gave the bear a savage smirk.

"RAHHHH!" The bear charged the children with its claws bared.

Shiruku shot out two webs at the beast claws, covering them in thick webs and rendering them harmless.

The bear stopped charging and looked at its paws in confusion, trying to shake off the webs to no avail.

Then Sansan stretched her arm back, further and further, before letting it fly forward towards the bear, hitting it right in the chest.

"RAHHH!" The bear went flying back into a tree, which cracked from the impact.

"Shadow kick!" Kiba shouted her attack name as she jumped towards the bear, kicking it in the chest and sending it flying through the tree and into the forest.

The bear recovered, getting on its four legs and attempting to run, although it was rather difficult given that two of its paws were still webbed.

"After it! Follow that demon!" Kiba ordered, running after the demonic bear.

Sansan grabbed onto Fu with one arm and Kiba with the other, allowing Kiba to drag the two of them.

Shiruku grabbed onto Kei and ran after them.

The bear tried to get away the best it could, but it stood no chance against the children's speed, allowing them to easily follow it back to its cave.

"RAWWW!" The bear roared, as it reached the outside of the cave.

"I think we found it's hideout!" Kiba said, coming to a halt.

"But it's not going inside," Fu noted.

Suddenly three black wolf monsters emerged from the cave, and the blackbird flew out from behind the caves.

All five of the monsters stared down the children, growling and ready to fight.

"Oh, it was calling for help." Kei realized.

The bird was the first to attack, flapping its wings and shooting out its huge sharpened feathers at them.

The children jumped out the way, Shiruku still holding Kei as she was the slowest and most fragile among them.

The wolves charged them.

Sansan enlarged her hands and grabbed two of the wolves. Then she moved around her layers, bringing her acid to the front, which proceeded to eat away at the wolves.

"Rah! RAH! RAHHHH!" The two wolves cried out as they suddenly dissipated, leaving behind faint traces of dark smoke.

The last wolf ran towards Kiba, it's jaw open and ready to maw her, however, Kiba wasn't having it.

She grabbed both it's upper and lower jaw, stopping it in its tracks.

"How dare a lowly monster like you attack the queen of eternal darkness!" Kiba shouted at it. "Return to the void!"

Kiba then turned the beast to the side and ripped it in half by its jaws. Turning it into dark smoke as well.

Meanwhile, Fu had to fight the already weakened bear.

The bear swung at Fu with its massive log sized arm, but Fu barely managed to duck under it and punched it in the gut.

But this did nothing.

The bear then looked down at Fu, opened its jaw, and bit off his upper torso, before swallowing it whole.

"FU!" Shiruku, who was still carrying Kei while dodging the bird's attacks.

"Don't worry! Fu can regenerate from anything.

And that's exactly what was happening.

"Rahh!" The bear roared out in pain, as he felt something moving around inside of him. Attacking his insides and killing him from the inside.

The bear fell to the floor, and dissipated into black smoke, releasing Fu. Who unfortunately had lost a good amount of his clothing, including his pants.

Shiruku kept dodging the bird's feathers, her enhanced speed, and reflexes allowing her to easily evade its attacks.

"What does your quirk do?" Shiruku asked Kei.

"I can turn people to stone when they look at my eyes," Kei explained. "That's why I wear this weird sunglass thing."

"Wha-wait! Why didn't you do that when they were all looking at us?" Shiruku asked her.

"Because I think Kiba and Sansan really wanted to punch them," Kei said.

Shiruku sighed and looked up at the bird.

Quickly coming up with a plan, she waited for the bird to get close to shoot its feathers.

She jumped up onto the feathers as they came at her, her incredible agility allowing her to do so despite their speed.

When she got high enough, she shot a web at the bird's chest, before pulling herself towards it.

Once she crawled onto the bird's chest, the bird did everything it could to shake her off, but to no avail.

Shiruku crawled onto it's back, before moving to its head.

"Oh, I see!" Kei understood the plan now and took off her visor.

Shiruku shoved Kei in front of the bird's face, making it look at her eyes.

Kei's quirk worked quickly, as the bird was quickly enveloped in stone from top to bottom until it was turned into a stone statue.

And of course, it started falling out of the air like the rock it now was.

Shiruku jumped off the stone bird and quickly started excreting web, turning it into a parachute that let them float down to the ground safely.

The bird crashed into the ground hard, cracking into many pieces, before turning into dark smoke and dissipating.

"We are triumphant!" Kiba cheered. "And all unscathed."

"I don't know, I feel kinda scathed," Fu said, covering his private parts.

"Oh, dear." Shiruku gasped when she saw Fu's lack of clothing. "Let me help."

"Thanks." Fu wasn't quite embarrassed, but he was slightly flustered.

A few minutes later.

After making Fu some makeshift clothes, the children ventured into the cave. Finding it to be surprisingly well lit.

Once they saw the bones lining up towards the main room of the cave, they knew that's where they'd find the final boss.

"Alright, we know not what horrific beast might face us. But we know our own strength! We shall win this day! And take back our Caretaker!"

"Yeah!" Kei and Sansan cheered. With Fu and Shiruku giving less enthusiastic cheers.

They all charged in…

And were immediately underwhelmed.

Inside the main room was Izuku, throwing a black orb back and forth with a small child about as old as they were.

The boy had pure white skin and hair. The white part of his eyes was instead, black. And his pupils were blood red. His teeth were like sharpened fangs, ready to tear into anything he bit.

And lastly, he was totally naked.

"Catch!" Izuku shouted, throwing the black ball at the child, who caught it and threw it back at him.

"...You know, I really should have seen this coming." Fu deadpanned.

"I don't know why this keeps surprising me!" Kiba stomped her foot in frustration.

"Izuku!" Kei immediately ran over to Izuku and tackled him with a hug.

"Ouph!" Izuku grunted in pain as he fell to the floor. "Wha-Kei!"

"Sansan!" Sansan said her own name as she jumped in to hug Izuku as well.

"Wha-what are you-what are you all doing here?" Izuku asked them all.

"We came to rescue you." Kiba turned to the boy. "From this scoundrel!"

"GRRRRRR!" The boy growled at them all.

"W-wait! Don't!" Izuku tried to keep the boy from attacking them.

However, this didn't stop the boy, as he suddenly vomited up black goop.

"Ew." Shiruku backed away from the boy.

The black goop turned into a small pool of ooze, bubbling and sizzlingly creepily.

Then, from the goop, rose an arm. And soon another dark wolf emerged from the goop.

"Oh, so that's where they come from," Kei said.

The wolf growled as did the child, seemingly ordering it to attack.

"Don't worry. I got this." Shiruku shot a web at Kei's visor, and pulled it off, revealing her eyes to the boy and the wolf, immediately turning them to stone.

Shiruku then walked over to the wolf, and smashed it to pieces, turning it to black smoke.

"Problem solved," Shiruku said, handing Kei back her visor.

"Well, that was disappointing." Kiba pouted.

"I'd say finding Izuku alive is the opposite of disappointing," Fu said.

"It's not about the destination, it's about the journey," Kei repeated something she heard.

"The journey was mostly us walking through a forest, and then we fought some monsters." Shiruku deadpanned.

"Yeah, but it was so cool!" Kei turned to Izuku. "Izuku, Izuku! Me and Shiruku flew in the sky and we beat the giant bird!"

Izuku looked at the statue of the child he knew would no doubt be taking care off, and then at his other children who were talking amongst themselves.

He sighed. "That's great Kei."

A few days later.

After the heroes finally arrived, they took the boy away into the care of the O.P.C.C.C. for the time being.

When Izuku got back, he was met with tight hugs from Eri and Kioku, who didn't let him go for the next two days.

Now, he and Namae were sitting at his desk. Discussing how they would deal with this.

"So after some searching, we finally figured out where the hell this kid came from," Namae said. "Apparently two unknown people moved into the woods, for some reason, and had a kid. Then while the kid was an infant, the two were killed by some forest animals. Apparently, the kid was one of those kids who was born with his quirk, and he used it to defend himself and survive in a wild, away from basically everyone else. We found an old house and some skeletons but we can't identify their bodies nor can we find out the kid's name."

"So he's been surviving on his own this whole time. Poor kid." Izuku said sadly. "But...why did he kidnap me?"

"Well we handed the kid over to some quirk researchers and here is what they said." Namae pulled out a piece of paper and started reading off it. "The child's quirk allows him to absorb the negative emotions of people and animals, and use them to create his Grimm."

"Grimm?" Izuku questioned. "Are those the monsters he made?"

"Yup, it stands for Grotesque, revolting, infernal, misshapen, monstrosities," Namae explained.

Izuku gave her a befuddled look. "Did...did you guys come up with the acronym first and what it stood for second?"

"Definitely. We didn't want to come up with another terrible name like O.P.C.C.C again." Namae said. "Speaking of which we're planning on changing that, coming up with something a bit less dumb."

"O...k," Izuku said. "Please continue what you were saying."

"Hmm? Oh yeah, the report." Namae looked back at the paper. "He can detect a person's emotions by looking at them. The more negative emotions around, the more powerful and more numerous Grimm he can create. However, he can also detect positive emotions. It's possible that he hadn't seen positive emotions until he met Midoriya, and as such became curious."

"So it's just because he never saw positive emotions," Izuku repeated in a sad tone.

"That's about right," Namae said leaning back on her chair and putting her feet on Izuku's desk. "Man you've found more of these kids in a few months than we have in a year!"

"That's not a good thing." Izuku reminds her of her very serious voice. "I'd also like to know how the O.P.C.C.C. missed a child and his army of demon animals, that was right next to where you decided to build our house."

"Oh, we just didn't look around. We found a big patch of land and said, yeah this good." Namae shrugged. "I mean I really don't have an excuse for this one. We just got lazy."

Izuku facepalmed. "Please make sure you search around the area. I don't want this happening again."

"I'll pass it to the higher up," Namae said, getting up and getting ready to leave. "You should get the kid back in a few days once we manage to get him to behave somewhat properly and find a way to keep him from going all feral on ya. Until then I'd get a room and some meat ready. See ya!"

Once Namae left, Izuku pushed the button and activated the intercoms. "Everyone, please come to my office."

He took a deep breath as he waited for the children to come. It was time for to parent.

Eventually, all the kids gathered in his office.

Eri looked about as nervous as she usually did, if not a bit more so. She was holding hands with Kioku who was doing her best to keep a strong face to comfort her but was also a bit nervous.

Kei looked as she usually did, happy and excited.

Kiba looked absolutely brimming with pride. Clearly expecting to be praised.

Fu had his typical poker face on. No emotions showing whatsoever.

Sansan was her typical bubbly self, still moving and never standing completely still.

Lastly, Shiruku also looked nervous as well.

Izuku took another breath. Before speaking. "Firstly. Thank you all for coming to save me. I'm glad that I mean enough to you all that you'd risk yourselves to help me."

"Of course we would! We love you Izuku!" Kei shouted aloud.

Izuku fought the urge to cry as his heart clenched in happiness.

"If it weren't for you we'd all either be in some government box or on the street." Kioku said.

"Naturally you can count on your children to come for you even at the darkest of times. Although it's a stretch to say we were in danger." Kiba said proudly.

"And Fu. I appreciate your way of thinking. Eri and Kioku thank you for staying behind." Izuku told them.

"It feels like there's a but coming," Fu said.

"But. Please never do it again." Izuku told them. "What you did was brave but also dangerous."

Kiba opened her mouth to retaliate.

"I know you're all strong, but you're all still children. You all have little to no training and practically zero experience. If there was a powerful villain or group of villains, they could have hurt or even killed one of you." Izuku told them. "No one is invincible, and if something happened to any of you I...I don't even want to think about it."

Some of them wanted to argue back. Say that their strength would be enough. But the look of pure sadness on Izuku's face made them quiet back down.

"Please. If anything like that happens then just call the heroes and wait for them to do their jobs." Izuku told them.

"But adults are all dumb! What if they didn't save you!" Shiruku argued.

"Not all adults are like the ones from the O.P.C.C.C. there are a lot of nice, and smart adults," Izuku told her.

He got up and walked over to the children.

"I know that it's hard to trust others. You've all been treated badly by people in the past. So have I." He told them. "But the world isn't as bad as you think it is. And the heroes are there to make sure that people are safe. So please trust them to help you when we're in trouble. And don't make me worry about you. Ok."

The children responded with a chorus of Ok's from the kids. All except Kiba.

Izuku looked at Kiba, patiently waiting for her response.

"I suppose...I could allow it...but when I become a hero, I'll save you all by myself!" Kiba swore.

Izuku smiled and brought her into a hug. "I'm sure you'll be one of the best."

"The best." Kiba corrected, hugging Izuku back very gently.

"Group hug!" Kei shouted, hugging Izuku's back.

The rest of the children joined in until it was basically a dog pile with Kiba and Izuku on the bottom.

I won't punish them this time. They must have been so worried about me. And I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing if I were them. Izuku thought. If this happens again I'll have to be more firm. I can't let them get hurt. Izuku promised.