Narration POV
Nezu heard the click of his door as in walked his favorite student, his protege, Arthur, sword at his waist and wearing his blue scarf along with the U.A. uniform, the latter of which was strange as it was late in the night. Most students would have changed into casual clothes by now, would have settled into the comfort of their dorms and the promise of sleep, but Arthur was not most students. He never had been and most likely never would.
Nezu smiled when seeing the boy and Arthur unconsciously smiled back, one wider than even he knew he was capable of giving.
"Would you like some tea lad?" Nezu asked as he always did, holding up a cup of jasmine. The steam curling upward. Arthur simply chuckled and declined with a shake of his head, his blonde hair swaying slightly with the motion.
"You told me your mom was British, I will never understand why you don't like tea."
"Can't stomach the taste," Arthur replied, his voice carrying across the office.
"That makes even less sense, you inhale food."
"One of the world's mysteries then it would seem, we aren't meant to know everything."
"That is where you and I disagree lad," Nezu smiled as he took a sip of the tea, the aroma hitting his small yet powerful nostrils and making his pupils expand. The warmth spread through him.
The office fell into silence. Not an awkward one mind you, Nezu and Arthur had long passed that part of their relationship. The early days had been filled with tension, with suspicion on one side more than another, in fact if the first year of their relationship hadn't been mostly through a phone they probably wouldn't be at this point. Now however all that was left was a calming silence where idle talk wasn't needed.
Nezu finished gulping down his tea, savoring the last of the jasmine's warmth, then bounced from his chair. His shoes made soft sounds against the floor as he walked over to the glass wall that normally sat at his back, the one that overlooked Musutafu in all its glittering splendor. Arthur walked to his side, his footsteps heavier but just as quiet, the sword at his waist not making even the slightest sound.
Nezu's usually eerie grin widened as he snapped his fingers, the sound muffled by the fur of his paws. With that small gesture the glass Arthur and Nezu were looking through rose and disappeared into the ceiling, sliding away.
The wind hit both of them immediately. It was wild and comforting all at once. Nezu's fur wrinkled when it struck him, ruffling against his small frame, while Arthur's golden hair now writhed in the breeze. Once the glass was fully gone Nezu sat on the edge, his legs dangling over the precipice, and patted at his side in invitation.
Arthur nodded without hesitation, sitting beside him and letting his own legs dangle into the abyss. More than ten meters separated them from the ground below, a distance that would have made most people's stomachs clench with vertigo. Not that anything would happen if he fell of course. They both knew that. Arthur could survive falls that would reduce normal men to nothing.
For a moment they simply sat there, two figures silhouetted against the night sky, watching over a city that slept unaware of their vigil.
"Do you like it?" Nezu asked, his eyes taking in Musutafu spread beneath them. The lights of the city stretched to the horizon.
"I do."
"It's a beautiful sight," Nezu added, his gaze turning upward now. The sky above was a dark canvas marred by the glow from below, washing out all but the brightest stars. "Too bad about the light pollution though, I could have told you what each star was named and where they were in the universe if we could see them."
"I can see them," Arthur replied, his own gaze following Nezu's to the sky. His eyes, blue and deep took it all in. Thousands of stars. Millions perhaps. "They are a beautiful sight as well."
Nezu sighed along with a chuckle. "Sometimes I wonder just how powerful you actually are."
"Another of life's mysteries I suppose," Arthur chuckled back, and there was warmth in it.
Again silence befell them. The wind continued its gentle assault, carrying distant sounds from the city below. Not much later Nezu broke the quiet.
"You know I had this installed because of you."
Arthur turned towards Nezu, cocking his head to the side in befuddlement. His brow furrowed slightly.
"Remember the entrance exams," Nezu began, and Arthur nodded slowly. How could he not remember them? It was one of their more heated arguments, one that had nearly ended their relationship before it truly began. "You burst out of my windows, so much broken glass," Nezu chuckled at the memory, his tail swishing behind him. "I thought this a much better way for you to leave if you have any sudden bursts."
Arthur chuckled back, the sound genuine, and let his back fall to the office floor. He knew it was as clean as clean could be because Nezu had quite a few ticks about such things. Arthur stared up at the ceiling for a moment before speaking.
"That first lesson," Arthur answered. "I think I learnt it a while ago. Restraint."
"You did," Nezu said, pride evident in his squeaky voice. "You didn't even wiggle while in the Sports Festival matches and even I almost intervened in Midoriya's and Todoroki's."
The memory of that fight flashed through Arthur's mind. The flames. The ice. Two boys tearing themselves apart for reasons that went far deeper than a simple competition. His hands had itched to intervene, to stop the destruction, to heal what was broken. But he hadn't.
"Cementoss-sensei was there," Arthur replied. "I trusted him to handle it."
"Still lad I'm proud. I know it wasn't easy for you."
It hadn't been. But restraint meant understanding when action was needed and when it wasn't. When intervention would help and when it would only make things worse. It was a lesson he was still learning, would probably always be learning.
"Speaking of lessons," Nezu continued, his tone shifting to something more businesslike, "I have your marks from your subjects. Do you want to know?"
"No, I'll wait," Arthur replied, sitting back up to face the sprawling city once more. "I want to either celebrate or cry with the rest."
The answer made Nezu pause. Remembering the boy he had met for the first time in a hospital room, he had been alone then, isolated by choice and circumstance both.
Nezu nodded slowly. "You really have changed for the better I believe. It's funny though," his grin took on a mischievous edge, "I can't believe you went on a date."
"It's been a week and a half since, can we please not talk about it anymore."
"What, embarrassed?" Nezu asked back, prodding him with his tail. The fluffy appendage poked at Arthur's side, and the boy turned away so that Nezu couldn't see his face. But Nezu didn't need to see. The slight tension in Arthur's shoulders, the way his ears had reddened just slightly at the tips, told him everything. "Oh you are, aren't you."
"Please let's leave it alone."
"Ok, ok, I'll let it go," Nezu laughed, raising his paws in surrender. Arthur thanked him quietly, the words almost lost to the wind. His composure returned slowly, the embarrassment fading.
"Practical exams are tomorrow," Arthur added, clearly eager to change the subject. "The class is saying they'll be like the entrance exams."
"Can't tell you, tis a secret lad," Nezu replied, that eerie grin returning. "Although there is one thing you should know. You aren't doing them. It was one of the reasons I called you here."
Arthur's head turned to face him. "Why not?"
"You're too strong, simple as that. The best we could do is have you play a chess match against a teacher and that's not very practical." Nezu paused, letting that sink in before continuing. "After all, according to what I have calculated, the chances of you beating All Might as he is now is over 98.6%."
Arthur smiled for reasons unknown to Nezu himself.
"Where did you get that number from?"
"Quite a lot of mathematics and measuring something I'm sure you wouldn't enjoy listening to."
Arthur agreed with that sentiment and so silence befell them once more, until Arthur was the one to break it.
"How's the other thing going?" Arthur asked, his voice quiet.
"The HPSC?" Nezu wondered back, already knowing the answer.
"Yes."
"It's coming along. Building a case against an institution like that without their knowing is no simple task, even for a mouse as esteemed as myself."
Arthur's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "So it's true, Stain's story?"
"Most yes, at least it seems so."
The confirmation settled heavily in Arthur's chest. He had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that some of what the Hero Killer had said was exaggeration. Lies born from madness. But the truth was often uglier than fiction.
"Who was the Sniper then?"
"I still haven't found that out."
Arthur gulped, the next question clogging his throat. He didn't want to ask. Part of him already knew the answer, but he had to be certain. "What about Endeavor? What did Stain mean about that?"
Nezu was quiet for a long moment, his dark eyes studying Arthur with that calculating intelligence that made him who he was. "It seems you have restrained yourself more than I thought. I would have guessed that you would have asked Todoroki yourself."
"No, I didn't."
"Well then yes," Nezu continued, "I have gathered evidence of his wrongdoings as well. However I prefer not telling you as of now. In fact, until everything is completed, the less you know the better."
Arthur nodded, though a part of his curiosity and his ever heroic nature told him to continue to ask. Yet again restraint came into play, and he kept his mouth closed. Trust. He had to trust that Nezu knew what he was doing. Had to believe that justice would come in time.
"However I guess there is something I could tell you, as it involves myself." Nezu's voice had softened. "You told me some of your past after all, so let me satiate that curiosity I can see in your eyes with my own past."
Arthur raised his hands immediately. "Nezu you don't have to,"
"Not to worry lad, this is something I have decided a long time ago." Nezu's gaze drifted to the city below, but his eyes weren't seeing the lights anymore. They were seeing something else. Something older. "I guess it all starts around when I was a wee mouse. I was part of an experiment you see. My own mother held a quirk though it was nothing great, a simple quirk that gave her slightly thicker fur. Honestly calling it a quirk is a hyperbole, it was much closer to a normal mutation, but it nevertheless held a quirk factor. I was part of her brood, one born to see if quirks could mutate and advance in animal species that were not human. Of course, to help this along, the brood's own DNA structure was changed so as to enhance the likelihood of a quirk appearing."
Arthur listened intently as Nezu explained his upbringing. How the scientists never expected a quirk to mutate so much in a single generation. How they had been ecstatic at first, then curious, then clinical.
How Nezu was torn from his mother and prodded so as to see exactly why his quirk factor had evolved so much. How far his intelligence went. How they pushed and pushed, trying to find the limits of a mind that had none, even how he had received the scar that crossed his eye.
"I despaired," Nezu continued, his voice barely above a whisper.. "I thought I would never get out. Even with my intelligence, when all you know is solitude and pain, it is hard to think straight. That all changed one day when an intern whose name I never even knew walked in. She had a mutant quirk that made her quite the looker, and not in a good way. However she was smart and compassionate. She taught me much. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and her existence made mine bearable."
Nezu stopped to catch his breath. Arthur could hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest, could hear the strain in every pump, and was about to tell him to stop. But before he could, Nezu continued.
"Until one day, one fateful day, just like I'm sure you had your own day." His voice cracked slightly. "The now no longer intern freed me. She allowed me to escape. And when my restraints were gone she gave me parting words, ones I remember as clearly as if they were yesterday."
He took in a deep breath.
"You are a genius above all, so please be kind, for a lot of us know not what we are doing."
Nezu turned to face Arthur, tears bordered his eyes. "It is one of my greatest regrets that I never learnt her name until that lesson finally took root. I was quite shallow until then, quite bitter, quite capable of cruelty. Which is why I aptly named myself Nezu."
Nezu's squeaky laugh sounded almost like a roar or a wail in Arthur's ears. It was filled with so much, that laugh.
Arthur's hand almost went to his waist, to Avalon. He was about to ask if Nezu wished for him to heal his scars, to erase the physical remnants of that terrible past. But he stopped himself. Nezu knew best what Arthur could do. He had seen Avalon's power firsthand, had witnessed miracles emerge from that scabbard. And if he hadn't asked, it was most likely because he didn't want to. Those scars were his own. His reminder. His burden to carry.
So Arthur simply gave him something else instead.
A hug.
He wrapped his arms around the small creature, gently. And Nezu, whose frame was small but whose actions had put him against villains and politicians and the cruelties of a world that had never shown him kindness, trembled in that embrace.
That night was the sole night Arthur had ever heard Nezu cry.
A/N: 2nd chapter in a row is a good sign right lol. Either way this chapter was a lot of fun to right honestly makes me want to write a fic of Beau's past. If yall have any questions of the fic feel free to ask em here or in Cypress' (Author of MHA:Blink) discord. Either way 2.499 words as a second coming back chapter ain't too shabby if I say so myself.
Also stones and especially comments would be super appreciated anything that tells me people actually read this lol. Thx for reading. Author out