The King of Heroes: Null/Virtue

Proposition

Walking around for a while longer, Izuku didn't have any real idea of where he was going, just taking a random path back to Ibara's "palace" and sightseeing along the way.

He spied a few Ebony children attempting to barter with an adult, begging them to buy some alcohol for them. But the adults would just laugh, pat them on the head and be on their way. It was a sight one would've seen back on Earth.

Ebony society was pretty liberal and some people walked around in some strange outfits, but first and foremost, they were concerned about the upbringing of their children. Based on an estimation by a Shifter, Ebony brains were fully matured by age 20, meaning that they were restricted from any sort of drug or alcohol until that age. On top of that, the age of consent was 21. The society believed that everyone should be allowed access to whatever they wish once they had the proper maturity to make those decisions and fully perceive the consequences of them. They added an extra year to the age of consent just to have a bit of a buffer period where the Ebony could take more time to consider their wants and needs before seeking them out.

It all sounded nice, especially in such an indulgent society. But because of the nature of the Ebony, most of them ended up addicted to one thing or another. They were alcoholics, drug addicts, or sex fiends. Izuku didn't think the sex part was a problem, it was a biological urge and the Ebony had better understandings of consent than other species. What he found detestable was alcoholism or addiction. He could see the benefit of some indulgence, but this was way beyond moderation. No matter what he thought of the people, their tolerance of others and their righteous laws to protect the children, they were still pretty irresponsible overall.

Just in general, he wasn't sure what conclusion to draw about them. Were they as a society positive or negative? Did he even have the same thought processes as them to determine what was positive or negative?

He was reminded of Rampage. In the lab, she loved talking about astronomy, the stars and the planets. The idea of such a vast world intoxicated the other experiments when she talked about it. At one point, she brought up the concept of life on other worlds. How, even if they managed to find and meet them, they might not be able to communicate at all. The species could use electromagnetic waves to talk, and they might think on an entirely different plane than humans. You could only understand them from a human perspective because they were simply that different. And that meant there would always be nuances of both species that neither could understand.

Even born as an Onyx, he couldn't understand some parts of their society. It was just a sea of differences between him and everyone else.

"If everyone around you is the problem, then maybe you're the problem."

Izuku shook his head, dispelling the thought. He didn't think of everyone else as the problem. He saw the good in plenty of other people, and the bad in others. However, considering how strangely some of the species acted, it was worth asking how he should be feeling in regards to his morals.

Obviously slavery was wrong, Eri, Fuwa, and Haneyama had proved that themselves. If there were others like them, and Izuku knew there were, then his morals couldn't be too far off in regards to freedom. But what about the Ebony? They were just enjoying their worldly pleasures. Was it categorically wrong to become addicted to a substance when your entire society practically encouraged it? And was the society wrong when it was their biology that predisposed them to that behavior? Would restricting those behaviors and freedoms be any different from slavery?

Izuku sighed. He was asking himself too many unanswerable questions. He'd focus on the one thing he knew was wrong, and aim to fix his own country first.

Getting back to Ibara's place, he flew back up to the window he leapt out of. His note was still there and nothing seemed amiss. Thankfully no one had woken up and found him absent.