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Blood Is Only Blood [My Hero Academia, but Vlad King teaches 1-A]
- Thread starter Obloquy
- Start date
- What if? Action Superhero
-
- Tags
- my hero academia
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
It is, and it's supposed to be abrupt in-universe, which is why everyone is in shock over it.
Aizawa has a bit of a PTSD trigger Neito Monoma hit just now, relating to Oboro's death in their second year, so he's seriously angry.
That said, Aizawa received from Nedzu the right to expel problematic students at will, but also to re-enroll them if they fixed they fixed the issues for which he expelled them. This is actual canon, even if it took a while for readers to find out (which we did when we saw Aizawa's class from the year before, whom we'd heard were all expelled, still being students at UA because he presumably re-enrolled them).
The events of canon are noted to be odd once or twice because Aizawa hasn't expelled any of his students yet. This is what it looks like when he does.
The events of canon are noted to be odd once or twice because Aizawa hasn't expelled any of his students yet. This is what it looks like when he does.
ConfusedCanuck
Where did it all go wrong?
- Location
- Neverland
I read this on two different sites it's just that good!
Yeah, that didn't surprise me much. Monoma's gloryhound attitude was as bad as canon and the slightly bullying attitude with regards to his envy was a lot worse and explicit. Plus, in far worse taste given all the injuries.
Given what we do know of Monoma.... Yeah, I can easily believe he'd go this far, and it hits Aizawa's berserk buttons like the hammer of god, plus he's not really depicted as wait-and-see as Vlad. There's no way he'd put up with it as Monoma's homeroom teacher.
Guess we'll see if Monoma can somehow redeem himself.
Given what we do know of Monoma.... Yeah, I can easily believe he'd go this far, and it hits Aizawa's berserk buttons like the hammer of god, plus he's not really depicted as wait-and-see as Vlad. There's no way he'd put up with it as Monoma's homeroom teacher.
Guess we'll see if Monoma can somehow redeem himself.
Interlude 1 - Aftermath of the Attack
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
(Set after the USJ Attack)
The first thing Mina does after she gets home, she cries.She shakes off her dads' comforting arms, shuts herself up in the bathroom, and she just cries. Long, hard, with shoulder-shaking sobs that wrack her body, the type of ugly crying with snot that she'd never admit to but she just can't right now, and, and-
Her Papa comes in after a few minutes, because she's done this before, curled up in the bathtub with the shower running as she just lets go and stops worrying about her acid.
"'mot suff," she mumbles out, trying to bat away his arms.
"I don't care," he tells her, hugging her anyway. And he's safe, he's 'immune' to her acid with his skin growth Quirk, (and sometimes she wonders about how the thing that got her given up also got her a new family because they specifically took the girl they could help,) but Mina bursts out crying even harder as he pulls her close and pats her back under the shower's spray. "I love you, my sweet baby girl. I love you so much," he whispers in her ear and Mina just pulls him close and sobs all over him.
The floor is soaked by the time she's willing (able) to talk again, and she tries to make a move for cleaning up, but her Papa just asks her to talk about it, so she does.
She tells him about the trip to USJ ("Just like Universal Studios Japan, I swear! We totally made that joke,") and about the villains appearing ("Kan-sensei just knew something was wrong immediately and he started barking out orders,") and about being split up ("it was just like showering only worse, it was cold, I felt so useless, I should have helped them,") and fighting for their lives.
She tells him about finding the building, about Mashirao catching on fire, about the villains finding them, and about how she'd been so relieved when the teachers arrived that she melted handprints in the wall she'd been leaning on.
"Stop that," her Papa chides lovingly when she checks the bathtub reflexively. She doesn't know how much the bathtub cost to resist her acid, but even though they bought it so she could cut loose safely she still... "Don't worry about things, worry about yourself."
"Yeah." Mina hiccups. "That... Ojiro-kun actually said something like that in our introductions. He's a movie fan, too. I hope he's okay," she says, though what's she's thinking is that she'd like to check in on him.
She just has no clue how to do that.
"Well," Papa says, "I think this calls for an all night movie marathon until you feel better."
Mina giggles a little, though she's not sure...
She rolls with it anyway. Dad ran out to get fresh okra for a treat, they eat, they watch old movies, they scream, and then she goes to sleep during the credits of Covenant.
The next morning, Mina feels like crud.
She's sick, and it's sort of good she gets the day off from UA because she will be good for nothing today, she knows.
She drinks extra orange juice at breakfast and she makes a toast to Tenya because he likes it, right?
Then she remembers what state he's in, and she wishes she could check in with him, but she can't. Yeah. She feel like crud.
________________________________________________________________
Koji's mother cries more than he does about it, oddly. She engulfs him in her arms when he gets home and he ends up comforting her about it.
He feels a little guilty thinking it, but Koji's really pretty proud of himself about everything.
He saved someone.
He saved Tenya's life without a doubt, according to three different teachers, and all he regrets is not moving faster, but he still got there in time to save Tenya anyway. He's not responsible for hurting the guy, but he's responsible for saving him.
That's a good feeling.
He gives Yuwai-chan a bunch of extra treats and feeds all the birds he can because he's so happy to be alive right now and everything-
Well. No. Not everything is looking up, people were hurt, but he helped people. Principal Nedzu personally congratulated him and All Might told him he was a hero in the aftermath.
Koji can't be upset about anything, when he remembers that.
(The fear hit him the next day, when he cuddles Yuwai-chan for hours and then goes to play with the animals at a nearby store because his hands won't stop shivering unless he's petting something, but in the end he feeds a few fish and he goes home that evening ready to return to school.)
(He wakes up twice from nightmares, but they're the formless jump scare kind, and he goes back to sleep after he treats himself to some hot milk tea.)
________________________________________________________________
Eijiro Kirishima feels conflicted in the aftermath. He isn't really sure he did enough.
Rather.
The main thing he did was clean up Todoroki's mess, he thinks.
No. Not even that, he just convinced Shouto Todoroki to clean up his own mess. And.
It's not like he wants to blame the guy, because instinctively activating your Quirk in a panic situation is what he did too, just with less disastrous results. Shouto was just trying to survive.
But Shouto's survival almost came at the cost of people's lives. Kyoka Jirou only barely made it, and she'll be looking at some intensive recovery. Then there were the villains, and yeah those were villains, but killing people is wrong.
Of course, the corollary is that Shouto knew it was wrong too. As soon as he realized (courtesy of Eijiro shaking him,) he'd immediately moved to thaw and rescue everyone, both heir classmate and the trapped villains.
Really, it was just bad luck, because if he'd been dumped anywhere except the Flood Zone this wouldn't have been an issue.
Of course, if Eijiro had been dumped anywhere except the Flood Zone, Kyoka Jirou would be dead, so...
"...Man. Gah! I hate feeling like this," he complains to the ceiling when his thoughts won't stop spiraling mid-morning the day after. There's no school, due to repercussions from the attack, but he's got nothing to do.
So he grabs some dumbbells and lifts weights while watching Crimson Riot's old interviews.
'The guy's, like, 73 now, right?' Eijiro reflects as he swaps hands after enough reps. 'Man. And Kan-sensei said they worked together once before he retired! That's like, the coolest thing ever!' Then he wilts. 'Of course, now Kan-sensei might retire too. Because of his injuries. Because I wasn't there to help when those three made a difference, because I was stuck with...'
He cuts off that train of thought, because even if he hadn't helped beyond pressing Shouto to do the right thing, he'd... he'd...
He's watching an old interview wherein Crimson Riot talks about having to second-guess himself in both directions -- asking how it could've gone worse as much as how it could've gone better -- when it clicks.
If Shouto was sent to any zone other than the water area, then yes, immediate freezing would've been the safest response, so the guy wasn't wrong to do it instinctively.
Similarly, yes, if Eijiro wasn't in the ice to break free then a bunch of people would've frozen to death. But.
On reflection, Eijiro admits that if he nor Shouto were in the Flood Zone, then other students would be there instead, and that shark guy would've killed people.
So with Kyoka okay in the end, it really did turn out for the best. Like, if the shark guy went after her instead -- or heck, any of the other dozen villains they pulled out to thaw -- then Shouto having the presence of mind to not freeze everything would've ended with his other classmates torn apart in seconds.
"So he saved them from the villains, then I saved them from him. That's... yeah. And we're kids," Eijiro finishes, looking his reflection in the eye. "We'll learn. We'll get better." He gives a manly grin, and then a brief frown. "Ah. Crap. Todoroki was pretty torn up, even if he was all quiet about it, and I bet... Yeah, I totally might've missed everybody else being upset. But we pulled through, and it's the villains' fault for attacking!" He nods decisively. "That's it! Tomorrow, I'm going to 100% make sure everyone knows how awesome they are, no regrets!" Eijiro promises.
He sleeps without dreams and wakes up bright and early.
________________________________________________________________
Izuku ends up in Recovery Girl's office again. He hasn't been to see her too often, and he really defends himself pretty well he thinks when she demands to know what he was thinking, and in the end she heals him even if it takes a few hours more to be sure he's recovering properly for safety's sake.
Then it's All Might -- Toshinori Yagi, really, he's in his skeletal form -- escorting his mother in and that delays them another half-hour as they're treated for tear-induced dehydration.
His mom needs a few minutes more to be treated, and Recovery Girl wants to talk to her privately, so he's left alone with All Might.
"I'm proud of you," All Might assures him. "I'm... unhappy that you risked your life, but you only had to because the villains chose to attack." His face twists bitterly. On the inside, he's self-recriminating, for using up his time limit so sloppily that morning, but Izuku can't see that.
All Izuku sees is his mentor, the first person to believe in him, and who's just declared his pride in Izuku's accomplishments.
He's beaming all the way home.
They get takeout that evening because Mom is too worn out to cook, and they watch an All Might documentary as they eat.
As the credits roll, the phone rings, and Izuku promises Aunt Mitsuki that he's okay even as he talks about what he did with Kacchan and Fumikage Tokoyami (whose name Katsuki still didn't know to tell his parents afterward) in all the fighting.
"Has Kacchan given any thought to earplugs or a hearing aid?" Izuku asks when he's assured her yet again that his leg's okay now.
Mitsuki Bakugou sighs. "You're still worried about that? His social standing's trash, but he knows his own body, and no tests turned up anything."
"I think he's teaching himself to read lips," Izuku confesses, having no idea whether Katsuki would even do it intentionally. "I mean, it's possible his hearing is protected against the explosions, but detonations are a side-effect, his quirk is generating a chemical, and that doesn't have to do with... I don't know..." He shrugs.
"Yeah, well..." He can practically hear Aunt Mitsuki shrug across the phone line, and that's the sign that this branch of the conversation won't go anywhere.
"His birthday's coming up, is he doing anything for it?" Izuku asks.
"He's still got his, 'no parties, no presents,' belief," Aunt Mitsuki counters. Ever since he turned 10, Kacchan had decided that buying presents was stupid, and he had enough sense of fairness to declare he didn't want to receive any either, so no one should bother. "That kid."
"Yeah," Izuku sighs, and oops! Because there's plenty to admire about the blond, but there's plenty to criticize as well, like how he treats people. (Izuku worst of all, but that's mostly because Izuku kept butting in throughout their childhood when Kacchan was being mean or trying to show off in a bad way. Katsuki's used up all his patience with him now, Izuku figures.)
(He still keeps hoping he'll earn some respect back, though. Whether or not they're ever more than family friends like they used to be.)
"We might have you and Inko over for dinner, though. It won't be a party or anything," Mitsuki offers.
Izuku gives a little strangled laugh, because he and Kacchan can mutually exist with minimal blow-ups around their parents like they do in class, but it isn't what he'd call a fun thought.
"It's a school night, and I have tutoring this weekend that'll eat up my lunch hours," Izuku dismisses politely, because Aunt Mitsuki likes him enough to let him get away with that, which is a high compliment from her. then an idea occurs to him. Not quite an olive branch, but... "Aunt Mi, does Kacchan still work out while watching anime for inspiration? Or All Might's news appearances? I might get him a series as a gift anyway but I don't know what he has."
"Lemme go raid his closet," she laughs. "Who knows, maybe his balls've dropped enough I'll find his porn stash too."
Izuku laughs, but he's uncomfortable, because he hadn't planned on quite that scale of a privacy violation.
Still, his Aunty knows what's okay, he guesses, and it's not like he could stop her now that she's thought of it.
________________________________________________________________
Tenya sleeps.
It's dark, and he's comfortable, pumped full of drugs in preparation for the reattachment surgery, so he sleeps.
Sometimes he wakes up occasionally, and it's his mother or his brother or his father by his bedside -- he hasn't been alone for a minute since they brought him in, no that he knows it -- but he never remembers what he says or what they say to him.
The surgery won't be until next week; his leg was cut off partly through the engine, and reattaching it will need special concoctions to make his body ready and enable them to fit the bio-mechanical bits back together properly, so he needs several days of prep work and it's easiest if he sleeps through it all.
So Tenya sleeps.
But he also dreams, and not many of them are bad.
His friends all escaped safe, and surely that's the highest achievement of a hero, even if he wasn't the one to summon aid.
So Tenya sleeps.
________________________________________________________________
Shouto Todoroki fumes.
For the first time anyone can remember, he explicitly requests extra training from his father that evening. His reasoning is simple.
"I felt my performance against actual villains was insufficient."
It's a blind.
He doesn't use his fire, but his explanation about the villain dumping him in water is acceptable enough for Endeavor to let this defiance pass, as Shouto is willingly put through a brutal regime.
He pushes himself all the while. It's good he has school off tomorrow, as he'll need to recover.
"Fuyumi," he whispers as she helps him to bed late that night.
"Shouto?" She tucks him in, brushes his hair off his forehead in a way that aches in his chest, and waits.
"Natsuo... he worked as a life guard some time back, right? And you did some certification for working with kids? Emergency medicine?" He's stretching, but he thinks he remembers discussion of this?
"Yes," she says in a way that suggests he's right for the wrong reasons.
"Can you teach me? I want to learn... one of my classmates, she almost drowned." And it was all my fault, he doesn't say. Voicing fault or blame in this house was just something Endeavor could leverage against him when he-
It wasn't something he was willing to say, no matter how much he might think it.
"I'm not qualified to- I'll look into your options for learning, and we'll talk more tomorrow," Fuyumi promises.
He tells her she doesn't need to stay, but he listens as her footsteps depart down the hall until he can't hear anything further, and then he listens to his own breathing until he falls asleep.
Shouto Todoroki dreams, and it isn't pleasant. Still, he's had worse from training before in the past few years, and at least he'll have most of the next day to recover, with Endeavor busy chasing a lead on Stain in Rairrosu.
It could be worse, he figures.
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Well, it's nice to see Koji and Izuku are handling things pretty well. Everyone else is really beating themselves up about all the things that went wrong and how they didn't do enough, which is pretty realistic for kids, and ones that want to be heroes at that. It's not...fun to see the realistic repercussions of high school students being attacked by supervillains, but it certainly adds to the story in a strong way.
5:4 - General Preparations
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Monday. 14 days until the Sports Festival.
Hitoshi Shinso was sore from his workout the day before, so he was taking it easy.
He wasn't in the best shape to start with, he knew—not that he'd have much chance without some guidance on how to get anything from his workouts—but he couldn't really practice his Quirk so practicing the physical aspects were all he could do to prepare for the Sports Festival.
Come lunchtime, though, someone came looking for him.
"Akko-san? How can I help you?" Hitoshi asked as he scratched Kuro behind the ears. Dogs weren't as great as cats, but any furry thing full of love for people was okay in his book.
He tried to keep his eyes on 1-D's vice representative, who'd been more than decent to him so far, (unlike Mahimaru, the jerk,) instead of lingering on the 1-A student by her shoulder.
'I'm not guilty,' he told himself. 'One bad experience doesn't change how lucky they they all are. …I need them riled up and ready to answer me at the Sports Festival, instead of just ignoring me to bulldoze over everything I'm trying for.'
"Midoriya was looking for you, about the Sports Festival," Tsume barked. "I figured I'd cut in before Mahimaru started blackening your name, since gossip says Midoriya's a good guy. Whatever it is, you two can work it out."
An abrupt surge of gratitude filled Hitoshi and he let his lips quirk into a (somewhat demented-looking, he'd been told,) smile at her.
She'd relayed the 1-A student's name, given him an idea about the upcoming conversation, and assured him that it probably wouldn't involve anything horrible being thrown at him, so yeah, he figured Tsume was good people. It helped that she'd answer talked to him without issue and she'd taken him jogging previously when he wanted to get in shape.
"Okay," Hitoshi said neutrally, as he turned his gaze on the Hero Course student, who shifted uncomfortably. 'Squeamish much? Is it because he knows about my Brainwashing, or something else?' "You wanted to talk about the Sports Festival?" Hitoshi pressed as Tsume stalked off again with Kuro.
"Oh! Right, I did," Izuku blurted. Once more, Hitoshi felt the little ping of his Quirk's potential to take control, but he didn't reach for it. "Um, so I was talking to my senpai and she told me about her friend who transferred into Heroics…"
Keeping a calm poker face, Hitoshi straightened up and paid very close attention.
He'd found recordings of the few students who'd won the Sports Festival in previous years from Gen Ed, and them showing up as Heroics Students the next year, which was part of how he'd known about this, but he hadn't believed any of them were at the school currently.
'None of the last 2 years' victors were from outside the Heroics Course,' he reflected as Izuku finally got to the point. 'This would mean… oh. Oh yes.' He smiled faintly again and paid very close attention as Izuku spoke.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
'Yuyu Haya, huh. Well, unless he's playing a really stupid prank on me,' which Hitoshi didn't discount, but he considered it unlikely, 'then this is an absolute goldmine. I wonder why he's helping me, though? I'm supposed to be competing with him… And Izuku Midoriya? I remember that name.'
"It seems a little too good to be true," Hitoshi commented carefully, hoping to prod out a bit more of his benefactor's motivations.
"I guess…?" Izuku said.
'Either he's really good at playing dumb, or he's being genuine,' Hitoshi figured. He wasn't sure which was worse: that he was being fooled if the first, or that someone so thick had done so well in the entry exam due to their powerful Quirk in the case of the second.
"I'm wonder why you want to help me, that's all. I did some research on my competition in the Hero Course. Midoriya, didn't you score sixth in the entry exam?"
"Yes," Izuku agreed after a moment, "but I thought I'd failed because I only destroyed one robot, worth zero points." Hitoshi blinked as he remembered the towering 0-point robot from his area, trying to figure out…
'The 0-point robot? But that thing was massive! How on Earth does- did he know it was coming? No, it sounded like he knows how lucky he is, like he wishes he'd done better… Maybe his area went differently?' "The giant robot that smashed several buildings? How did that happen?"
"I… hadn't had a Quirk at all when I signed up for the exam, I just thought I'd do my best." Izuku bit his lip and worked in a little lie he'd come up with while discussing his cover story with All Might. "I was expecting, like, Star Wars droid-sized robots, not stuff that could crush a city bus," he admitted. "Then at the end, after I ran around in a panic, I just knew I had to help this girl who was in danger from being caught under rubble the giant robot knocked over. It was about to step on her, so I… I just had to help her. But if she hadn't been in danger, if my Quirk hadn't kicked in, I couldn't have done it. Except if I was in Gen Ed, maybe I could have. So I see myself and I want to help you."
Hitoshi stared, trying to get his thoughts under control. 'Izuku Midoriya… You're a lucky idiot. You're the lucky idiot to end all lucky idiots. But at least you're self-aware of that, so it's forgivable.'
Hitoshi nodded. It was slow, and it was wary, but he nodded.
Izuku beamed. "Great! I won't let you down."
"What were you thinking of then, for preparation?"
"You're really okay showing me your Quirk and your classmates' Quirks, as well as 1-B?" Hitoshi checked when they met at the library after class that day.
"W-Well, it's not just you."
"Hiya! Midoriya-kun, is this the 1-C guy you mentioned?" Tohru Hagakure asked. "Nice to meet you, I'm Tohru Hagakure, from 1-A!"
"Yeah, this is Hitoshi Shinso," Izuku introduced as the invisible girl bowed. "Is anyone else coming?" 'I'm really not sure how many people I can juggle, even if we all fit in the study room.'
"I think it's just me today, since I need all the help I can get."
"You do?" Hitoshi wondered. He still didn't really get why Izuku was helping him, but he'd thought folding him in with existing preparations they were doing anyway would be it.
"Oh! Well, not just transferring into Heroics, but they might transfer students out who do poorly? I was the literal last person at the cut-off in the practical," she admitted, "and my fitness isn't that great, so I need to stand out or I might get moved."
"Two sides of the same coin," Hitoshi deadpanned with a nod. If not for an open seat in 1-B he might try scheming against her… but he got the impression that it wouldn't be productive for him. Getting transferred into Heroics and then out again might be worse than failing to get in at all.
"Right! So let's get started." Izuku input his student ID code and pulled up the footage from Class 1-A's battle trials on the display.
Tohru Hagakure and Yuga Aoyama versus Fumikage Tokoyami and Eijiro Kirishima
"Ooh, hey, this is me! I was super proud of being MVP here, just watch!" Tohru cheered.
"…Wait," Hitoshi asked a minute into it. "Are you naked in your costume?"
"Shhhh! Don't just say it like that," Tohru wailed, embarrassed. "I have to be for my costume! I can't do clothes!"
"It's one of the things I'm going to try working with her about, though that's less for the Sports Festival and more just general improvement," Izuku agreed. "It's too big a weakness to leave undefended for a pro."
"Oh come on," she whined as the battle continued on the screen, "I do fine with it."
"If they set up a fog machine they'd see your hollow area in the vapor," Izuku reasoned, "or they could spray water and see you splash in puddles. Ashido-san's acid would be bad, and what would you do if Todoroki-kun spread ice everywhere?"
"If you had to fight Todoroki, you'd break every bone in your body and still lose," Tohru snarked.
"Yeah," Izuku admitted, which defused a good bunch of her outrage, "but I'm working on it, and so should you."
"Hagakure," Hitoshi interrupted, "can you point out where you are on the camera screens?"
"I don't really remember, but I'll do my best," she said.
They watched that video twice, the second time with Tohru relaying her team's strategy and how they'd tested it by having her stick her hand in Yuga's laser during the prep period, as well as discussing risks in trying it on Dark Shadow.
"But you know, you're really lucky you could sneak up on Dark Shadow," Izuku reflected as the recording wound to a close.
"Huh?"
"I mean, I didn't think of this before, but Dark Shadow isn't made of flesh and blood, right? His eyes are made of shadow, with no… um…"
"Rods or cones? Optic nerves?" Hitoshi volunteered.
"Right! Those, yeah. I don't know if you're invisible to infrared or ultraviolet, but if you didn't think about whether Dark Shadow could see you…"
"Yeah," Tohru laughed, "I guess I lucked out. But only in the same way Iida and Ochako-chan lucked out by having you to ask for this next round. The both of them were totally bragging once or twice that Midoriya helped them out with the strategy they used to win," she added to Hitoshi.
"I mean, the throwing things was all them, I just though of a clever way to apply her Quirk," Izuku demurred.
"Yeah, but he's really good at that stuff it seems. Shinso-kun, what's your Quirk? I bet Midoriya can come up with a kickass application or two!"
"Let's watch the match first and we'll talk about me later," Hitoshi demurred drily.
Tenya and Ochako's performance did turn out to be educational, at least.
"But she didn't touch him, she just touched his costume's chest plate," he argued when he saw it in action. "Why would it make his body weightless but not the stuff he added back on after when she didn't touch his body?"
"That's what I wondered about, too," Izuku agreed. "My best guess is that it works like highlighting text in a document. When she presses her finger beans to something, it generates an aura or effect that 'selects' everything present and then changes the 'font' to 'zero gravity,' but if you then type a new line or new text it comes out in the original 'default font' having gravity."
"I'm pretty sure they fixed that bug in all but the oldest or most low-brow text editors," Tohru opined.
"Ahahaha… I only have so much allowance, so I just use the original options on our computer and buy more merchandise instead," Izuku admitted, "so that bug still gets me every now and then."
Then they moved on to Izuku's match, and Hitoshi swallowed hard as the uppercut tore through three ceilings.
"Okay," he breathed, "I am significantly re-evaluating my chances of beating you."
"Just so long as he doesn't break his arm in an earlier opponent. Besides, we might not even be fighting, it's a Sports Festival," Tohru reminded him with a pat on the shoulder.
"A-A-Actually, I reviewed all the previous year's recordings I had, plus some more they keep here in the library, and so… I guess we should probably discuss the Festival's set-up?"
"That sounds like a good idea," Hitoshi agreed.
"Yeah! If you've realized something, go ahead and spill!" Tohru seconded.
Izuku was very thankful that they'd grabbed an unreserved study room, or else the librarian might have scowled at them by now.
"Right then," he muttered, marshaling his thoughts. "UA's Sports Festival… there are always 3 main events for each year, in the same order, with a similar theme," he explained. "First will be a free-for-all mass elimination round, something like dodgeball, a foot race, and obstacle course, mass freeze tag, red rover with quirks, musical chairs with the chairs being robots wearing saddles, or that type of thing."
"Robots wearing saddles?"
"That type of thing…"
Hitoshi and Tohru shared a look—despite him accidentally gazing at her forehead—of mutual mental pain at what UA could think up.
"Yeah, that was the mass elimination for the 3rd year students last year, and the 1st-year students 4 years ago, but I doubt we'll see it this year; UA doesn't like to repeat its tricks too often," Izuku mused.
"…When you say 'mass elimination,' how many people get through?" Hitoshi wondered.
"It's as many as 80, no less than 42," Izuku answered, "at least for the 1st-years' events. Since there are usually about 40 Heroics students, that means no matter what 2 non-Heroics students are guaranteed the opportunity to progress to the next round, so anyone who does that can at least signal possible interest in transferring to Heroics."
"Which doesn't mean you should get past the first event and stop trying," Tohru added. "Plus Ultra! Get to the last event and show off, or even win it all!"
"At least try to place as a semi-finalist, and the teachers will probably arrange something," Izuku agreed, "but if you want to be a hero for real then go for the win, and-," He grinned at Hitoshi. "-I'll see you at the the top."
Hitoshi gave a brief, desert-dry chuckle. "I'll see you there." Then, more seriously, "You guys don't mind that you're training up a potential rival?"
"Kan-sensei says we shouldn't just look at it as competing against each other. We're competing to be our best selves," Tohru recited, "and in the field, in real life as heroes, we'll all be on the same team, fighting villains. In 5 years, we might team up on a mission and you save my life, but that won't happen if I sabotage you, which would be a bad way to go down, right?"
"To say the least, I guess," Hitoshi agreed. It even made sense to him, somewhat: in the short term these people were his rivals, but that didn't mean they would be his enemies the way actual villains were.
'Heroes might not be all on the same team, but we're all on the same side, aren't we? I hadn't thought of it that way before,' Hitoshi reflected. 'Maybe I can even… We'll see.'
They watched Izuku's Battle Trial a second time, Izuku explaining as they went where things went wrong and how they'd coped—admitting he'd forgotten Tsuyu was present until she bound Katsuki got a laugh, at least—before moving onto the next match.
"What exactly can she make?" Hitoshi wondered, seeing Momo's Quirk at work.
"Anything!" Tohru exclaimed.
"I think she has size limits, and she has to know how it's made, but basically," Izuku agreed. "It's a really powerful Quirk, so no wonder she got in on recommendation."
"Well, given it was her uncle who recommended her," Tohru joked.
"Who's her uncle?" Hitoshi wondered.
"Hangaku Yaoyorozu-sensei, he teaches 3rd-year classes, especially Support Course students," Izuku answered. "He's the Metal Hero: Kinzokubutsu. I think he designed and created most of the robots UA uses for the entry practical; we'll probably see those pop up in the first or second event as obstacles."
"Not the third? You didn't mention the second event's pattern, after the mass elimination," Hitoshi noted.
"Oh right!" Izuku decided to pause Shouto's icy display before the main event, so it'd keep being impressive without him distracting Hitoshi. "So it goes: mass elimination, team competition, single combat, and always in that order. First event weeds out everyone who doesn't really want to be there and gives an opportunity-,"
"For non-Heroics students to show interest, you mentioned," Hitoshi interjected. "then the team competition…" If he were feeling particularly skeptical, Hitoshi would suspect it was a way to weed out non-Heroics students so the Hero Course wouldn't look bad, since the superior Heroics students would have training and experience working together, leaving non-Heroics students with the underachiever's no one wanted or each other.
Izuku's claim that Gen Ed students could transfer without winning—and winning the Sports Festival itself had struck Hitoshi as nearly impossible, and he only felt at all confident due to his quirk's focus on human targets, not that he wouldn't have tried anyway—had immensely reframed the narrative for Hitoshi.
He still wanted to check if it was true, but if it was, then he had upperclassmen he could ask for advice and it became feasible that he could talk to the teachers about his dream without being laughed at for his 'villainous Quirk' like in previous schools.
That was a good feeling, even if he tried to be wary of false hope.
"Mass elimination, team competition, then one-on-one. What type team events and one-on-one contests are we talking about?"
"There's a lot of variety in the team events, but team sizes can vary between 2 and 8 people," Izuku answered. "If teams are 5 people or more instead of 2-4, they're random assigned, but teams of smaller groups can self-organize, usually." He frowned. "I think the assigned groupings are more common in later years' games, to represent heroes teaming up in the field, while the 1st-year students get a break and can show off in teams with their friends."
"Great, friends, just the thing I need," Hitoshi deadpanned.
He nearly swallowed his own tongue when Tohru glomped him.
"Don't be such a sourpuss, Shinso-kun! If we get that far, do you want to be on a team with me? I'll be your friend."
"I… I'll think about it," he hedged, not quite daring to reciprocate her hug.
"Then for single combat, I've seen gladiatorial combat matches, I've seen tied-turtle wrestling, I've seen chanbara duels, I've seen pool-top sparring… There's a lot of options, but there's always a combat aspect and it's always 1-on-1, because they need to eliminate people and get the top 4 to the victor's podium," Izuku finished.
"Okay, I see… It's getting late, so how about we watch this last match and meet up tomorrow at lunch?" Hitoshi suggested.
"Sure thing!" Tohru agreed.
"Yeah, then we'll pull up 1-B's matches. Do you mind if another friend or two shows up?" Izuku checked.
Hitoshi shrugged.
Then Izuku hit PLAY and Shouto froze the whole building, prompting the purple-haired boy to drastically re-evaluate his chances of winning the festival.
Again.
'…Yuyu Haya, huh? Yeah, I'll definitely need to ask for some tips,' he decided.
Hitoshi Shinso was sore from his workout the day before, so he was taking it easy.
He wasn't in the best shape to start with, he knew—not that he'd have much chance without some guidance on how to get anything from his workouts—but he couldn't really practice his Quirk so practicing the physical aspects were all he could do to prepare for the Sports Festival.
Come lunchtime, though, someone came looking for him.
"Akko-san? How can I help you?" Hitoshi asked as he scratched Kuro behind the ears. Dogs weren't as great as cats, but any furry thing full of love for people was okay in his book.
He tried to keep his eyes on 1-D's vice representative, who'd been more than decent to him so far, (unlike Mahimaru, the jerk,) instead of lingering on the 1-A student by her shoulder.
'I'm not guilty,' he told himself. 'One bad experience doesn't change how lucky they they all are. …I need them riled up and ready to answer me at the Sports Festival, instead of just ignoring me to bulldoze over everything I'm trying for.'
"Midoriya was looking for you, about the Sports Festival," Tsume barked. "I figured I'd cut in before Mahimaru started blackening your name, since gossip says Midoriya's a good guy. Whatever it is, you two can work it out."
An abrupt surge of gratitude filled Hitoshi and he let his lips quirk into a (somewhat demented-looking, he'd been told,) smile at her.
She'd relayed the 1-A student's name, given him an idea about the upcoming conversation, and assured him that it probably wouldn't involve anything horrible being thrown at him, so yeah, he figured Tsume was good people. It helped that she'd answer talked to him without issue and she'd taken him jogging previously when he wanted to get in shape.
"Okay," Hitoshi said neutrally, as he turned his gaze on the Hero Course student, who shifted uncomfortably. 'Squeamish much? Is it because he knows about my Brainwashing, or something else?' "You wanted to talk about the Sports Festival?" Hitoshi pressed as Tsume stalked off again with Kuro.
"Oh! Right, I did," Izuku blurted. Once more, Hitoshi felt the little ping of his Quirk's potential to take control, but he didn't reach for it. "Um, so I was talking to my senpai and she told me about her friend who transferred into Heroics…"
Keeping a calm poker face, Hitoshi straightened up and paid very close attention.
He'd found recordings of the few students who'd won the Sports Festival in previous years from Gen Ed, and them showing up as Heroics Students the next year, which was part of how he'd known about this, but he hadn't believed any of them were at the school currently.
'None of the last 2 years' victors were from outside the Heroics Course,' he reflected as Izuku finally got to the point. 'This would mean… oh. Oh yes.' He smiled faintly again and paid very close attention as Izuku spoke.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
'Yuyu Haya, huh. Well, unless he's playing a really stupid prank on me,' which Hitoshi didn't discount, but he considered it unlikely, 'then this is an absolute goldmine. I wonder why he's helping me, though? I'm supposed to be competing with him… And Izuku Midoriya? I remember that name.'
"It seems a little too good to be true," Hitoshi commented carefully, hoping to prod out a bit more of his benefactor's motivations.
"I guess…?" Izuku said.
'Either he's really good at playing dumb, or he's being genuine,' Hitoshi figured. He wasn't sure which was worse: that he was being fooled if the first, or that someone so thick had done so well in the entry exam due to their powerful Quirk in the case of the second.
"I'm wonder why you want to help me, that's all. I did some research on my competition in the Hero Course. Midoriya, didn't you score sixth in the entry exam?"
"Yes," Izuku agreed after a moment, "but I thought I'd failed because I only destroyed one robot, worth zero points." Hitoshi blinked as he remembered the towering 0-point robot from his area, trying to figure out…
'The 0-point robot? But that thing was massive! How on Earth does- did he know it was coming? No, it sounded like he knows how lucky he is, like he wishes he'd done better… Maybe his area went differently?' "The giant robot that smashed several buildings? How did that happen?"
"I… hadn't had a Quirk at all when I signed up for the exam, I just thought I'd do my best." Izuku bit his lip and worked in a little lie he'd come up with while discussing his cover story with All Might. "I was expecting, like, Star Wars droid-sized robots, not stuff that could crush a city bus," he admitted. "Then at the end, after I ran around in a panic, I just knew I had to help this girl who was in danger from being caught under rubble the giant robot knocked over. It was about to step on her, so I… I just had to help her. But if she hadn't been in danger, if my Quirk hadn't kicked in, I couldn't have done it. Except if I was in Gen Ed, maybe I could have. So I see myself and I want to help you."
Hitoshi stared, trying to get his thoughts under control. 'Izuku Midoriya… You're a lucky idiot. You're the lucky idiot to end all lucky idiots. But at least you're self-aware of that, so it's forgivable.'
Hitoshi nodded. It was slow, and it was wary, but he nodded.
Izuku beamed. "Great! I won't let you down."
"What were you thinking of then, for preparation?"
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"You're really okay showing me your Quirk and your classmates' Quirks, as well as 1-B?" Hitoshi checked when they met at the library after class that day.
"W-Well, it's not just you."
"Hiya! Midoriya-kun, is this the 1-C guy you mentioned?" Tohru Hagakure asked. "Nice to meet you, I'm Tohru Hagakure, from 1-A!"
"Yeah, this is Hitoshi Shinso," Izuku introduced as the invisible girl bowed. "Is anyone else coming?" 'I'm really not sure how many people I can juggle, even if we all fit in the study room.'
"I think it's just me today, since I need all the help I can get."
"You do?" Hitoshi wondered. He still didn't really get why Izuku was helping him, but he'd thought folding him in with existing preparations they were doing anyway would be it.
"Oh! Well, not just transferring into Heroics, but they might transfer students out who do poorly? I was the literal last person at the cut-off in the practical," she admitted, "and my fitness isn't that great, so I need to stand out or I might get moved."
"Two sides of the same coin," Hitoshi deadpanned with a nod. If not for an open seat in 1-B he might try scheming against her… but he got the impression that it wouldn't be productive for him. Getting transferred into Heroics and then out again might be worse than failing to get in at all.
"Right! So let's get started." Izuku input his student ID code and pulled up the footage from Class 1-A's battle trials on the display.
Tohru Hagakure and Yuga Aoyama versus Fumikage Tokoyami and Eijiro Kirishima
"Ooh, hey, this is me! I was super proud of being MVP here, just watch!" Tohru cheered.
"…Wait," Hitoshi asked a minute into it. "Are you naked in your costume?"
"Shhhh! Don't just say it like that," Tohru wailed, embarrassed. "I have to be for my costume! I can't do clothes!"
"It's one of the things I'm going to try working with her about, though that's less for the Sports Festival and more just general improvement," Izuku agreed. "It's too big a weakness to leave undefended for a pro."
"Oh come on," she whined as the battle continued on the screen, "I do fine with it."
"If they set up a fog machine they'd see your hollow area in the vapor," Izuku reasoned, "or they could spray water and see you splash in puddles. Ashido-san's acid would be bad, and what would you do if Todoroki-kun spread ice everywhere?"
"If you had to fight Todoroki, you'd break every bone in your body and still lose," Tohru snarked.
"Yeah," Izuku admitted, which defused a good bunch of her outrage, "but I'm working on it, and so should you."
"Hagakure," Hitoshi interrupted, "can you point out where you are on the camera screens?"
"I don't really remember, but I'll do my best," she said.
They watched that video twice, the second time with Tohru relaying her team's strategy and how they'd tested it by having her stick her hand in Yuga's laser during the prep period, as well as discussing risks in trying it on Dark Shadow.
"But you know, you're really lucky you could sneak up on Dark Shadow," Izuku reflected as the recording wound to a close.
"Huh?"
"I mean, I didn't think of this before, but Dark Shadow isn't made of flesh and blood, right? His eyes are made of shadow, with no… um…"
"Rods or cones? Optic nerves?" Hitoshi volunteered.
"Right! Those, yeah. I don't know if you're invisible to infrared or ultraviolet, but if you didn't think about whether Dark Shadow could see you…"
"Yeah," Tohru laughed, "I guess I lucked out. But only in the same way Iida and Ochako-chan lucked out by having you to ask for this next round. The both of them were totally bragging once or twice that Midoriya helped them out with the strategy they used to win," she added to Hitoshi.
"I mean, the throwing things was all them, I just though of a clever way to apply her Quirk," Izuku demurred.
"Yeah, but he's really good at that stuff it seems. Shinso-kun, what's your Quirk? I bet Midoriya can come up with a kickass application or two!"
"Let's watch the match first and we'll talk about me later," Hitoshi demurred drily.
Tenya and Ochako's performance did turn out to be educational, at least.
"But she didn't touch him, she just touched his costume's chest plate," he argued when he saw it in action. "Why would it make his body weightless but not the stuff he added back on after when she didn't touch his body?"
"That's what I wondered about, too," Izuku agreed. "My best guess is that it works like highlighting text in a document. When she presses her finger beans to something, it generates an aura or effect that 'selects' everything present and then changes the 'font' to 'zero gravity,' but if you then type a new line or new text it comes out in the original 'default font' having gravity."
"I'm pretty sure they fixed that bug in all but the oldest or most low-brow text editors," Tohru opined.
"Ahahaha… I only have so much allowance, so I just use the original options on our computer and buy more merchandise instead," Izuku admitted, "so that bug still gets me every now and then."
Then they moved on to Izuku's match, and Hitoshi swallowed hard as the uppercut tore through three ceilings.
"Okay," he breathed, "I am significantly re-evaluating my chances of beating you."
"Just so long as he doesn't break his arm in an earlier opponent. Besides, we might not even be fighting, it's a Sports Festival," Tohru reminded him with a pat on the shoulder.
"A-A-Actually, I reviewed all the previous year's recordings I had, plus some more they keep here in the library, and so… I guess we should probably discuss the Festival's set-up?"
"That sounds like a good idea," Hitoshi agreed.
"Yeah! If you've realized something, go ahead and spill!" Tohru seconded.
Izuku was very thankful that they'd grabbed an unreserved study room, or else the librarian might have scowled at them by now.
"Right then," he muttered, marshaling his thoughts. "UA's Sports Festival… there are always 3 main events for each year, in the same order, with a similar theme," he explained. "First will be a free-for-all mass elimination round, something like dodgeball, a foot race, and obstacle course, mass freeze tag, red rover with quirks, musical chairs with the chairs being robots wearing saddles, or that type of thing."
"Robots wearing saddles?"
"That type of thing…"
Hitoshi and Tohru shared a look—despite him accidentally gazing at her forehead—of mutual mental pain at what UA could think up.
"Yeah, that was the mass elimination for the 3rd year students last year, and the 1st-year students 4 years ago, but I doubt we'll see it this year; UA doesn't like to repeat its tricks too often," Izuku mused.
"…When you say 'mass elimination,' how many people get through?" Hitoshi wondered.
"It's as many as 80, no less than 42," Izuku answered, "at least for the 1st-years' events. Since there are usually about 40 Heroics students, that means no matter what 2 non-Heroics students are guaranteed the opportunity to progress to the next round, so anyone who does that can at least signal possible interest in transferring to Heroics."
"Which doesn't mean you should get past the first event and stop trying," Tohru added. "Plus Ultra! Get to the last event and show off, or even win it all!"
"At least try to place as a semi-finalist, and the teachers will probably arrange something," Izuku agreed, "but if you want to be a hero for real then go for the win, and-," He grinned at Hitoshi. "-I'll see you at the the top."
Hitoshi gave a brief, desert-dry chuckle. "I'll see you there." Then, more seriously, "You guys don't mind that you're training up a potential rival?"
"Kan-sensei says we shouldn't just look at it as competing against each other. We're competing to be our best selves," Tohru recited, "and in the field, in real life as heroes, we'll all be on the same team, fighting villains. In 5 years, we might team up on a mission and you save my life, but that won't happen if I sabotage you, which would be a bad way to go down, right?"
"To say the least, I guess," Hitoshi agreed. It even made sense to him, somewhat: in the short term these people were his rivals, but that didn't mean they would be his enemies the way actual villains were.
'Heroes might not be all on the same team, but we're all on the same side, aren't we? I hadn't thought of it that way before,' Hitoshi reflected. 'Maybe I can even… We'll see.'
They watched Izuku's Battle Trial a second time, Izuku explaining as they went where things went wrong and how they'd coped—admitting he'd forgotten Tsuyu was present until she bound Katsuki got a laugh, at least—before moving onto the next match.
"What exactly can she make?" Hitoshi wondered, seeing Momo's Quirk at work.
"Anything!" Tohru exclaimed.
"I think she has size limits, and she has to know how it's made, but basically," Izuku agreed. "It's a really powerful Quirk, so no wonder she got in on recommendation."
"Well, given it was her uncle who recommended her," Tohru joked.
"Who's her uncle?" Hitoshi wondered.
"Hangaku Yaoyorozu-sensei, he teaches 3rd-year classes, especially Support Course students," Izuku answered. "He's the Metal Hero: Kinzokubutsu. I think he designed and created most of the robots UA uses for the entry practical; we'll probably see those pop up in the first or second event as obstacles."
"Not the third? You didn't mention the second event's pattern, after the mass elimination," Hitoshi noted.
"Oh right!" Izuku decided to pause Shouto's icy display before the main event, so it'd keep being impressive without him distracting Hitoshi. "So it goes: mass elimination, team competition, single combat, and always in that order. First event weeds out everyone who doesn't really want to be there and gives an opportunity-,"
"For non-Heroics students to show interest, you mentioned," Hitoshi interjected. "then the team competition…" If he were feeling particularly skeptical, Hitoshi would suspect it was a way to weed out non-Heroics students so the Hero Course wouldn't look bad, since the superior Heroics students would have training and experience working together, leaving non-Heroics students with the underachiever's no one wanted or each other.
Izuku's claim that Gen Ed students could transfer without winning—and winning the Sports Festival itself had struck Hitoshi as nearly impossible, and he only felt at all confident due to his quirk's focus on human targets, not that he wouldn't have tried anyway—had immensely reframed the narrative for Hitoshi.
He still wanted to check if it was true, but if it was, then he had upperclassmen he could ask for advice and it became feasible that he could talk to the teachers about his dream without being laughed at for his 'villainous Quirk' like in previous schools.
That was a good feeling, even if he tried to be wary of false hope.
"Mass elimination, team competition, then one-on-one. What type team events and one-on-one contests are we talking about?"
"There's a lot of variety in the team events, but team sizes can vary between 2 and 8 people," Izuku answered. "If teams are 5 people or more instead of 2-4, they're random assigned, but teams of smaller groups can self-organize, usually." He frowned. "I think the assigned groupings are more common in later years' games, to represent heroes teaming up in the field, while the 1st-year students get a break and can show off in teams with their friends."
"Great, friends, just the thing I need," Hitoshi deadpanned.
He nearly swallowed his own tongue when Tohru glomped him.
"Don't be such a sourpuss, Shinso-kun! If we get that far, do you want to be on a team with me? I'll be your friend."
"I… I'll think about it," he hedged, not quite daring to reciprocate her hug.
"Then for single combat, I've seen gladiatorial combat matches, I've seen tied-turtle wrestling, I've seen chanbara duels, I've seen pool-top sparring… There's a lot of options, but there's always a combat aspect and it's always 1-on-1, because they need to eliminate people and get the top 4 to the victor's podium," Izuku finished.
"Okay, I see… It's getting late, so how about we watch this last match and meet up tomorrow at lunch?" Hitoshi suggested.
"Sure thing!" Tohru agreed.
"Yeah, then we'll pull up 1-B's matches. Do you mind if another friend or two shows up?" Izuku checked.
Hitoshi shrugged.
Then Izuku hit PLAY and Shouto froze the whole building, prompting the purple-haired boy to drastically re-evaluate his chances of winning the festival.
Again.
'…Yuyu Haya, huh? Yeah, I'll definitely need to ask for some tips,' he decided.
5:5 - Conundrums
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
13 Days until the Sports Festival.
"Deku-kun! So we're watching 1-B's Battle Trials?" Ochako cheered as she slid into the reserved room.
"Did she just call you Deku?" Hitoshi wondered.
"It's a play on the kanji in my name and 'dekiru,' like 'I can do it,'" Izuku explained with a nervous laugh. "Ochako-san, this is Hitoshi Shinso, hoping to transfer in from Gen Ed."
"Nice to meet you!"
"Good luck with that, kero. I'm a little jealous; my best friend went to another school, but if she knew transferring was possible, kerogero, then Habuko-chan might be in our year here instead."
"This is Tsuyu-chan," Izuku introduced as she arrived with Tohru.
"And you remember me, right?" Tohru put an arm around Hitoshi again, though he still didn't quite return the hug.
"Wow… I guess you guys aren't all like that angry blond," Hitoshi reflected uncomfortably.
"Bakugou-chan has anger issues," Tsuyu agreed.
"Yeah, but he's really competent too! He and Deku-kun are like, eternal rivals fated to duke it out for first place!" Ochako cheered.
'Th-That's one way to put it… I guess, since I haven't gone into much detail… Yeah, I'll leave it at that with Ochako-chan,' Izuku decided.
"Katsuki Bakugou… he's the #1 student from the entry exam's practical, right?" Hitoshi remembered.
"His score of 77 was entirely Villain Points," Tsuyu confirmed. "He didn't save a single comrade."
Hitoshi twitched guiltily. 'Looking back, if I knew about Rescue Points… I think I was in the blond's area, seeing him go crazy with the explosions, and I was mostly angry he didn't leave many robots for me to try fighting. If I knew, I'd have teamed up with a few people or helped them out instead of seething. That's embarrassing to look back on…'
'Though why my Quirk is "villainous" while the guy who could explode people or level buildings is a hero automatically…' Hitoshi shook his head to swallow his anger, focusing on what they were there for.
"So, are we going to watch this or not?"
"Here, I've pulled dup the first one," Izuku declared.
"Before we even see them in action, kero," Tsuyu interrupted, "does anyone want to make predictions?"
"That seems a little early, right?" Tohru pointed out.
"Really, I want to see what Izuku-kun can predict this time," Tsuyu admitted.
"500 yen says Itsuka Kendo wins. She's on the hero team, right?" Hitoshi checked.
"Villains are listed first," Ochako confirmed. "You know her?"
"She placed 5th in the entry exam, so she's a top contender, even if Tetsutetsu placed 8th with one point less than Midoriya," Hitoshi reasoned.
"Interesting, kero."
"Deku-kun, do you know anything about their quirks?" Ochako wondered.
"Well… Kamakiri-san has those mandible growths and green skin, but there's probably more to it than that. Tetsutetsu-san might have something related to his eyes, but there's only a 70% chance that a given passive mutation is anatomically related to a secondary transformation or emitter aspect of a Quirk. It's really too early to tell," Izuku decided as he produced a notebook, "but once I see them in action we can stop halfway and I'll make a guess or two."
"Just remember my bet," Hitoshi said.
"That Testutetsu guy seemed pretty pumped, so I'll put 500 yen on him," Tohru decided, producing her own coin to ante up.
Izuku hit PLAY.
It was immediately noticeable that the villains lacked good cooperativeness, as their 5-minute prep period saw them breaking out in a fight as Togaru tried to make Tetsutetsu stayed behind while he went to fight Itsuka; it seemed they'd been rivals at their dojo since childhood or something, and he wanted to win.
Tetsutetsu rejected being locked out of the action, and both promptly displayed their Quirks as they fought, Tetsutetsu turning his skin to steel while Togaru grew metal blades from his green-tinged skin.
Hitoshi hit the pause button.
"Your face looks like you thought of something."
Izuku, in the midst of a mutter-fest, needed a moment to react.
"Oh! Well, just in that series of exchanges, I saw some really interesting things about their Quirk interactions," Izuku admitted.
"Really? That fast? …Is it about Kamakiri cutting Tetsutetsu?" Ochako realized.
"I think it might be more of a 'Perfect Shield, Perfect Spear,' fallacy issue, kero."
"But the spear usually wins, unless the shield is All Might," Tohru pointed out.
"Midoriya?" Hitoshi prompted, surprised at how comfortable he was feeling with them. 'Feels almost like friends, I guess. They aren't scared of me.'
"Right! At the first series of exchanges, Kamakiri swiped at Tetsutetsu and nicked him through his iron skin, but then Tetsutetsu shouted something and went on the offensive. At that point, Kamakiri's blades started scraping off in sprays of sparks, meaning Tetsutetsu can make his skin harder than it started out when he transformed," Izuku listed.
"Tetsutetsu can get harder, but Kamakiri can't get sharper, then?" Tohru wondered.
"It'd be a stamina battle, since getting harder than default probably costs something," Hitoshi estimated.
"Yeah…" Izuku zoomed in. "Usually, the eyes are weak points for body-reinforcing Quirks, but Tetsutetsu-san's eyes change color to look like his metal skin, so that won't work. But then…" He rewound and replayed the last few seconds of the clip. "Kamakiri-san withdrew his blades, but grew new ones, and these blades could cut Tetsutetsu-san again."
"So he can make them sharper but he has to regrow them, like he sharpens them inside his body," Ochako figured.
"Probably. I don't know how a fight between them would end, but I'm betting if they're fighting with each other already, Kendo-san's team will probably win," Izuku finished.
"As long as neither of them act like Bakugou-chan, teamwork should carry the day," Tsuyu agreed.
Izuku started playing again and they kept watching.
"Teamwork, huh? It looks like she's all alone," Hitoshi commented when the Hero Team entered, only for Itsuka to be the only one on-screen, heading through the building.
"You could say the same thing about my team; we don't know Kuroiro's Quirk," Tohru countered.
"It's just her hands so far, maybe other body parts? But she increases the size of her hands to increase the strength of her blows," Izuku muttered as he saw her punch through a door and enter the fight. "I guess the main question is whether the mechanism is biological or quantum, because it'd have very different details if she adds molecules or just alters their relationship. Ah!"
"What is it, what did you see?" Tohru asked urgently as she paused the clip.
"What did you mean by 'quantum,' for that matter, Deku-kun?"
"O-O-Oh! Um, I mean, well… So we know some Quirks can… um… Tsuyu-chan," he said in a tangent, "did you ever measure whether your weight increases when you extend your tongue all the way?"
"A lady shouldn't disclose her weight to young men, kero," Tsuyu chided, "but it doesn't increase."
"Huh? Oh, there goes that theory, then. But for growing-based Quirks, there's basically two methods through which it can work. Because supposedly, the extra mass for your flesh has to come from somewhere, right? I mean, a lot of Quirks violate traditional conservation of mass, like Yaoyorozu-san creating things, but she still needs lipids to start the process," Izuku reasoned. "I'm basically familiar with two methods. The first is just the generation of new cells and flesh, a biological method, while the second involves the expansion of the space between atoms and molecules despite still holding them together."
"What's the difference? And… Mountain Lady is a Musutafu hero, which one does she use?" Ochako asked.
"It's not what I'd expect, because I still have no idea where the mass comes from, but Mountain Lady seems to use the biological method. If she used the quantum method, expanding the space between her molecules like inflating a balloon, then she'd still weigh the same and she wouldn't break buildings when she moved wrong, because her weight wouldn't do that much damage," Izuku elaborated. "This also means that she can potentially heal injuries by switching between her forms, to an extent."
"You said she's creating extra mass, extra flesh, so I'm guessing the extra would just fill in the wound or something when she switches?" Hitoshi reasoned slowly.
"Probably, but I've never seen it work. Kendo-san, she just started fighting with Kamakiri and her hand got cut," Izuku pointed out. "If the cut's still there after she changes size… Especially if it stays proportional to her hand after changing size, that means her Quirk is quantum-method, but if it heals up or if it doesn't change at all, it's the biology method… probably. From what I saw of Tsuyu-chan's Quirk, I though her tongue was biology-method, because quantum expansion shouldn't give it that dexterity, but if her weight doesn't change then I don't know."
Izuku shrugged and hit PLAY again.
Itsuka fought Togaru, getting scratched up but not seriously injured, though she continued to seem unaccompanied as she fought.
"Any second now. Come on, you're in view of the bomb, any second now," Tohru pleaded, hoping Shihai would display a Quirk like hers.
On-screen, something Itsuka said made Tetsutetsu roar and run in, only for Itsuka to grab his hardened body in her big hands and use him to bludgeon Togaru.
"Ouch, that's gotta hurt!"
"I bet they're glad to be made of metal, kero."
All of a sudden, as Togaru grew new blades to fight with, Itsuka threw Tetsutetsu across the room, straight into the bomb.
"Ooh! I see him!" Tohru cried just in time for All Might to declare a hero victory.
Izuku paused it, backed up, and zoomed in.
"Is that a warp portal, like in USJ?" Ochako wondered a touch sickly.
"They'd have won earlier than that, kero," Tsuyu countered.
"Shadows," Izuku declared firmly. He rewound and zoomed in again. "Look closely: from when she entered, Kendo-san's shadow has been darker than the shadows next to her despite the lighting."
"He hid in her shadow, switched to Tetsutetsu's shadow when they overlapped, and then Kendo threw Tetsutetsu so Shihai could pop out and claim the win," Hitoshi summarized.
"Kero. I bet there's more to it, unless Kuroiro got in based on rescue points as well. I expect he has some trick to fight."
"Technically, there are shadows inside the robots' metal shells," Izuku reasoned. "He could probably slip inside… I don't know how well he'd fight, but Tokoyami-kun and Dark Shadow got 9th place in broad daylight, so I think it could work."
They took a few more notes, tossed around some comments, and then Izuku moved to the next video.
"Be that as it may," Hound Dog said soberly, "as a Pro Hero and your teacher, Vlad King would risk himself for you, but he wouldn't want you to do the same."
"I know," Izuku allowed, looking up to the ceiling instead of at his Guidance Counselor, "but I don't regret it. …Do you know if he'll be okay?"
"His arm won't be returning to him, but Ectoplasm still works as a hero with prosthetics legs," Hound Dog reassured the boy. "Sekijiro won't quit easily. I expect he'll be back after the Sports festival."
"Do you know where- Can we visit him? Yaoyorozu-san and I put together a bit of a gift basket… Is it a bad thing that I let her make or buy most of it?"
"Attempting to forbid her from helping in her own way could be as bad as forcing her to act, but if she volunteered then there shouldn't be any harm in it. Often, people—especially young heroes—respond to distress by attempting to help others as a way of reaffirming their own capability."
"Really?" Izuku paused in thought. "That… actually, that makes a lot of sense. I think I do it." 'I mean, I need to prove that I'm worthy after being trusted with One For All, but even before All Might… Well, there weren't many times I could help people, but I wanted to.'
"Many students behave that way, and adults, not just Pro Heroes," Hound Dog chuckled. He let the silence sit between them for a few breaths. "…Where is your mind going?"
"I'm wondering-!" Izuku cut off, unwilling to reveal the secret of One For All, no matter how private these sessions were supposed to be. "Um, I've had some nightmares about everything, being attacked." 'It's pathetic, but Hound Dog-sensei won't judge me for it.' "Sort of as a way to… to convince myself it wasn't so bad, I've been looking into other heroism 'horror stories' where things went wrong. And then that got me to conundrums, especially because Nejire-senpai shared a 'logical ruse' with me from when she was a first-year student, and do you know about the Midwife's Conundrum?"
"A midwife attending a difficult childbirth has to decide whether to save the baby's life or the mother's," Hound Dog recognized.
"Yeah. There was… so heroes are supposed to save everyone," Izuku rambled, "but I'm… I only really noticed recently, but even All Might has had people die. Right in his debut, 3 people were dead before he arrived, and if he can't do it… But, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. It's like approaching a limit when you calculate a function; we might never reach 100% saving people, but getting closer and closer is good, if each fraction of a percent is another life saved."
"Yes, very good. That's a mature realization from someone your age; we may not save everyone, but we should still try," Hound Dog congratulated.
"And, hey, limits are there to be overcome," Izuku finished, "so we'll Go Beyond."
"Plus Ultra!" Hound Dog barked.
They both laughed and let the quiet settle in again.
Hound Dog didn't prompt Izuku, he just let the boy think.
"…Hound Dog-sensei, about the Midwife's Conundrum. What do you answer?"
"I think I'm only qualified to give first aid and I shouldn't ever be in charge of a difficult pregnancy. But," Hound Dog continued before Izuku could interpret it as a rebuke, "I'd also say that broad hypothetical questions are often much more conditional and I'd need to make a judgment call in the moment based on what I knew of the mother, her health…"
"But you would try to save them both?" Izuku pressed.
"I would want to save them both," Hound Dog clarified. "If we assume I have sufficient medical training to tell that I would need to trade one for another, then we should assume I would be able to attempt a plan that might save them both. What do you think?"
"I want to save them both as well," Izuku said, "but the… I ran across this argument in an online forum about heroes and crises. One post criticized that trying to save both was irresponsible if you could guarantee saving one at the cost of another, because trying to save both allowed for the possibility of failing to save both, 'sacrificing the one life you would have saved in order to feel good about trying'."
"And what do you think?"
"I don't… disagree, but I do? It feels… incomplete," Izuku decided on. "I just can't figure out why."
"Hmm… There are a few articles and essays I can recommend to you; the school library has Japanese translations of a number of essays the Pro Hero Investment authored on the topic, including the Midwife's Conundrum."
"Investment?" Izuku perked up. "She's the #1 hero in Brazil, right? Ranked 4th worldwide."
"I believe she dropped to 8th after stepping back a bit from the limelight recently," Hound Dog mused, "but yes. She and Principal Nedzu get along well, and heroic morality is a topic on which she's something of an authority."
"What does she say about this?" Izuku wondered. 'I don't think I could ever ask... I guess I might ask All Might, but I just imagine him being disappointed that I can't find a better way. Id' rather him not blame me before I even make that mistake. ...I really hope I never do.'
"As I recall… 'Children less than a year old are ten times more likely to die than at any period between their first birthday and adulthood. Saving the baby will at worst create an orphan who may perish anyway of other causes in the next few months, and at best will force the infant's care upon caretakers also grieving the mother's death, whereas saving the mother will inflict grief on the parents but will also provide them the opportunity to birth or foster other children in future.'"
"That… Yeah. I guess that's a good answer," Izuku said, staring at his hands. He didn't sound convinced.
"No, it isn't."
"Huh? But-,"
"Investment herself then goes on to say that using her reasoning to make the decision is just an excuse to avoid feeling guilty about giving up on whichever life you didn't save. The 'correct' answer, she posits, is for the decision-maker to not be solely responsible, having had the training and education to know if the situation is as hopeless as it seems, and she cites several medical cases where a bad initial diagnosis had devastating effects. Her point being, if someone unqualified to make the call based on the unique situation is in charge of making that call, it means that the people genuinely responsible erred in allowing that to happen, and we shouldn't blame the person making the decision. It boils down to 'for heroes, an ounce of preparation is worth more than a pound of cure,' although it's more thorough in the original article…"
"I can read it, I won't trouble you," Izuku said quickly.
Hound Dog chuckled. "No trouble at all," he assured the boy, but he also took the cue to drop the subject. "Well then… is there anything else on your mind?"
"Um." Izuku bit his lip. "I've recently found out something, and she swore me to secrecy, but I just feel like I have to tell somebody and you might already know if she told you-,"
"Anything you tell me is confidential," Hound Dog promised him.
"Okay. Hagakure-san."
Hound Dog perked up his ears, knowing any of several things the boy could have learned. "What about her?"
"So… I sort of even feel dirty for noticing, but she's not actually, um… Like originally, we all thought she was naked in her hero costume to be invisible, because she can't do clothes? Only we were talking and I sortofwasnoticingherbrastrapthroughhershirtohgoshIfeellikeacreepnow-,"
"Brahahahaha…!" Hound dog cut Izuku off with a burst of laughter (louder than normal to dispel the tension). "That's hardly the end of the world, Midoriya-kun. Was she upset?"
"I mean… She… She swore me to secrecy, because she likes messing with people's heads. Um. I might not be telling this the right way…"
"Take your time," Hound Dog encouraged after eyeing the clock.
In bits and pieces, Izuku laid it out. His tutoring with Tohru leading to their interactions. Things he noticed or theorized. His question about whether her cut-off hair or nails regained invisibility. His reluctant practicing with her for sparring, because invisible limbs meant her hits were harder to block. His worry about her lack of armor. A loss of balance.
"She says she likes making fun of people and made me promise not to tell anybody, but I just- um." Izuku stopped talking.
Hound Dog waited patiently.
"It feels different, but then I feel guilty for thinking about her like that and it really shouldn't change anything? I just…" He finally looked at the Guidance Counselor. "She has to use her own cut-off hair to wear clothes with her quirk, and that seems really dangerous. Unfair, it seems really unfair. And heroes are people who overturn unfairness in the world," Izuku said. "I want to help her out."
Hound Dog smiled at him.
"Deku-kun! So we're watching 1-B's Battle Trials?" Ochako cheered as she slid into the reserved room.
"Did she just call you Deku?" Hitoshi wondered.
"It's a play on the kanji in my name and 'dekiru,' like 'I can do it,'" Izuku explained with a nervous laugh. "Ochako-san, this is Hitoshi Shinso, hoping to transfer in from Gen Ed."
"Nice to meet you!"
"Good luck with that, kero. I'm a little jealous; my best friend went to another school, but if she knew transferring was possible, kerogero, then Habuko-chan might be in our year here instead."
"This is Tsuyu-chan," Izuku introduced as she arrived with Tohru.
"And you remember me, right?" Tohru put an arm around Hitoshi again, though he still didn't quite return the hug.
"Wow… I guess you guys aren't all like that angry blond," Hitoshi reflected uncomfortably.
"Bakugou-chan has anger issues," Tsuyu agreed.
"Yeah, but he's really competent too! He and Deku-kun are like, eternal rivals fated to duke it out for first place!" Ochako cheered.
'Th-That's one way to put it… I guess, since I haven't gone into much detail… Yeah, I'll leave it at that with Ochako-chan,' Izuku decided.
"Katsuki Bakugou… he's the #1 student from the entry exam's practical, right?" Hitoshi remembered.
"His score of 77 was entirely Villain Points," Tsuyu confirmed. "He didn't save a single comrade."
Hitoshi twitched guiltily. 'Looking back, if I knew about Rescue Points… I think I was in the blond's area, seeing him go crazy with the explosions, and I was mostly angry he didn't leave many robots for me to try fighting. If I knew, I'd have teamed up with a few people or helped them out instead of seething. That's embarrassing to look back on…'
'Though why my Quirk is "villainous" while the guy who could explode people or level buildings is a hero automatically…' Hitoshi shook his head to swallow his anger, focusing on what they were there for.
"So, are we going to watch this or not?"
"Here, I've pulled dup the first one," Izuku declared.
Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Togaru Kamakiri versus Itsuka Kendo and Shihai Kuroiro
"Before we even see them in action, kero," Tsuyu interrupted, "does anyone want to make predictions?"
"That seems a little early, right?" Tohru pointed out.
"Really, I want to see what Izuku-kun can predict this time," Tsuyu admitted.
"500 yen says Itsuka Kendo wins. She's on the hero team, right?" Hitoshi checked.
"Villains are listed first," Ochako confirmed. "You know her?"
"She placed 5th in the entry exam, so she's a top contender, even if Tetsutetsu placed 8th with one point less than Midoriya," Hitoshi reasoned.
"Interesting, kero."
"Deku-kun, do you know anything about their quirks?" Ochako wondered.
"Well… Kamakiri-san has those mandible growths and green skin, but there's probably more to it than that. Tetsutetsu-san might have something related to his eyes, but there's only a 70% chance that a given passive mutation is anatomically related to a secondary transformation or emitter aspect of a Quirk. It's really too early to tell," Izuku decided as he produced a notebook, "but once I see them in action we can stop halfway and I'll make a guess or two."
"Just remember my bet," Hitoshi said.
"That Testutetsu guy seemed pretty pumped, so I'll put 500 yen on him," Tohru decided, producing her own coin to ante up.
Izuku hit PLAY.
It was immediately noticeable that the villains lacked good cooperativeness, as their 5-minute prep period saw them breaking out in a fight as Togaru tried to make Tetsutetsu stayed behind while he went to fight Itsuka; it seemed they'd been rivals at their dojo since childhood or something, and he wanted to win.
Tetsutetsu rejected being locked out of the action, and both promptly displayed their Quirks as they fought, Tetsutetsu turning his skin to steel while Togaru grew metal blades from his green-tinged skin.
Hitoshi hit the pause button.
"Your face looks like you thought of something."
Izuku, in the midst of a mutter-fest, needed a moment to react.
"Oh! Well, just in that series of exchanges, I saw some really interesting things about their Quirk interactions," Izuku admitted.
"Really? That fast? …Is it about Kamakiri cutting Tetsutetsu?" Ochako realized.
"I think it might be more of a 'Perfect Shield, Perfect Spear,' fallacy issue, kero."
"But the spear usually wins, unless the shield is All Might," Tohru pointed out.
"Midoriya?" Hitoshi prompted, surprised at how comfortable he was feeling with them. 'Feels almost like friends, I guess. They aren't scared of me.'
"Right! At the first series of exchanges, Kamakiri swiped at Tetsutetsu and nicked him through his iron skin, but then Tetsutetsu shouted something and went on the offensive. At that point, Kamakiri's blades started scraping off in sprays of sparks, meaning Tetsutetsu can make his skin harder than it started out when he transformed," Izuku listed.
"Tetsutetsu can get harder, but Kamakiri can't get sharper, then?" Tohru wondered.
"It'd be a stamina battle, since getting harder than default probably costs something," Hitoshi estimated.
"Yeah…" Izuku zoomed in. "Usually, the eyes are weak points for body-reinforcing Quirks, but Tetsutetsu-san's eyes change color to look like his metal skin, so that won't work. But then…" He rewound and replayed the last few seconds of the clip. "Kamakiri-san withdrew his blades, but grew new ones, and these blades could cut Tetsutetsu-san again."
"So he can make them sharper but he has to regrow them, like he sharpens them inside his body," Ochako figured.
"Probably. I don't know how a fight between them would end, but I'm betting if they're fighting with each other already, Kendo-san's team will probably win," Izuku finished.
"As long as neither of them act like Bakugou-chan, teamwork should carry the day," Tsuyu agreed.
Izuku started playing again and they kept watching.
"Teamwork, huh? It looks like she's all alone," Hitoshi commented when the Hero Team entered, only for Itsuka to be the only one on-screen, heading through the building.
"You could say the same thing about my team; we don't know Kuroiro's Quirk," Tohru countered.
"It's just her hands so far, maybe other body parts? But she increases the size of her hands to increase the strength of her blows," Izuku muttered as he saw her punch through a door and enter the fight. "I guess the main question is whether the mechanism is biological or quantum, because it'd have very different details if she adds molecules or just alters their relationship. Ah!"
"What is it, what did you see?" Tohru asked urgently as she paused the clip.
"What did you mean by 'quantum,' for that matter, Deku-kun?"
"O-O-Oh! Um, I mean, well… So we know some Quirks can… um… Tsuyu-chan," he said in a tangent, "did you ever measure whether your weight increases when you extend your tongue all the way?"
"A lady shouldn't disclose her weight to young men, kero," Tsuyu chided, "but it doesn't increase."
"Huh? Oh, there goes that theory, then. But for growing-based Quirks, there's basically two methods through which it can work. Because supposedly, the extra mass for your flesh has to come from somewhere, right? I mean, a lot of Quirks violate traditional conservation of mass, like Yaoyorozu-san creating things, but she still needs lipids to start the process," Izuku reasoned. "I'm basically familiar with two methods. The first is just the generation of new cells and flesh, a biological method, while the second involves the expansion of the space between atoms and molecules despite still holding them together."
"What's the difference? And… Mountain Lady is a Musutafu hero, which one does she use?" Ochako asked.
"It's not what I'd expect, because I still have no idea where the mass comes from, but Mountain Lady seems to use the biological method. If she used the quantum method, expanding the space between her molecules like inflating a balloon, then she'd still weigh the same and she wouldn't break buildings when she moved wrong, because her weight wouldn't do that much damage," Izuku elaborated. "This also means that she can potentially heal injuries by switching between her forms, to an extent."
"You said she's creating extra mass, extra flesh, so I'm guessing the extra would just fill in the wound or something when she switches?" Hitoshi reasoned slowly.
"Probably, but I've never seen it work. Kendo-san, she just started fighting with Kamakiri and her hand got cut," Izuku pointed out. "If the cut's still there after she changes size… Especially if it stays proportional to her hand after changing size, that means her Quirk is quantum-method, but if it heals up or if it doesn't change at all, it's the biology method… probably. From what I saw of Tsuyu-chan's Quirk, I though her tongue was biology-method, because quantum expansion shouldn't give it that dexterity, but if her weight doesn't change then I don't know."
Izuku shrugged and hit PLAY again.
Itsuka fought Togaru, getting scratched up but not seriously injured, though she continued to seem unaccompanied as she fought.
"Any second now. Come on, you're in view of the bomb, any second now," Tohru pleaded, hoping Shihai would display a Quirk like hers.
On-screen, something Itsuka said made Tetsutetsu roar and run in, only for Itsuka to grab his hardened body in her big hands and use him to bludgeon Togaru.
"Ouch, that's gotta hurt!"
"I bet they're glad to be made of metal, kero."
All of a sudden, as Togaru grew new blades to fight with, Itsuka threw Tetsutetsu across the room, straight into the bomb.
"Ooh! I see him!" Tohru cried just in time for All Might to declare a hero victory.
Izuku paused it, backed up, and zoomed in.
"Is that a warp portal, like in USJ?" Ochako wondered a touch sickly.
"They'd have won earlier than that, kero," Tsuyu countered.
"Shadows," Izuku declared firmly. He rewound and zoomed in again. "Look closely: from when she entered, Kendo-san's shadow has been darker than the shadows next to her despite the lighting."
"He hid in her shadow, switched to Tetsutetsu's shadow when they overlapped, and then Kendo threw Tetsutetsu so Shihai could pop out and claim the win," Hitoshi summarized.
"Kero. I bet there's more to it, unless Kuroiro got in based on rescue points as well. I expect he has some trick to fight."
"Technically, there are shadows inside the robots' metal shells," Izuku reasoned. "He could probably slip inside… I don't know how well he'd fight, but Tokoyami-kun and Dark Shadow got 9th place in broad daylight, so I think it could work."
They took a few more notes, tossed around some comments, and then Izuku moved to the next video.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Be that as it may," Hound Dog said soberly, "as a Pro Hero and your teacher, Vlad King would risk himself for you, but he wouldn't want you to do the same."
"I know," Izuku allowed, looking up to the ceiling instead of at his Guidance Counselor, "but I don't regret it. …Do you know if he'll be okay?"
"His arm won't be returning to him, but Ectoplasm still works as a hero with prosthetics legs," Hound Dog reassured the boy. "Sekijiro won't quit easily. I expect he'll be back after the Sports festival."
"Do you know where- Can we visit him? Yaoyorozu-san and I put together a bit of a gift basket… Is it a bad thing that I let her make or buy most of it?"
"Attempting to forbid her from helping in her own way could be as bad as forcing her to act, but if she volunteered then there shouldn't be any harm in it. Often, people—especially young heroes—respond to distress by attempting to help others as a way of reaffirming their own capability."
"Really?" Izuku paused in thought. "That… actually, that makes a lot of sense. I think I do it." 'I mean, I need to prove that I'm worthy after being trusted with One For All, but even before All Might… Well, there weren't many times I could help people, but I wanted to.'
"Many students behave that way, and adults, not just Pro Heroes," Hound Dog chuckled. He let the silence sit between them for a few breaths. "…Where is your mind going?"
"I'm wondering-!" Izuku cut off, unwilling to reveal the secret of One For All, no matter how private these sessions were supposed to be. "Um, I've had some nightmares about everything, being attacked." 'It's pathetic, but Hound Dog-sensei won't judge me for it.' "Sort of as a way to… to convince myself it wasn't so bad, I've been looking into other heroism 'horror stories' where things went wrong. And then that got me to conundrums, especially because Nejire-senpai shared a 'logical ruse' with me from when she was a first-year student, and do you know about the Midwife's Conundrum?"
"A midwife attending a difficult childbirth has to decide whether to save the baby's life or the mother's," Hound Dog recognized.
"Yeah. There was… so heroes are supposed to save everyone," Izuku rambled, "but I'm… I only really noticed recently, but even All Might has had people die. Right in his debut, 3 people were dead before he arrived, and if he can't do it… But, that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. It's like approaching a limit when you calculate a function; we might never reach 100% saving people, but getting closer and closer is good, if each fraction of a percent is another life saved."
"Yes, very good. That's a mature realization from someone your age; we may not save everyone, but we should still try," Hound Dog congratulated.
"And, hey, limits are there to be overcome," Izuku finished, "so we'll Go Beyond."
"Plus Ultra!" Hound Dog barked.
They both laughed and let the quiet settle in again.
Hound Dog didn't prompt Izuku, he just let the boy think.
"…Hound Dog-sensei, about the Midwife's Conundrum. What do you answer?"
"I think I'm only qualified to give first aid and I shouldn't ever be in charge of a difficult pregnancy. But," Hound Dog continued before Izuku could interpret it as a rebuke, "I'd also say that broad hypothetical questions are often much more conditional and I'd need to make a judgment call in the moment based on what I knew of the mother, her health…"
"But you would try to save them both?" Izuku pressed.
"I would want to save them both," Hound Dog clarified. "If we assume I have sufficient medical training to tell that I would need to trade one for another, then we should assume I would be able to attempt a plan that might save them both. What do you think?"
"I want to save them both as well," Izuku said, "but the… I ran across this argument in an online forum about heroes and crises. One post criticized that trying to save both was irresponsible if you could guarantee saving one at the cost of another, because trying to save both allowed for the possibility of failing to save both, 'sacrificing the one life you would have saved in order to feel good about trying'."
"And what do you think?"
"I don't… disagree, but I do? It feels… incomplete," Izuku decided on. "I just can't figure out why."
"Hmm… There are a few articles and essays I can recommend to you; the school library has Japanese translations of a number of essays the Pro Hero Investment authored on the topic, including the Midwife's Conundrum."
"Investment?" Izuku perked up. "She's the #1 hero in Brazil, right? Ranked 4th worldwide."
"I believe she dropped to 8th after stepping back a bit from the limelight recently," Hound Dog mused, "but yes. She and Principal Nedzu get along well, and heroic morality is a topic on which she's something of an authority."
"What does she say about this?" Izuku wondered. 'I don't think I could ever ask... I guess I might ask All Might, but I just imagine him being disappointed that I can't find a better way. Id' rather him not blame me before I even make that mistake. ...I really hope I never do.'
"As I recall… 'Children less than a year old are ten times more likely to die than at any period between their first birthday and adulthood. Saving the baby will at worst create an orphan who may perish anyway of other causes in the next few months, and at best will force the infant's care upon caretakers also grieving the mother's death, whereas saving the mother will inflict grief on the parents but will also provide them the opportunity to birth or foster other children in future.'"
"That… Yeah. I guess that's a good answer," Izuku said, staring at his hands. He didn't sound convinced.
"No, it isn't."
"Huh? But-,"
"Investment herself then goes on to say that using her reasoning to make the decision is just an excuse to avoid feeling guilty about giving up on whichever life you didn't save. The 'correct' answer, she posits, is for the decision-maker to not be solely responsible, having had the training and education to know if the situation is as hopeless as it seems, and she cites several medical cases where a bad initial diagnosis had devastating effects. Her point being, if someone unqualified to make the call based on the unique situation is in charge of making that call, it means that the people genuinely responsible erred in allowing that to happen, and we shouldn't blame the person making the decision. It boils down to 'for heroes, an ounce of preparation is worth more than a pound of cure,' although it's more thorough in the original article…"
"I can read it, I won't trouble you," Izuku said quickly.
Hound Dog chuckled. "No trouble at all," he assured the boy, but he also took the cue to drop the subject. "Well then… is there anything else on your mind?"
"Um." Izuku bit his lip. "I've recently found out something, and she swore me to secrecy, but I just feel like I have to tell somebody and you might already know if she told you-,"
"Anything you tell me is confidential," Hound Dog promised him.
"Okay. Hagakure-san."
Hound Dog perked up his ears, knowing any of several things the boy could have learned. "What about her?"
"So… I sort of even feel dirty for noticing, but she's not actually, um… Like originally, we all thought she was naked in her hero costume to be invisible, because she can't do clothes? Only we were talking and I sortofwasnoticingherbrastrapthroughhershirtohgoshIfeellikeacreepnow-,"
"Brahahahaha…!" Hound dog cut Izuku off with a burst of laughter (louder than normal to dispel the tension). "That's hardly the end of the world, Midoriya-kun. Was she upset?"
"I mean… She… She swore me to secrecy, because she likes messing with people's heads. Um. I might not be telling this the right way…"
"Take your time," Hound Dog encouraged after eyeing the clock.
In bits and pieces, Izuku laid it out. His tutoring with Tohru leading to their interactions. Things he noticed or theorized. His question about whether her cut-off hair or nails regained invisibility. His reluctant practicing with her for sparring, because invisible limbs meant her hits were harder to block. His worry about her lack of armor. A loss of balance.
"She says she likes making fun of people and made me promise not to tell anybody, but I just- um." Izuku stopped talking.
Hound Dog waited patiently.
"It feels different, but then I feel guilty for thinking about her like that and it really shouldn't change anything? I just…" He finally looked at the Guidance Counselor. "She has to use her own cut-off hair to wear clothes with her quirk, and that seems really dangerous. Unfair, it seems really unfair. And heroes are people who overturn unfairness in the world," Izuku said. "I want to help her out."
Hound Dog smiled at him.
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Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Nice twist on her invisibility. But bleck, there's something about wearing human hair that's just unnerving. I wonder if this will lead to an approach like Mirio's costume by the support classes.
zhuull
SB still lying to protect Racists what else is new
And it was the dopiest, derpiest smile of all.
Pin on Anime stuffs
Dec 12, 2020 - christmas anime girl Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo Mashiro Shiina.
pin.it
5:6 - Explosions
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
12 Days until the Sports Festival.
"WELCOME TO ANOTHER LESSON IN HEROICS 101!" All Might boomed. "AS YOU CAN SEE, TODAY WE WILL BE JOINED IN OUR EXERCISES BY ECTOPLASM-SENSEI, SO PLEASE GIVE HIM YOUR GRATITUDE!"
""Thank you for your time, sensei,"" most of the class chorused.
"It's always a pleasure," Ectoplasm chuckled. "All Might, an explanation of their task?"
"CERTAINLY! Boys and girls, today's exercise is: Protection Detail! You will be divided into 4 groups of 5 students each, and then further subdivided into a pair and a trio! Each pair will represent a team of villains, sent to eliminate a criminal informant under guard by 3 heroes! Ectoplasm-sensei has generously agreed to play the informant through use of his doppelgängers.
"There will be a 5-minute preparatory period for each team to strategize, and then 10 minutes for the engagement! The Hero Team must protect the informant for the duration of the time-limit, which represents getting them to testify. Should Ectoplasm-sensei's clone disperse, the witness—also known as the informant—will be considered killed!
"HOWEVER! While death is a grim event to be avoid at all costs, the death of the informant is not the end of the case," All Might announced. "The Hero Team can still win, albeit with lower points, if they secure both villains before the time-limit expires, while securing one will force a draw! The Villain Team must eliminate the hostage and escape in order to secure victory! Is this clear?"
""Yes sir!""
"Are there any questions?"
"All Might-sensei!" Momo put her hand in the air. "With Jirou and Iida still absent for medical reasons-," She sneezed abruptly, though her cold had mostly passed. "-the teams will be uneven! Please excuse me."
"CORRECT! An astute observation, Yaoyorozu-shoujo! I will not be announcing the team compositions in advance," All Might declared, "so we will see as we proceed. Once the first three exercises are complete, I will allow two members of losing teams from the early exercises to regain points for today's grade by volunteering to fight a second match! Other questions? Midoriya-shounen!"
"Sensei, is the person the heroes are protecting a civilian who is testifying to a crime they witnessed, or is it a criminal informant who might try to save their hide by re-defecting?" Izuku asked.
"AN EXCELLENT QUESTION! Today, the witness has come forth after seeing their neighbor engage in criminal behavior, unaware of the neighbor's membership in a wider-ranging crime ring that wishes to silence them. In future situations, however, you may be protecting a shady figure indeed! Now, let us begin!"
Producing a ballot box from nowhere, (there was a running bet among students as to where they were stored and how the staff got them each time,) All Might held it aloft and dove his hand in.
"Our first group of combatants… Heroes Tohru Hagakure, Minoru Mineta, and Momo Yaoyorozu! VERSUS… Villain duo Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya!"
Izuku froze as Katsuki's baleful sneer fell upon him.
'Oh, this is not going to end well.'
"TEAMS, FOLLOW ME TO TAKE YOUR PLACES!"
<THE 5-MINUTE PREPARATORY PERIOD BEGINS NOW!>
'This is bad this is bad this is bad. Maybe?' Izuku took another look at Katsuki, who only scowled up at the building. 'His mood isn't good, but he isn't glaring at me… We're a team, I need to talk to him. We got along okay at USJ. I helped him, I proved I was useful.'
"K-Kacchan," Izuku began.
"Hrmph," he grunted, refusing to look at Izuku.
Izuku leaned in further, trying to get his attention without daring to touch him. 'I need to do this! I can do this!' "Kacchan, we're outnumbered, and Yaoyorozu-san is the top student in the class." 'Wait crud I just implied someone is better than him, that's bad!' "I-I-I mean-! She's really smart with good grades and a recommendation student-,"
"And you think she's better than me!"
"I don't! Really, I promise," Izuku babbled as Katsuki turned on him. "Kacchan, I-!"
"Stop calling me that!"
Izuku gaped at him, open-mouthed. "Sssssorry," he mumbled. 'I guess I… was that important to him? Tsuyu-chan told me to use her name, and Ochako-chan… I just want him to recognize me…' A memory occurred to Izuku, of TV heroes Flamberge and Incisor deciding to start over after a disagreement at the end of season 2 had ruined their friendship. It tasted like ashes in his mouth to say, but… "B-B-Bakugou-kun. Bakugou-san," Izuku quickly amended when the blond turned to him. "We need a plan."
"Hrrr…" Katsuki rumbled, glaring at Izuku, who in turn backed off a step but didn't back down. "You want a plan, Deku?" Part of Izuku actually relaxed at the familiarity of the term. "Here's our plan: you stay out of my way, and I beat them up."
'He totally doesn't get it!' "Kacch-! Bakugou-san, these aren't strangers you can surprise and blitz! Yaoyorozu-san knows how we fight, and I've been tutoring Hagakure-san in-,"
"Then I really have nothing to worry about, if she's so shitty she needs your help," Katsuki snarled. "Ponytail can't touch me in a fight, and Grape Face is a step up from slobbering at the girls on his team. They'll either stay with the hostage or split up to patrol the area, and I'll blow them up when I find them." He grabbed Izuku's outfit abruptly, dragging Izuku in nose-to-nose like when he was really pissed about things (beyond being pissed at Izuku personally,) and added, "If you so much as get in my sights mid-fight, Deku, I'll blow you up too! I don't need your help to win this!"
Izuku tried to keep his face from flushing as he panicked for 3 different reasons.
"B-B-But Yaoyorozu-,"
"I'll blow her up too if she tries to fight me! Cannons can't aim for shit," Katsuki spat, "and her staff technique is pathetic! See Through Girl isn't wearing any armor, and Grape Face is even more pathetic than you are! You're nothing, and you may as well be on their team for all I need you! There's no Asui to jump around, no fucking flames… Just let me fight, and I'll win this!"
He finished off by shoving Izuku away hard enough the boy almost fell on his back.
"I… okay, K-… Okay, Bakugou-san," Izuku mumbled.
"Tch. Finally, he gets it. Just remember, if you do anything, I'll beat you senseless," Katsuki finished.
The rest of the waiting period passed in silence as Izuku fought the urge to cry.
'I thought things were getting better,' was all he could think.
<VILLAIN TEAM, YOU ARE CLEAR TO ENTER THE BUILDING!>
"Finally," Katsuki grumbled, jumping straight up and firing off his explosions for propulsion.Yes, he was copying Izuku's & Tsuyu's strategy, but just to find the targets and even morons could have okay ideas. "Where are you losers hiding?"
He eyed the building as he rose and fell. Movement caught his eye.
'Wait, really? Yeesh, Ponytail must be off her game; maybe that Grape Face was slavering all over her.' Katsuki had seen a glimpse of Tohru Hagakure's gloves floating around through the second floor window, their movements making it clear she was patrolling. 'No way to fake that without a telekinesis Quirk. I guess they thought "unexpected" meant it was a good idea? Losers.'
Katsuki landed beside Izuku, now having the perfect idea for what to do.
"Deku, you wanted to help out? I saw See Through patrolling the second floor, go ambush her so I don't get jumped from behind. Grape Face is guarding Ectoplasm on the fourth floor, and I bet Ponytail is trapping other parts of the building, so I'll go win this and you keep them off my tail."
"I-! Okay," Izuku relented, "I'm just worried there's more to it than-,"
Katsuki shoved him (but not nearly hard enough to knock him over, since he was in a good mood).
"And that's why I'm the best," Katsuki scoffed. "The Number One Hero can't get worried about anything. Now go eliminate See Through before she tries anything clever, and if I see you anywhere near my fight I'll assume you're defecting from disobeying me." He shoved Izuku again, this time prodding him toward the building, and Izuku rushed off uncertainly.
Katsuki chuckled to himself as he rocketed with a thwoom into the air again. 'Moron didn't even go in through the 2nd story. I literally just said Ponytail should be off booby-trapping the building, and you don't assume she'd start at the bottom? Here's hoping he sets something off.'
Katsuki found a good window, and-
"Surprise, losers!" Katsuki shouted as he smashed through the window in a spray of glass, palms ready to explode the room.
Minoru Mineta immediately dove behind Ectoplasm's chair for protection while pelting Katsuki with a few easily dodged sticky-spheres.
But the boy didn't scream or say a thing. Even as he aimed his hands to pop the clone, that was the first sign Katsuki had of something going wrong.
Then Ectoplasm exploded, and Katsuki wasn't responsible.
Some foam spilled through the room, splashing over Katsuki even though he tried to blow it away with explosions; something unseen had impacted his hands and knocked his palms away from the spray before he could blast it.
'A trap! These losers thought this-!'
"Doink!" Tohru Hagakure actually yelled that literal sound effect as she somehow smooshed a purple pop-ball onto Katsuki's face without sticking herself to it.
'Oh, they're all dead for this!' Spattered with pink foam and a pop-ball on the bridge of his nose, Katsuki aimed his palms at Tohru as her footprints danced away through the foam.
He tensed and squeezed to trigger his explosions, but his hands barely popped.
"This stuff is-!" Katsuki stared at his palms in shock when they released what were closer to farts than firecrackers, let alone the explosions he'd intended.
"Momo-chan mixed it up for us!" Tohru teased, dodging around the chair with Ectoplasm's dummy to get out of sight again.
"Fine, but I can still get you!" Katsuki roared, charging her with his bare (but sticky) hands.
"Mmp!" Enough of the foam had got on Tohru to outline her in a few places, and he pinned her wrists, knocking an empty drink pouch aside as they struggled.
Tohru spat the drink in his face without warning, and it burned like crazy.
Fighting back a whimper, Katsuki let Tohru kick him off of her just so he could tend to his eyes, lashing out with his feet to keep her away. 'Can't use my hands on my eyes, I'll smear that goop in, but my forearms should be-,'
"Pennsylvania SMASH!" Izuku shouted, though Katsuki couldn't see him. The air-pressure palm thrust blasted Tohru into a wall, and Izuku took a moment to apply the capture tape-
<TOHRU HAGAKURE HAS BEEN ELIMINATED!>
-before moving to clean up Katsuki.
"Kacchan, downstairs, the gloves were attached to some see-through device, it was a blind! I told you this was a-,"
Izuku had tried to clean up Katsuki as he spoke, and he'd unwisely moved to wiping off the blond's hands once Katsuki's face was half-clean (the pop-ball made cleaning a difficult proposition).
"Oh, you told me so?!" Katsuki raged, grabbing Izuku and dragging him in as shame turned to hot fury in his-
*squeak!*
Izuku and Katsuki froze.
The pop-ball still attached to Katsuki's forehead had pressed against Izuku, gluing their faces together.
Izuku promptly realized he was a dead man.
Katsuki saw red.
And wouldn't you know it? Izuku had cleaned off the blond's hands so conveniently.
"Deku-!!!"
"WELCOME TO ANOTHER LESSON IN HEROICS 101!" All Might boomed. "AS YOU CAN SEE, TODAY WE WILL BE JOINED IN OUR EXERCISES BY ECTOPLASM-SENSEI, SO PLEASE GIVE HIM YOUR GRATITUDE!"
""Thank you for your time, sensei,"" most of the class chorused.
"It's always a pleasure," Ectoplasm chuckled. "All Might, an explanation of their task?"
"CERTAINLY! Boys and girls, today's exercise is: Protection Detail! You will be divided into 4 groups of 5 students each, and then further subdivided into a pair and a trio! Each pair will represent a team of villains, sent to eliminate a criminal informant under guard by 3 heroes! Ectoplasm-sensei has generously agreed to play the informant through use of his doppelgängers.
"There will be a 5-minute preparatory period for each team to strategize, and then 10 minutes for the engagement! The Hero Team must protect the informant for the duration of the time-limit, which represents getting them to testify. Should Ectoplasm-sensei's clone disperse, the witness—also known as the informant—will be considered killed!
"HOWEVER! While death is a grim event to be avoid at all costs, the death of the informant is not the end of the case," All Might announced. "The Hero Team can still win, albeit with lower points, if they secure both villains before the time-limit expires, while securing one will force a draw! The Villain Team must eliminate the hostage and escape in order to secure victory! Is this clear?"
""Yes sir!""
"Are there any questions?"
"All Might-sensei!" Momo put her hand in the air. "With Jirou and Iida still absent for medical reasons-," She sneezed abruptly, though her cold had mostly passed. "-the teams will be uneven! Please excuse me."
"CORRECT! An astute observation, Yaoyorozu-shoujo! I will not be announcing the team compositions in advance," All Might declared, "so we will see as we proceed. Once the first three exercises are complete, I will allow two members of losing teams from the early exercises to regain points for today's grade by volunteering to fight a second match! Other questions? Midoriya-shounen!"
"Sensei, is the person the heroes are protecting a civilian who is testifying to a crime they witnessed, or is it a criminal informant who might try to save their hide by re-defecting?" Izuku asked.
"AN EXCELLENT QUESTION! Today, the witness has come forth after seeing their neighbor engage in criminal behavior, unaware of the neighbor's membership in a wider-ranging crime ring that wishes to silence them. In future situations, however, you may be protecting a shady figure indeed! Now, let us begin!"
Producing a ballot box from nowhere, (there was a running bet among students as to where they were stored and how the staff got them each time,) All Might held it aloft and dove his hand in.
"Our first group of combatants… Heroes Tohru Hagakure, Minoru Mineta, and Momo Yaoyorozu! VERSUS… Villain duo Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya!"
Izuku froze as Katsuki's baleful sneer fell upon him.
'Oh, this is not going to end well.'
"TEAMS, FOLLOW ME TO TAKE YOUR PLACES!"
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
<THE 5-MINUTE PREPARATORY PERIOD BEGINS NOW!>
'This is bad this is bad this is bad. Maybe?' Izuku took another look at Katsuki, who only scowled up at the building. 'His mood isn't good, but he isn't glaring at me… We're a team, I need to talk to him. We got along okay at USJ. I helped him, I proved I was useful.'
"K-Kacchan," Izuku began.
"Hrmph," he grunted, refusing to look at Izuku.
Izuku leaned in further, trying to get his attention without daring to touch him. 'I need to do this! I can do this!' "Kacchan, we're outnumbered, and Yaoyorozu-san is the top student in the class." 'Wait crud I just implied someone is better than him, that's bad!' "I-I-I mean-! She's really smart with good grades and a recommendation student-,"
"And you think she's better than me!"
"I don't! Really, I promise," Izuku babbled as Katsuki turned on him. "Kacchan, I-!"
"Stop calling me that!"
Izuku gaped at him, open-mouthed. "Sssssorry," he mumbled. 'I guess I… was that important to him? Tsuyu-chan told me to use her name, and Ochako-chan… I just want him to recognize me…' A memory occurred to Izuku, of TV heroes Flamberge and Incisor deciding to start over after a disagreement at the end of season 2 had ruined their friendship. It tasted like ashes in his mouth to say, but… "B-B-Bakugou-kun. Bakugou-san," Izuku quickly amended when the blond turned to him. "We need a plan."
"Hrrr…" Katsuki rumbled, glaring at Izuku, who in turn backed off a step but didn't back down. "You want a plan, Deku?" Part of Izuku actually relaxed at the familiarity of the term. "Here's our plan: you stay out of my way, and I beat them up."
'He totally doesn't get it!' "Kacch-! Bakugou-san, these aren't strangers you can surprise and blitz! Yaoyorozu-san knows how we fight, and I've been tutoring Hagakure-san in-,"
"Then I really have nothing to worry about, if she's so shitty she needs your help," Katsuki snarled. "Ponytail can't touch me in a fight, and Grape Face is a step up from slobbering at the girls on his team. They'll either stay with the hostage or split up to patrol the area, and I'll blow them up when I find them." He grabbed Izuku's outfit abruptly, dragging Izuku in nose-to-nose like when he was really pissed about things (beyond being pissed at Izuku personally,) and added, "If you so much as get in my sights mid-fight, Deku, I'll blow you up too! I don't need your help to win this!"
Izuku tried to keep his face from flushing as he panicked for 3 different reasons.
"B-B-But Yaoyorozu-,"
"I'll blow her up too if she tries to fight me! Cannons can't aim for shit," Katsuki spat, "and her staff technique is pathetic! See Through Girl isn't wearing any armor, and Grape Face is even more pathetic than you are! You're nothing, and you may as well be on their team for all I need you! There's no Asui to jump around, no fucking flames… Just let me fight, and I'll win this!"
He finished off by shoving Izuku away hard enough the boy almost fell on his back.
"I… okay, K-… Okay, Bakugou-san," Izuku mumbled.
"Tch. Finally, he gets it. Just remember, if you do anything, I'll beat you senseless," Katsuki finished.
The rest of the waiting period passed in silence as Izuku fought the urge to cry.
'I thought things were getting better,' was all he could think.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
<VILLAIN TEAM, YOU ARE CLEAR TO ENTER THE BUILDING!>
"Finally," Katsuki grumbled, jumping straight up and firing off his explosions for propulsion.
He eyed the building as he rose and fell. Movement caught his eye.
'Wait, really? Yeesh, Ponytail must be off her game; maybe that Grape Face was slavering all over her.' Katsuki had seen a glimpse of Tohru Hagakure's gloves floating around through the second floor window, their movements making it clear she was patrolling. 'No way to fake that without a telekinesis Quirk. I guess they thought "unexpected" meant it was a good idea? Losers.'
Katsuki landed beside Izuku, now having the perfect idea for what to do.
"Deku, you wanted to help out? I saw See Through patrolling the second floor, go ambush her so I don't get jumped from behind. Grape Face is guarding Ectoplasm on the fourth floor, and I bet Ponytail is trapping other parts of the building, so I'll go win this and you keep them off my tail."
"I-! Okay," Izuku relented, "I'm just worried there's more to it than-,"
Katsuki shoved him (but not nearly hard enough to knock him over, since he was in a good mood).
"And that's why I'm the best," Katsuki scoffed. "The Number One Hero can't get worried about anything. Now go eliminate See Through before she tries anything clever, and if I see you anywhere near my fight I'll assume you're defecting from disobeying me." He shoved Izuku again, this time prodding him toward the building, and Izuku rushed off uncertainly.
Katsuki chuckled to himself as he rocketed with a thwoom into the air again. 'Moron didn't even go in through the 2nd story. I literally just said Ponytail should be off booby-trapping the building, and you don't assume she'd start at the bottom? Here's hoping he sets something off.'
Katsuki found a good window, and-
"Surprise, losers!" Katsuki shouted as he smashed through the window in a spray of glass, palms ready to explode the room.
Minoru Mineta immediately dove behind Ectoplasm's chair for protection while pelting Katsuki with a few easily dodged sticky-spheres.
But the boy didn't scream or say a thing. Even as he aimed his hands to pop the clone, that was the first sign Katsuki had of something going wrong.
Then Ectoplasm exploded, and Katsuki wasn't responsible.
Some foam spilled through the room, splashing over Katsuki even though he tried to blow it away with explosions; something unseen had impacted his hands and knocked his palms away from the spray before he could blast it.
'A trap! These losers thought this-!'
"Doink!" Tohru Hagakure actually yelled that literal sound effect as she somehow smooshed a purple pop-ball onto Katsuki's face without sticking herself to it.
'Oh, they're all dead for this!' Spattered with pink foam and a pop-ball on the bridge of his nose, Katsuki aimed his palms at Tohru as her footprints danced away through the foam.
He tensed and squeezed to trigger his explosions, but his hands barely popped.
"This stuff is-!" Katsuki stared at his palms in shock when they released what were closer to farts than firecrackers, let alone the explosions he'd intended.
"Momo-chan mixed it up for us!" Tohru teased, dodging around the chair with Ectoplasm's dummy to get out of sight again.
"Fine, but I can still get you!" Katsuki roared, charging her with his bare (but sticky) hands.
"Mmp!" Enough of the foam had got on Tohru to outline her in a few places, and he pinned her wrists, knocking an empty drink pouch aside as they struggled.
Tohru spat the drink in his face without warning, and it burned like crazy.
Fighting back a whimper, Katsuki let Tohru kick him off of her just so he could tend to his eyes, lashing out with his feet to keep her away. 'Can't use my hands on my eyes, I'll smear that goop in, but my forearms should be-,'
"Pennsylvania SMASH!" Izuku shouted, though Katsuki couldn't see him. The air-pressure palm thrust blasted Tohru into a wall, and Izuku took a moment to apply the capture tape-
<TOHRU HAGAKURE HAS BEEN ELIMINATED!>
-before moving to clean up Katsuki.
"Kacchan, downstairs, the gloves were attached to some see-through device, it was a blind! I told you this was a-,"
Izuku had tried to clean up Katsuki as he spoke, and he'd unwisely moved to wiping off the blond's hands once Katsuki's face was half-clean (the pop-ball made cleaning a difficult proposition).
"Oh, you told me so?!" Katsuki raged, grabbing Izuku and dragging him in as shame turned to hot fury in his-
*squeak!*
Izuku and Katsuki froze.
The pop-ball still attached to Katsuki's forehead had pressed against Izuku, gluing their faces together.
Izuku promptly realized he was a dead man.
Katsuki saw red.
And wouldn't you know it? Izuku had cleaned off the blond's hands so conveniently.
"Deku-!!!"
- Location
- Phoenix
Later on, in recovery Girl's office, All might brings Izuku cake as an apology, and midoriya says he can't eat it.
Loki Thorson
The Iron Wordsmith
- Location
- The Land of Maple Syrup, Midgard
.... It's like that first episode of Naruto, all over again, only with more explosions... and cameras to immortalize the moment in UA history, Forever!... all we need is for the Invisible Girl to "accidently" roll a few inches into one of the protagonists...
and then scream about how she knew the Pomeranian was after the class cinnamon-roll
and then scream about how she knew the Pomeranian was after the class cinnamon-roll
5:7 - Ground Zero
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
All Might exploded into the room more forcefully than any of Katsuki's blasts, righteous anger fueling him (along with the tiniest bit of guilty panic).
"CEASE!" All Might roared, seizing Katsuki before he could further injure Izuku, who had been burned and battered enough to fall unconscious.
"All Mi-,"
"DO. NOT. MOVE," All Might commanded as he held Katsuki in place, carefully bending him over so Izuku's head could rest on the floor.
Katsuki obeyed without a bit of struggle.
Carefully, All Might wrapped his thumb and the first 2 fingers of his free hand around the pop-ball that glued them together.
He squeezed.
He'd never yet turned coal into diamonds, but his strength was more than sufficient to pressure-cook, carbonize, and disintegrate the pop-ball with a moment's effort.
Dust fell away as he released his grip, and a moment later he had whisked Izuku off to Recovery Girl.
After enduring her scolding (he felt he deserved it for not stepping in sooner, or not laying out more ground rules,) and receiving a guesstimate for when Izuku would wake up and could return to class, he returned to the training ground.
Katsuki still stood there, ashen, surrounded by the three members of the Hero Team and Ectoplasm's clone (the man himself having promised to keep control of the rest of the class in his absence).
"The exercise is annulled due to behavior outside the boundaries of the exercise," All Might declared severely, and even the 3 on the hero team quailed. "Hero Team victory. Return to your classmates." He turned his eyes on Katsuki, still scowling in restrained fury at the boy who had assaulted Izuku. "I will join you after remonstrating with Bakugou."
Katsuki shuddered, and the 3 followed Ectoplasm's clone out of the building, subdued after everything. All Might loomed, scowling down at his student, and for the first time since the Slime Villain Incident, Katsuki didn't feel strong or confident. He didn't feel protected or safe.
He felt like he was alone with a man who had never been defeated, and who was very, very angry.
"I-I-,"
"Bakugou-shounen," All Might interrupted severely, "your behavior was entirely out of line. You are aware of this, yes?"
Katsuki nodded wildly at the rhetorical question, utterly intimidated by the sight of All Might scowling in displeasure, a sight rarely seen on TV, let alone in person.
"You've claimed you want to be a hero. That you wish to surpass me. In and of itself, that is an admirable ambition, but your actions here were shameful." Katsuki flinched. "This was not the behavior of a young hero, not even considering your villainous assignment in the exercise."
"I just… Deku…"
"I understand the two of you are rivals, but I have never known him to behave violently toward you. Instead, he speaks well of you," All Might lectured, "and while I understand your frustration with his growth, a hero does not become strong by cutting down his allies. Do you believe I would ever behave in such a way?"
"That-! You never need to, you're so strong you don't need friends or allies or hangers-on who just leech off-,"
"WRONG!" Katsuki cringed under the force of All Might's shout. In a more measured voice, All Might the greatest hero in the world, continued, "That, Katsuki Bakugou, is utter bull. I have had allies, and many friends. Do you believe I would ever behave in such a way as to dismiss Sir Nighteye? On more than one occasion, his perceptions and strategies saved my life," All Might revealed. "I would have died if not for his support." 'Especially against All For One.'
"You… but you're the strongest," Katsuki seemed to almost complain. Then he quailed at the hero's expression.
All Might laid a heavy hand on Katsuki's shoulder. 'This… is this a consequence of becoming The Symbol of Peace? This attitude that a hero must stand alone, without friends? What a lonely way of thinking.'
"No hero is strong when so utterly alone, Bakugou-shounen," he revealed. "I have many friends and allies, and I fight side-by-side with others quite often. Midoriya-shounen may be a great ally, as you two push each other to heights surpassing my achievements… or not. Make no mistake, Bakugou-shounen, your teammate's only error here was that he wished to win with you rather than in spite of you. Your combat abilities would be sufficient to claim victory despite the adverse circumstances you were subjected to, had you kept your temper. The match was very much yours to win or lose, and you chose to lose it. Beyond disappointing me, I hope that you are disappointed in yourself, and will reflect on this. Now," he finished, "come with me, it is time to return to class."
He clapped the shaken Katsuki on the shoulder one more time and led the boy away to rejoin the others.
"The MVP for this match?" All Might prompted after he had explained Izuku's condition to everyone else (and that Recovery Girl would send him back before the end of the period).
The rest of the class gathered around him for the discussion, while Katsuki stood off to the side, staring at his feet.
"Judging from what we saw, Hagakure accomplished the most when engaging the villains," Shouto Todoroki volunteered, "but the strategy she applied seems to have been provided by Yaoyorozu. Without knowing what they said during the preparatory period, it's impossible to tell."
"All Might," Ectoplasm called from his position beside Katsuki, "before the next match, I'll show you how to increase the microphones' sensitivity in the observation systems."
"EXCELLENT! My sincere gratitude, Ectoplasm-sensei," All Might declared. "Todoroki-shounen, your observation is not wrong either. Hero Team! Would you care to divulge your strategy?"
The 3 huddled together briefly before straightening again.
Tohru stepped up first, having re-donned her boots and gloves.
"Hi guys! So, we really couldn't have pulled this off last week, because a huge part of it comes from my practice session with Midoriya and Yaoyorozu-chan's session with Mineta just this past weekend, but it's great!" Katsuki twitched at that revelation, glancing up again before dropping his face in despair. "My big breakthroughs were confirming that anything I store in my mouth is invisible, plus my hair staying invisible after I cut it.
"I mean, I technically knew both of those facts already, but I never really worked out all the implications. So my first suggestion was I pluck a few of my own hairs, attached them to Mineta's pop-balls, and use them as flails to bop the boys unexpectedly!"
Momo stepped up. "While working with Mineta, I did a chemical breakdown on his pop-balls and formulated a prototype substance that will let someone handled them without being sticky. Rather than have Hagakure-chan pluck her hair, I provided a sample in a container for her to wet her fingers with."
"I provided the pop-balls," Minoru volunteered. "I also thought up using distractions so we'd look like we were in different places than we were!"
"I created a copy of Ectoplasm-sensei's outfit to fit a dummy filled with chemicals to neutralize Bakugou's nitroglycerin," Momo continued, "as well as a dummy Mineta and a device made of a transparent alloy so Hagakure-chan would appear to be patrolling while guarding the dummy. Meanwhile, Mineta was guarding the the witness-clone in a room with out windows and I was nearby, trapping the building as we readied ourselves for the attack."
Everyone applauded politely as the 3 took a bow, and then All Might moved on to the next match.
"BUT FIRST! A REVIEW OF HOW YOU ARE EXPECTED TO BEHAVE AND TREAT EACH OTHER," he declared.
All Might stared at Izuku and Katsuki. "You're certain of this?" He tried not to sound skeptical, he respected his student's resolve, but... 'Well, there are stranger ways to settle things between them.'
Izuku nodded firmly, though his face held some unease, while Katsuki wordlessly looked away despite having let Izuku pull him over to All Might by the wrist.
All Might sighed.
"Very well then! OUR FOURTH AND FINAL MATCH WILL BE THE HERO TEAM YUGA AOYAMA, EIJIRO KIRISHIMA, AND FUMIKAGE TOKOYAMI DEFENDING A WITNESS FROM THE PREDATIONS OF OUR VILLAINOUS DUO, IZUKU MIDORIYA AND KATSUKI BAKUGOU!"
"Who are you calling a villain?" Katsuki grumbled under his breath, but he followed Izuku out to take their places without issue.
'…Why did I think this was a good idea? Right, Kacchan actually apologized to me when I came back and he just looks really… really bad. And if I let it simmer he'll probably make the loss my fault again after seething for a day or two so we need a clean win and I get the chance to impress him so he won't hold a bigger grudge than usual and make things worse. I can get through, I just need to get through this. I'm the Deku who can do it, so I'll do it!'
Izuku took a deep breath.
"I know our last match didn't really go well…"
"It's my fault," Katsuki repeated flatly, once again shocking Izuku. "Sorry about… yeah." He still didn't look straight at his teammate as he spoke.
Izuku took another deep breath. 'I think he means it. He really… UA is really different, isn't it. I'm not in trouble for antagonizing him, and he's apologizing.' "I-It's okay, Kacch- Um, Bakugou-san."
Katsuki twitched, but didn't comment on the name, which was a step up from telling Izuku to 'Stop calling me that!'
"All Might made pretty clear it wasn't. Ectoplasm-sensei said if I'd done that in real life they'd strip my hero license. It was stupid not to listen, you always…!" Katsuki cut himself off.
'I have no idea what to say,' Izuku realized.
"Look," the blond grumbled, "I didn't listen to your plan last time and it was shit, so speak up and give me something here. Clock's ticking." Izuku sighed in relief as they got onto slightly less strange ground again. "I'm assuming you want me to fight Bird Face and his siamese baby-brother with my explosions, maybe maneuver Glitter Brains into good position?" He vaguely remembered something about Glitter Brains's quirk being good to hurt the shadow thingy, but like heck Katsuki was usually bothered to pay attention to the extras.
"A-A-Actually, I don't think fighting them is our best option," Izuku said. 'Oh wait shoot I'm totally going to sound like a cowardly Deku now!'
Katsuki grit his teeth.
"Then what. Do you. Suggest. We do?" He forced himself to keep his temper as he spoke. 'All Might,' the blond reflected mentally, 'if Nighteye ever said anything this stupid, I bet you-,'
"Level the building," Izuku blurted.
He clapped his hands over his mouth anxiously.
Katsuki stared as though Izuku had just offered him a position at Might Agency.
"…The what?"
"We're- We're villains right now," Izuku emphasized once the danger zone seemed to have passed. "We're not supposed to care as much about collateral damage or civilian casualties, we just want our t-target dead. They can fortify the building, but we both have incredibly destructive Quirks capable of breaking walls and support beams. Ectoplasm's clones are more fragile than his real body, so just the shock of the collapse could 'kill' him if you blow up the foundation, and I can finger-flick some rubble at him for headshots otherwise while they're recovering…!"
Katsuki laughed, and Izuku trailed off in shock.
The blond was letting loose some weird mix of gleeful cackles and deep belly-laughs, a sound Izuku hadn't heard from him ever. Then, to top it all off, Katsuki looped one elbow around Izuku's neck to drag him in closer as he laughed-
'Ohmygosh he's so close our faces are practically touch him we might end up kissing if I lean in to far he's as good as hugging me right now this day cannot be real but what if it is I thought I was over this by now don't look at his lips don't look at his face he will not appreciate me doing anything right now and it would really not end well for us this is not something that's happening especially not now I just need to get past it again-!'
-and Izuku promptly began panicking in bisexual.
"Geez, Deku," Katsuki wheezed as he got himself under control, blissfully unaware of Izuku's emotional crisis beyond the blood rushing to Izuku's cheeks, "where exactly was this side of you back at Aldera! You might've actually been somebody halfway cool even without your Quirk."
The words were lies in Katsuki's mind, and he knew it, but they were intended as 'polite white lies' like his dad used sometimes, a gesture to reconcile with good intent.
He didn't know quite why they sucked the blood from Izuku's cheeks, nor did he care, but he let Izuku stiffly extricate himself from the hold without fighting it.
"I don't know," Izuku answered back bitterly, "it's not like everyone always told me I was pathetic and better off dead than in class with them."
Katsuki flinched a little, because he already said something like it a year ago when his mom dragged their family over to Aunt Inko's for dinner less than a week after the slime villain had attacked, but, "I said I was… ugh, was, y'know, sorry over the-,"
"Look," Izuku interjected sharply, "I already told you we could just forget about telling me to jump off a roof. It's fine." It wasn't but Izuku didn't want more fighting over it. "I was guessing Aunt Mitsuki had a bad night beforehand already, since you were way angrier than… is she still in AA again?"
"She stopped, but she's been sober, like, 4 months, no calling me any shit," Katsuki muttered. He still didn't know what had set his mother to drink that particular night, but he'd been seething the next day over how she said he'd never amount to anything with his piss attitude unless it was-
Well, that anger had come out in his lashing out at Deku, as happened sometimes, but then All Might saved them both from the slime villain and everything was a wreck for like the next week.
At least he'd made sure to leave Izuku alone after Izuku started going off somewhere after school, so Katsuki had figured that it all evened out.
But Izuku apparently had something else to say.
"Kacchan," Izuku reiterated, and Katsuki didn't tell him to stop it with that name, "do you really think you were the first person to tell me to kill myself?"
Katsuki stared at him cock-eyed.
"Bullshit," he dismissed uncomfortably, "you were literally the only guy to ever get flowers on your desk from secret admirers, I even saw Water Blob Girl put them there once before you arrived, and that was back when you were Quirkless. If you didn't take them up on their offers to hang when they liked you, that's all your fault."
Izuku laughed.
Much like before, it was a sound Katsuki had never heard from him, only this sound reeked of pain, years-old agony that had scabbed over but never went away completely.
Izuku laughed like he was despairing and barely even amused at himself for having had hope, and it just sounded so wrong that the blond shivered.
"Kacchan," Izuku sighed once it was out of his system, "you know, this is why we're still friends. Look up 'red spider lilies' some time, and why you don't give them to friends or people you like."
Katsuki had nothing to say to that, too off-balance from what sounded almost like pity in Izuku's voice.
In other circumstances, he'd have been pissed the nerd was so openly looking down on him, but right now…
<VILLAIN TEAM, YOU ARE CLEAR TO ENTER THE BUILDING!>
Both boys tensed at the announcement and put the talk behind them.
Right now, they had other things to worry about.
"Deku, you said you want to snipe by flicking gravel. Do you actually know how to do that?" Katsuki asked.
"I… I'm practicing, but I think it's our best ranged option-,"
"Nah." Katsuki cut him off, but the blond was smiling in anticipation. "We switch. You get the building, and I… I'll get to show off what these babies-," He hefted his one gauntlet, as the other had been lost in the Conflagration Zone. "-can really do. Smash the building, can you do that?"
Izuku blinked and smiled. "I told you, I'm the Deku who can do it," he declared proudly.
Katsuki ignored the fist-bump offer, but he nodded agreeably before he jerked his chin to get Izuku going.
<VILLAIN TEAM, YOU ARE CLEAR TO ENTER THE BUILDING!>
"Okay, that's our go," Eijiro Kirishima declared. "Aoyama, you good to head out?"
"I'll make enough noise to let you know beautifully when I find them," the blond promised.
That was their tentative starting strategy: Fumikage would remain in a windowless room with the clone they were protecting, so he could hit the lights and let Dark Shadow go wild if need be; Eijiro would stay in the room to protect the clone if they were attacks, or he could quickly rush out to reinforce Yuga in the external area if need be.
Which is what led to the sparkling Yuga Aoyama spying Izuku outside the window and confronting him.
"A-ha! Go no farther, villain!" Yuga commanded as he vaulted out the 1st floor window to confronted the freckled boy. "Heroes are here to stop you! Abandonne-moi now, Midoriya-kun, or face justice in a jail cell! Tada~!"
Finishing his gallant introduction, Yuga (still keeping an eye open for Katsuki,) posed to fire his Naval Laser.
<This is Kiri,> his radio earpiece said. <We heard you're facing off with Midoriya. Good luck. No sign of Bakugou yet here.>
Izuku had been holding his right arm in a knife-hand shape, and while he hadn't tried to run away, he also didn't look ready to fight or charge the building.
"Oh! Aoyama-kun," he greeted with a nod. Then he said, "Um, you might want to dodge." He swung his hand back.
"Haha! Naval LASER!" Yuga blasted his Quirk down the alleyway, but Izuku ducked.
"North Carolina SMASH!"
He swung.
Even having been in the same testing site as Izuku, even having seen him smash the 0-point robot from a block away, Yuga had never been anywhere nearby when the boy used his Quirk.
'It's like the world shakes beneath his strength! Mon Dieu, the air itself is-!'
Izuku's knife hand struck the building, aimed nowhere near Yuga himself, and the shockwave of impact still threw him off his feet.
"Sacre bleu, Mido…ri…" Yuga's eyes widened as he saw the gash torn through one side of the building, corner to corner, entire chunks just blown away by the force Izuku.
"Get somewhere safe!" Izuku shouted back at Yuga, already running up the street as the architecture groaned ominously.
Yuga's radio sounded in his ear, but he was a little too busy scrambling for cover to hear them over his own shrieks of terror.
"It's no use, I'm not getting anything clear," Eijiro informed his teammate and their ward as the building shuddered.
"They've done something, we need to get out of here," Ectoplasm's clone argued, because no realistic witness would stay put in a collapsing building.
"Right sir, just follow m-!" Eijiro had run for the door, but something had given way and the room tilted.
"Dark Shadow, defend us!" Fumikage ordered as he hit the lights.
"I'm on it!" Dark Shadow howled, wrapping around them and shoving at the ceiling as it fell.
When the collapsing was finished, Yuga had clean forgot about the match, wanting only to get his teammates out.
<Dude, stop panicking, I promise we're okay,> Eijiro assured him over the radio as Yuga dug through the rubble. <We even still have our witness! Dark Shadow just needs a second to-!>
The sound of collapsing in reverse hit Yuga's ears as Dark Shadow shoved away the pieces of masonry that had fallen, bring Fumikage, Eijiro, and Ectoplasm's clone into the daylight again.
"Excellently done, Dark Shadow," Fumikage compliment.
"Aw yeah, I'm the man!" Dark Shadow squawked.
"You are so the MVP here, and super manly!" Eijiro agreed as he rose into visibility and helped Ectoplasm's clone to better footing. "Alright, so now we-,"
From all the way across the street, an explosion rang through the air, and a lance of fiery heat bloomed, piercing clean through the head of Ectoplasm's clone.
"Sucks to suck, losers!" Katsuki called as soon as he saw the clone dissolve, and then he rocketed off, propelled through the air by his palm's explosions, discarding his now spent gauntlet as excess weight.
Izuku had hidden somewhere even before the building finished falling, and with Katsuki easily a block away before the Hero Team could finish pulling themselves from the rubble, there was really only one conclusion.
<VILLAIN TEAM VICTORY!> All Might declared a few minutes later, as the time limit ran out.
Back with the class, Mezo Shoji turned to Tohru and Rikido.
"It's not just me, is it? Midoriya and Bakugou are legitimately terrifying when they collaborate, and we should never go against them when they get like this?"
"Totally," Tohru agreed soberly, with multiple other classmates muttering their agreement.
The sound of that building crashing down would echo in a few of their dreams, that night.
(Later that evening, after giving his parents an edited explanation—"I got in a fight when I shouldn't have."—about why he had detention after school and on weekends for a while, Katsuki Bakugou went to look up Red Spider Lilies. What he discovered would reframe a number of his interactions with Izuku in Junior High, and he'd spend a while staring at an empty toilet bowl, wondering if he was a bad person for not vomiting after what he'd found out.)
"CEASE!" All Might roared, seizing Katsuki before he could further injure Izuku, who had been burned and battered enough to fall unconscious.
"All Mi-,"
"DO. NOT. MOVE," All Might commanded as he held Katsuki in place, carefully bending him over so Izuku's head could rest on the floor.
Katsuki obeyed without a bit of struggle.
Carefully, All Might wrapped his thumb and the first 2 fingers of his free hand around the pop-ball that glued them together.
He squeezed.
He'd never yet turned coal into diamonds, but his strength was more than sufficient to pressure-cook, carbonize, and disintegrate the pop-ball with a moment's effort.
Dust fell away as he released his grip, and a moment later he had whisked Izuku off to Recovery Girl.
After enduring her scolding (he felt he deserved it for not stepping in sooner, or not laying out more ground rules,) and receiving a guesstimate for when Izuku would wake up and could return to class, he returned to the training ground.
Katsuki still stood there, ashen, surrounded by the three members of the Hero Team and Ectoplasm's clone (the man himself having promised to keep control of the rest of the class in his absence).
"The exercise is annulled due to behavior outside the boundaries of the exercise," All Might declared severely, and even the 3 on the hero team quailed. "Hero Team victory. Return to your classmates." He turned his eyes on Katsuki, still scowling in restrained fury at the boy who had assaulted Izuku. "I will join you after remonstrating with Bakugou."
Katsuki shuddered, and the 3 followed Ectoplasm's clone out of the building, subdued after everything. All Might loomed, scowling down at his student, and for the first time since the Slime Villain Incident, Katsuki didn't feel strong or confident. He didn't feel protected or safe.
He felt like he was alone with a man who had never been defeated, and who was very, very angry.
"I-I-,"
"Bakugou-shounen," All Might interrupted severely, "your behavior was entirely out of line. You are aware of this, yes?"
Katsuki nodded wildly at the rhetorical question, utterly intimidated by the sight of All Might scowling in displeasure, a sight rarely seen on TV, let alone in person.
"You've claimed you want to be a hero. That you wish to surpass me. In and of itself, that is an admirable ambition, but your actions here were shameful." Katsuki flinched. "This was not the behavior of a young hero, not even considering your villainous assignment in the exercise."
"I just… Deku…"
"I understand the two of you are rivals, but I have never known him to behave violently toward you. Instead, he speaks well of you," All Might lectured, "and while I understand your frustration with his growth, a hero does not become strong by cutting down his allies. Do you believe I would ever behave in such a way?"
"That-! You never need to, you're so strong you don't need friends or allies or hangers-on who just leech off-,"
"WRONG!" Katsuki cringed under the force of All Might's shout. In a more measured voice, All Might the greatest hero in the world, continued, "That, Katsuki Bakugou, is utter bull. I have had allies, and many friends. Do you believe I would ever behave in such a way as to dismiss Sir Nighteye? On more than one occasion, his perceptions and strategies saved my life," All Might revealed. "I would have died if not for his support." 'Especially against All For One.'
"You… but you're the strongest," Katsuki seemed to almost complain. Then he quailed at the hero's expression.
All Might laid a heavy hand on Katsuki's shoulder. 'This… is this a consequence of becoming The Symbol of Peace? This attitude that a hero must stand alone, without friends? What a lonely way of thinking.'
"No hero is strong when so utterly alone, Bakugou-shounen," he revealed. "I have many friends and allies, and I fight side-by-side with others quite often. Midoriya-shounen may be a great ally, as you two push each other to heights surpassing my achievements… or not. Make no mistake, Bakugou-shounen, your teammate's only error here was that he wished to win with you rather than in spite of you. Your combat abilities would be sufficient to claim victory despite the adverse circumstances you were subjected to, had you kept your temper. The match was very much yours to win or lose, and you chose to lose it. Beyond disappointing me, I hope that you are disappointed in yourself, and will reflect on this. Now," he finished, "come with me, it is time to return to class."
He clapped the shaken Katsuki on the shoulder one more time and led the boy away to rejoin the others.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"The MVP for this match?" All Might prompted after he had explained Izuku's condition to everyone else (and that Recovery Girl would send him back before the end of the period).
The rest of the class gathered around him for the discussion, while Katsuki stood off to the side, staring at his feet.
"Judging from what we saw, Hagakure accomplished the most when engaging the villains," Shouto Todoroki volunteered, "but the strategy she applied seems to have been provided by Yaoyorozu. Without knowing what they said during the preparatory period, it's impossible to tell."
"All Might," Ectoplasm called from his position beside Katsuki, "before the next match, I'll show you how to increase the microphones' sensitivity in the observation systems."
"EXCELLENT! My sincere gratitude, Ectoplasm-sensei," All Might declared. "Todoroki-shounen, your observation is not wrong either. Hero Team! Would you care to divulge your strategy?"
The 3 huddled together briefly before straightening again.
Tohru stepped up first, having re-donned her boots and gloves.
"Hi guys! So, we really couldn't have pulled this off last week, because a huge part of it comes from my practice session with Midoriya and Yaoyorozu-chan's session with Mineta just this past weekend, but it's great!" Katsuki twitched at that revelation, glancing up again before dropping his face in despair. "My big breakthroughs were confirming that anything I store in my mouth is invisible, plus my hair staying invisible after I cut it.
"I mean, I technically knew both of those facts already, but I never really worked out all the implications. So my first suggestion was I pluck a few of my own hairs, attached them to Mineta's pop-balls, and use them as flails to bop the boys unexpectedly!"
Momo stepped up. "While working with Mineta, I did a chemical breakdown on his pop-balls and formulated a prototype substance that will let someone handled them without being sticky. Rather than have Hagakure-chan pluck her hair, I provided a sample in a container for her to wet her fingers with."
"I provided the pop-balls," Minoru volunteered. "I also thought up using distractions so we'd look like we were in different places than we were!"
"I created a copy of Ectoplasm-sensei's outfit to fit a dummy filled with chemicals to neutralize Bakugou's nitroglycerin," Momo continued, "as well as a dummy Mineta and a device made of a transparent alloy so Hagakure-chan would appear to be patrolling while guarding the dummy. Meanwhile, Mineta was guarding the the witness-clone in a room with out windows and I was nearby, trapping the building as we readied ourselves for the attack."
Everyone applauded politely as the 3 took a bow, and then All Might moved on to the next match.
"BUT FIRST! A REVIEW OF HOW YOU ARE EXPECTED TO BEHAVE AND TREAT EACH OTHER," he declared.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
All Might stared at Izuku and Katsuki. "You're certain of this?" He tried not to sound skeptical, he respected his student's resolve, but... 'Well, there are stranger ways to settle things between them.'
Izuku nodded firmly, though his face held some unease, while Katsuki wordlessly looked away despite having let Izuku pull him over to All Might by the wrist.
All Might sighed.
"Very well then! OUR FOURTH AND FINAL MATCH WILL BE THE HERO TEAM YUGA AOYAMA, EIJIRO KIRISHIMA, AND FUMIKAGE TOKOYAMI DEFENDING A WITNESS FROM THE PREDATIONS OF OUR VILLAINOUS DUO, IZUKU MIDORIYA AND KATSUKI BAKUGOU!"
"Who are you calling a villain?" Katsuki grumbled under his breath, but he followed Izuku out to take their places without issue.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
'…Why did I think this was a good idea? Right, Kacchan actually apologized to me when I came back and he just looks really… really bad. And if I let it simmer he'll probably make the loss my fault again after seething for a day or two so we need a clean win and I get the chance to impress him so he won't hold a bigger grudge than usual and make things worse. I can get through, I just need to get through this. I'm the Deku who can do it, so I'll do it!'
Izuku took a deep breath.
"I know our last match didn't really go well…"
"It's my fault," Katsuki repeated flatly, once again shocking Izuku. "Sorry about… yeah." He still didn't look straight at his teammate as he spoke.
Izuku took another deep breath. 'I think he means it. He really… UA is really different, isn't it. I'm not in trouble for antagonizing him, and he's apologizing.' "I-It's okay, Kacch- Um, Bakugou-san."
Katsuki twitched, but didn't comment on the name, which was a step up from telling Izuku to 'Stop calling me that!'
"All Might made pretty clear it wasn't. Ectoplasm-sensei said if I'd done that in real life they'd strip my hero license. It was stupid not to listen, you always…!" Katsuki cut himself off.
'I have no idea what to say,' Izuku realized.
"Look," the blond grumbled, "I didn't listen to your plan last time and it was shit, so speak up and give me something here. Clock's ticking." Izuku sighed in relief as they got onto slightly less strange ground again. "I'm assuming you want me to fight Bird Face and his siamese baby-brother with my explosions, maybe maneuver Glitter Brains into good position?" He vaguely remembered something about Glitter Brains's quirk being good to hurt the shadow thingy, but like heck Katsuki was usually bothered to pay attention to the extras.
"A-A-Actually, I don't think fighting them is our best option," Izuku said. 'Oh wait shoot I'm totally going to sound like a cowardly Deku now!'
Katsuki grit his teeth.
"Then what. Do you. Suggest. We do?" He forced himself to keep his temper as he spoke. 'All Might,' the blond reflected mentally, 'if Nighteye ever said anything this stupid, I bet you-,'
"Level the building," Izuku blurted.
He clapped his hands over his mouth anxiously.
Katsuki stared as though Izuku had just offered him a position at Might Agency.
"…The what?"
"We're- We're villains right now," Izuku emphasized once the danger zone seemed to have passed. "We're not supposed to care as much about collateral damage or civilian casualties, we just want our t-target dead. They can fortify the building, but we both have incredibly destructive Quirks capable of breaking walls and support beams. Ectoplasm's clones are more fragile than his real body, so just the shock of the collapse could 'kill' him if you blow up the foundation, and I can finger-flick some rubble at him for headshots otherwise while they're recovering…!"
Katsuki laughed, and Izuku trailed off in shock.
The blond was letting loose some weird mix of gleeful cackles and deep belly-laughs, a sound Izuku hadn't heard from him ever. Then, to top it all off, Katsuki looped one elbow around Izuku's neck to drag him in closer as he laughed-
'Ohmygosh he's so close our faces are practically touch him we might end up kissing if I lean in to far he's as good as hugging me right now this day cannot be real but what if it is I thought I was over this by now don't look at his lips don't look at his face he will not appreciate me doing anything right now and it would really not end well for us this is not something that's happening especially not now I just need to get past it again-!'
-and Izuku promptly began panicking in bisexual.
"Geez, Deku," Katsuki wheezed as he got himself under control, blissfully unaware of Izuku's emotional crisis beyond the blood rushing to Izuku's cheeks, "where exactly was this side of you back at Aldera! You might've actually been somebody halfway cool even without your Quirk."
The words were lies in Katsuki's mind, and he knew it, but they were intended as 'polite white lies' like his dad used sometimes, a gesture to reconcile with good intent.
He didn't know quite why they sucked the blood from Izuku's cheeks, nor did he care, but he let Izuku stiffly extricate himself from the hold without fighting it.
"I don't know," Izuku answered back bitterly, "it's not like everyone always told me I was pathetic and better off dead than in class with them."
Katsuki flinched a little, because he already said something like it a year ago when his mom dragged their family over to Aunt Inko's for dinner less than a week after the slime villain had attacked, but, "I said I was… ugh, was, y'know, sorry over the-,"
"Look," Izuku interjected sharply, "I already told you we could just forget about telling me to jump off a roof. It's fine." It wasn't but Izuku didn't want more fighting over it. "I was guessing Aunt Mitsuki had a bad night beforehand already, since you were way angrier than… is she still in AA again?"
"She stopped, but she's been sober, like, 4 months, no calling me any shit," Katsuki muttered. He still didn't know what had set his mother to drink that particular night, but he'd been seething the next day over how she said he'd never amount to anything with his piss attitude unless it was-
Well, that anger had come out in his lashing out at Deku, as happened sometimes, but then All Might saved them both from the slime villain and everything was a wreck for like the next week.
At least he'd made sure to leave Izuku alone after Izuku started going off somewhere after school, so Katsuki had figured that it all evened out.
But Izuku apparently had something else to say.
"Kacchan," Izuku reiterated, and Katsuki didn't tell him to stop it with that name, "do you really think you were the first person to tell me to kill myself?"
Katsuki stared at him cock-eyed.
"Bullshit," he dismissed uncomfortably, "you were literally the only guy to ever get flowers on your desk from secret admirers, I even saw Water Blob Girl put them there once before you arrived, and that was back when you were Quirkless. If you didn't take them up on their offers to hang when they liked you, that's all your fault."
Izuku laughed.
Much like before, it was a sound Katsuki had never heard from him, only this sound reeked of pain, years-old agony that had scabbed over but never went away completely.
Izuku laughed like he was despairing and barely even amused at himself for having had hope, and it just sounded so wrong that the blond shivered.
"Kacchan," Izuku sighed once it was out of his system, "you know, this is why we're still friends. Look up 'red spider lilies' some time, and why you don't give them to friends or people you like."
Katsuki had nothing to say to that, too off-balance from what sounded almost like pity in Izuku's voice.
In other circumstances, he'd have been pissed the nerd was so openly looking down on him, but right now…
<VILLAIN TEAM, YOU ARE CLEAR TO ENTER THE BUILDING!>
Both boys tensed at the announcement and put the talk behind them.
Right now, they had other things to worry about.
"Deku, you said you want to snipe by flicking gravel. Do you actually know how to do that?" Katsuki asked.
"I… I'm practicing, but I think it's our best ranged option-,"
"Nah." Katsuki cut him off, but the blond was smiling in anticipation. "We switch. You get the building, and I… I'll get to show off what these babies-," He hefted his one gauntlet, as the other had been lost in the Conflagration Zone. "-can really do. Smash the building, can you do that?"
Izuku blinked and smiled. "I told you, I'm the Deku who can do it," he declared proudly.
Katsuki ignored the fist-bump offer, but he nodded agreeably before he jerked his chin to get Izuku going.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
<VILLAIN TEAM, YOU ARE CLEAR TO ENTER THE BUILDING!>
"Okay, that's our go," Eijiro Kirishima declared. "Aoyama, you good to head out?"
"I'll make enough noise to let you know beautifully when I find them," the blond promised.
That was their tentative starting strategy: Fumikage would remain in a windowless room with the clone they were protecting, so he could hit the lights and let Dark Shadow go wild if need be; Eijiro would stay in the room to protect the clone if they were attacks, or he could quickly rush out to reinforce Yuga in the external area if need be.
Which is what led to the sparkling Yuga Aoyama spying Izuku outside the window and confronting him.
"A-ha! Go no farther, villain!" Yuga commanded as he vaulted out the 1st floor window to confronted the freckled boy. "Heroes are here to stop you! Abandonne-moi now, Midoriya-kun, or face justice in a jail cell! Tada~!"
Finishing his gallant introduction, Yuga (still keeping an eye open for Katsuki,) posed to fire his Naval Laser.
<This is Kiri,> his radio earpiece said. <We heard you're facing off with Midoriya. Good luck. No sign of Bakugou yet here.>
Izuku had been holding his right arm in a knife-hand shape, and while he hadn't tried to run away, he also didn't look ready to fight or charge the building.
"Oh! Aoyama-kun," he greeted with a nod. Then he said, "Um, you might want to dodge." He swung his hand back.
"Haha! Naval LASER!" Yuga blasted his Quirk down the alleyway, but Izuku ducked.
"North Carolina SMASH!"
He swung.
Even having been in the same testing site as Izuku, even having seen him smash the 0-point robot from a block away, Yuga had never been anywhere nearby when the boy used his Quirk.
'It's like the world shakes beneath his strength! Mon Dieu, the air itself is-!'
Izuku's knife hand struck the building, aimed nowhere near Yuga himself, and the shockwave of impact still threw him off his feet.
"Sacre bleu, Mido…ri…" Yuga's eyes widened as he saw the gash torn through one side of the building, corner to corner, entire chunks just blown away by the force Izuku.
"Get somewhere safe!" Izuku shouted back at Yuga, already running up the street as the architecture groaned ominously.
Yuga's radio sounded in his ear, but he was a little too busy scrambling for cover to hear them over his own shrieks of terror.
"It's no use, I'm not getting anything clear," Eijiro informed his teammate and their ward as the building shuddered.
"They've done something, we need to get out of here," Ectoplasm's clone argued, because no realistic witness would stay put in a collapsing building.
"Right sir, just follow m-!" Eijiro had run for the door, but something had given way and the room tilted.
"Dark Shadow, defend us!" Fumikage ordered as he hit the lights.
"I'm on it!" Dark Shadow howled, wrapping around them and shoving at the ceiling as it fell.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When the collapsing was finished, Yuga had clean forgot about the match, wanting only to get his teammates out.
<Dude, stop panicking, I promise we're okay,> Eijiro assured him over the radio as Yuga dug through the rubble. <We even still have our witness! Dark Shadow just needs a second to-!>
The sound of collapsing in reverse hit Yuga's ears as Dark Shadow shoved away the pieces of masonry that had fallen, bring Fumikage, Eijiro, and Ectoplasm's clone into the daylight again.
"Excellently done, Dark Shadow," Fumikage compliment.
"Aw yeah, I'm the man!" Dark Shadow squawked.
"You are so the MVP here, and super manly!" Eijiro agreed as he rose into visibility and helped Ectoplasm's clone to better footing. "Alright, so now we-,"
From all the way across the street, an explosion rang through the air, and a lance of fiery heat bloomed, piercing clean through the head of Ectoplasm's clone.
"Sucks to suck, losers!" Katsuki called as soon as he saw the clone dissolve, and then he rocketed off, propelled through the air by his palm's explosions, discarding his now spent gauntlet as excess weight.
Izuku had hidden somewhere even before the building finished falling, and with Katsuki easily a block away before the Hero Team could finish pulling themselves from the rubble, there was really only one conclusion.
<VILLAIN TEAM VICTORY!> All Might declared a few minutes later, as the time limit ran out.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Back with the class, Mezo Shoji turned to Tohru and Rikido.
"It's not just me, is it? Midoriya and Bakugou are legitimately terrifying when they collaborate, and we should never go against them when they get like this?"
"Totally," Tohru agreed soberly, with multiple other classmates muttering their agreement.
The sound of that building crashing down would echo in a few of their dreams, that night.
(Later that evening, after giving his parents an edited explanation—"I got in a fight when I shouldn't have."—about why he had detention after school and on weekends for a while, Katsuki Bakugou went to look up Red Spider Lilies. What he discovered would reframe a number of his interactions with Izuku in Junior High, and he'd spend a while staring at an empty toilet bowl, wondering if he was a bad person for not vomiting after what he'd found out.)
Last edited:
I believe that this should read "who"?
- Location
- earth
For anyone else that doesn't know, a quick google search gave me this:
Red spider lilies are bright summer flowers native throughout Asia. They are associated with final goodbyes, and legend has it that these flowers grow wherever people part ways for good.
Which in the context of the discussion I'm reading as the girl giving him these flowers to indirectly tell Izuku to kill himself. Brutal.
Red spider lilies are bright summer flowers native throughout Asia. They are associated with final goodbyes, and legend has it that these flowers grow wherever people part ways for good.
Which in the context of the discussion I'm reading as the girl giving him these flowers to indirectly tell Izuku to kill himself. Brutal.
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
Taken from Bury Me In Flowers Except One, and since I've seen it included in other stories I assumed giving them to people as suicide baiting was something semi-known or widespread (though maybe it was just people who also read that story). So not just telling him to kill himself, but doing it in the context of hearing about some other kid committing suicide. Ick.
Fixed! Thanks.
I didn't do it that way entirely intentionally, but I guess so. Glad you like the story so far!
6:1 - A Step at a Time
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
11 days until the Sports Festival.
"No, seriously, I don't get it," Katsuki grumbled. "Who the fuck is so screwed up in the head that they'll spend money to make someone feel like shit? Buying flowers that mean someone should kill themself, the fuck? My old man buys flowers for the Hag on special occasions and she goes gooey over them, it just…" Katsuki trailed off, scowling.
"Hate, spite, and jealousy are powerful motivators, but they are very rarely rational," Hound Dog advised him, before switching back to another part of the subject that had caught his attention. "You've called her Water Blob Girl, but you don't remember her name?"
"Why bother?" Katsuki scoffed. "She's not gonna be anybody; being in my class at Aldera is probably the biggest history book reference she'll ever get. If she isn't going to bother to stand out, I won't bother doing the work to remember her."
Hound Dog mulled this over for a bit.
"So it's less an inability to remember her name than an unwillingness. I was worried."
"Worried? About something other than this chick's hate crimes," Katsuki challenged.
"Memorization is an important skill for heroes to have, and doubly so for a student. If you couldn't remember the names of people you shared a classroom with for 30 hours a week over 3 years, how would you expect to remember or recognize the members of a villain gang, or the victims at the scene of a crime?"
"Pheh. Teach, have you seen me in action? I don't need to remember the small fry, they can't hope to stop me. Just look at our class practices."
"Like the exercise that got you sentenced to after school and weekend detention until the Sports Festival?" Hound Dog chided.
"…Tch." Katsuki turned to resolutely stare out the window.
Hound Dog waited him out, content to let the clock tick down.
"Hey, Kan-sensei said you were a friend of his, right? How's he doing?" Katsuki asked.
"He's woken up and is going through preparatory surgery for a prosthetic. I'll relay you and your classmates' good wishes to him when I visit."
10 days until the Sports Festival.
"Thanks for making time for me, Nejire-chan," Izuku managed. With enough exposure, (and several other girls allowing him first name privileges,) he was mostly over his stutter with her, which always made her smile when she compared his coming out of his shell with Tamaki's progress over the years.
"Not a problem! Mirio's off at a karaoke birthday celebration for his work-study co-worker," Nejire explained, "so Tamaki and I are prepping on our own today. Hiya, Yaoyorozu-sensei!"
The Metal Hero: Kinzokubutsu gave her a stern look that faded into a nod of acknowledgement as Nejire led Izuku into the 3rd-year support studio.
"Hado," he greeted, "and this is the underclassman you mentioned?"
"I-It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Izuku said with a low bow.
"Yes. Speak up if you need anything," the man stated, and thankfully he turned away rather than bring up anything else.
"Wow, I think he likes you," Nejire cheered as she dragged Izuku over to some computers the size of filing cabinets. "Usually Yaoyorozu-sensei's even grumpier than Aizawa-sensei! He didn't even tell you not to break anything- This is it!" Nejire declared proudly. "So what we're going to do, we're going to hook you into these things—no worries, there aren't actually hooks involved, it won't be like that time when Tamaki went fishing with his sister and got her lip on the backswing, screaming 'I feel like a fish, I feel like a fish' as she ran around with the worm squirming—but yeah, we're going to hook you in and run some experiments to see your bones and what you look like with all your Quirk's energy stuffed in, that stuff."
"R-right!" Izuku yelped. 'I really hope I don't break anything.'
9 days until the Sports Festival.
The dawn hours of a Saturday were usually bane to teenagers, but Izuku threw on shorts and a t-shirt (reading "t-shirt" of course,) to meet All Might at Takoba Beach without complaint.
He'd always looked up to All Might, but the news that Katsuki was serving detention for his behavior in the Battle Trial… Izuku hadn't known that before, hadn't even thought to wonder whether someone would punish the blond for acting out, which was why he'd tried to handle it himself.
So far, UA was the best thing that'd ever happened to him in so many ways.
(And if all he could do to repay his hero was be the best successor he could be, then he would do it. Plus Ultra all the way!)
"Midoriya-shounen! You've made progress with One For All and you wish to show me," All Might (skinny form) prompted.
"Yes! Yesterday, Nejire-senpai did some tests on UA equipment to see how much stress my body was under with a few different versions of calling on One For All and mixing the power around. We figured… I mean, you've obviously never had your heart explode or shattered your ribs with using One For All on your diaphragm, so I never thought of it, but Nejire-senpai said it was a risk except it isn't now-,"
"BWAhahahahaha~!" Toshinori laughed, possibly spewing a little blood into a handkerchief. "Quite the active imagination she has… though I can see why she's one of the Big Three alongside Togata-shounen. But I assume this was the reason you only worked on strengthening your limb prior to now?"
"I hadn't entirely thought of it, but yeah," Izuku agreed. "I'll still injure my body if I use too much—and that'd be really bad if it reaches my spinal cord of internal organs—but we figure smearing a forearm's worth around my body should be safe-,"
"Because the forearm averages just under 2% of the body's total mass, while one's entire arm is on average closer to 6%, yes," the older man agreed. "I'd even go so far as to say you could safely attempt it with both forearms, but to be safe I would wait before trying one arm in its entirety."
Izuku's eyes widened. "You already knew-? And off the top of your head… All Might, is this a method you used to regulate your power when you-?"
"NOT AT ALL!" All Might laughed. "I was largely able to use One For All near-immediately, though I lacked skill and creativity in doing so. But then again, I held the power for several decades before I passed it to you, so I used it longer and more heavily than many before me had. My advice to you was not metaphorical the day of the entry practical: clenching my butt cheeks to brace for impact during a fight as I focused on my desire to smash the expectations of my teacher at the time was how I first really used One For All. In that sense," he reminisced, "you already were more successful than me, as my attempt earned me only a momentary reprieve before… before…" All Might trailed off, shuddering as he recalled the harsh sparring that had ended with him bruised, puking his guts out on Gran Torino's boots.
"I see," Izuku mumbled, mostly missing the expression of fear that passed over All Might's face. "In hindsight, I assumed you were hinting at me to use my muscles, and channel One For All through them for enhancement, since the Gluteus Maximus is the largest muscle in the body-," All Might perked up his attention at that observation. "-but if you never had my problems, and One For All has been cultivated since you received it…"
Toshinori let Izuku ramble for another two minutes, catching things he hadn't considered, or had dismissed previously. Most of them weren't of much consequence, he felt, but Izuku's observation on One For All generating a veiny image and crackling electricity was something he couldn't dispute or explain.
It was when Izuku wondered if it reflected All Might's original Quirk that he finally cut in by puffing up to his muscular form.
"Ahahahaha~! While I admire your enthusiasm, my boy, we haven't come here for talking! Not now at least," All Might corrected, ruffling Izuku's hair. "Tell you what, try it with 4% and show me what you're capable of. When we're finished…" All Might gazed into the distance for a moment, lost in memory. "When we're finished, I'll tell you more about One For All… and how my master decided that I-," 'A young Quirkless boy, as you'll no doubt be excited to learn.' "-was worthy to inherit it from her."
"Thank you!" Izuku cheered. "So you think I can handle 4% of your full power now? I wasn't certain yet, but I'll try it! I'll show you," he declared, "One For All: Full Cowling!"
'Impressive,' All Might had to admit once Izuku was done demonstrating. 'He's not to the level I… well, I suppose that was inappropriate. But what he has accomplished, barely two months after he broke 3 limbs in the entrance exam practical, is astounding.'
Izuku's display of 4% Full Cowling had first lit up his body with jagged, zigzag marking that glowed like faint neon. Even before doing anything, All Might had seen the sand rustle outward from Izuku, as his protege exhaled, and could all but taste the crackle of energy and power in the air.
'Compared to the pressure David and Mirai described to me, or what I've felt fighting villains, it isn't much… but that a 15-year-old student can bring to bear pressure with this power is…' He'd had to laugh as he congratulated Izuku for accomplishing such an advancement.
Then the demonstrations had begun.
Izuku had leaped almost 3 stories into the air and landed without injury, then jumped 2 stories from his landing point to return to Toshinori's side.
He'd sprinted up and down the beach faster than- Well, it wasn't faster than All Might could perceived, but the average civilian would only see a blur outlined by green sparks at best.
Direct contact from his fists had cratered the rock face of small cliffs near the sea, and air pressure at least struck like a thrown tennis ball from 3 meters away, even if that seemed like nothing next to the cannonball blasts of 100% finger flicks.
Izuku took a few tumbles in showing off as well, of course, but he also pulled off a somersault landing once, claiming it was taught to him by his invisible classmate when they'd reviewed her exercise regime.
All Might made a mental note to come up with an exercise or two where the students needed mobility, such as chasing down an escaping criminal, as that had not been covered as of yet.
Then, when they'd covered everything for the time being (physically, at least), All Might sat Izuku down by the waves as a few early beachgoers trickled in.
"Now, I promised you the story of One For All, didn't I? This power… it's been handed down through many generations. You are the ninth bearer, carrying it into the future," Toshinori revealed. "I was the eighth. But there was a first bearer of One For All with whom it originated, and it is with him… with that man and his brother… that our story should start."
Izuku was not quite silent while Toshinori spoke, but he was quiet, and the notebook he brought was left unused on the sand between them. The boy instead seemed swept away as All Might relays the tale, listening with awe.
Two brothers were born and raised in the early days after Quirks first appeared. One with a power, and one without, as they saw society begin to shatter around them.
The elder had a Quirk, which he named himself after in his dark dealings: All For One, carrying the ability to steal Quirks from other people and add them to his own power, while also redistributing these powers at will to reward loyal subordinates.
All For One gathered the frightened and the frustrated to him. He took Quirks from those who opposed him, but also from those who were cursed and disparaged for their 'deformities,' earning loyalty by providing normalcy back to those in need.
The problem, however, was the price of loyalty he demanded from them, and what he would do to those insufficiently grateful. Bodies would regularly be found, twisted in horrendous ways by superhuman powers, and these displays also exacerbated fears and tensions between those with and without Quirks.
All For One, however, was not alone. He had a younger brother, Quirkless, whose birth name history has forgotten. Beyond lacking a superpower, this younger brother lacked even the regular power of Quirkless humans, being frail and sickly.
"I daresay," Toshinori chuckled, "he was as bad off as you were when we first met, if not worse. And he would have been a man grown at the time!"
"Really?" Izuku wondered.
"Undoubtedly. But," Toshinori continued, "much like you, he had strength in his convictions, and his willingness to put everything on the line for what he believed was right. I suppose he must have been a lot like you, indeed."
Izuku beamed, and All Might continued the story.
He spoke of the younger brother resisting All For One in whatever way he could, until finally—out of an impatient desire for punishment, or a desire to win his brother over, or maybe another motivation entirely—All For One forced a quirk onto his brother.
This itself, All Might explained, was a risky act: people who received quirks unsuitable for their bodies supposedly had been reduced to unresponsive states, like living dolls.
All Might wondered silently whether it was worth mentioning the Noumu, but he decided to continue with the story for the moment instead.
The Quirk All For One had chosen, however, was supposedly believed to be so weak that even the feeble younger brother could handle it: a Quirk that gradually stockpiled power, allowing the user to grow stronger at a slow rate and become acclimated to the strength as they went.
"Stockpiling power…" Izuku stared at his own hand, recognizing the reference.
"Precisely," Toshinori agreed. "Unknown to either man, however, the younger brother possessed a Quirk as well. A weak, 'useless' Quirk that could not take from others… but it could accept what was given to it and it could give back unto others as well. A Quirk that could be passed from person to person, combining with the stockpiling Quirk in the younger brother: this is the true origin of One For All!"
"Amazing!" Izuku cried out at All Might's declaration.
"Yes!" Then he deflated slightly. "Or at least, so it seems."
"Huh?"
"The actual events occurred… More than a century ago, at least. It may be closer to two, now," the blond reasoned tiredly. "While I've done my own research… I've found only bits and pieces to add to what my predecessor told me when I inherited her torch. Indeed, I've learned as much from All For One's disparaging comments about my use of his brother's power as I have from anything else!" He tried to force a laugh, but it came out hollow.
"Wait." Izuku gasped. "Was All For One the villain who injured you?"
"He was," Toshinori agreed. "It isn't difficult to imagine him stealing an anti-aging Quirk. I know nothing of the second or third bearers of One For All, but they must have existed and taken up the cause when the younger brother was no longer able to. So it went down the years, then… and when it came to me, I was finally able to defeat him! Or so I believed," he sighed.
"Then… he's still alive?" Izuku sounded worried.
'Good. Not terror, but with this man, fear is the rational response,' Toshinori reflected.
"I don't know," he answered aloud. "The possibility remains that he is involved with the League of Villains, or that he took on successors of his own. Student villains, if you would. Still! For the time being, that is something we adults should worry about, young man. You just focus your efforts on the Sports Festival, declaring 'I am here' to the world."
"I-I will! I won't let you down," Izuku swore fervently.
That night, alone in his room, Izuku's mind was racing.
He'd been so emotional before, he hadn't asked many questions, but now…
Now he knew about One For All's origins, and also tidbits All Might had revealed about his own mentor, Shimura Nana. The man had undergone a change of mood when he tried to speak of her, and Izuku quickly switched the subject away from something so painful to All Might, but he had remembered learning that her quirk was called Float, and she'd been a relatively unknown Pro Hero who nonetheless saved many people.
He hadn't mentioned much about her use of One For All, but he'd mentioned that she'd seen something in him, even though he was Quirkless.
All Might had been Quirkless.
'Which means,' Izuku concluded, 'anything different between our uses of One For All isn't due to him having a Quirk the way she had Float. So something else might be going on. He even said he doesn't have all the information.'
Izuku picked up his notebook. In his mind, the words of Vlad King—a compliment that analysis was a good habit for a Pro Hero—played on repeat as Izuku stared at a blank page in his notebook.
Finally, Izuku put his pencil to the paper and wrote 3 words in English: One For All.
He let them sit there, as though weighing them.
Finally, the damn broke, and he began scribbling down all that he could think of, every use in the news, every disparity between him and All Might.
Izuku filled up 3 pages before he went to sleep that night, and he had more to do in the morning.
"No, seriously, I don't get it," Katsuki grumbled. "Who the fuck is so screwed up in the head that they'll spend money to make someone feel like shit? Buying flowers that mean someone should kill themself, the fuck? My old man buys flowers for the Hag on special occasions and she goes gooey over them, it just…" Katsuki trailed off, scowling.
"Hate, spite, and jealousy are powerful motivators, but they are very rarely rational," Hound Dog advised him, before switching back to another part of the subject that had caught his attention. "You've called her Water Blob Girl, but you don't remember her name?"
"Why bother?" Katsuki scoffed. "She's not gonna be anybody; being in my class at Aldera is probably the biggest history book reference she'll ever get. If she isn't going to bother to stand out, I won't bother doing the work to remember her."
Hound Dog mulled this over for a bit.
"So it's less an inability to remember her name than an unwillingness. I was worried."
"Worried? About something other than this chick's hate crimes," Katsuki challenged.
"Memorization is an important skill for heroes to have, and doubly so for a student. If you couldn't remember the names of people you shared a classroom with for 30 hours a week over 3 years, how would you expect to remember or recognize the members of a villain gang, or the victims at the scene of a crime?"
"Pheh. Teach, have you seen me in action? I don't need to remember the small fry, they can't hope to stop me. Just look at our class practices."
"Like the exercise that got you sentenced to after school and weekend detention until the Sports Festival?" Hound Dog chided.
"…Tch." Katsuki turned to resolutely stare out the window.
Hound Dog waited him out, content to let the clock tick down.
"Hey, Kan-sensei said you were a friend of his, right? How's he doing?" Katsuki asked.
"He's woken up and is going through preparatory surgery for a prosthetic. I'll relay you and your classmates' good wishes to him when I visit."
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10 days until the Sports Festival.
"Thanks for making time for me, Nejire-chan," Izuku managed. With enough exposure, (and several other girls allowing him first name privileges,) he was mostly over his stutter with her, which always made her smile when she compared his coming out of his shell with Tamaki's progress over the years.
"Not a problem! Mirio's off at a karaoke birthday celebration for his work-study co-worker," Nejire explained, "so Tamaki and I are prepping on our own today. Hiya, Yaoyorozu-sensei!"
The Metal Hero: Kinzokubutsu gave her a stern look that faded into a nod of acknowledgement as Nejire led Izuku into the 3rd-year support studio.
"Hado," he greeted, "and this is the underclassman you mentioned?"
"I-It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," Izuku said with a low bow.
"Yes. Speak up if you need anything," the man stated, and thankfully he turned away rather than bring up anything else.
"Wow, I think he likes you," Nejire cheered as she dragged Izuku over to some computers the size of filing cabinets. "Usually Yaoyorozu-sensei's even grumpier than Aizawa-sensei! He didn't even tell you not to break anything- This is it!" Nejire declared proudly. "So what we're going to do, we're going to hook you into these things—no worries, there aren't actually hooks involved, it won't be like that time when Tamaki went fishing with his sister and got her lip on the backswing, screaming 'I feel like a fish, I feel like a fish' as she ran around with the worm squirming—but yeah, we're going to hook you in and run some experiments to see your bones and what you look like with all your Quirk's energy stuffed in, that stuff."
"R-right!" Izuku yelped. 'I really hope I don't break anything.'
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 days until the Sports Festival.
The dawn hours of a Saturday were usually bane to teenagers, but Izuku threw on shorts and a t-shirt (reading "t-shirt" of course,) to meet All Might at Takoba Beach without complaint.
He'd always looked up to All Might, but the news that Katsuki was serving detention for his behavior in the Battle Trial… Izuku hadn't known that before, hadn't even thought to wonder whether someone would punish the blond for acting out, which was why he'd tried to handle it himself.
So far, UA was the best thing that'd ever happened to him in so many ways.
(And if all he could do to repay his hero was be the best successor he could be, then he would do it. Plus Ultra all the way!)
"Midoriya-shounen! You've made progress with One For All and you wish to show me," All Might (skinny form) prompted.
"Yes! Yesterday, Nejire-senpai did some tests on UA equipment to see how much stress my body was under with a few different versions of calling on One For All and mixing the power around. We figured… I mean, you've obviously never had your heart explode or shattered your ribs with using One For All on your diaphragm, so I never thought of it, but Nejire-senpai said it was a risk except it isn't now-,"
"BWAhahahahaha~!" Toshinori laughed, possibly spewing a little blood into a handkerchief. "Quite the active imagination she has… though I can see why she's one of the Big Three alongside Togata-shounen. But I assume this was the reason you only worked on strengthening your limb prior to now?"
"I hadn't entirely thought of it, but yeah," Izuku agreed. "I'll still injure my body if I use too much—and that'd be really bad if it reaches my spinal cord of internal organs—but we figure smearing a forearm's worth around my body should be safe-,"
"Because the forearm averages just under 2% of the body's total mass, while one's entire arm is on average closer to 6%, yes," the older man agreed. "I'd even go so far as to say you could safely attempt it with both forearms, but to be safe I would wait before trying one arm in its entirety."
Izuku's eyes widened. "You already knew-? And off the top of your head… All Might, is this a method you used to regulate your power when you-?"
"NOT AT ALL!" All Might laughed. "I was largely able to use One For All near-immediately, though I lacked skill and creativity in doing so. But then again, I held the power for several decades before I passed it to you, so I used it longer and more heavily than many before me had. My advice to you was not metaphorical the day of the entry practical: clenching my butt cheeks to brace for impact during a fight as I focused on my desire to smash the expectations of my teacher at the time was how I first really used One For All. In that sense," he reminisced, "you already were more successful than me, as my attempt earned me only a momentary reprieve before… before…" All Might trailed off, shuddering as he recalled the harsh sparring that had ended with him bruised, puking his guts out on Gran Torino's boots.
"I see," Izuku mumbled, mostly missing the expression of fear that passed over All Might's face. "In hindsight, I assumed you were hinting at me to use my muscles, and channel One For All through them for enhancement, since the Gluteus Maximus is the largest muscle in the body-," All Might perked up his attention at that observation. "-but if you never had my problems, and One For All has been cultivated since you received it…"
Toshinori let Izuku ramble for another two minutes, catching things he hadn't considered, or had dismissed previously. Most of them weren't of much consequence, he felt, but Izuku's observation on One For All generating a veiny image and crackling electricity was something he couldn't dispute or explain.
It was when Izuku wondered if it reflected All Might's original Quirk that he finally cut in by puffing up to his muscular form.
"Ahahahaha~! While I admire your enthusiasm, my boy, we haven't come here for talking! Not now at least," All Might corrected, ruffling Izuku's hair. "Tell you what, try it with 4% and show me what you're capable of. When we're finished…" All Might gazed into the distance for a moment, lost in memory. "When we're finished, I'll tell you more about One For All… and how my master decided that I-," 'A young Quirkless boy, as you'll no doubt be excited to learn.' "-was worthy to inherit it from her."
"Thank you!" Izuku cheered. "So you think I can handle 4% of your full power now? I wasn't certain yet, but I'll try it! I'll show you," he declared, "One For All: Full Cowling!"
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
'Impressive,' All Might had to admit once Izuku was done demonstrating. 'He's not to the level I… well, I suppose that was inappropriate. But what he has accomplished, barely two months after he broke 3 limbs in the entrance exam practical, is astounding.'
Izuku's display of 4% Full Cowling had first lit up his body with jagged, zigzag marking that glowed like faint neon. Even before doing anything, All Might had seen the sand rustle outward from Izuku, as his protege exhaled, and could all but taste the crackle of energy and power in the air.
'Compared to the pressure David and Mirai described to me, or what I've felt fighting villains, it isn't much… but that a 15-year-old student can bring to bear pressure with this power is…' He'd had to laugh as he congratulated Izuku for accomplishing such an advancement.
Then the demonstrations had begun.
Izuku had leaped almost 3 stories into the air and landed without injury, then jumped 2 stories from his landing point to return to Toshinori's side.
He'd sprinted up and down the beach faster than- Well, it wasn't faster than All Might could perceived, but the average civilian would only see a blur outlined by green sparks at best.
Direct contact from his fists had cratered the rock face of small cliffs near the sea, and air pressure at least struck like a thrown tennis ball from 3 meters away, even if that seemed like nothing next to the cannonball blasts of 100% finger flicks.
Izuku took a few tumbles in showing off as well, of course, but he also pulled off a somersault landing once, claiming it was taught to him by his invisible classmate when they'd reviewed her exercise regime.
All Might made a mental note to come up with an exercise or two where the students needed mobility, such as chasing down an escaping criminal, as that had not been covered as of yet.
Then, when they'd covered everything for the time being (physically, at least), All Might sat Izuku down by the waves as a few early beachgoers trickled in.
"Now, I promised you the story of One For All, didn't I? This power… it's been handed down through many generations. You are the ninth bearer, carrying it into the future," Toshinori revealed. "I was the eighth. But there was a first bearer of One For All with whom it originated, and it is with him… with that man and his brother… that our story should start."
Izuku was not quite silent while Toshinori spoke, but he was quiet, and the notebook he brought was left unused on the sand between them. The boy instead seemed swept away as All Might relays the tale, listening with awe.
Two brothers were born and raised in the early days after Quirks first appeared. One with a power, and one without, as they saw society begin to shatter around them.
The elder had a Quirk, which he named himself after in his dark dealings: All For One, carrying the ability to steal Quirks from other people and add them to his own power, while also redistributing these powers at will to reward loyal subordinates.
All For One gathered the frightened and the frustrated to him. He took Quirks from those who opposed him, but also from those who were cursed and disparaged for their 'deformities,' earning loyalty by providing normalcy back to those in need.
The problem, however, was the price of loyalty he demanded from them, and what he would do to those insufficiently grateful. Bodies would regularly be found, twisted in horrendous ways by superhuman powers, and these displays also exacerbated fears and tensions between those with and without Quirks.
All For One, however, was not alone. He had a younger brother, Quirkless, whose birth name history has forgotten. Beyond lacking a superpower, this younger brother lacked even the regular power of Quirkless humans, being frail and sickly.
"I daresay," Toshinori chuckled, "he was as bad off as you were when we first met, if not worse. And he would have been a man grown at the time!"
"Really?" Izuku wondered.
"Undoubtedly. But," Toshinori continued, "much like you, he had strength in his convictions, and his willingness to put everything on the line for what he believed was right. I suppose he must have been a lot like you, indeed."
Izuku beamed, and All Might continued the story.
He spoke of the younger brother resisting All For One in whatever way he could, until finally—out of an impatient desire for punishment, or a desire to win his brother over, or maybe another motivation entirely—All For One forced a quirk onto his brother.
This itself, All Might explained, was a risky act: people who received quirks unsuitable for their bodies supposedly had been reduced to unresponsive states, like living dolls.
All Might wondered silently whether it was worth mentioning the Noumu, but he decided to continue with the story for the moment instead.
The Quirk All For One had chosen, however, was supposedly believed to be so weak that even the feeble younger brother could handle it: a Quirk that gradually stockpiled power, allowing the user to grow stronger at a slow rate and become acclimated to the strength as they went.
"Stockpiling power…" Izuku stared at his own hand, recognizing the reference.
"Precisely," Toshinori agreed. "Unknown to either man, however, the younger brother possessed a Quirk as well. A weak, 'useless' Quirk that could not take from others… but it could accept what was given to it and it could give back unto others as well. A Quirk that could be passed from person to person, combining with the stockpiling Quirk in the younger brother: this is the true origin of One For All!"
"Amazing!" Izuku cried out at All Might's declaration.
"Yes!" Then he deflated slightly. "Or at least, so it seems."
"Huh?"
"The actual events occurred… More than a century ago, at least. It may be closer to two, now," the blond reasoned tiredly. "While I've done my own research… I've found only bits and pieces to add to what my predecessor told me when I inherited her torch. Indeed, I've learned as much from All For One's disparaging comments about my use of his brother's power as I have from anything else!" He tried to force a laugh, but it came out hollow.
"Wait." Izuku gasped. "Was All For One the villain who injured you?"
"He was," Toshinori agreed. "It isn't difficult to imagine him stealing an anti-aging Quirk. I know nothing of the second or third bearers of One For All, but they must have existed and taken up the cause when the younger brother was no longer able to. So it went down the years, then… and when it came to me, I was finally able to defeat him! Or so I believed," he sighed.
"Then… he's still alive?" Izuku sounded worried.
'Good. Not terror, but with this man, fear is the rational response,' Toshinori reflected.
"I don't know," he answered aloud. "The possibility remains that he is involved with the League of Villains, or that he took on successors of his own. Student villains, if you would. Still! For the time being, that is something we adults should worry about, young man. You just focus your efforts on the Sports Festival, declaring 'I am here' to the world."
"I-I will! I won't let you down," Izuku swore fervently.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
That night, alone in his room, Izuku's mind was racing.
He'd been so emotional before, he hadn't asked many questions, but now…
Now he knew about One For All's origins, and also tidbits All Might had revealed about his own mentor, Shimura Nana. The man had undergone a change of mood when he tried to speak of her, and Izuku quickly switched the subject away from something so painful to All Might, but he had remembered learning that her quirk was called Float, and she'd been a relatively unknown Pro Hero who nonetheless saved many people.
He hadn't mentioned much about her use of One For All, but he'd mentioned that she'd seen something in him, even though he was Quirkless.
All Might had been Quirkless.
'Which means,' Izuku concluded, 'anything different between our uses of One For All isn't due to him having a Quirk the way she had Float. So something else might be going on. He even said he doesn't have all the information.'
Izuku picked up his notebook. In his mind, the words of Vlad King—a compliment that analysis was a good habit for a Pro Hero—played on repeat as Izuku stared at a blank page in his notebook.
Finally, Izuku put his pencil to the paper and wrote 3 words in English: One For All.
He let them sit there, as though weighing them.
Finally, the damn broke, and he began scribbling down all that he could think of, every use in the news, every disparity between him and All Might.
Izuku filled up 3 pages before he went to sleep that night, and he had more to do in the morning.
6:2 - Stepping Up
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
8 days until the Sports Festival.
"Kan-sensei," Momo greeted as they entered the hospital room, "we come bearing gifts!"
"Everyone's hoping you'll recover," Izuku seconded. "I mean…" He trailed off, considering that there was no recovery from a missing arm. "We miss you," he settled on instead.
Kan cleared his throat awkwardly, seeing the size and contents of the gift basket Momo was carrying.
"Ah. Yes, I see. Well, you shouldn't have, but I'm glad to hear you're all doing… as well as can be expected. Ryou has been keeping me up-to-date, as has Miss Whisper," he hedged as the students took seats by his bedside.
"We're all working our hardest to do you proud in the Sports Festival, sensei," Momo promised.
"Right!" Izuku agreed. "Iida-kun won't be recovered in time, but they don't foresee any problems with his surgery- oh!" The freckled boy quickly drew out a card, one separate from the girt basket. "This is from him, and he says that if you…" Izuku fidgeted at relaying such a blunt message, and soldiered on resolutely. "He says that if you blame yourself for his injury, I'm supposed to 'remonstrate with him appropriately for dealing with a hospital patient,' and then remind you that it's the villains' fault for attacking us."
"Oh!" Momo chirped as she remembered something. "That's right, Kan-sensei. 'The mark of a bad personality is in the refusal to accept responsibility, while good people refuse to let go of it.'" She smiled proudly. "As the wounded parties, I believe we can agree to hold the villains responsible for endangering us."
"Yaoyorozu," he deadpanned, unamused, "if you insist on throwing my words back at me again, you'll find that I am still able to assign you detention."
She pouted. Izuku produced his phone with a grin.
"But Kan-sensei, then you won't get to see these adorable selfies we took with Mert-kun before we came to visit you," he pleaded, pulling up an image of Momo laughing while Kan's dog licked her face.
Sekijiro Kan tried to remain grim-faced, but both students could see the internal struggle he was thrust into.
"…Your attempt at bribery is acceptable. Give me the phone and I'll text them to myself, please. And tell me what preparatory training you're doing for the Sports Festival," he added as he took the device.
Momo and Izuku spent the next few minutes listing off everything they were doing, how everyone was recovering—"Kyoka-chan should be back in school this week, she said." "You can't even tell that Ojiro-kun was out sick, and he's been a big help with sparring."—and what school had been like for everyone.
"This afternoon, we're going to the beach," Momo finished proudly. "Not everyone, but several of us are taking the time to relax."
"Kirishima-run said he read about an old training technique samurai used, practicing against the surf, so he's really excited to try it out with us," Izuku added.
"Is this Takoba Beach?" Kan asked perceptively. Izuku squirmed but nodded. "I expect you'll be interested in seeing if it's stayed clean, then."
"Is there some story here?" Momo asked, glancing between them.
Kan smiled, and took ruthless advantage of the opportunity for revenge on the brat that had held hostage photos of Mert. By the time he'd finished relaying the story to Momo and advising her where to search online for articles about the beach's changed condition, Izuku was bright red and incoherent at the praise heaped on him.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mina Ashido grinned. "Never have I ever… hauled around a refrigerator," she declared.
"You guys…" Izuku groaned, folding down his last finger as he was removed from the game. He glumly dropped his hands to the sand he was sitting on.
"Hey man, don't be like that." Eijiro clapped him on the shoulder while smiling. "It's super manly what you did, and impressive as all get out. Oh! Someone totally needs to visit Iida and tell this story so he can make a powerpoint lecture about Midori-bro's awesome achievement. Miss Class Rep?"
"Midoriya-kun volunteered to deliver Iida-kun's homework tomorrow, but I'm sure Ochako-chan will be happy to talk up my adjutant."
"Absolutely! I knew Deku-kun was amazing, but this was even before all the stuff in the entry exam when you got your Quirk, right?" Ochako punched the air excitedly. Izuku blushed as she bounced enthusiastically, trying to find somewhere safe to look.
He settled on the sky.
"Um, hey, wasn't it Ochako-chan's turn now?" Izuku suggested since he was eliminated. "How about I make a snack run for everyone." 'I'm not used to seeing that much skin, so I need to chill out a little bit.'
"That would be so awesome, Deku-kun!" Ochako cheered. "Get some mocha chips and a drink and I'll pay you back."
"I suppose one of us will have to do it without Jeeves-san present to provide refreshments," Momo mused, digging into her purse. Everyone else who caught it sweat dropped that her butler usually came with her to the beach for these things. "Don't worry about repaying things, it's on me for the day, as it's my responsibility to provide for my classmates." She passed Izuku a roll of bills.
"Momo-chan, you're the greatest!" Ochako declared, tackle-hugging the taller girl.
"Three cheers for Yaomomo!" Mina agreed.
"Ooh, that's perfect," Denki cackled as he grabbed his phone. "Keep hugging, I'm sending this to Jirou."
Izuku quickly ran for snacks before the cute girls reduced him to stuttering again.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7 days until the Sports Festival. Lunch.
"Brainwashing that works when the other person responds to your voice? Is it just your voice, or words, and could it be their voice or specific words as well? But that's really powerful, there's so much you could do with that Quirk," Izuku complimented as his pen flew across the notebook page.
"You really think so?" Hitoshi asked carefully. He couldn't believe that one of the (apparently) stronger Heroics students was complimenting him, he could barely believe that anyone agreed about his Quirk being good for hero work, and he didn't quite dare to hope that Izuku would keep talking to him once it set in.
"Yeah. I mean, if it needs to be activated by a response, I can definitely see why you insisted on having this conversation with no one around," Izuku gestured to the far corner of the campus they'd perched in during their lunch break, "but you can de-escalate so many emergency situations before violence breaks out just by talking to people. Heck, you could… a bunch of the villains who invaded the USJ made a point to gloat, so you could have stopped any of them cold so easily. If a villain takes a hostage and you go in as a negotiator, it ends as soon as you ask what they want. Villains who cause a fuss or make a scene…"
Izuku trailed off and fought down a blush when he saw Hitoshi had started smiling softly at him. 'Crud, I thought I'd gotten over this already, I hate teenage hormones,' he groaned mentally.
"You really think so? Most people tell me I'd make a great villain, not a great hero," Hitoshi mused.
"I mean…" Izuku trailed off, thinking back to a talk with Hound Dog he'd had. "When most people say 'good for hero work,' what they mean is 'good for crimefighting'. But I was talking with a few people, and fighting is fighting, really. Any of the top ten heroes could probably be really dangerous villains, like Edgeshot breaking and entering or Endeavor committing mass arson. But your Quirk can be used to stop fighting, not just to hurt people or break things," Izuku reasoned, encouraged by Hitoshi's expression. "If I come up against a criminal I can't punch, I'm going to have problems. As long as you can talk to them, like they aren't some robot-," 'Or that brain-exposed guy at USJ.' "-but a person, then you can stop them without hurting people. Oh! Actually, maybe you could even stop entire groups of people if they all respond to you, does that work?"
"Not that way. I can control multiple people I've Brainwashed and keep them under, but it still requires attention and effort to put them under, so I can only take control of one person at a time," Hitoshi answered carefully, still wondering if Izuku would realize that he was talking with a guy who could brainwash him by talking.
"Is there a time-limit? Are there things they can and can't do? Do you have proprioceptive feedback regarding whether people are under your control or not?"
Izuku continued to mutter as much to himself as to Hitoshi while he wrote down a big list of questions, only half of which Hitoshi had ever really thought about or confirmed before.
Hitoshi gave answers as best he could: he didn't know if there was a time-limit to keeping people under control, as he'd never tried for more than 2 hours; he'd never found enough willing volunteers to test how many people he could keep under or control at a time; giving orders was verbal, he couldn't mentally control people; he'd never tried it across a language barrier; no one had broken out internally, but people had been jarred free from him by pain or impact; he couldn't give commands that required brain activity, like answering questions honestly or choosing something; he could give commands that required dexterity, like typing or tying shoelaces; etc.
Izuku finished up his list, nodded resolutely, and looked Hitoshi in the eye.
"I think I'll need to go under you Brainwashing's control to answer some of these," he said, unknowingly cementing himself in Hitoshi's This Person Is Trustworthy category. "It doesn't take much time?"
"No… Are you sure about this?" Hitoshi wondered.
"Yes," Izuku said, and Hitoshi triggered his Quirk.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6 days until the Sports Festival.
"Accuracy contest: ready, set go!" Izuku shouted.
Immediately, Mina began hurling globs of acid and Yuga started firing off short bursts of his Naval Laser, both targeting the chunks of rubble Ochako had floated up in the air for them.
All Might had taken them to one of the cityscape training grounds and declared the day's event would be free training for the students in whatever they thought they needed to improve. Izuku suspected he'd used up too much time earlier that day, which was why they'd been given free time, but he wouldn't shame his mentor for saving people.
Some of the class (particularly Katsuki, Eijiro, and Mezo,) had set up sparring rotations, another group (led by Hanta, Tsuyu, and Rikido,) were improving mobility by treating the buildings as obstacle courses, and Izuku was overseeing Quirk practice like accuracy training as Momo moved around between areas as needed.
"Got it!" Mina shouted.
"Ooh, but you can't match my sparkle, mademoiselle rose."
"Release!" Ochako shouted, bringing her fingers together to start the second round of the contest.
Izuku just dodged through the debris, minding his footing, as Mina danced and skated over a layer of acid, but Yuga got a block of concrete (a small one) to the head.
"Oh!" Yuga toppled over and Izuku caught him before he fell. "Je vous remercie, my hero," Yuga purred as he looked into Izuku's eyes.
'Not this again,' Izuku mentally whined as his cheeks flushed. Then it got worse when Mina jumped on his back and wrapped her arms around him.
"Way to go, Midori!" Mina cheered, pressing her body into his and almost nuzzling his cheek. "I haven't seen you hit once and you grabbed Yuga-kun, way to go! You're really good at dodging, you know?"
"Y-Y-Yeah," Izuku stammered out. 'I feel like I can barely breathe, they're so close! Everyone's so…!' "Thanks?"
"You guys! You're crowding him," Ochako scolded, having picked up by now that Izuku wasn't comfortable with even most platonic PDAs. "Don't make me tell the class rep on you."
"Geez, Ochako-chan, jealous much?" Mina teased, but she hopped off Izuku's back and took Yuga to steady the blond as Ochako pouted.
Izuku breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Ochako-chan," he murmured. He shook himself. 'Okay, I have responsibilities now, it's back to business!' "Aoyama-kun, can you keep going, or should we make a trip to Recovery Girl?" 'She probably won't be happy to see me, but maybe bringing someone else… I haven't needed to visit for a few days, so I'm improving.'
"I can-!" Yuga began laughing at the idea, but then he winced. "Actually," he admitted, "I may need to see her after all. Would you walk with me?" He offered Izuku a look of glistening puppy-dog eyes the boy couldn't say no to.
"Sure!"
"Watch it…" Ochako grumbled quietly, doing an I'm Watching You gesture to Yuga before he got out of her sight. Yuga winced and made a pleading gesture at her in return, to which she nodded.
Izuku missed all of this, as he was looking for, "Yaoyorozu-san! Aoyama-kun took a hit to the head, so I'm taking him to Recovery Girl for a check-up."
"Understood. I'll make a note of it and step in to supervise if need be," Momo promised him, heading toward Ochako, Mina, and the few others hanging around as they waited for a turn.
Izuku led Yuga out of the training ground and toward the main building, supporting the boy as they went.
"Hmm… Do I make you uncomfortable, Midoriya-kun?" Yuga wondered.
"Huh?" 'Oh no! He thinks I'm acting weird, or that it's his fault instead of me…' "N-No! That's not it at all, Aoyama-kun! I promise. I just… Everyone's so friendly since I started UA-," 'Since I got One For All and wasn't Quirkless.' "-and I'm not really used to it."
Izuku let the conversation trail off there, but Yuga frowned, thinking.
He'd been planning to flirt a bit more with Izuku and see if he wanted to take a leap of faith, but now he was having doubts. Yuga had come out to Mina as gay when he turned down her invitation on a date in the second week, but that had been because he knew she had two fathers and wouldn't judge him.
Izuku he couldn't get a good read on, due to the boy's anxiety and awkwardness, but the idea of Izuku cringing or shying away from Yuga was unpleasant.
He opted to change the subject.
"You know, when we first met at the practical, I thought you weren't terribly impressive, I admit," Yuga acknowledged. "You promptly proved me wrong by destroying that giant robot, but…"
"Yeah, I surprised myself with that too," Izuku chuckled nervously.
"We… I think we're a little alike, Midoriya-kun."
"Huh? But, I mean… Aoyama-kun, you're so stylish and confident, and I don't really…?"
Yuga laughed. "Flamboyance is an acquired state of being, I'm afraid. But we both have powerful Quirks we can't control very well, and we're driven to overcome that. I must confess, your progress has left me feeling a tad insecure. Do you have any advice?"
Izuku blinked, his hands going for his notebook before he paused.
"I can't… really… think of anything that you aren't already doing, based on what I know, Aoyama-kun."
"Pity," Yuga sighed. "I'd ask Yaoyorozu-chan for advice, but I fear she may be overstretching herself in helping others already. And you are as well, perhaps, but… Out of idle curiosity, that Gen Ed student, why did you decide to help him?"
'Because I thought he was really brave standing up to us and telling us he wanted a clean fight so we'd know to look out for him come the Sports Festival, even if he admitted he was trying to get us riled up so we'd respond more easily for his Brainwashing,' Izuku absolutely did not say out loud.
He sighed.
"It's a couple of things. To start with, we were already making preparations for the Sports Festival, so a lot of what I did was just invite Shinso-kun to things we were doing anyway. My senpai said there shouldn't be a seat limit on hero class seats, and either way we have one spot free after that expulsion, but also… You remember me at the entry exam practical?"
"Oui, I just said as much. Hmm… As I remember, Bakugou also claimed you got 0 Villain Points, so I suppose that giant robot was the only one you destroyed? Actually, now that I think of it…"
"I was pretty much running around like Gomu-san at Akita," Izuku agreed.
"Although you failed to literally bounce off of any buildings that I could see."
"I guess, but…" Izuku trailed off as they reached the doors of UA, but some impulse prompted him to start talking after a moment. "Aoyama-kun, do you think someone can become a hero without a Quirk?"
It was a question Izuku had asked some dozen times, in one form or another, and to which he had uniformly received a negative answer.
Instead of laughing, Yuga hummed in thought.
"Are you asking about someone who can't use their Quirk, or-? Ah, non-non, you are referring to yourself as a 'late bloomer'. My apologies, it can take me some time to reach a point, merci," the blonde rambled. "Still… I believe it is in-theory possible," Yuga judged "but as with many things in life, I don't doubt the first few people to attempt it will fail in trying. But some Quirks are even detrimental to heroism, like ours can be, so I see little reason why we can't eventually have a Quirkless Pro Hero."
"Eventually," Izuku sighed heavily.
"Hmm?"
"That's the other thing I was thinking, I guess. There are a bunch of Quirkless kids out there who'd love to see a hero like them, the way I would've… I guess I just sort of thought that helping Shinso-kun…"
"It could be good practice for training a Quirkless hero, if you start with a hero student whose Quirk isn't suited for combat," Yuga reassured him politely.
"Yeah," Izuku sighed, dismissing the subject as they reached Recovery Girl's office.
"Kan-sensei," Momo greeted as they entered the hospital room, "we come bearing gifts!"
"Everyone's hoping you'll recover," Izuku seconded. "I mean…" He trailed off, considering that there was no recovery from a missing arm. "We miss you," he settled on instead.
Kan cleared his throat awkwardly, seeing the size and contents of the gift basket Momo was carrying.
"Ah. Yes, I see. Well, you shouldn't have, but I'm glad to hear you're all doing… as well as can be expected. Ryou has been keeping me up-to-date, as has Miss Whisper," he hedged as the students took seats by his bedside.
"We're all working our hardest to do you proud in the Sports Festival, sensei," Momo promised.
"Right!" Izuku agreed. "Iida-kun won't be recovered in time, but they don't foresee any problems with his surgery- oh!" The freckled boy quickly drew out a card, one separate from the girt basket. "This is from him, and he says that if you…" Izuku fidgeted at relaying such a blunt message, and soldiered on resolutely. "He says that if you blame yourself for his injury, I'm supposed to 'remonstrate with him appropriately for dealing with a hospital patient,' and then remind you that it's the villains' fault for attacking us."
"Oh!" Momo chirped as she remembered something. "That's right, Kan-sensei. 'The mark of a bad personality is in the refusal to accept responsibility, while good people refuse to let go of it.'" She smiled proudly. "As the wounded parties, I believe we can agree to hold the villains responsible for endangering us."
"Yaoyorozu," he deadpanned, unamused, "if you insist on throwing my words back at me again, you'll find that I am still able to assign you detention."
She pouted. Izuku produced his phone with a grin.
"But Kan-sensei, then you won't get to see these adorable selfies we took with Mert-kun before we came to visit you," he pleaded, pulling up an image of Momo laughing while Kan's dog licked her face.
Sekijiro Kan tried to remain grim-faced, but both students could see the internal struggle he was thrust into.
"…Your attempt at bribery is acceptable. Give me the phone and I'll text them to myself, please. And tell me what preparatory training you're doing for the Sports Festival," he added as he took the device.
Momo and Izuku spent the next few minutes listing off everything they were doing, how everyone was recovering—"Kyoka-chan should be back in school this week, she said." "You can't even tell that Ojiro-kun was out sick, and he's been a big help with sparring."—and what school had been like for everyone.
"This afternoon, we're going to the beach," Momo finished proudly. "Not everyone, but several of us are taking the time to relax."
"Kirishima-run said he read about an old training technique samurai used, practicing against the surf, so he's really excited to try it out with us," Izuku added.
"Is this Takoba Beach?" Kan asked perceptively. Izuku squirmed but nodded. "I expect you'll be interested in seeing if it's stayed clean, then."
"Is there some story here?" Momo asked, glancing between them.
Kan smiled, and took ruthless advantage of the opportunity for revenge on the brat that had held hostage photos of Mert. By the time he'd finished relaying the story to Momo and advising her where to search online for articles about the beach's changed condition, Izuku was bright red and incoherent at the praise heaped on him.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mina Ashido grinned. "Never have I ever… hauled around a refrigerator," she declared.
"You guys…" Izuku groaned, folding down his last finger as he was removed from the game. He glumly dropped his hands to the sand he was sitting on.
"Hey man, don't be like that." Eijiro clapped him on the shoulder while smiling. "It's super manly what you did, and impressive as all get out. Oh! Someone totally needs to visit Iida and tell this story so he can make a powerpoint lecture about Midori-bro's awesome achievement. Miss Class Rep?"
"Midoriya-kun volunteered to deliver Iida-kun's homework tomorrow, but I'm sure Ochako-chan will be happy to talk up my adjutant."
"Absolutely! I knew Deku-kun was amazing, but this was even before all the stuff in the entry exam when you got your Quirk, right?" Ochako punched the air excitedly. Izuku blushed as she bounced enthusiastically, trying to find somewhere safe to look.
He settled on the sky.
"Um, hey, wasn't it Ochako-chan's turn now?" Izuku suggested since he was eliminated. "How about I make a snack run for everyone." 'I'm not used to seeing that much skin, so I need to chill out a little bit.'
"That would be so awesome, Deku-kun!" Ochako cheered. "Get some mocha chips and a drink and I'll pay you back."
"I suppose one of us will have to do it without Jeeves-san present to provide refreshments," Momo mused, digging into her purse. Everyone else who caught it sweat dropped that her butler usually came with her to the beach for these things. "Don't worry about repaying things, it's on me for the day, as it's my responsibility to provide for my classmates." She passed Izuku a roll of bills.
"Momo-chan, you're the greatest!" Ochako declared, tackle-hugging the taller girl.
"Three cheers for Yaomomo!" Mina agreed.
"Ooh, that's perfect," Denki cackled as he grabbed his phone. "Keep hugging, I'm sending this to Jirou."
Izuku quickly ran for snacks before the cute girls reduced him to stuttering again.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7 days until the Sports Festival. Lunch.
"Brainwashing that works when the other person responds to your voice? Is it just your voice, or words, and could it be their voice or specific words as well? But that's really powerful, there's so much you could do with that Quirk," Izuku complimented as his pen flew across the notebook page.
"You really think so?" Hitoshi asked carefully. He couldn't believe that one of the (apparently) stronger Heroics students was complimenting him, he could barely believe that anyone agreed about his Quirk being good for hero work, and he didn't quite dare to hope that Izuku would keep talking to him once it set in.
"Yeah. I mean, if it needs to be activated by a response, I can definitely see why you insisted on having this conversation with no one around," Izuku gestured to the far corner of the campus they'd perched in during their lunch break, "but you can de-escalate so many emergency situations before violence breaks out just by talking to people. Heck, you could… a bunch of the villains who invaded the USJ made a point to gloat, so you could have stopped any of them cold so easily. If a villain takes a hostage and you go in as a negotiator, it ends as soon as you ask what they want. Villains who cause a fuss or make a scene…"
Izuku trailed off and fought down a blush when he saw Hitoshi had started smiling softly at him. 'Crud, I thought I'd gotten over this already, I hate teenage hormones,' he groaned mentally.
"You really think so? Most people tell me I'd make a great villain, not a great hero," Hitoshi mused.
"I mean…" Izuku trailed off, thinking back to a talk with Hound Dog he'd had. "When most people say 'good for hero work,' what they mean is 'good for crimefighting'. But I was talking with a few people, and fighting is fighting, really. Any of the top ten heroes could probably be really dangerous villains, like Edgeshot breaking and entering or Endeavor committing mass arson. But your Quirk can be used to stop fighting, not just to hurt people or break things," Izuku reasoned, encouraged by Hitoshi's expression. "If I come up against a criminal I can't punch, I'm going to have problems. As long as you can talk to them, like they aren't some robot-," 'Or that brain-exposed guy at USJ.' "-but a person, then you can stop them without hurting people. Oh! Actually, maybe you could even stop entire groups of people if they all respond to you, does that work?"
"Not that way. I can control multiple people I've Brainwashed and keep them under, but it still requires attention and effort to put them under, so I can only take control of one person at a time," Hitoshi answered carefully, still wondering if Izuku would realize that he was talking with a guy who could brainwash him by talking.
"Is there a time-limit? Are there things they can and can't do? Do you have proprioceptive feedback regarding whether people are under your control or not?"
Izuku continued to mutter as much to himself as to Hitoshi while he wrote down a big list of questions, only half of which Hitoshi had ever really thought about or confirmed before.
Hitoshi gave answers as best he could: he didn't know if there was a time-limit to keeping people under control, as he'd never tried for more than 2 hours; he'd never found enough willing volunteers to test how many people he could keep under or control at a time; giving orders was verbal, he couldn't mentally control people; he'd never tried it across a language barrier; no one had broken out internally, but people had been jarred free from him by pain or impact; he couldn't give commands that required brain activity, like answering questions honestly or choosing something; he could give commands that required dexterity, like typing or tying shoelaces; etc.
Izuku finished up his list, nodded resolutely, and looked Hitoshi in the eye.
"I think I'll need to go under you Brainwashing's control to answer some of these," he said, unknowingly cementing himself in Hitoshi's This Person Is Trustworthy category. "It doesn't take much time?"
"No… Are you sure about this?" Hitoshi wondered.
"Yes," Izuku said, and Hitoshi triggered his Quirk.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6 days until the Sports Festival.
"Accuracy contest: ready, set go!" Izuku shouted.
Immediately, Mina began hurling globs of acid and Yuga started firing off short bursts of his Naval Laser, both targeting the chunks of rubble Ochako had floated up in the air for them.
All Might had taken them to one of the cityscape training grounds and declared the day's event would be free training for the students in whatever they thought they needed to improve. Izuku suspected he'd used up too much time earlier that day, which was why they'd been given free time, but he wouldn't shame his mentor for saving people.
Some of the class (particularly Katsuki, Eijiro, and Mezo,) had set up sparring rotations, another group (led by Hanta, Tsuyu, and Rikido,) were improving mobility by treating the buildings as obstacle courses, and Izuku was overseeing Quirk practice like accuracy training as Momo moved around between areas as needed.
"Got it!" Mina shouted.
"Ooh, but you can't match my sparkle, mademoiselle rose."
"Release!" Ochako shouted, bringing her fingers together to start the second round of the contest.
Izuku just dodged through the debris, minding his footing, as Mina danced and skated over a layer of acid, but Yuga got a block of concrete (a small one) to the head.
"Oh!" Yuga toppled over and Izuku caught him before he fell. "Je vous remercie, my hero," Yuga purred as he looked into Izuku's eyes.
'Not this again,' Izuku mentally whined as his cheeks flushed. Then it got worse when Mina jumped on his back and wrapped her arms around him.
"Way to go, Midori!" Mina cheered, pressing her body into his and almost nuzzling his cheek. "I haven't seen you hit once and you grabbed Yuga-kun, way to go! You're really good at dodging, you know?"
"Y-Y-Yeah," Izuku stammered out. 'I feel like I can barely breathe, they're so close! Everyone's so…!' "Thanks?"
"You guys! You're crowding him," Ochako scolded, having picked up by now that Izuku wasn't comfortable with even most platonic PDAs. "Don't make me tell the class rep on you."
"Geez, Ochako-chan, jealous much?" Mina teased, but she hopped off Izuku's back and took Yuga to steady the blond as Ochako pouted.
Izuku breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Ochako-chan," he murmured. He shook himself. 'Okay, I have responsibilities now, it's back to business!' "Aoyama-kun, can you keep going, or should we make a trip to Recovery Girl?" 'She probably won't be happy to see me, but maybe bringing someone else… I haven't needed to visit for a few days, so I'm improving.'
"I can-!" Yuga began laughing at the idea, but then he winced. "Actually," he admitted, "I may need to see her after all. Would you walk with me?" He offered Izuku a look of glistening puppy-dog eyes the boy couldn't say no to.
"Sure!"
"Watch it…" Ochako grumbled quietly, doing an I'm Watching You gesture to Yuga before he got out of her sight. Yuga winced and made a pleading gesture at her in return, to which she nodded.
Izuku missed all of this, as he was looking for, "Yaoyorozu-san! Aoyama-kun took a hit to the head, so I'm taking him to Recovery Girl for a check-up."
"Understood. I'll make a note of it and step in to supervise if need be," Momo promised him, heading toward Ochako, Mina, and the few others hanging around as they waited for a turn.
Izuku led Yuga out of the training ground and toward the main building, supporting the boy as they went.
"Hmm… Do I make you uncomfortable, Midoriya-kun?" Yuga wondered.
"Huh?" 'Oh no! He thinks I'm acting weird, or that it's his fault instead of me…' "N-No! That's not it at all, Aoyama-kun! I promise. I just… Everyone's so friendly since I started UA-," 'Since I got One For All and wasn't Quirkless.' "-and I'm not really used to it."
Izuku let the conversation trail off there, but Yuga frowned, thinking.
He'd been planning to flirt a bit more with Izuku and see if he wanted to take a leap of faith, but now he was having doubts. Yuga had come out to Mina as gay when he turned down her invitation on a date in the second week, but that had been because he knew she had two fathers and wouldn't judge him.
Izuku he couldn't get a good read on, due to the boy's anxiety and awkwardness, but the idea of Izuku cringing or shying away from Yuga was unpleasant.
He opted to change the subject.
"You know, when we first met at the practical, I thought you weren't terribly impressive, I admit," Yuga acknowledged. "You promptly proved me wrong by destroying that giant robot, but…"
"Yeah, I surprised myself with that too," Izuku chuckled nervously.
"We… I think we're a little alike, Midoriya-kun."
"Huh? But, I mean… Aoyama-kun, you're so stylish and confident, and I don't really…?"
Yuga laughed. "Flamboyance is an acquired state of being, I'm afraid. But we both have powerful Quirks we can't control very well, and we're driven to overcome that. I must confess, your progress has left me feeling a tad insecure. Do you have any advice?"
Izuku blinked, his hands going for his notebook before he paused.
"I can't… really… think of anything that you aren't already doing, based on what I know, Aoyama-kun."
"Pity," Yuga sighed. "I'd ask Yaoyorozu-chan for advice, but I fear she may be overstretching herself in helping others already. And you are as well, perhaps, but… Out of idle curiosity, that Gen Ed student, why did you decide to help him?"
'Because I thought he was really brave standing up to us and telling us he wanted a clean fight so we'd know to look out for him come the Sports Festival, even if he admitted he was trying to get us riled up so we'd respond more easily for his Brainwashing,' Izuku absolutely did not say out loud.
He sighed.
"It's a couple of things. To start with, we were already making preparations for the Sports Festival, so a lot of what I did was just invite Shinso-kun to things we were doing anyway. My senpai said there shouldn't be a seat limit on hero class seats, and either way we have one spot free after that expulsion, but also… You remember me at the entry exam practical?"
"Oui, I just said as much. Hmm… As I remember, Bakugou also claimed you got 0 Villain Points, so I suppose that giant robot was the only one you destroyed? Actually, now that I think of it…"
"I was pretty much running around like Gomu-san at Akita," Izuku agreed.
"Although you failed to literally bounce off of any buildings that I could see."
"I guess, but…" Izuku trailed off as they reached the doors of UA, but some impulse prompted him to start talking after a moment. "Aoyama-kun, do you think someone can become a hero without a Quirk?"
It was a question Izuku had asked some dozen times, in one form or another, and to which he had uniformly received a negative answer.
Instead of laughing, Yuga hummed in thought.
"Are you asking about someone who can't use their Quirk, or-? Ah, non-non, you are referring to yourself as a 'late bloomer'. My apologies, it can take me some time to reach a point, merci," the blonde rambled. "Still… I believe it is in-theory possible," Yuga judged "but as with many things in life, I don't doubt the first few people to attempt it will fail in trying. But some Quirks are even detrimental to heroism, like ours can be, so I see little reason why we can't eventually have a Quirkless Pro Hero."
"Eventually," Izuku sighed heavily.
"Hmm?"
"That's the other thing I was thinking, I guess. There are a bunch of Quirkless kids out there who'd love to see a hero like them, the way I would've… I guess I just sort of thought that helping Shinso-kun…"
"It could be good practice for training a Quirkless hero, if you start with a hero student whose Quirk isn't suited for combat," Yuga reassured him politely.
"Yeah," Izuku sighed, dismissing the subject as they reached Recovery Girl's office.
6:3 - Making Arrangements
Obloquy
CrossMyHeart And HopeToDie, StickANeedleInMyEye
- Location
- the Physical Realm
3 days until the Sports Festival.
"Look, I still think I could do it, or someone could have!" Izuku exclaimed, exasperated. "Just because I have a Quirk now, it doesn't mean I don't think we need a Quirkless hero to inspire people!" Words he never would have said a year ago spilled out. "Quirks are amazing, but they aren't everything or we wouldn't have support gear, physical training wouldn't be nearly as important—you still don't have nearly enough even if your Quirk is completely awesome and-," Hitoshi Shinso flinched, still unused to receiving praise for his Brainwashing. "-most Pro Heroes with a brain would love to have you on a team—and there are so many extra skills people need!"
"Principal Nedzu is a physical wimp who gets by on planning. Recovery Girl is a hero with only her healing Quirk. Other skills are important, but now that I'm actually training my Quirk, I think that's the most important type of practice I need," Hitoshi argued firmly. "Your physical conditioning and your brains wouldn't have done anything to get you in if you hadn't got your Quirk at the last minute."
"I did some of the wrong kind of training for Quirkless heroism in hindsight, but if I'd known I could do it then I could have done it!" Izuku argued.
Hitoshi rolled his eyes. "That's a tautology, you-,"
"Excuse me!" Tenya's shout was matched by a hand chop that cut the air between them, making both boys jerk back. "As much as I am entertained by your disagreement," the bed-bound boy declared, "I fear too much shouting may get you removed from my hospital room."
"Beside, this sounds like the type of thing best settled by a Gentleman's Wager," Tensei Iida, the Pro Hero Ingenium, seconded with a laugh.
"Aniki!"
As Tenya began a horrified lecture on the evils of gambling, and Hitoshi settled back in his chair to contemplate that he was being heard out instead of kicked out, Izuku took the opportunity to reflect on how he had arrived in this situation.
When Izuku had first gone to see Tenya in the hospital, (bringing with him some DVDs of All Might's Adventures, a profit-to-charity cartoon the #1 Hero had let be made about him, in case Tenya was bored,) he'd mentioned Class 1-A's training groups while catching Tenya up on recent events. Along the way, he'd also brought up his tutoring with Hitoshi Shinso—who was on his mind as only the day before Hitoshi had finally explained his Quirk's abilities to Izuku—and Tenya had expressed an interest in meeting the transfer hopeful.
When Izuku brought Hitoshi with him on the next visit, Tenya had volunteered to be a dummy for Brainwashing, citing the (quickly disproven) belief that his strength of will and keen intellect should aid him in resisting Hitoshi's control.
The subsequent disagreement had come about during discussion of their Quirks, Quirk training sessions, and a disagreement over how important it was to train Quirks instead of other skills.
During this topic, Izuku had brought up his own preparations for the UA exam, which (as far as the other two knew,) he had been planning to take Quirkless. The deliberate misunderstanding, however, had also touched on his older dreams and insecurities, and he'd vouched his belief that someone could Quirklessly pass the entrance exam.
Hitoshi, who had functionally tried and failed to do just that, dismissed the idea.
It had spiraled into not quite an argument, Hitoshi refusing to admit he'd failed to prepare for an exam he'd been prepared to fail, and Izuku refusing to lose a dream he'd needed as a child while re-assessing the fragility of the robots with the benefit of hindsight.
And that had led to this.
Tensei Iida laughed as he laid out the paper with the outline of the bet Hitoshi and Izuku found themselves agreeing to.
Neither boy was backing down from strong opinions, and both (if pressed) felt that the symbology of their competition would be stronger.
"We used to do these types of things to settle stuff back when I was a student, since we had the Lucky Hero: Bishamonten as a teacher and he loved this stuff. Besides, making things more difficult for yourself is great training, and your first year is the best time to experiment," Tensei finished, and as a UA alumnus who'd gone to school with a few of their teachers, they knew to take his advice very seriously.
Hitoshi signed symbolically.
Izuku signed symbolically.
They shook on it.
Tenya groaned and demanded they join him in watching several episodes of Bluestocking's Biographies (an educational show so boring he knew they'd hate it,) as penance for this idiocy.
But he didn't stop them or threaten to report anything to anyone, (Was this a reportable offense? Izuku wasn't certain,) so it looked like Izuku was going through with it.
'No using my Quirk during the mass elimination event, and I won't use it on Hitoshi unless he uses it on me when we get to single-contests if we both get that far…' Izuku turned over the big 2 restrictions he'd agreed to as a self-imposed challenge. 'Not that that's as much a worry, since I know how to avoid his Quirk and failed attempts count, but I still need some strategies… Well, I guess I'd better put my money where my mouth is and Plus Ultra my preparations.'
He would have hoped he knew what he was getting into, but Izuku was self-aware enough to realize how rare that was in his life.
"-and so I won't be using my Quirk in the mass elimination event of the Sports Festival," Izuku finished as he took a stance across from Mashirao Ojiro.
"It makes sense you'd ask me for some tips with regular fighting and moving," Mashirao agreed with a nod, falling into a martial arts stance of his own.
It was 2 days before the Sports Festival, Mashirao had come back to class after recovering from his illness, Kyoka Jirou had just recently as well (with instructions to remain on light duty only), and Izuku had offered to exchange some training and preparation with Mashirao to get him caught up.
"Yeah… It's your martial arts that really makes you dangerous, though your tail is pretty cool too," Izuku complimented. "I just figured… you know… you might get it."
"I do. Alright, spar starts on three."
He counted down.
Izuku spent the next 20 minutes getting his ego handed to him on a platter in a multitude of ways, most of which didn't even require Mashirao to use his tail.
He never called it quits though, and he made Mashirao work for some wins by the end.
"All right then. Stubborn, but that's a good thing here," Mashirao assessed as he helped Izuku stand after the 58th fall of the afternoon. Izuku had already run Mashirao through the expected setup of the Sports Festival and passed along notes on all of 1-B's quirks, which would put the mild blond well ahead of most rivals who didn't do that prerequisite research or mooch off of Izuku's preparation.
"My willpower to keep going is probably my most useful trait," Izuku panted through his bruises. "I just hope I can… I hope I can make everyone proud of me." All Might had previously pulled Izuku aside to express his hopes that Izuku would use this opportunity to declare 'I AM HERE' to the world as All Might's chosen successor.
He'd said he didn't want to force Izuku to do anything, but the weight of expectation remained.
Mashirao chuckled. "Oh I love getting to do this. Midoriya, I'd like to pass along some advice that applies here."
"Yeah? That's what I came here for, right, Ojiro-kun?"
"Not mobility advice, or for fighting."
"Okay?"
"Midoriya… 'I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you're not in this world to live up to mine.' Just keep that in mind, will you?"
"That sounds like a quote."
"It is. If we ever have a Class 1-A movie night or anything, Vice-Rep, I'll show you where I heard it."
Izuku smiled. "I'll suggest it to Yaoyorozu-san," he promised.
"Great. Now let's run through some mobility exercises."
*knock-knock-knock*
*knock-knock-knock*
*knock-knock-knock*
"Who could that be?" Inko wondered. It was the morning of the Sports Festival, and they weren't expecting any guests. Izuku had just finished breakfast and was getting dressed for the day when the knocking started. "Hello?"
"Hiya! Ooh, you must be Izuku-kouhai's kaa-chan, you look just like him! I totally bet he gets his adorableness from you, doesn't he? Well, from you and the sunshine, my baa-chan always calls freckles mmph-!"
"Mrs. Midoriya? I'm Yuyu Haya and this is Nejire Hadou; we're 3rd-years at UA. Nejire-chan just wanted to swing by and walk him to school today, since he lives on the way from my house and she's been tutoring him."
"Plus I've totes got a bet going with Mirio and Tamaki!" Nejire cheered once she broke free from Yuyu restraining hand. "I'm betting on Midori, Mirio's betting on Yaoyorozu-sensei's niece, and Tamaki put his bet on that green-haired girl from 1-B!"
"Just don't ask her what they're betting on, 'cause it's not just winning," Yuyu whispered, as the bet actually related to Mirio's status as 'The Pants Guy' from his own Sports Festival appearances.
Inko laughed anxiously and welcomed the two girls in just as Izuku appeared.
"N-N-Nejire-chan-senpai! Haya-senpai!" He'd met her when Nejire introduced Yuyu to Hitoshi, and the older girl waved back placidly.
Nejire rushed over and glomped him.
"Broccoli-kouhai! We're here to walk you to UA today and wish you luck!"
"We'd offer you a spare ticket to the Third-Year Students' stage in 2 days-," The Sports Festival was spread out across 3 days, since they didn't have 3 stadiums for different audiences per year. "-but we both have our families attending instead."
"Wish us luck though! And we're here to wish you good luck, so come on!"
Nejire barely waited for Izuku to get his street shoes on before dragging him out the door.
"Sorry about this," Yuyu sighed quietly as they waited for a train.
"I-It's kind of nice…" Izuku hadn't really had people fussing over him for most of his life, and 2 attractive older girls were a welcome change of pace.
Yuyu snorted affectionately as Nejire rambled about some birds she could see flying around. "No doubt."
"…Does it feel different?" Izuku wondered. "Being a 3rd-year?"
"Different from what?" Nejire chirped. "Every day always is a little different from the others, isn't it? I'm sort of sad thinking we won't do this again, but I've made a lot of fun memories and I've loved every moment of it, even when I was training so hard I puked. It was really weird though, I haven't eaten corn in weeks, but it always looks like corn or carrots for my last meal, have you ever noticed that?"
""You've mentioned,"" Izuku and Yuyu deadpanned together.
Nejire cackled.
"My dear classmates! Even though I will not be joining you in this field of battle, know that my heart and my support will be with you!" Tenya declared from his wheelchair (no walking for another 3 days for him).
"Plus, if you impress us, Team Iidaten might offer you a week of work-study," Tensei Iida offered.
Everyone was gathered in Class 1-A's waiting room; they'd been ecstatic to have Tenya wheeled in and excited to meet Turbo Hero: Ingenium in the flesh.
"Tch, like I need to aim that low," Katsuki grumbled from across the room.
"Fair enough. Plus Ultra, and you might end up in the top 10 even, with all the focus on you goys this year," Ingenium suggested.
"Oh my gosh that would be so exciting! Can you imagine Mirko or Ryukyu noticing us as future heroines?" Mina cheered.
"We already know Endeavor will be watching Todoroki-kun," Tsuyu agreed, "so anybody who does well could catch his attention."
"I wouldn't hold your breath on that," Shouto advised darkly from his seat beside Tohru.
"Baku-bro, man, are you feeling okay?"
"You've been more surly than pumped," Izuku added as Katsuki glared at Eijiro.
Izuku and Katsuki had kinda-sorta mended some fences, in that Izuku could talk to him without snappish responses, and during a family dinner (Mitsuki's spicy curry was still the only food Izuku ever preferred over katsudon for special occasions,) Katsuki had ranted to a dismayed Mitsuki, Masaru, and Inko over how other people had treated Izuku in junior high, with them both omitting Katsuki's complicity (beyond Katsuki complaining that their teacher had all but pointed him at Izuku on a few occasions, like high school application talks).
It was… strange. Katsuki was still a jerk to everybody, and he still called Izuku 'Deku' most of the time, but it was something less bad than it had been and Izuku was willing to take the improvement.
"It's nothing," Katsuki grumbled. Then, "I ran into some idiots outside, and I couldn't punch their teeth in."
Izuku frowned. "Who?" 'Who would get him acting like this?'
The blond grit his teeth. "Kamui Woods and Mountain Lady."
"Huh?" "Oh, hey, they're here too?" "They are locals." "I wonder what his problem is."
Izuku, however, knew exactly what Katsuki was referencing. He didn't know whether or not the blond had ever forgiven him for the events with the slime villain, but Katsuki sure as hell never released any grudges he bore against the Pro Heroes who incompetently let a Quirkless middle-schooler do their job for them.
Izuku had talked to him exactly once about it in detail, at the dinner their families shared not long after, and Katsuki had taken advantage of Izuku's analysis skills to ask how Izuku would've told the pros to get past the slime villain.
In less than 20 seconds, Izuku had rattled off ideas about Kamui Woods using his Lacquered Chain Prison to bind Katsuki so the sludge villain couldn't get through, then having Mountain Lady pick them both up and wash them off the way someone would rinse off a muddy action figure, or having Death arms go in to rip Katsuki free and throw him away, even if it left the man open to attack, since endangering yourself for civilian kids was what a hero should do.
Once Izuku had heard himself talk through all the possibilities—Katsuki had even insisted that Backdraft could've done more good in preventing new fires by ignoring the extant ones for 30 seconds to wash off the slime guy's body from him—he'd ceded the point that those heroes had seriously dropped the ball that day.
He felt it was no wonder that seeing them left his childhoodfriend bully rival something in a foul temper.
"Whoops!" Tensei yelped. "We need to go, things are almost starting. Everyone, do your best!"
"My best wishes to all of you!" Tenya seconded. "Go Beyond!"
""Plus Ultra!"" The class returned at varying levels of volume.
Tensei departed with Tenya, wheeling his little brother away to their seats as the rest of the class prepared for the day.
And in the middle of everything, Shouto stepped up face-to-face with Izuku.
"Midoriya."
"Todoroki-kun? Can I help you with anything?" Izuku asked. 'I can't really read Todoroki, but he doesn't seem angry. He gets along well with Yaoyorozu-san, right?' He shot a glance to Momo, who was staying supportively by Kyoka (participating at her own insistence despite her recent recovery from pneumonia,) for the moment and could only shrug in reply.
Everyone else in the class turned to look as 2 of the top contenders faced off, with Katsuki standing by the side warily.
"Objectively speaking, at the moment, I think I'm stronger than you. You've grown into your power very quickly though, especially since you caught All Might's eye," he observed, having seen the two of them speaking privately a few times.
"Oh! Um, I mean, All Might is really awesome, but Kan-sensei also got me tutoring for my Quirk with an upperclassman-,"
"Even so, I've been training under a Pro Hero for most of my life, and you're well on your way to challenging me," Shouto interrupted.
"I… thank you, Todoroki-kun."
"It wasn't a compliment," Shouto said, though he hadn't meant it as an insult either. "I don't have anything against you, Vice-Representative… but I'm going to beat you today."
"Ooooh…!" "Top of the class laying out a declaration of war!" "So wild!" "This is gonna…"
"Oi, oi," Eijiro Kirishima complained coming up behind Shouto. "Why are you picking a fight now? We need to stick together and show off that 1-A is the best!"
"Your timing is a bit inappropriate, Todoroki-kun," Momo agreed mildly.
Shouto twitched at the remonstration from one of the only classmates he liked/respected.
"If there was a better time, I'd have taken it. Just remember: we'll all be competing once today gets going," he warned.
He turned to go, but-
"Todoroki-kun!" Izuku raised his voice loud enough that Shouto paused. He turned back to face Izuku, who stuck out one hand. "You're better than me, yes. You and Kacchan are the two most likely to meet at the top, along with…" He trailed off and bit his lip, because while he hoped Hitoshi would win, he had no clue if it was feasible to hope for. "But like Kan-sensei said at the start of the year, as much as we compete, the point isn't to beat each other. The point is to be the best me that I can be. So… Let's do our best, and we'll show the world why we're the future!"
A long pause.
Katsuki snorted. "Deku you sap, winning and beating each other is exactly what we're here for today. This isn't real life with civilian lives on the line, it is just about us." He turned and walked out of the waiting room, to the field.
"On that note, I suppose we should get ready to leave," Momo observed apologetically.
At her prompting, the other students began moving around the two of them, but Izuku kept his hand held out, and Shouto didn't walk away from him.
Finally, they were the last 2 in the room, with Momo waiting in the doorway.
"Midoriya-kun? Todoroki-kun?" Momo prompted.
Izuku kept his hand extended to shake. 'My best trait is my willpower. You won't out-stubborn me, Todoroki-kun! Shake my hand or walk away, but I won't give in here.'
Shouto slowly extended his right hand and clasped Izuku's.
"With this right hand, I'll do my best to win," he said.
Izuku nodded, and they shook.
"Look, I still think I could do it, or someone could have!" Izuku exclaimed, exasperated. "Just because I have a Quirk now, it doesn't mean I don't think we need a Quirkless hero to inspire people!" Words he never would have said a year ago spilled out. "Quirks are amazing, but they aren't everything or we wouldn't have support gear, physical training wouldn't be nearly as important—you still don't have nearly enough even if your Quirk is completely awesome and-," Hitoshi Shinso flinched, still unused to receiving praise for his Brainwashing. "-most Pro Heroes with a brain would love to have you on a team—and there are so many extra skills people need!"
"Principal Nedzu is a physical wimp who gets by on planning. Recovery Girl is a hero with only her healing Quirk. Other skills are important, but now that I'm actually training my Quirk, I think that's the most important type of practice I need," Hitoshi argued firmly. "Your physical conditioning and your brains wouldn't have done anything to get you in if you hadn't got your Quirk at the last minute."
"I did some of the wrong kind of training for Quirkless heroism in hindsight, but if I'd known I could do it then I could have done it!" Izuku argued.
Hitoshi rolled his eyes. "That's a tautology, you-,"
"Excuse me!" Tenya's shout was matched by a hand chop that cut the air between them, making both boys jerk back. "As much as I am entertained by your disagreement," the bed-bound boy declared, "I fear too much shouting may get you removed from my hospital room."
"Beside, this sounds like the type of thing best settled by a Gentleman's Wager," Tensei Iida, the Pro Hero Ingenium, seconded with a laugh.
"Aniki!"
As Tenya began a horrified lecture on the evils of gambling, and Hitoshi settled back in his chair to contemplate that he was being heard out instead of kicked out, Izuku took the opportunity to reflect on how he had arrived in this situation.
When Izuku had first gone to see Tenya in the hospital, (bringing with him some DVDs of All Might's Adventures, a profit-to-charity cartoon the #1 Hero had let be made about him, in case Tenya was bored,) he'd mentioned Class 1-A's training groups while catching Tenya up on recent events. Along the way, he'd also brought up his tutoring with Hitoshi Shinso—who was on his mind as only the day before Hitoshi had finally explained his Quirk's abilities to Izuku—and Tenya had expressed an interest in meeting the transfer hopeful.
When Izuku brought Hitoshi with him on the next visit, Tenya had volunteered to be a dummy for Brainwashing, citing the (quickly disproven) belief that his strength of will and keen intellect should aid him in resisting Hitoshi's control.
The subsequent disagreement had come about during discussion of their Quirks, Quirk training sessions, and a disagreement over how important it was to train Quirks instead of other skills.
During this topic, Izuku had brought up his own preparations for the UA exam, which (as far as the other two knew,) he had been planning to take Quirkless. The deliberate misunderstanding, however, had also touched on his older dreams and insecurities, and he'd vouched his belief that someone could Quirklessly pass the entrance exam.
Hitoshi, who had functionally tried and failed to do just that, dismissed the idea.
It had spiraled into not quite an argument, Hitoshi refusing to admit he'd failed to prepare for an exam he'd been prepared to fail, and Izuku refusing to lose a dream he'd needed as a child while re-assessing the fragility of the robots with the benefit of hindsight.
And that had led to this.
Tensei Iida laughed as he laid out the paper with the outline of the bet Hitoshi and Izuku found themselves agreeing to.
Neither boy was backing down from strong opinions, and both (if pressed) felt that the symbology of their competition would be stronger.
"We used to do these types of things to settle stuff back when I was a student, since we had the Lucky Hero: Bishamonten as a teacher and he loved this stuff. Besides, making things more difficult for yourself is great training, and your first year is the best time to experiment," Tensei finished, and as a UA alumnus who'd gone to school with a few of their teachers, they knew to take his advice very seriously.
Hitoshi signed symbolically.
Izuku signed symbolically.
They shook on it.
Tenya groaned and demanded they join him in watching several episodes of Bluestocking's Biographies (an educational show so boring he knew they'd hate it,) as penance for this idiocy.
But he didn't stop them or threaten to report anything to anyone, (Was this a reportable offense? Izuku wasn't certain,) so it looked like Izuku was going through with it.
'No using my Quirk during the mass elimination event, and I won't use it on Hitoshi unless he uses it on me when we get to single-contests if we both get that far…' Izuku turned over the big 2 restrictions he'd agreed to as a self-imposed challenge. 'Not that that's as much a worry, since I know how to avoid his Quirk and failed attempts count, but I still need some strategies… Well, I guess I'd better put my money where my mouth is and Plus Ultra my preparations.'
He would have hoped he knew what he was getting into, but Izuku was self-aware enough to realize how rare that was in his life.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"-and so I won't be using my Quirk in the mass elimination event of the Sports Festival," Izuku finished as he took a stance across from Mashirao Ojiro.
"It makes sense you'd ask me for some tips with regular fighting and moving," Mashirao agreed with a nod, falling into a martial arts stance of his own.
It was 2 days before the Sports Festival, Mashirao had come back to class after recovering from his illness, Kyoka Jirou had just recently as well (with instructions to remain on light duty only), and Izuku had offered to exchange some training and preparation with Mashirao to get him caught up.
"Yeah… It's your martial arts that really makes you dangerous, though your tail is pretty cool too," Izuku complimented. "I just figured… you know… you might get it."
"I do. Alright, spar starts on three."
He counted down.
Izuku spent the next 20 minutes getting his ego handed to him on a platter in a multitude of ways, most of which didn't even require Mashirao to use his tail.
He never called it quits though, and he made Mashirao work for some wins by the end.
"All right then. Stubborn, but that's a good thing here," Mashirao assessed as he helped Izuku stand after the 58th fall of the afternoon. Izuku had already run Mashirao through the expected setup of the Sports Festival and passed along notes on all of 1-B's quirks, which would put the mild blond well ahead of most rivals who didn't do that prerequisite research or mooch off of Izuku's preparation.
"My willpower to keep going is probably my most useful trait," Izuku panted through his bruises. "I just hope I can… I hope I can make everyone proud of me." All Might had previously pulled Izuku aside to express his hopes that Izuku would use this opportunity to declare 'I AM HERE' to the world as All Might's chosen successor.
He'd said he didn't want to force Izuku to do anything, but the weight of expectation remained.
Mashirao chuckled. "Oh I love getting to do this. Midoriya, I'd like to pass along some advice that applies here."
"Yeah? That's what I came here for, right, Ojiro-kun?"
"Not mobility advice, or for fighting."
"Okay?"
"Midoriya… 'I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you're not in this world to live up to mine.' Just keep that in mind, will you?"
"That sounds like a quote."
"It is. If we ever have a Class 1-A movie night or anything, Vice-Rep, I'll show you where I heard it."
Izuku smiled. "I'll suggest it to Yaoyorozu-san," he promised.
"Great. Now let's run through some mobility exercises."
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*knock-knock-knock*
*knock-knock-knock*
*knock-knock-knock*
"Who could that be?" Inko wondered. It was the morning of the Sports Festival, and they weren't expecting any guests. Izuku had just finished breakfast and was getting dressed for the day when the knocking started. "Hello?"
"Hiya! Ooh, you must be Izuku-kouhai's kaa-chan, you look just like him! I totally bet he gets his adorableness from you, doesn't he? Well, from you and the sunshine, my baa-chan always calls freckles mmph-!"
"Mrs. Midoriya? I'm Yuyu Haya and this is Nejire Hadou; we're 3rd-years at UA. Nejire-chan just wanted to swing by and walk him to school today, since he lives on the way from my house and she's been tutoring him."
"Plus I've totes got a bet going with Mirio and Tamaki!" Nejire cheered once she broke free from Yuyu restraining hand. "I'm betting on Midori, Mirio's betting on Yaoyorozu-sensei's niece, and Tamaki put his bet on that green-haired girl from 1-B!"
"Just don't ask her what they're betting on, 'cause it's not just winning," Yuyu whispered, as the bet actually related to Mirio's status as 'The Pants Guy' from his own Sports Festival appearances.
Inko laughed anxiously and welcomed the two girls in just as Izuku appeared.
"N-N-Nejire-chan-senpai! Haya-senpai!" He'd met her when Nejire introduced Yuyu to Hitoshi, and the older girl waved back placidly.
Nejire rushed over and glomped him.
"Broccoli-kouhai! We're here to walk you to UA today and wish you luck!"
"We'd offer you a spare ticket to the Third-Year Students' stage in 2 days-," The Sports Festival was spread out across 3 days, since they didn't have 3 stadiums for different audiences per year. "-but we both have our families attending instead."
"Wish us luck though! And we're here to wish you good luck, so come on!"
Nejire barely waited for Izuku to get his street shoes on before dragging him out the door.
"Sorry about this," Yuyu sighed quietly as they waited for a train.
"I-It's kind of nice…" Izuku hadn't really had people fussing over him for most of his life, and 2 attractive older girls were a welcome change of pace.
Yuyu snorted affectionately as Nejire rambled about some birds she could see flying around. "No doubt."
"…Does it feel different?" Izuku wondered. "Being a 3rd-year?"
"Different from what?" Nejire chirped. "Every day always is a little different from the others, isn't it? I'm sort of sad thinking we won't do this again, but I've made a lot of fun memories and I've loved every moment of it, even when I was training so hard I puked. It was really weird though, I haven't eaten corn in weeks, but it always looks like corn or carrots for my last meal, have you ever noticed that?"
""You've mentioned,"" Izuku and Yuyu deadpanned together.
Nejire cackled.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"My dear classmates! Even though I will not be joining you in this field of battle, know that my heart and my support will be with you!" Tenya declared from his wheelchair (no walking for another 3 days for him).
"Plus, if you impress us, Team Iidaten might offer you a week of work-study," Tensei Iida offered.
Everyone was gathered in Class 1-A's waiting room; they'd been ecstatic to have Tenya wheeled in and excited to meet Turbo Hero: Ingenium in the flesh.
"Tch, like I need to aim that low," Katsuki grumbled from across the room.
"Fair enough. Plus Ultra, and you might end up in the top 10 even, with all the focus on you goys this year," Ingenium suggested.
"Oh my gosh that would be so exciting! Can you imagine Mirko or Ryukyu noticing us as future heroines?" Mina cheered.
"We already know Endeavor will be watching Todoroki-kun," Tsuyu agreed, "so anybody who does well could catch his attention."
"I wouldn't hold your breath on that," Shouto advised darkly from his seat beside Tohru.
"Baku-bro, man, are you feeling okay?"
"You've been more surly than pumped," Izuku added as Katsuki glared at Eijiro.
Izuku and Katsuki had kinda-sorta mended some fences, in that Izuku could talk to him without snappish responses, and during a family dinner (Mitsuki's spicy curry was still the only food Izuku ever preferred over katsudon for special occasions,) Katsuki had ranted to a dismayed Mitsuki, Masaru, and Inko over how other people had treated Izuku in junior high, with them both omitting Katsuki's complicity (beyond Katsuki complaining that their teacher had all but pointed him at Izuku on a few occasions, like high school application talks).
It was… strange. Katsuki was still a jerk to everybody, and he still called Izuku 'Deku' most of the time, but it was something less bad than it had been and Izuku was willing to take the improvement.
"It's nothing," Katsuki grumbled. Then, "I ran into some idiots outside, and I couldn't punch their teeth in."
Izuku frowned. "Who?" 'Who would get him acting like this?'
The blond grit his teeth. "Kamui Woods and Mountain Lady."
"Huh?" "Oh, hey, they're here too?" "They are locals." "I wonder what his problem is."
Izuku, however, knew exactly what Katsuki was referencing. He didn't know whether or not the blond had ever forgiven him for the events with the slime villain, but Katsuki sure as hell never released any grudges he bore against the Pro Heroes who incompetently let a Quirkless middle-schooler do their job for them.
Izuku had talked to him exactly once about it in detail, at the dinner their families shared not long after, and Katsuki had taken advantage of Izuku's analysis skills to ask how Izuku would've told the pros to get past the slime villain.
In less than 20 seconds, Izuku had rattled off ideas about Kamui Woods using his Lacquered Chain Prison to bind Katsuki so the sludge villain couldn't get through, then having Mountain Lady pick them both up and wash them off the way someone would rinse off a muddy action figure, or having Death arms go in to rip Katsuki free and throw him away, even if it left the man open to attack, since endangering yourself for civilian kids was what a hero should do.
Once Izuku had heard himself talk through all the possibilities—Katsuki had even insisted that Backdraft could've done more good in preventing new fires by ignoring the extant ones for 30 seconds to wash off the slime guy's body from him—he'd ceded the point that those heroes had seriously dropped the ball that day.
He felt it was no wonder that seeing them left his childhood
"Whoops!" Tensei yelped. "We need to go, things are almost starting. Everyone, do your best!"
"My best wishes to all of you!" Tenya seconded. "Go Beyond!"
""Plus Ultra!"" The class returned at varying levels of volume.
Tensei departed with Tenya, wheeling his little brother away to their seats as the rest of the class prepared for the day.
And in the middle of everything, Shouto stepped up face-to-face with Izuku.
"Midoriya."
"Todoroki-kun? Can I help you with anything?" Izuku asked. 'I can't really read Todoroki, but he doesn't seem angry. He gets along well with Yaoyorozu-san, right?' He shot a glance to Momo, who was staying supportively by Kyoka (participating at her own insistence despite her recent recovery from pneumonia,) for the moment and could only shrug in reply.
Everyone else in the class turned to look as 2 of the top contenders faced off, with Katsuki standing by the side warily.
"Objectively speaking, at the moment, I think I'm stronger than you. You've grown into your power very quickly though, especially since you caught All Might's eye," he observed, having seen the two of them speaking privately a few times.
"Oh! Um, I mean, All Might is really awesome, but Kan-sensei also got me tutoring for my Quirk with an upperclassman-,"
"Even so, I've been training under a Pro Hero for most of my life, and you're well on your way to challenging me," Shouto interrupted.
"I… thank you, Todoroki-kun."
"It wasn't a compliment," Shouto said, though he hadn't meant it as an insult either. "I don't have anything against you, Vice-Representative… but I'm going to beat you today."
"Ooooh…!" "Top of the class laying out a declaration of war!" "So wild!" "This is gonna…"
"Oi, oi," Eijiro Kirishima complained coming up behind Shouto. "Why are you picking a fight now? We need to stick together and show off that 1-A is the best!"
"Your timing is a bit inappropriate, Todoroki-kun," Momo agreed mildly.
Shouto twitched at the remonstration from one of the only classmates he liked/respected.
"If there was a better time, I'd have taken it. Just remember: we'll all be competing once today gets going," he warned.
He turned to go, but-
"Todoroki-kun!" Izuku raised his voice loud enough that Shouto paused. He turned back to face Izuku, who stuck out one hand. "You're better than me, yes. You and Kacchan are the two most likely to meet at the top, along with…" He trailed off and bit his lip, because while he hoped Hitoshi would win, he had no clue if it was feasible to hope for. "But like Kan-sensei said at the start of the year, as much as we compete, the point isn't to beat each other. The point is to be the best me that I can be. So… Let's do our best, and we'll show the world why we're the future!"
A long pause.
Katsuki snorted. "Deku you sap, winning and beating each other is exactly what we're here for today. This isn't real life with civilian lives on the line, it is just about us." He turned and walked out of the waiting room, to the field.
"On that note, I suppose we should get ready to leave," Momo observed apologetically.
At her prompting, the other students began moving around the two of them, but Izuku kept his hand held out, and Shouto didn't walk away from him.
Finally, they were the last 2 in the room, with Momo waiting in the doorway.
"Midoriya-kun? Todoroki-kun?" Momo prompted.
Izuku kept his hand extended to shake. 'My best trait is my willpower. You won't out-stubborn me, Todoroki-kun! Shake my hand or walk away, but I won't give in here.'
Shouto slowly extended his right hand and clasped Izuku's.
"With this right hand, I'll do my best to win," he said.
Izuku nodded, and they shook.
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
I just noticed this story today, so I do want to give you some feedback as thanks for entertaining me.
First, I think you've been handling Bakugo's character really deftly. Bakugo's a complex character that's easy to Flanderize, and you've taken him into a very interesting direction that I haven't quite seen before but still feels in very much in character. It feels like bakugo is slowly growing as a person without his realizing it. I like that a lot.
Midoriya as a confused and nervous bisexual is an entertaining interpretation, and the way you had Aoyama talk with him really brought to mind Aoyama's cheese thing.
Overall I've enjoyed a lot of your story beats (like Monoma getting expelled by Eraserhead) and I look forward to the next chapter of this story whenever you post it.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write this for us.
First, I think you've been handling Bakugo's character really deftly. Bakugo's a complex character that's easy to Flanderize, and you've taken him into a very interesting direction that I haven't quite seen before but still feels in very much in character. It feels like bakugo is slowly growing as a person without his realizing it. I like that a lot.
Midoriya as a confused and nervous bisexual is an entertaining interpretation, and the way you had Aoyama talk with him really brought to mind Aoyama's cheese thing.
Overall I've enjoyed a lot of your story beats (like Monoma getting expelled by Eraserhead) and I look forward to the next chapter of this story whenever you post it.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to write this for us.