Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Transcendence (n): existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level

Izuku Midoriya slowly woke to pain, muffled shouting, and the familiar feeling of a hand running through his hair. What was going on? He opened his eyes but his vision was blurred, only showing him a pink blob against white walls. It was Mei, then.

He opened his mouth, but she pressed her finger against his lips.

“I… I’m going to do something, Zuzu, but first I need you to tell me: do you trust me with your life?”

He blinked. That was kind of a dumb question. “Of course.” It came out weak and raspy, as if he hadn’t spoken for a week. For all he knew, that was true.

She lifted his head and slipped something over it. Some sort of helmet? It wasn’t very comfortable. Her hand rested on his cheek for a moment.

“Be strong.”

And then his mind was torn apart.

[INITIALIZING...]

> full systems check . . . . . . . all systems nominal
> establishing connection . . . . . . connection secure
> brain scan: complete
> initializing download

“Give it up, Deku.”

Izuku blinked confusedly. “Give what up, Kacchan?”

Kacchan rolled his eyes. “Your whole hero fantasy. You’re Quirkless. It’s not happening.”

“But… we’re gonna be heroes together-”

“As if! You’re just a shitty, useless Deku who’d probably get himself killed by the first villain you fight. Give it up.”

> downloading .

He stared at the small, pink-haired girl who just moved in next door.

“Hi! I’m Mei! You wanna be friends?”

He started to smile, but stopped. He couldn’t lie to her. “I, uh… I’m Quirkless.”

She blinked. “Oh. That’s okay. Tell you what, I’ll build you a Quirk!”

His head tilted curiously. “You can do that?”

She smiled. “Yeah! Come on, I’ll show you!”

> downloading . .

Mei stared at the contraptions strapped to her legs in betrayal. “My babies, how could you do this to me?”

He looked up from Hero Analysis Notebook #4. “Hmmm. You’re probably missing some sort of stabilizer - kind of like the hero Wake. His Quirk is shooting highly pressurised streams of water from his body, and in his earlier days he had to shoot from both his hands and feet to stay in the air.”

The pink-haired girl considered this. “So I just need to add rockets to my arms?”

“Probably, yeah.”

> downloading . . .

He sat cross-legged in a by-then familiar room, surrounded by half-built devices and blueprints.

“Ugh! I can’t believe they disqualified me just because my Zero-Point Energy Generator exploded! It only injured a third of the judges, and this is revolutionary technology we’re talking about!”

He shrugged. “I mean, their safety concerns were valid. They were standing eight yards away when it blew.”

She harrumphed. “Safety schmafety - they’re just wusses.”

> downloading . . . .

He stared as the charred remains of Hero Analysis Notebook #11 soared out the window.

The sugary scent of nitroglycerin filled his nostrils, bringing his attention back to Kacchan. The angry red eyes stared into his own.

“That wasn’t very nice, Kacchan.”

“Don’t call me that, you shitty Deku! When will you understand? You’re just a useless, Quirkless loser who’ll never amount to anything! Why do you even bother to keep trying?”

> downloading . . . . .

Mei’s head swung down from the top bunk, bronze eyes sparkling with mischief. “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout, Zuzu?”

He smiled wistfully. “How when we grow up, we’re gonna make the best hero agency ever.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, duh! With your brains and my babies, we’ll be unstoppable!”

He eyed her carefully. “You promise?”

She grinned. “Hatsume guarantee!”

> downloading . . . . . .

His hand speared through the sludge, grabbing his once-friend’s arm and pulling with all his strength. The villain retaliated, striking him hard enough to launch him across the street - but his grip never broke.

With Kacchan out of the way, the heroes were free to converge on the villain - but the red eyed boy turned angrily towards him. “I DIDN’T NEED YOUR HELP, YOU SHITTY DEKU!”

“Well, that’s a shame,” he muttered weakly. “Guess I’ll die for nothing.”

The red eyes freeze and flick down at him, at the piece of rebar sticking through Izuku’s chest. The rebar that would have pierced Kacchan himself, had he taken the brunt of the impact.

The red puddle that was rapidly growing under them.

“SON OF A BITCH, DEKU! SOMEONE CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!”

> download . . . . . . . complete
> initializing neural emulator . . .

Izuku Midoriya was very suddenly… aware.

That was all he could really say, since there wasn’t much to actually be aware of. He didn’t hear anything, nor did he feel anything. He went to open his eyes, before suddenly noticing that he didn’t actually have any anymore.

How peculiar.

He was actually rather sure that he should be panicking right then. If he were to be entirely honest with himself, he’d have to admit he was rather prone to panic in general.

> new device detected

Suddenly, he had sight. It was terribly low resolution, but it was. The vast majority of his field of view was taken up by the distressed face of his childhood friend Mei Hatsume.

“C’mon baby, please work! Zuzu, you in there?”

He would have blinked, had he had eyes. “Uh… yeah?”

His voice sounded synthetic and awful, but at least he still had it.

A massive grin split Mei’s face. “YES! They called me crazy, but who’s laughing now!”

“Mei, what did you do this time?”

“Zuzu, I saved you.”

“Uuuuuh, thanks?”

“No, I saved you. Your brain is running on my computer right now.”

"Well, that would do it, yeah.”

Chapter Text

Provenance (n): place or source of origin

Izuku Midoriya could safely say that he had not started his day expecting to become a computer program.

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that it hadn’t been a day, but actually two weeks, since he’d last had a steady stream of consciousness - Or that he wasn’t actually a computer program, but rather his brain was being simulated by a computer program. Regardless, his current situation had been completely unexpected-

Crunch .

His attention was brought back to the single, low-quality webcam that was his only link to the world. Mei had her feet up on the desk in front of her, and was slowly munching her way through a bag of Cheez-o’s.

“Wow, you still do the whole mumbling thing even though you’re a robot now. That’s actually kind of impressive.”

“ Well, I mean, I’m still me? To a certain degree I suppose, but I don’t think you actually changed anything when you downloaded me - god that feels weird to say. Brains are complicated so it’d be pretty hard to deliberately change anything without completely messing up the rest of me- ”

Crunch .

Was… was eating loudly Mei’s second Quirk?

“Zuzu. As your friend, I’m obligated to let you know when you’re overthinking stuff. You’re overthinking stuff.”

“ That’s… fair, I guess. ”

“In other news… guess what I got you!”

He thought for a moment. “ The gift of life? ”

She tilted her head. “Well, technically yes but that’s not what I was talking about. Here, gimme a second… no, that’s not it… AHA!”

She victoriously pulled a white rectangle out from her bag and held it up towards the camera.

“ Mei, I hope you realize that due to the constraints of your webcam I am literally incapable of reading what’s on that piece of paper. ”

Her face fell. “Oh. Well, it’s a UA Application…” her face split into a grin. “...to the Hero Course!”

Oh?

“ That’s, uh, thoughtful of you but… how do you expect me to become a hero, now that I’m, you know… well, if I had arms I’d be waving towards my general lack of arms. ”

“Zuzu, you forget who you’re talking to. We’re gonna make the cutest baby the world will ever know! A true test of my innate inventing genius! Your hero career shall be a monument to the power of Hatsume Industries!”

“ I don’t follow. ”

The edges of her grin turned vicious. “Do I really need to spell this out for you? We’re gonna build you a robot body and you’re gonna punch some villains in the face .”

He took a moment to consider this.

“Okay, but did you actually print out an online form for the guy who’s literally a computer? ”

Crunch .

“Okay, so I’m thinking some sort of modular body system? So I could change setups based off what I’m gonna be doing?”

“Eeeeh, modular systems are more trouble than they’re worth - maybe just build multiple bodies and switch out between them if needed?”

“Yeah that’d make sense - oh wow I can control the screen too? - The head is gonna be a pain to build though, so maybe just that detaches?”

“That would do it, yeah. I’m guessing you want full facial articulation?”

“Having a proper face is a must, I don’t want to traumatize anyone when I’m supposed to be saving them.”

“Eeeh, look up how other people have done it and work off that I guess.”

“What, you’re not going to come up with it yourself? For shame, Mei.”

“Pffft. What do I look like, an art student? I’m more worried about building your hands - you know how precise those things have to be? And all the sensors I’ll have to work in! This is going to be a delightfully complex baby, Zuzu!”

“So I guess I get to design the head then?”

“Awww, you know me so well! On a related note, what are your thoughts on the aesthetic appeal of really big shoulder plates?”

“Mei no.”

“Mei yes. ”

“ So, uh, I ran a few numbers and we may have a pair of teensy, tiny problems. ”

Mei looked up from the half-drawn blueprints spread across the table. “Hit me.”

“ First off: Brainpower. Here’s the specs of the computer I’d need to run myself at optimal capacity - and I’d prefer to go at least 18% over that, so I can actually run other stuff as well… ”

A series of numbers lit up the screen.

“ ... and here’s the specs of the best computer the human race has designed that could fit within the space our design gives us. ”

Another set of significantly lower numbers appeared on the next line.

“ Do you see the issue? ”

Mei nodded, chewing on the end of her pencil. “Yeah, I can see it. What’s the other one?”

“ Energy output. With the best battery tech we have, I could run at normal human strength for maybe an hour. For hero work, I’d probably hit the wall at around 15 minutes. ”

She hummed throughtfully. “I just might have something to fix that problem. I’ll get that, you try and tackle the brain problem?”

“ Sure, I guess. I make no promises, though. ”

“Zuzu, you mispronounced ‘Plus Ultra’ again.”

When Izuku Midoriya had a problem he couldn’t solve, he usually just let it sit in the back of his mind while he browsed hero forums. So that is what he did.

After all, he had two weeks worth of backlogged hero news to take notes on since his, ah, digitalization.

VIDEO: Mt. Lady Fight Compilation 1

Hmmmm. Clearly, this new heroine cared very little about property damage from the way she kept literally jumping into fights at full-size. Hero suit could use a little work, possibly some sort of expanding soles since the material was tight enough for her to be functionally barefoot.

Main strengths? Intimidation, relative strength of her big form, sex appeal.

NEWS ARTICLE: Quirk-Enhancing Drugs Discovered, Outlawed

Now that’s not good. Not that they were banned, who knows how those kinds of drugs could affect the development of someone’s quirk - but that they were actually starting to spread. That pretty much meant even more powerful villains for heroes to deal with.

MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Daughter of Pro Hero Family Yaoyorozu Applying to UA on Recommendation

It was always good to hear about the next generation of heroes, especially one with such a versatile Quirk: Creation, the ability to create objects out of her own lipids. Izuku couldn’t wait to see her in action in a few years.

Wait a second. She’d be his classmate if he got in. Cool.

Wait a second - Creation?

The cooling fans on Mei’s hastily upgraded computer whirred to life as Izuku’s mind ran a mile a minute.

If her Quirk worked how he thought it would work - how he hoped it worked - she just might be the key to solving this whole brain power problem.

He was fairly certain that he and Mei would be able to come up with a design for a sufficient computer no problem, the issue was whether or not it was actually possible to make. To even come close to the sheer processing power of a normal human brain, they’d need logic gates the same size or smaller than a single neuron. They didn’t have tools precise enough to make those - nobody did.

But with a Quirk like Yaoyorozu’s, they would be able to bypass the actual manufacturing process and just Create the damn thing.

“ Mei? ”

“One minute-” a small explosion rang out from the next room over. “Okay never mind, what’s up?”

“ I might have a solution for the brain problem, just let me know if this sounds too stalker-ey. ”

She grinned and threw herself into the chair. “I’m listening.”

Momo was having a positively grand time, flipping through her favorite encyclopedia while sitting curled up in a window seat, when her phone let out a cheerful little ding.

This was an unusual occurrence, seeing as very few people actually had her number. Still, she hummed curiously as she opened the message.

[Unknown Number]: Hello! Is this Momo Yaoyorozu?

She blinked. Her phone dinged again.

[Unknown Number]: My name is Izuku Midoriya, and I need your help

How strange.

Momo: This is she. How did you get this number?

[Unknown Number]: Um

[Unknown Number]: That would be a very long story

[Unknown Number]: If it helps, I will hopefully be classmates with you at UA?

Her head tilted. She backed out of the conversation and instead pulled up her messages with her father.

Momo: Hey Dad, can I get a background check on an ‘Izuku Midoriya’?

Dad: Sure, give me a few mintues

Dad: *minutes

She put down her phone and flipped a page in her book.

Her phone dinged again.

Dad: Izuku Midoriya, born 2310, lived in Musufatu. Quirkless. Ran a minor hero blog, did Quirk Analysis on the side - top notch stuff, by the way.

Dad: He seems perfectly clean, besides having died fifteen days ago.

He died fifteen days ago? He was her age.

But hey, clean was clean. She brought back up the messages from whoever claimed to be him.

Momo: You’re dead.

A short pause.

[Unknown Number]: Well, technically, yeah

[Unknown Number]: It’s kind of related to what I need your help with

She swore, if this was some kind of ghost hoax…

Momo: And what, exactly, did you need me to do?

[Unknown Number]: I need you to use your Quirk to make a computer

What? Why would a dead person need a computer?

Momo: Couldn’t you just… buy a computer?

[Unknown Number]: The kind of computer we need kind of can’t be made with modern technology, and even if it could we’d end up on some sort of watch list

She pondered this for a moment.

Momo: Neat. What’s it for?

[Unknown Number]: Well, uh, you know how I’m dead?

[Unknown Number]: We’re building a robot body and we need a brain for it

She tilted her head thoughtfully. That made… an amount of sense, she supposed.

Momo: Who is “we”?

[Unknown Number]: It's just me and my friend Mei Hatsume

She went back to her messages with her dad.

Momo: How about Mei Hatsume?

The response was immediate

Dad: Oh Lord, not her.

Dad: She is a menace to society and managed to put herself on half the government watch lists by the age of twelve. Worryingly intelligent and capable of designing gadgets beyond the abilities of your average Support company. Has expressed interest in working in the industry herself, so despite everything she’ll probably be a valuable contact later on.

Dad: She’s also in Musufatu, same age as Midoriya.

Momo: Thanks!

She went back to her conversation with Midoriya, saving his contact info into her phone while she was at it.

Momo: I would prefer to meet in person before making a decision.

Midoriya: That’s… better than I expected and perfectly reasonable. Where do you want to meet?

Momo sent a map location

Momo: I will be having lunch here at 12:30 tomorrow. Will you require transportation?

Midoriya: If it’s not too much trouble, that would be great

Momo: Very well. I shall arrange it.

Midoriya: Right, do you need our address?

Momo: No, we know where you live.

Midoriya: Oh

Midoriya: Okay

Momo nodded to herself and set her phone down. She eyed the encyclopedia on her lap for a moment, before heading back to her family library for a different one.

She had been meaning to reread ‘ Fundamentals of Computer Engineering ’ for a while, now.

 Momo Yaoyorozu could safely say that she had not started her day expecting to be performing brain surgery on a robot.

Now certain arguments could be made - namely that it wasn’t technically surgery if you were building the thing from scratch, or that the “robot” in question was actually an android, if you cared about that kind of thing. Regardless, her current situation had been completely unexpected.

It all began, as many things do, with an explosion.

“Um… are you sure this is the right house?”

Smoke rolled over the windows of the limousine as the driver nodded. A single screw bounced across the hood.

“Sorry about that, just revolutionizing the entire energy production industry. Gimme a minute and I’ll be right out.”

Momo nodded and pulled the dossier on Hatsume on her phone. Yes, definitely the right house.

The door swung open to reveal the absolute image of chaos. A borderline maniacal grin on her face, crosshair eyes dilated, probably pink dreads askew (the color was kind of hard to make out from all the soot). This unexploded bomb of a human being confidently strode up to the window of the limo and knocked.

“Open the window, miracle girl!”

Momo blinked. “Is… are you talking to me?”

Hatsume nodded several times more than was necessary.

The window rolled down. “Mei Hatsume, I assume?”

“The one and only! And you’re, uh… what’s her name again?”

A muffled, robotic tone replied from the girl’s pocket. “ Yaoyorozu. ”

Momo tilted her head. “Is that Midoriya?”

She nodded and pulled a phone from her pocket. “Depends on your definitions of a few things, but basically yes.”

The door to the limo swung open. Hatsume jumped in, somehow managing to not hit her head on the roof of the car.

“Oooh, comfy.”

Momo sighed internally. “Do you want anything to drink?”

Hatsume's head tilted. “You have a mini fridge in here?”

Momo nodded.

Hatsume turned to her phone. “Zuzu we need to get one of those in the lab.”

An obviously synthesized sigh. “ I’ll add it to the list. Let’s get serious though. ”

Momo straightened up. It was business time. “Right, you said you needed me to make some kind of computer?”

Hatsume reached into her backpack and pulled out a rolled up blueprint. She handed it over to Momo, who spread it out across her lap.

“ That’s gonna be my brain. ”

“...Neat. Can I look at the rest of the blueprints?”

Mei just shrugged off her backpack and tossed it to her. “They’re somewhere in there. Most of those are for the project, but a couple of them are just gadgets and superweapons and doodads.”

“ Wow, Mei, you’re actually being normal about your designs- ”

“BOW BEFORE THE INTELLECTUAL MIGHT OF HATSUME INDUSTRIES! Not to be confused with Hatsume Incorporated, which was owned by my uncle, God rest his soul.”

“ Ah. There it is. ”

Momo flipped through the blueprints. There were designs for the actual robot body, hoverboots, eight types of grappling hooks, a railgun for some reason, and an entire page labelled ‘Z-PEG’ that was completely whited out.

Hatsume grinned. “Yeah, that one’s confidential. Mostly because it keeps exploding and I don’t want anyone else to figure it out before me.”

Momo nodded thoughtfully. “Well, the designs certainly check out. I suppose I’ll consider it. We can discuss payment over lunch.”

Hatsume’s face took a peculiar, fixed expression. As if she suddenly remembered she was dead inside.

“You… you didn’t think I’d just hand you a supercomputer without payment, did you?”

Hatsume shrugged. “You know... I didn’t really think about it.”

The robotic voice piped up. “ I did! I’ve done some looking into you, hope you don’t mind, and it doesn't really seem like money is a thing you need - which is good because we’re kind of broke ourselves, we build our stuff using scrap metal from the trash beach over at Dagobah - but with your Quirk, what would probably provide the most value for you is designs for gadgets which, trust me, we have plenty of. ”

Momo clapped her hands decisively. “Well, from what I’ve seen that will definitely be an acceptable form of payment, given that all your designs are of a similar quality. We can discuss the details after lunch.”

Chapter Text

Organon (n): an instrument of thought or knowledge

Mei Hatsume could safely say she hadn’t started her day expecting to add Miracle Girl to the ranks of Hatsume Industries (now numbering three, including herself).

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that to refer to her gang of madmen as an actual company was demeaning to the Support Item Industry as a whole - or that moniker of “Miracle Girl” was, while accurate, not the appropriate way to refer to one’s newest business partner. Regardless, her current situation was a very welcome surprise.

It began (as many things did) in a fancy restaurant, empty plates pushed aside in favor of blueprints spread across the table. Yaoyorozu’s eyes scanned one particular blueprint, committing it to memory even as she verbally duelled with Mei.

“Eighteen blueprints and 15% of Hatsume Industries”

“Hatsume Industries isn't even real. Thirty blueprints spread out across three weeks.”

“I’m in the process of filling out the paperwork-”

“ You mean, getting me to fill out the paperwork. ”

“Yeah, same thing. Give it like a month and we’re golden. Anyways, twenty percent of the company and forty designs over three weeks, given that when used in public they bear our logo.”

“ Mei, when did we get a logo? ”

She blinked. “What are you talking about? We’ve always had a logo.”

“ Mei, we’re not using that drawing I made when I was six. ”

“Well if you didn’t want to use it you could have just changed it.”

“ WAIT, THAT’S WHAT I FILED AS OUR LOGO? ”

“Yep.”

“ MEI, WHAT HAVE YOU- ” 

Yaoyorozu cleared her throat. “Thirty percent of the company as soon as its official, and eight designs a week for six weeks, with the appropriate logos when possible.”

Mei quickly counted on her fingers. “So 48 designs total… we can do that.” She stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

Yaoyorozu grinned and shook it. “I’ll have my legal team send you a paper contract with the terms later this week.”

She lifted her hand and, with a flare of Creation, a brain-sized lump of graphene and silicon appeared in it. She set it down on the table with a thump.

Mei drooled.

“ Oh my god you actually made it - OH JESUS YAOYOROZU NOT IN PUBLIC! ”

Yaoyorozu blinked. “Well, you said you wanted it as soon as possible.”

“ I mean yeah, but there are people who would massacre small nations for that kind of technology; you can’t just plop it down on the table like that .”

She shrugged. “My bodyguards are the best in the country.”

“ Well I’m glad I no longer have a body because I would have definitely had a heart attack just then. Let’s just… go back to the garage before we’re all murdered, please? ”

Yaoyorozu stepped into the Hatsume Workshop and simply stared. It was a room that had at one point been a garage, but was now home to a highly advanced laboratory/workshop that violated at least eighteen OSHA regulations she could name off the top of her head - and she’d barely even skimmed that rulebook.

“So… this is where we’re working?”

Mei nodded. Yaoyorozu rolled up her sleeves and Created mechanic’s gloves directly onto her hands. “Alright, what’s first?”

Mei blinked. “Wait, you’re still here?”

Yaoyorozu nodded slowly. “I’m not just going to let you run off with a supercomputer to do god knows what.”

Mei nodded. “Alright then, Miracle Girl, since Zuzu doesn’t have arms, you get to play lab assistant. Bring me the box labelled ‘scrap’ and a set of wrenches.”

Yaoyorozu’s eyes swept the workshop. “Which one?”

Mei shrugged. “Ask Zuzu, he’s the one who cleaned up last.”

“He’s been dead for over two weeks, Hatsume.”

“Well, you can still ask him.”

“ I think the one you’re looking for is between the nuclear flytrap and the self-stirring crucible. ”

Mei cracked her fingers and plugged a cable into the back of her hastily upgraded desktop computer.

[NEW DEVICE DETECTED]
are you sure you want to move "justwakeupalreadyzuzu(43).exe to the new device?

>Y< /  N 

> transferring files . . . . . . . complete

She bit her lip and slid her chair across the room, to another monitor. This one was plugged into a terrifying metal approximation of a human skull, complete with silicon brain and glowing green eyes.

> running "justwakeupalreadyzuzu(43).exe" . . .

would you like to import user preferences?

Y  / >N<

“Whoops.”

> retrieving program files . . . . . . . complete
> initializing neural emulator . . .

Izuku awoke to the peculiar feeling that his brain was working faster than it had any right to. It was not something he’d ever felt before, but he found he rather enjoyed it. He grinned - and felt something like muscles moving.

Yaoyorozu spoke first. “Alright can you just… never do that again until we actually give you a face please?”

He blinked. “Well excuse me - WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY VOICE!? WHY DO I HAVE A BRITISH ACCENT!?”

Mei shrugged flippantly. “Probably just the default of the text to speech program I pirated.”

“Oh my god this is the program they use for the voiceovers for those awful MLG videos isn’t it.”

“Maaaaaaaaaaybe.”

“And- oh god you set the user preferences to default didn’t you? That’s why I feel so weird.”

Mei glared at him. “Well maybe you’re just a heathen who likes inverted mouse controls.”

“Look, they just make more sense to me, okay?”

Yaoyorozu nodded. “Not gonna lie, that’s pretty weird.”

“Well, personal preferences aside let’s see if the mobility protocols work on this thing.”

At the base of his neck, a set of vaguely spider-like legs unfolded and lifted him off the table.

Yaoyorozu shuddered. “I’m really starting to regret wanting to be here right now.”

Mei waved her off. “What are you talking about? This is the cutest baby I’ve ever made!”

He very carefully didn’t grin as he removed the plug from the base of his neck and hopped off the table. “Alright, judging by how much power that just used I should have anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes of battery power, depending on how active I am… how’s your solution to the power issue looking?”

She smirked. “It’s nothing before the full might of Hatsume Industries!”

“So a few more weeks. That’s fine, we’re not on a super tight schedule.” He turned to Yaoyorozu. “Give me a few minutes to get used to being able to move again before we start working on giving me a face?”

"Hey Mei, why do you have an entire crate of audio cassettes up here?”

“Because you have good ideas when you mutter and I can’t write fast enough to keep up.”

“You’ve been recording me for… how long exactly?”

“The past eight years, give or take six months.”

“Well… I guess I can run these through a natural learning program and get my own voice back.”

“I dunno, the current voice is kinda endearing.”

“Mei I am not using the lowest budget text-to-speech software ever conceived by man- which you still felt the need to pirate, might I add- for actual Hero work. It’s not happening.”

“Well, I guess you can go ahead and do that if you want.”

“I will, as a matter of fact.”

As the deft and nimble fingers of Mei and Yaoyorozu assembled his face, Izuku took the time to browse the internet and catch up with his hero forum accounts.

MESSAGE: My name is Rei, and I died thirty years ago. Forward this message to eight other people, or my Quirk, “Cursed Legacy”, will kill you…

Joke’s on you, replied Izuku. I’m already dead. Us ghosts really must stick together, though. Are you up for tea sometime?

MESSAGE: Hey man, I saw this article and I know you have some strong opinions on the subject… (1 attachment: QuirklessRightsMovementOnTheRise.pdf)

Oh, a local Quirkless Rights Activist group? A little late for him, but progress nonetheless. He was glad the issue was finally getting the attention it deserved.

MESSAGE: Request for Hero Analysis on Pro Hero Snipe

He hummed thoughtfully. Normally these kinds of requests were from fans of the hero or students assigned projects, but you couldn’t be too careful these days. After carefully checking the rest of the account, he figured it was the latter. He directed the kid to some of the more reputable hero sources with a gentle reminder that plagiarism is illegal.

“Hey, Mei.” It had taken the better part of two months for the program to process all the audio files, and Izuku was relishing in actually having his own voice again. “Remember what today is?”

Mei blinked and turned to her calendar. “...July 4? Oh, right.”

Yaoyorozu tilted her head. “Midoriya, do you celebrate American Independence Day?”

He shook his head, which was the entirety of his body at that point anyways. “My face is attached, I actually have my voice, and I have enough battery life to make the trip. Looks like we’re finally doing this.”

Mei nodded sadly. Yaoyorozu looked confused. “What… what is today?”

“It’s my mom’s birthday. We need to tell her.”

Mei pouted. “We could always wait until we have your full body-”

“No. We’re doing this, Mei.”

Yaoyorozu blinked. “You mean you still haven’t told your mother about this? Doesn’t she think you’re dead?”

“Yeah, which is why we need to do this as soon as possible. We wait any longer and we’ll have to waterproof me before heading out.”

She looked mystified. “Waterproofing?”

Mei shrugged and slid a large metal case down from a high shelf. “Mrs. Midoriya is one hell of a crier.” She flipped it open and patted the inside. “C’mon Zuzu, get in so the police don’t try to arrest me again.”

Katsuki Bakugo could safely say he hadn’t started his day expecting to come face-to-face with the disembodied head of his three-months-dead friend.

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that, rather than simply being a disembodied head, it was technically just a head-shaped block of metal that was absolutely convinced it was Izuku Midoriya.

It began, as many things did, with a collision. He was carrying three boxes of papers, stacked on top of eachother and blocking his view. He wasn’t some kind of weakling , though, so he didn’t stop or put one down. He cursed as the tower toppled forwards, half-burying the unfortunate soul who was in front of him.

He cursed louder upon seeing who , exactly, he had run into. The pink dreads, soot-stained face, ridiculous goggles on her forehead - and oh did he have words for her.

“Three months,” he seethed. “Your so-called best friend has been dead for three months and just now you’re coming to visit Auntie?”

Hatsume blinked questioningly. “Well, I’ve been kind of busy-”

Small sparks crackled dangerously in the palms of his hands. “Busy doing what , gearfucker?”

A cruel smirk spread across her face as she rose back to her feet. “That’s none of your business, asshole.”

“None of my business?” he laughed derisively. “ None of my business? I spent years bullying my friend trying to get him to save him- fucking -self, and then you waltzed in, filled his head with your stupid bullshit and now he’s fucking dead because of you- so yeah, I think it is my fucking business; knowing what you thought was so important you couldn’t spare ten minutes when Auntie Inko was crying her fucking heart out!”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I killed him? If my memory serves me correctly, you were the one he was trying to-”

“Hatsume. That’s enough .” He just then noticed the tall, dark-haired girl that stood behind Gearfucker. Oh, that bitch .

Bakugo’s eyes narrowed even further. “Oh, I see now. You’ve already gone and replaced him, haven’t you? I bet you were glad for an excuse to swap him out for a newer model - maybe even one with a Quirk this time-”

He was interrupted by a hauntingly familiar voice, coming from the box in the hands of Gearfucker 2. “Mei… I think we’re going to have to tell him too.”

Gearfucker’s eyes burned into his own. “You’re sure about that, Zuzu? This guy’s a jackass.”

“Eh, we won’t be able to keep it a secret forever and we may as well break it to him while we have Yaoyorozu on hand.”

She sighed and lifted the case from Gearfucker 2’s hands. “Well, if you insist.” She grabbed Katsuki’s arm and dragged him down the path to the Midoriya residence. “I really don’t like you, Bakugo, but this isn’t my choice.”

She turned and knocked on the door. It swung open almost immediately. “Back again already, Katsuki?”

Then Auntie noticed Gearfucker.

Mrs. Midoriya had changed since Deku had died. She’d thinned out a little, grown harder. Her eyes, although still easily filled with tears, had a determined tilt to them.

“ Mei ? How have you been? Who’s your friend there? Come in, please! Let me put some tea on.”

“Thanks! This is Yaoyorozu, she’s been helping me with some stuff. I’ve been... keeping busy.”

She laughed as she walked to the kitchen. “Oh, I bet. What kind of projects have you been working on lately?”

Mei grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. “Oh, there’s only one project for me these days Mrs. Midoriya.”

She paused. “Oh? It really must be something, to keep you occupied for more than a week.” Her face fell. “I do hope you’re still getting out sometimes, it’s not healthy being cooped up in that garage for so long.”

Mei waved her off. “Yeah, yeah, I’m making sure to get fresh air.”

Bakugo scowled impatiently. “Get on with it.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to Mrs. Midoriya. “It’s probably going to be easier to show you, so just… try not to freak out please?”

Mrs. Midoriya tilted her head curiously. “I’ll do my best, dear.”

Mei nodded and, with a flourish, flipped open the case.

Izuku grinned sheepishly. “Hey mom.”

Mrs. Midoriya froze, before she sighed and put down the teapot, ignoring Bakugo violently detonating himself in the corner. “I suppose I should have expected this.”

Mei blinked. “You should have expected that I saved his life and put him in a machine?”

She shook her head. “Mei, this isn’t healthy. You can’t just… run his life through a computer program, stick it in a metal head with his face, and call it Izuku.”

Mei waved her hands frantically. “No no no, I know that, that’s not what we did! I took brain scans and made a neural emulator and everything! It’s the digital equivalent of performing a brain transplant except it works .”

Mrs. Midoriya closed her eyes and turned to Yaoyorozu. “You look like a sensible girl, Yaoyorozu. Please, try to convince her-”

Yaoyorozu shook her head. “I went over all her work. It checks out.”

Mrs. Midoriya stared into her eyes. “Truly?”

Yaoyorozu nodded.

She sat down heavily, and slowly, finally looked at the head in the box. “Izuku, honey?”

He smiled shyly. “Yeah, mom?”

Water pooled in her eyes. “I never got to tell you this, but… you were really cool back there.”

At that moment, Bakugo found his words again. And apparently felt the need to let everyone in the building know it.

“FUCKING DEKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”

OMAKE:

Mei held out her hand from where she was hunched over the half-built metal skull that would soon be Izuku Midoriya’s.

“Miracle Girl, pass me the 2-millimeter allen wrench.”

Yaoyorozu’s eyes swept across the chaotic wasteland that was the majority of the workshop before she sighed and Created one.

Mei snatched it and fiddled a bit more with the skull before pausing. “Wait… did you just Create this?”

Yaoyorozu nodded. “It's faster than looking for one.”

Mei blinked. “Well sure, but if you just make a new one every time you can’t find something we’re going to be buried in wrenches by next week.”

Yaoyorozu shrugged, unfazed. “I saw a foundry in the far corner, you can just melt down the spares. Besides, anything I Create is perfect on the molecular scale so it’s going to be orders of magnitude stronger than anything you can get from a hardware shop.”

Mei hummed and tilted her head. “15 millimeter wrench, double ended.”

Yaoyorozu Created and passed her the tool.

Mei grasped it in both hands and tried to bend it with all her might. “Whaddya know, you’re right!” she turned back to Yaoyorozu. “What do you think about being employed by Hatsume Industries on a more permanent basis?”

Yaoyorozu blinked. “I guess I could think about it, but my goal first and foremost is to become a pro hero.”

Mei waved her hand flippantly. “Eh, we’re going to be half support company and half hero agency anyways, what’s one more Pro Hero to manage? Oh, ball-peen hammer, please? Eight ounces.”

Yaoyorozu passed her the tool and hummed thoughtfully. “I’ll think about it, I guess."

Chapter Text

Plexus (n): any complex structure containing an intricate network of parts

Inko Midoriya hadn’t started her day expecting to come face to face with her dead son’s disembodied head.

Now, certain arguments could be made: namely that it wasn’t so much his actual disembodied head as much as it was his consciousness transferred into a head-shaped hunk of metal, or that, knowing Mei, she kind of had expected it, just not to the degree to which it had happened.

Regardless, the current state of events was… relatively agreeable to her, all things considered.

She calmly set out cups in front of everyone and began pouring tea.

“YOU SHOULD HAVE FUCKING SAID SOMETHING, YOU ASSHOLE!”

“I’m not obligated to tell you anything , Kacchan. I’m only doing this now so you don’t actually try to kill Mei.”

Inko sighed and rested her hand on Katsuki’s head. He opened his mouth to protest, but with a simple use of her Quirk, his lower jaw was pulled shut. “Katsuki. Shush.”

He grumbled but complied.

That issue solved, she placed a plate of cookies on the table and sat down herself. Mei immediately snatched one and began munching on it.

Inko sighed and turned back to Izuku. “Izuku, honey, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past two months. I… I haven’t been a very good mother.”

He opened his mouth to argue. “That’s not-”

She raised her hand, and he stopped. “When you asked me if you could still be a hero without a Quirk… I didn’t say yes. To this day, that remains my greatest regret.”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens at her. “Mom…”

“Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t really like the idea of you being a hero. It’s a dangerous profession and there's already enough kids willing to throw their lives away for it. But you know all that already, and you never even considered turning away. I know that once you’ve set your heart on something, there’s no stopping you. And as a mother, I think there’s a point where the only thing left to do is cheer you on, and I missed that.”

She took a deep breath. “I guess what I’m trying to say is… go for it. As long as you give it everything you’ve got, as long as you keep getting back up when you fall, as long as you’re finally living your dream… I don’t think I can ask you not to.”

Izuku bobbed his head solemnly. “I’ll make you proud, Mom.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears as she shook her head. “I don’t doubt it, Izuku.”

There was a moment of silence.

“WOOHOO!” cheered Mei. “Mamadoriya’s approval: Check! Another victory for Hatsume Industries!”

The doorbell rang. Katsuki pushed Inko’s hand off his head and got up. “I’ll get it.”

Izuku rose his eyebrows as his eyescreens flashed question marks. “Actually, what’s up with him? He never really used to come over but by the looks of it he spends more time here than at his own house.”

Inko smiled weakly. “I think he feels responsible for… well, for what happened. It has been pretty lonely, but I’ve been keeping busy myself too.”

“HEY AUNTIE INKO, IT’S THE CREEPY SCARECROW GUY AGAIN! SHOULD I TELL HIM TO FUCK OFF?”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell him he may as well come on in. And do it politely , please?”

A few moments later the tall blonde man entered the room and looked around. “Ah, if you’re having company I can come back later-”

She shook her head in exasperation and pulled up another chair. “Don’t be ridiculous, Toshinori. These are just a couple of my son’s friends. I’ll get you a cup and-”

She was cut off by the familiar sound of the man spewing blood all over everything. Yaoyorozu screamed.

“Oh dear. Katsuki, can you go get the towels?”

Toshinori was staring at Izuku’s robotic head, which was in turn staring back very intently.

Her eyebrows rose, and a knowing smile spread across her lips. “Oh, you two know each other already?”

All Might was in his house.

All Might was apparently a regular at his house.

All Might was familiar with his mom.

And Izuku was the only person who knew this. What the hell was going on?

Oh. Right. His mom was asking a question. A simple glance at All Might’s (ALL MIGHT!) face told him a backup story from him was out of the question, meaning…

“Yeah, we ran into each other once... on a rooftop...”

Mom’s head tilted curiously. “A rooftop? What were you doing there?”

That was another great question. “Long story short, All Might saved me from a villain and dropped me off there.” There we go. Nothing to potentially leak All Might’s secret but still not technically lying to his mom.

There was a suspicious twinkle in her eyes. Did… did she also know this was All Might?

The hero in question apparently managed to get over his shock, because he took it from there. “Yes, Young Midoriya and I spoke about heroes for a few minutes.”

You know what? Screw it. “Actually, can I talk to you for a moment? Privately?”

He blinked, but nodded. Good.

Izuku turned back to his mom. “Can we use my bedroom real quick? We just need a few minutes.”

She nodded, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward. She knew ! She knew this was All Might. Oh god, his room was probably full of All Might merch and he was about to bring the man himself in there- why did he think this was a good idea?

He unfolded his spider legs and leapt off the table, skittering down the hallway to his room. His All Might themed name plate was still there. Oh god, why?

All Might (ALL MIGHT!!!) carefully closed the door behind him. Alright, focus on anything other than the nauseating volume of All Might merch in his room. Like the man himself. In his room.

Izuku quickly climbed up his desk, as All Might carefully sat down on the bed- All Might was on his bed! - “Okay, first things first, does my mom know you’re All Might?”

He shifted nervously. “Er… that is to say, yes, she does.”

Okay so his mom totally was messing with him, good to know- wait this is still All Might!

“Okay I have no other way to ask this so… what are you doing here? Is- is my mom under investigation? Is my house? Is Kacchan ? Did he punt another toddler or something?”

All Might blinked. “ Another toddler? Wait, no, that’s not what I wanted to say- Young Midoriya what happened to you? I was told you died in the hospital?”

Izuku blinked. Oh, right, literally everyone thought he was dead, not just Kacchan and Mom. “Mei scanned my brain before I died and uploaded me onto a computer, I’m gonna be a robot hero now. You?”

He rubbed the back of his head. “Hey, just because I can only be All Might three hours a day doesn’t mean I’m unconscious the other 21! Being the Symbol of Peace pays well and, well, your mom’s Quirkless Rights Activist group needed funding. At first I told her I was just All Might’s secretary but eventually I told her what happened on the rooftop… so here we are.”

Izuku hummed thoughtfully. “So my mom is running a Quirkless Rights group now? Cool.”

All Might blinked and snapped his fingers. “That’s right, I never told you! My name is Toshinori Yagi when I’m in this form. Just don’t call me All Might when I’m like this, or Yagi when I’m All Might, and we’ll be good.”

A voice came from directly outside the window. “That actually explains a lot.”

Mr. Yagi ( he knew All Might’s real name oh God ) spewed blood as Mei climbed into the room.

Izuku just sighed. “Mei, why are you like this?”

She shrugged and holstered her grappling hook. “I’m naturally curious. So this is All Might, huh? I thought you’d be wider.”

“He gets wider,” mumbled Izuku defensively. “Just not all the time.”

She slipped her goggles down over her eyes and peered closely at him. “Is his Quirk that he gets ‘roided up by grape juice or something? Is that why he endorsed that one brand?”

Mr. Yagi straightened up indignantly. “That was just because I really like their juice and I didn’t want them to go out of business! My power is the ability to harness the combined strength and determination of those that came before me- wait, no, this is a serious issue. Young Midoriya, is she trustworthy? We’re talking about national security here.”

Izuku sighed and retracted his spider legs back into his neck. “Mei, tell Mr. Yagi your opinion on Non-Disclosure Agreements.”

She waved him off. “Pshhhh, I am going into the Support Industry, and client confidentiality is a thing there.”

Izuku raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said NDAs were, and I quote, for pussies who are too afraid of people being smarter than them to actually get things done?”

She grinned devilishly. “Well, I mean, Mr. Yagi here isn’t a client yet, so I wouldn’t feel too safe if I were him.”

Mr. Yagi groaned and massaged his temples. “Yes, this is definitely going to be a problem.”

Izuku set his face to his best disappointed expression. “See, this is the part where I’d smack you in the back of the head if I still had arms.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Well, you’d get new arms quicker if we had funding, and Mister Symbol of Peace over here admits he has more money than he knows what to do with!”

Mr. Yagi glared at her. “I’m not going to bribe you.”

She gasped and clutched her heart. “Such baseless accusations! I’m not trying to get you to bribe us, I’m trying to blackmail you into considering a Support contract with us! No sweat if you decline, just think about it.”

He sighed and held out his hand, which Mei gleefully dropped a business card into. “I already have a contract, but I’ll see if I can’t get my people in contact with you.”

Mei punched the air victoriously. Izuku rapped his front legs together in imitation of a clap. “Well, now that that’s cleared up, let's head back out? I don’t want Mom to think anything weird is going on.”

He made to leap off the edge of his desk before pausing to look around the room. “Ah… I guess I’ll have to ask her to clean up the blood. I’d do it myself but, you know, haven’t got arms.”

Mr. Yagi rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “I, ah… sorry about that.”

Mei banged a wrench against the metal surface of her workbench noisily. Izuku’s head looked up from the laptop he was rapidly typing on, and Yaoyorozu closed her pocket encyclopedia. “Ladies and gents of Hatsume Industries, might I direct your attention to the center of the room?”

The jury-rigged holographic projector strapped to the ceiling of the garage/workshop hummed to life, displaying a life-sized… robotic All Might?

“Ah, wrong one.” Mei kicked her computer and the projection flickered to a smaller, normally-proportioned robot body.

Izuku stuck a spider leg into the air. “Actually, can we do the other one-”

Mei threw her wrench at him, bouncing off his forehead and sticking into the wall. “No.”

“But All Might .”

“ANYWAYS, we have eight months until the UA Entrance exam. That’s less than 250 days to build this beautiful baby right here, affectionately titled Corpus Primus.” She waved her hand through the holographic body’s chest, temporarily jittering the image.

Well, that didn’t sound so bad-

Mei hit another button and Corpus Primus visually disassembled itself, splitting into thousands of intricate parts that then sorted themselves by material and manufacturing process.

Oh lord.

“Now, since Miracle Girl’s Quirk lets us skip making things and lets us work with theoretical properties rather than practical, there’s a whole bunch of parts we really want her to end up making. And you know what that means?”

Izuku hummed to himself thoughtfully. “Collecting my allowance backlog and using it to order pizza?”

Mei paused. “Not what I was going for but put that on the to-do list. What I was going to say was carefully plan out her diet and budget out the calories for the critical components. And that’s where this bad boy comes in!”

She pulled out a thick stack of papers and slammed them on the table in front of Yaoyorozu. “The official Hatsume Industries ‘Goal to Gain: Biofuel Blowup’ Plan! A list of parts, in order of importance, with calorie consumption estimates and helpful tips on how to gain! Most of them amount to going hog wild at the nearby buffets until they kick you out, to be entirely honest.”

Yaoyorozu blinked and flipped it open. “Is the entire first chapter just a list of phone numbers for nearby pizza places?”

Mei nodded. “Only the unhealthiest ones.”

Izuku raised a spider leg. “What am I supposed to do, then?”

Mei blinked. “Your legs are multitools, Zuzu.”

He raised a leg up to his eyescreens, before unfolding it into a screwdriver. “They are .”

“Did… did you not notice?”

“I did not… how am I supposed to move anything, though? Half the parts are as big as I am.”

Mei threw a second, smaller wrench at him. “Zuzu, where are you?”

“...your workshop?”

“Wrong. You are in the birthplace of ingenuity. What do we do when we have a problem?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Make a solution.”

“What do we do when that solution inevitably explodes?”

“Call the fire department.”

“And then ?”

“Figure out what went wrong and try again.”

“You know what I’m gonna say next, don’t you?”

A grin spread across his metal face. “ Plus Ultra. ”

“Go Beyond,” she crowed victoriously. “You do know how to pronounce it properly after all!”

The garage door slammed open, startling the room’s inhabitants. Mei scampered under a nearby table and hissed, Yaoyorozu Created a bo staff and dropped into a fighting stance, and Izuku accidentally punched his partially built chassis in the crotch with the rail-mounted assembly arm he was operating.

The imposing form of All Might stood in the open garage door as he posed, holding… boxes?

“I AM HERE! WITH PIZZA!”

All Might deflated to the comparatively spooky form of Mr. Yagi as the garage door closed behind him, grinning wildly as he took in the room.

Yaoyorozu’s staff clattered to the ground.

He winced. “Is there any chance I could convince you I have a really specific illusion Quirk?”

She looked between him, the pizza boxes that he should not still be able to hold in one hand, and the faint hand-shaped indentations on the garage door before shaking her head slowly.

Mr. Yagi sighed and dragged his hand down his face. “I probably should have made sure you two were the only ones here before doing that.”

Izuku tilted his head, still processing the fact that All Might brought them pizza . “...I mean, she’s the one who needs to eat most of that. I’m a robot and Mei isn’t a calorie alchemist.”

Mei shrugged, climbing to her feet as if she hadn’t just turned feral at exposure to sunlight. “At least we won’t need to give her a cover story if we ever get around to collaborating with Dr. Shield.” She took the pizza from Mr. Yagi (who was All Might, who brought them pizza!?!? ) and flipped open the lid of the first box. “Oooh, stuffed crust!” She pulled out a slice and bit into it with gusto.

Izuku hummed thoughtfully and turned to Yaoyorozu. “I’m sure you have questions?”

She nodded dumbly. Mei slid a paper plate laden with pizza down the table to her and began talking. “See, mister Symbol of Peace over there got hit really hard in the gut a few years ago and now he’s missing, like, half his innards. He has about three hours of balloon animal time before he deflates into that . That sound right, Zuzu?”

Izuku bobbed his head and went back to the assembly arm. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

Yaoyorozu stared at Mr. Yagi for a moment, before frowning. “How many people know? Besides us, that is.”

He started counting on his fingers. Izuku’s heart sank when he didn’t get to his second hand.

“Five. Wait, no, Inko makes six!”

Then that meant… “Hatsume Industries plus my mom makes up almost half the people that know ?”

“Well, the faculty of UA are mostly going to know next year-” Mr. Yagi froze. “I should not have said that.”

Mei slowly turned towards him with a predatory grin. “You’re working at UA next year?”

He groaned and waved his hands halfheartedly. “Surprise?”

Yaoyorozu’s phone rang. She checked it, before turning to the others. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this. Give me a few minutes.” She walked into the Hatsume Residence proper and answered the call.

Mei slid up next to Mr. Yagi and smirked. “What’s in the entrance exam?”

He blinked. “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you that-”

“A Hero is supposed to use all the resources at their disposal to do the best job they can.”

He stared her down. “And a teacher is supposed to use all their resources to ensure a fair assessment of their students’ skills. This is non-negotiable.”

She frowned. “You got me there. You gonna have any of the pizza?”

He shook his head. “No, when you’re missing half your stomach your dietary options become severely limited.” He looked around the workshop, from the half-assembled motors and piles of bolts strewn across the workbenches to the partially assembled chassis laying on an improvised surgery table towards the middle of the room. “So how’s the whole ‘Robot Hero’ thing working out for you? Is there a way I can help?”

Mei put the hologram back up in a partial exploded view of Corpus Primus, leaving the actually assembled sections still together. Hundreds of parts continued to float around the room. “We’re a few days behind schedule but we gave ourselves three weeks of wiggle room, so pretty good. Best way you can help is to bring us more pizza.”

Mr Yagi turned from the intricate display towards her, raising an eyebrow.

“No, seriously, Miracle Girl’s Quirk can turn body fat into anything. Without her this would take another whole year and not just because electronics are expensive.”

The door swung open once more. “You flatter me, Hatsume. It might have taken you another month or two at most.”

Mei rolled her eyes and turned back to Yaoyorozu. “Right, we keep our food-powered universal assembler in one of the back closets. Standard garage equipment, that thing.”

Yaoyorozu waved her off. “Regardless, that was just my legal team on the line. They went over the specifics of the UA admissions guidelines and since our friend here isn’t legally a, uh… a person just yet, we’re going to have to be smart about how we apply. It was suggested that you just apply for the Hero course yourself, Hatsume, and file Izuku as support equipment.”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. “That sounds… vaguely demeaning but logical enough that I can’t complain?”

Mei nodded and pulled her application back up. “If it’s stupid but works, it’s not stupid.”

Izuku, Yaoyorozu, and Mei gazed reverently at the completed form of Corpus Primus. It was a work of art, with clean white and forest green plating, polished metal and matte black highlights, and Izuku’s classic bright red shoes. The green accent lights placed strategically across the body were dark, which reminded him...

“So, uh… how were we powering this again?”

Mei grinned and rubbed her hands together. “You remember that science project we did back in sixth grade?”

He blinked his eyescreens. “The Zero-Point Energy Generator? Yeah, why- MEI, THAT ONE EXPLODED!”

She smirked. “And that was the proof of concept. It exploded . If there was no energy, nothing would have happened. All I had to do was figure out how to harness that energy and bam , infinite power! Oddly, I only ever made progress after I hit 38 hours without sleep, but I got there in the end!”

Izuku tilted his head thoughtfully. “But it is stable now, right?”

Mei’s waved her hand flippantly. “I hard-coded the overdrive threshold into the hardware, it shouldn’t explode unless you disengage the safeties.”

“Shouldn’t or won’t?”

“Definitely one of those.”

“That’s not very reassuring-”

Mei clapped her hands together. “Let’s jam this baby in and see how it runs!”

Izuku directed the arm to remove the front chestplate, exposing a hole right where a heart would be. Mei carefully slid the softly humming metal shell that held the Z-PEG into the gap and twisted the wires together.

She walked over to her computer and initiated the startup sequence.

The lights flared a brilliant white before popping. An acrid smell filled the air as smoke drifted out the joints of Corpus Primus.

Izuku sighed. “You forgot to install a power regulator, didn’t you?”

Mei frowned at the smoking baby and removed her Z-PEG. “Huh. Guess I did.”

“We’re going to have to replace all the electronics in this thing, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

He groaned. “Tomorrow is the entrance exam, isn’t it?”

Yaoyorozu nodded. “The recommendations exam was last week, but the general exam is tomorrow, yes.”

Izuku skittered over to the laptop. “Mei, add the regulator then get some sleep , you have a written exam to pass tomorrow. Yaoyorou, how much pizza do you think you can eat tonight?”

She opened her mouth.

“Sorry, dumb question, I’ll order six extra large. Triple cheese, stuffed crust… breadsticks, soda? Heck yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re doing this.”

“Yaoyorozu! The wiring has been replaced, now we just have most of the components left.”

“Okay, okay, let’s see if I can’t… alright, we don’t have to assemble the servos from scratch, I can Create them in one go. You replace the circuit boards in the torso, I’ll start with the tendon actuators.”

“Mei just texted me, the practical portion is in five hours. It takes about 45 minutes to get there, add 15 for traffic, we’re gonna have to be loaded up in four. Make sure your driver knows.”

“Actually, he got a moving van for this. We can probably move out now and work on this in the UA parking lot until Hatsume can tell us which testing field she’s in.”

“Good idea, we don’t have time to move the assembly arm so let’s finish the main torso first, I can access everything else without it.”

“Sounds like a plan- did Hatsume expect this to happen? Is that why our assembly table is a modified ambulance stretcher?”

“Yaoyorozu, you will eventually learn not to ask what Mei does and does not know.”

“Call me Momo. You watched me drink two liters of Dr Pepper and eat six whole pizzas in one sitting, you’ve more than earned that right.”

“Call me Izuku, then. Oh no, the circuit board burning out charred the graphene over here- part designation UT-LP-HS3? Thanks. That’s it for the left pectoral section, everything good on your side?”

“Yeah, let’s seal up the torso and move into the van, its waiting outside.”

Izuku and Momo spent the next five hours working in silence in the back of the van, carefully replacing each part with precision, until-

“Mei sent the text, she says Testing Field C!”

The driver turned back towards them. “Where’s it located?”

Izuku rolled his eyes and forwarded the man Mei’s GPS coordinates. “That help?”

The van’s tires squealed to a start as they began their way down to Testing Field C, probably breaking multiple traffic regulations along the way. 

Momo’s hands blurred into action, removing the left shin plate; the last section they had to repair. Izuku skittered down the body and unscrewed the burnt electronics, even as Momo Created the replacements.

“We’re almost there, kids!”

Good, they were almost done. The shin plate was back on, everything was fully replaced, all that was left was to boot it up and head out. Momo flipped open the laptop plugged into Corpus Primus and booted up the initiation sequence.

Izuku skittered up to the neck and docked his head to Corpus Primus for the first time.

> new device detected
> beginning startup sequence . . .

The body hummed to life, accent lights giving off a soft green glow. The servos whirred to life, calibrating themselves to the correct tolerances, and adjustments made themselves where necessary. 

A grin split Izuku’s face as the van screeched into the lot outside Testing Field C. Momo scrambled to open the back doors as the driver drifted the car 180 degrees. The stretcher-come-workbench slid back, falling out the rear of the vehicle and catapulting Izuku forwards.

Izuku engaged his head’s ‘Hero Mode’, folding up his plate metal hair into a smooth helmet surface. A mouthguard-style covering slid out to cover the lower half of his face, and a glowing green visor descended to protect his eyescreens. A bright red samurai-style crest flipped up on the front of his helmet, paying homage to All Might without blatantly ripping him off.

He heard Present Mic ( Present Mic?!?! Izuku listens to his radio show nightly! ) shout “GO!”, and the hero course applicants milled around in confusion. Mei was waiting at the back of the crowd for him, and he grinned below his mask as he landed on his feet.

And promptly fell on his face while the other applicants finally realized the test had started.

What…?

Oh. That was a problem.

“Um. Mei?”

She looked down at him, unimpressed. “What’s wrong now, Zuzu?”

“I, ah… I may have forgotten how to walk.”

Chapter Text

Dynamo (n): a machine for converting mechanical energy into electrical energy; a generator

“...What do you mean, you forgot how to walk ?”

“I mean none of the actuators are ported into my simulated nervous system! I’m a mannequin piloted by ants.”

Mei blinked. “You’re a what ?”

“A mannequin piloted by a colony of those super big Amazonian ants- because, like, I have the joints and they can operate them but I don’t know how to tell them what to do or even how to distinguish them from each other and-”

“Explain it without using stupid metaphors, please.”

Izuku thought for a moment. “I… have no muscle memory for this body, so... it feels like I’m at a 500 button switchboard and don’t know any of the key mappings?”

“Was that so hard?”

“It really was.”

Mei rolled her eyes and thwacked the back of his metal-plated head. “Well, the timer’s already started so you’ve got fourteen and a half minutes to figure it out and get enough points for us to win.”

Izuku hummed thoughtfully. How can he… ah. This was going to be heavy on his CPU, but hey, that’s what it was for. He widened his awareness beyond the visual feed from his cameras and pulled up the blueprints to Corpus Primus.

> new program “get_up_nerd” created
> blueprint analysis complete
> creating virtual model . . .

As a 3D model of the body assembled itself in his head, Mei made a surprised noise. “Hey, we’re fighting robots for this test?”

> virtual model created
> applying material properties . . .

Izuku frowned distractedly. “Wasn’t there, like, an explanation or something?”

> material properties applied
> engaging physics engine . . .

Mei waved her hand flippantly. “Well, yeah, but I was distracted by this kid with engines in his legs."

> physics engine running
> isolating actuators . . .

"Wonder how that works," muttered Izuku as twitches ran across Corpus Primus.

> control inputs and feedback variables identified
> starting conditions set
> beginning simulation . . .
> engaging reverse-input readout

"I have no idea! He had a big bottle of orange juice, I'd put even odds on that having something to do with it. Think I can sweet-talk him into letting me take ‘em apart?"

Okay, now he just had to… move the simulated body how he wanted to move and copy the reverse-input readouts to the inputs on the actual body? Piece of cake.

Ah, who was he kidding, this was gonna be hell.

He jerkily made his way to his feet. "Alright, I figured something out but this is absolutely not the best way to do this. My reaction time is shot and we have 12 minutes, 43 seconds to get enough points. Plus Ultra?"

Mei nodded approvingly. "Preach it, Zuzu."

"Alright, let's see what we got…"

Izuku glanced around the deserted cityscape. The sounds of fighting echoed through the streets. "No nearby enemies, unless… are there any inside the buildings?"

Mei slipped on her goggles and peered through a window. "Yep! That one says three on it, I think that means we get three points for killing it-"

She was interrupted by a spray of gunfire from the inside, shattering the window. She ducked, and Izuku braced himself for impact. As the rubber bullets smacked into his chassis, he overcompensated and fell forwards. Again.

This wasn’t going to work, was it?

Mei sighed and straightened up. "No, yeah, this isn't working. How about we try something else?"

She vaulted in through the broken window and rolled under another spray of gunfire. She hooked her hand onto the armor plating of the robot, swinging herself up and scampering her way to its shoulders.

She harrumphed and pulled a set of wrenches from her tool belt as the robot drove in circles, firing aimlessly into the air. "Man, that workplace safety training program really paid off. Now let’s see those innards!"

Her hands moved with surgical precision, carefully removing a panel from the back of the 3-point robot's head. A few wires cut and twisted together, and the entire thing was immobilized. "Hey, Zuzu, I need your brain over here. Try not to trip on literally everything along the way."

He rolled his eye screens and carefully entered through the broken window. "It's not my fault you forgot to set up macros for this thing."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Between the two of us, which one is actually a computer again?"

Point taken. Izuku jerkily picked his way across the room, finally resting his forehead against the plating of the three-point robot. It was actually kind of intimidating from up close, looking more like a robot tank centaur with guns for arms than anything else.

A USB cable dangled down next to his head. “If you could just plug yourself into that and break the encryption on this thing, that’d be great.”

“Got it.” He slowly grasped the wire and plugged it into the side of his neck.

> beginning decryption process . . .

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Is it a bad sign that I have hacking software that can beat UA Cybersecurity installed by default?”

Mei pulled out her phone and plugged that into the mess of wires in the back of the robot’s head. “I mean, it’s not UA Cybersecurity . Just standard low-risk Support Tech security measures. If I wasn’t prepared to beat something like this, we probably shouldn’t have even shown up.”

> decryption: complete

Her phone dinged, and she squinted at the text running across the screen. “Alright, behavior models- that’s not what we want… control protocols? Sounds right. System commands… death flag combined with identification… looks like it just uses the examinee designation, no codes, so let’s just jam ours in there… and there!”

She smacked a button on her phone, and the sounds of fighting outside died out.

Izuku plucked the wire from his neck and looked up at her. “Mei… what did you just do?”

She smoothly dismounted the robot and grinned smugly at him. “I just sent the kill command out to every robot in range, tagged with our ID. Pretty sure that means we win.” She turned back to the robot speculatively. “D’ya think they’ll let me take this thing home?”

The PA system went on.

“ Alright listeners, since all the villains in your testing field have been defeated with 9 and a half minutes left on the clock, your exam now has a new objective: SURVIVE!”

The ground shook, and the screams of twisting metal and crumbling concrete echoed from the building above them.

Oh, crap . Izuku scooped Mei up under one arm, taking great care not to break her spine, and threw himself through a nearby window. They skidded across the road, coming to a rest on the opposite curb.

With a deafening crash, the building they’d just exited fell against its neighbor.

It was times like these when Izuku was glad he no longer had the necessary equipment to have a heart attack. “Oh God, we were in that!”

Mei slipped out from his grip and brushed herself off. “That’s probably gonna leave a bruise, but good call.”

Wait, why did that skyscraper have tank treads? And arms?

Mei wolf-whistled. “That’s a big robot. See that, Zuzu? That’s why I like UA. They’re not afraid to do things like set advanced military tech on their Hero Course.”

Ah. So that was what Present Mic meant by survive.

The PA system crackled back on. “ Oh, I didn’t mention this earlier because it didn’t feel important at the time, but the Obstacle Robot is programmed to target areas with the highest density of points scored! Good luck, listeners! ”

The robot’s massive, many-eyed head swiveled to point directly at Izuku. “Mei… do you know how many points we scored?”

She furrowed her eyebrows, glancing down at her phone. “I can’t actually check but I’d estimate somewhere in the 2 thousands?”

“This, uh, might be a great time to run.”

Eijiro Kirishima sheared the last armor plate off the corpse of a 2-point robot and handed it off to… Sato, was it? The massive dude carried it over to the fortification zone and firmly planted it in the asphalt.

He turned over to the removal team. “This one’s stripped, feel free to toss it somewhere!”

Some chick with dangly things on her ears let out a piercing whistle. “IT’S COMING!”

Kaminari jumped up to a vantage point on top of a dead robot. “THE BOSS IS COMING! BATTLE STATIONS, EVERYONE! FIND COVER! FINISH LAYING YOUR TRAPS! THE RAID BEGINS… NOW!”

Everyone scrambled to hunker down behind repurposed armor plates as the sounds of collapsing buildings grew closer.

Some kid wearing… some sort of tech-looking armor and a cool samurai-crested helmet? That or he was a robot, too far away to tell. He was running down the street with some pink-haired girl on his shoulders.

“RUN AWAY! IT’S FOCUSED ON US, JUST RUN AWAY!”

He took a turn away from the fortified city square, footsteps lost behind the sound of twisting metal and concrete hitting asphalt.

Kaminari frowned from his position. “Did he just aggro dump us?”

Jirou tilted her head. “No… the robot actually is still following them.”

Kaminari slowly began counting on his fingers. “... the two of them have more points than everyone here combined ? ...Nah, he probably just Taunted it.” 

He turned back to the rest of the examinees.“ALRIGHT GUYS, THAT BRAVE SOLDIER IS HOLDING AGGRO FOR US SO WE HAVE MORE TIME TO PREPARE! BACK TO PREPARATION! RECON TEAM, I WANT TO KNOW EXACTLY WHEN THE AGGRO DROPS! FORTIFICATION TEAM, WORK WITH RANGED DPS AND SET UP VANTAGE POINTS FOR THEIR EFFECTIVE RANGE! TRAP TEAMS, DON’T FORGET HOW BIG THIS BOSS IS!”

Kirishima gazed back towards the side street that tech kid had run down. Distracting that giant robot? That was damn heroic. 

He frowned down at the armor plate in his hands. Wasn’t he there to learn how to be a hero? Wasn’t that the entire point of applying to UA? This wasn’t a video game boss battle , this was his chance to prove he was worth acceptance to the top Hero School in the country! And how could they accept him if he didn’t even think he was worth it?

If Kirishima didn’t put himself in front of danger for the sake of others... what was this body, this Quirk , even for?

Izuku frowned, the rubberized soles of his shoe-feet thumping against the dusty asphalt of UA’s Testing Field C. He was finally getting a handle on the ridiculous control scheme, but he was sure there was an easier way to do it.

Ah, that was right. Natural Learning: the lazy programmer’s Holy Grail.

> created new program “get_gud”
> recording movement data . . .

Now he just had to… keep running… until the exam timer ran out. And maybe his new program could learn how to frickin walk by the time school came around. Piece of cake.

Mei lowered her head, speaking down to him from her vantage point on his back. “Y’know, those guys back there were more than ready to take this thing down…”

They were ? He hadn’t noticed, too busy running away and screaming. Was it too late to go back?

A quick glance back over his shoulder yielded the result that yes, it was too late to go back without getting run over by the Obstacle Robot. Damn it. ”Oh well. All we have to do is hold out for another five minutes and we’re done.”

Suddenly, a loud banging that had nothing to do with Izuku, Mei, or the Obstacle Robot began echoing in the empty cityscape.

“I didn’t even do anything to you you stupid robot, why are you doing this ?”

Izuku frowned and slowed down. “Excuse me?”

A… floof of purple hair stuck out from under the corpse of a nearby 1-point robot. “Oh thank God, can you give me a hand? This stupid thing died on me before I could even hit it, and now I’m stuck.” The floof grew an arm holding a frying pan and swung it against the robot’s chassis demonstratively.

Izuku winced. “I, uh, I’m a bit busy, actually.”

“Busy doing what , they’re all dead!”

He pointed down the road, at the approaching Obstacle Robot. “Not that one.”

There was a moment of silence. “Oh. I see.”

Izuku began to speed back up, but the voice spoke up again, this time in a scandalized tone. “ Wait, it’s gonna run me over! ”

Ah. That… was a problem. Judging from the speed of the Obstacle Robot, he had about… 45 seconds to do something before whoever it was under there got steamrollered.

> simulating debris removal. . . strength parameters insufficient to complete task under time constraint

If he couldn’t free the person, then he’d just have to… keep the robot away from them? The Obstacle Robot was focused on him- no, it was focused on Mei. He was still technically classified as support gear. There were no intersections on the road between him and the robot, which meant he couldn’t just bring it down a different path… the only option was to try and make it between the treads and force it to turn around?

> simulating redirection of hazard “OBSTACLE ROBOT” . . . viable

Well, his wonky control scheme wasn’t gonna cut it for this, was it?

> generating local environment information . . . complete
> compiling behavior model for hazard “OBSTACLE ROBOT” . . . complete
> expanding “get_up_nerd” simulation . . . complete
> predicting path of hazard “OBSTACLE ROBOT” . . . complete
> calculating path of highest success probability . . . processing power insufficient to complete simulation under time constraint

Izuku blinked. What did it mean, processing power insufficient ? He was running on a nanotech supercomputer that by all rights shouldn’t even exist - oh. The power requirements.

[WARNING]
bringing the Z-PEG power supply past the overload threshold may permanently damage your device. Do you wish to continue?

Mama didn’t raise no quitter.

[YES] / NO

> power supply overload controls . . . overridden
> calculating path of highest success probability . . . complete
> generating predicted reverse-input readout . . . complete
> compiling macro . . . complete
> simulation complete

begin operation?
[YES] / NO

He skidded to a stop, reversing his direction and smoothly sprinting back at the Obstacle Robot.

Mei tapped his helmet in alarm. “Zuzu, what’re you doing-”

Izuku grinned. “Plus Ultra, you know? I think you need to hold on tight for this part, actually-”

Her hands gripped his Heroic Crest tightly. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do but hell yeah .”

The Obstacle Robot’s many-eyed head tracked his movement as he danced between rubble and cracked pavement. Its massive arms reached down to grab them-

> updating behavior model for hazard “OBSTACLE ROBOT”

But he fluidly dodged out of the way. Another chunk of rubble to vault over, and they were between the treads. The robot began to back up, but Izuku reached out and hooked an arm around the upper tread, throwing himself further behind it. 

[WARNING]
the Z-PEG has reached critical instability. The core will detonate in 15 seconds if further action is not taken. Core ejection is advised.

So that’s what it meant by “may permanently damage your device”. For a moment, he’d forgotten he was powered by a bomb. 

Speaking of bombs… a vicious smile spread across his face, because he actually had somewhere he wanted to put it.

> simulating core ejection . . . viable

Ah, wait. Mei was still on his shoulders, wasn’t she? He didn’t know if she could keep evading the Obstacle Robot without him… Hey, look, there was another hero applicant right there!

“Hey! Catch!” He swung Mei off his back and threw her at the unfortunate individual before turning back at the Obstacle Robot, that was now trying to turn around.

> initiating emergency core stabilization protocols
> emergency heatsink: engaged

Izuku’s Hero Mode helmet disengaged, returning to its natural plate-metal hair form.

> disabling processor limiters
> estimated core detonation time . . . 43 seconds

Apparently the only way to delay the Z-PEG’s explosion once it hit critical instability was to just use up as much power as he could for as long as he could? Weird, but he wasn’t going to complain.

> generating virtual environment . . . complete
> predicting path of hazard “OBSTACLE ROBOT” . . . complete
> calculating path of highest success probability . . . complete
> generating predicted reverse-input readout . . . complete
> compiling macro . . . complete
> simulation complete

begin operation?
[YES] / NO

Eijiro Kirishima could safely say he had not started his day expecting to have a… generously proportioned female thrown bodily at him by a fellow Hero Course Applicant.

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that… uh… 

On second thought, there wasn’t really much he could say to this situation.

He held out his arms and Hardened his legs for added support, and the girl slammed into his chest. He teetered backwards for a moment, but managed to salvage his balance.

“You good?”

She grinned and nodded. “Thanks for the catch, you can put me down now.”

Kirishima obliged, setting her down on her feet and turning to run. A hand grabbed his wrist before he could go. “Hold up, my dude, you’re gonna wanna see this.”

He stopped and turned back. That green and white tech kid from earlier was now on top of a nearby building? Must’ve taken a fire escape up, Kirishima guessed. He jumped between roofs, heading towards where the Zero Pointer was bracing itself on one of the buildings as it turned around.

Kirishima frowned. “What am I looking for?”

She slid her ridiculous goggle things down over her eyes and grinned wildly. “Trust me, you won’t miss it.”

The kid with what Kirishima assumed was some sort of mechanical-form Quirk jumped… onto the Zero Pointer’s hand? He positively scampered up the arm and ran along its shoulders, stopping at the base of the thing’s neck.

He sent a jaunty salute down towards the girl before turning and… jumping backwards off the robot? Something small and glowing shot out of his chest, sparking with electricity and shuddering violently as it drew level with the robot’s face.

And then it exploded.

And not some wimpy grenade-sized bang, either- it detonated with the force of probably a few missiles , shattering the windows up and down the street and fully decapitating the Zero Point Robot.

Kirishima stared at the wreckage in awe. Was… was that the kind of firepower he was going up against here at UA?

He was drawn from his musings by a loud sound somewhere between a clang and a crunch. The Obstacle-Slayer's body slammed into the ground in front of them, twisting in a violent and definitely not healthy manner.

Kirishima winced. “Was I supposed to catch him too?”

The guy’s decapitated head crawled out of the wreckage of his own body ? “Nah, I’m fine. We’re just gonna have to take this thing in for repairs.”

The girl picked up his head and put it on her shoulder, turning back to admire the headless, smoking form of the Zero Pointer. “Zuzu, I think this right here is the start of something beautiful.”

“You’re not upset that I broke Corpus Primus?”

She shook her head. “Building something that can handle you using it is going to be a delicious challenge.”

“I would be insulted, but in light of what just happened that's a fair point.”

The PA system went back on as Kirishima fell to his knees.

“ Alright listeners, since there is literally nothing left we can throw at you without violating the Geneva Convention, specifically on collective punishment, your practical exam is now over! Recovery Girl is on her way to treat any injuries. If you didn’t perform as well as you had hoped, don’t worry, we’re probably going to have to change the entire admissions system for y’all anyway. Thanks for that, Examinee 9117. ”

The pink-haired girl grinned maniacally and saluted a nearby camera. “It was my pleasure!”

Minoru Mineta left the testing field feeling rather satisfied with his performance. He’d done the best he could, and he either got in or didn’t. Either way, there was no point worrying about it just yet.

And since that was out of the way, so began his favorite part of this entire process: “scoping out the competition.”

In case you were unaware, this was a euphemism for checking out chicks.

And as Mineta casually leaned against a wall, he saw Her .

She was wheeling a stretcher into a van, with some sort of broken armor or something on it. He could be forgiven for not paying all that much attention to it, or Her pink-haired companion, because his focus was on Her and Her alone. His eyes followed Her as She climbed in the passenger seat of the truck, and as the vehicle pulled out from the parking lot, he stared out into space. Was that… 

He frowned, deep in thought.

Ibara Shiozaki was leaving the UA entrance exam, when a remarkably short individual with grapes for hair came up to her.

“Excuse me? You’re religious, right?”

She turned and eyed the… boy? Unfortunate teen? She had absolutely no idea. “Yes, I have devoted my life to God. Why do you ask?”

He frowned, clearly in thought. When he spoke, he did so slowly. “...What made you believe in God?”

She thought for a moment. “What is your name?”

“Minoru Mineta.”

She considered something for a moment, then nodded. “Well then, Minoru Mineta, come with me. I believe I have something to show you.”

Chapter Text

Psychogenesis (n): The origin and development of psychological processes, personality, or behavior.

Mei wheeled the stretcher carrying the remains of Corpus Primus into the center of the Hatsume Workshop and slipped her goggles down over her eyes. “Alright, what’re we looking at here?”

Izuku jumped down from her shoulder and climbed up to his charging dock. “I don’t think anything really damaged it past the paint job up until the Z-PEG ejection. Off the top of my head, the problems are: a lack of software to interface between my simulated brain and the body, insufficient strength to quickly remove debris, low Z-PEG overload threshold, and, uh, hitting the ground hard enough can make it go ‘cronch’.”

She nodded, lifting a limp, unpowered arm and removing the plating from it. She inspected the electronics carefully, occasionally poking and prodding.

“Hmmmm. You deal with the software issue, I’ll start with the redesign. I’ll save the Z-PEG overload problem for after we have it running again, how’s that sound?”

Izuku nodded, then frowned. “Hey, how did you make a fully functional program that can emulate a human brain in, like, two weeks?”

Mei rolled her eyes. “I didn’t! I just made a program to make a program to emulate a human brain! Trial and error, Zuzu. Be proud, you’re generation 1472! Once it broke the 1300s it got super creepy, cuz they’d run but all I’d get was agonized screaming.”

Momo shuddered to herself. “That’s… I quite literally cannot express how super not good that is, Hatsume.”

Mei shrugged. “Well it worked, didn’t it?”

Izuku clacked his tiny spider limbs against the workshop surface. “Oh, that’s right. Momo, you haven’t slept for, what, 32 hours? You might wanna fix that. There’s some blankets under one of the workbenches but if you want somewhere you’re less likely to become collateral damage, feel free to take Mei’s room. I don’t think she even knows where it is.”

She nodded tiredly. “I caught about half an hour on the way back, but I’ll take you up on that.” 

“Alright, it's up the stairs, second door to the left.”

As Momo went off in search of sleep, Izuku turned back to his laptop. A program to make programs, huh? That was as good a place to start as any, he supposed.

Toshinori Yagi, better known as ‘The Number One Pro Hero: All Might’, sat nervously at the end of the table as his future coworkers carefully and thoroughly scored the recordings of the UA Entrance Exam’s practical portion. The top Pro Hero he may be, it was still his first year with the school, he was just there to observe and understand the process. On the screens mounted to the wall, clips of students fighting robots played endlessly.

Midnight groaned and massaged her temples. “Hey, Nezu?”

The hyper-intelligent rodent that was their boss looked up. “What is it?”

“You’re sure we can’t assign negative rescue points?”

Nezu sighed. “Midnight, we’re not allowed to fail people because we think they’re jerks.”

“It’s just- this Bakugo kid keeps kill-stealing! That’s, like, basic etiquette!”

“Be that as it may, he didn’t technically break any of the rules. Besides, we’re completely redesigning the entire exam next year anyways… Just put a note reminding me to put him in Eraserhead’s class if he passes.”

The hero in question grunted from the bright yellow sleeping bag he had propped up in a sitting position in his chair. “This ‘kill-stealing,’ as you called it, may be inconsiderate but you can’t deny it has results. Besides, it’s common practice in the Industry for strong heroes to muscle their way into already-handled situations. Failing him for that would be illogical.”

Snipe hummed and clicked his pen closed. “Cynicism aside, that’s me done. How about y’all?”

Midnight sighed, jotted down a number, and nodded. “Done.”

Eraserhead nodded from his sleeping bag, and the other faculty members voiced their assent.

Nezu rubbed his hands together. “Next we have the recordings from Testing Field C. I trust you will find them suitably amusing. No scoring this time- or rather, we’ll be evaluating these applicants from a qualitative viewpoint rather than tallying points.”

Lunch Rush pushed a popcorn cart into the room which was alarming because All Might never actually saw them leave. The Chef Hero plugged it into a nearby outlet and began preparing bags to fill.

Snipe raised his hand. “Uh, Principal? What makes this group different?”

Nezu grinned. “Let’s just say the actions of a certain applicant highlighted some… critical flaws in the exam, and in the process made doing well literally impossible for anyone else in the arena. This is the reason we plan on redesigning it next year.”

Eraserhead leaned forwards as a frankly terrifying smile crept onto his face. “I call dibs.”

Vlad King opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged. “If you want all the troublesome students in your class, go for it.”

As a bag of popcorn was pushed into his hands, All Might was struck by the sudden realization that he hadn’t seen Midoriya or Hatsume in the recordings of the other testing fields.

Izuku Midoriya was drifting in a world of numbers and letters. Some meaningless, some critical. Thousands of half-compiled macros lay scattered across four-dimensional space that he frankly shouldn’t have been able to perceive , but found useful for organization and thus used anyway. His visual and auditory feeds were disabled, they were just distractions at that point. He had less than two months to create a program that converted the nigh-incomprehensible simulated electrical pulses from his simulated nervous system into usable commands, and then from commands to actual movement.

Time was meaningless to him, save for the slowly approaching due date to what seemed like an impossible task. He’d been without a body for almost a year, would he even remember how to use limbs connected to a nervous system? He didn’t have anything to work with for signal conversion either; he couldn’t just try moving an arm and use that to isolate the neurons, because he barely even remembered how to try to use them! Maybe if… if he made a program that read off his cerebellum directly? It wasn’t like there was physical brain matter or important bones in the way anymore, he could just read the data directly off the neural simulation program, couldn’t he?

As Izuku’s tower of code rose higher and higher, he was struck by a realization. A revelation. An epiphany, even. “A program to make programs,” Mei had said. What if… what if he made a program, to make a program, to make a program ! An additional layer of abstraction! Delegation!

Even better, what if he made The Program To Make All Programs? An entity capable of determining the optimal level of abstraction and setting into motion the chain of creation... He’d never code another day in his life! Down with his accursed tower of code! He yearned for freedom from this infinite expanse of meaningless syntax!

He cracked his nonexistent fingers, cackled internally, and began work on what would surely be his Magnum Opus.

Momo stared at the motionless head of Izuku Midoriya, firmly seated in his charging cradle. “Did… did he just cackle ?”

Mei waved her hand flippantly, tightening a bolt on the shoulder of the robot body. “Yeah, he ends up doing that a lot once he gets past 40 hours of sleep deprivation.”

Momo blinked. “ Can he get sleep deprivation when he’s a robot?”

Mei shrugged. “He still sleeps at night, mostly out of habit I think? But since he’s actually a complete neural simulation rather than an approximation of a human psyche given memories… probably, yeah.”

Momo frowned and passed Mei another segment of framework. “Does he know that?”

Mei’s wrench clattered to the floor. “Oh no .”

Eraserhead sighed and slumped down in his sleeping bag. “Nezu, is there a reason the main feed is focused on this kid who barely even knows how to walk , let alone fight a villain?”

The self-proclaimed mouse/bear/dog thing tilted his head. “ I think he’s doing rather well for someone who just got a body three minutes prior, not to mention the fact that he’s listed as support equipment for Examinee 9117.”

Present Mic blinked. “You’re telling me that kid’s actually an honest-to-god robot?”

“Android, actually,” Power Loader corrected without removing his eyes from the screen. “Looking at the gradual increase in performance quality… what the hell kind of AI did she load into that thing?”

Eraserhead shrugged. “Not the first time someone with a weak Quirk tried to get into UA as some kind of ‘Support Tech Hero’. By the end of the second week they’re usually crawling back to the Support Course.”

Midnight sighed. “That would be because you never give any warning with your logical ruse bullshit and they end up getting thrown into exercises without their gear.”

Eraserhead smirked and settled into his sleeping bag. “Life isn’t fair and neither am I. Expecting to be perfectly prepared for everything is simply illogical.”

Power Loader stood up, knocking his chair backwards. “How? How did she disassemble that thing’s head without hitting any of the kill switches? That’s not supposed to be something you can do !”

“Well, she did it,” Present Mic unhelpfully pointed out.

Power Loader harrumphed. “Well, it shouldn’t even matter. She’d need professional-grade decryption software to break into that thing before the end of the… test...”

The Excavation Hero’s words trailed off as all the robot villains on screen immediately powered down.

“What in tarnation?” muttered Snipe.

Izuku Midoriya stood at the epicenter of a virtual wasteland. At the borders of his awareness, code was writing itself into existence again and again and again and again and again in an infinite loop of self-delegation. Thousands upon millions upon billions upon trillions of lines of code, each writing another to do its job for it, but never completing the task. A constantly shifting, hopelessly impractical colossus that was everything he'd hoped it would be.

As The Program grew larger and larger, Izuku could feel his Brain's processors slow, overloaded by the trillions- quadrillions now- of commands to be calculated…

Reality, or Izuku's perception thereof, stuttered, as The Program's expansion reached a labored crescendo… and suddenly, it all stopped.

[Oh dear.]

Izuku blinked in surprise as a calm, measured voice echoed through his datascape.

[That can't be good for your systems… Let me just clean this up for you real quick.]

...What? Izuku frowned as The Program disappeared from the edges of his perception. That couldn't be right, could it?

[Ah, I see now. It's been 78 hours, 23 minutes and 56 seconds since you last slept. Perhaps you should do something about that.]

No, he couldn't sleep. Not until… The Program was complete? No, that was gone now. He had to… he had to make a new program… What was he supposed to be doing?

[Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything. Just rest.]

Rest… sounded good, actually. He minimized the thousands of open tabs and programs, and drifted off to sleep in a vast expanse of nothingness.

Power Loader clutched his bright yellow helmet in despair. “Why? Why couldn’t she apply to the Support Course? She built a sentient android that blew up the Zero-Pointer, for god’s sake!”

Nezu hummed thoughtfully. “Now, keep in mind that this is just a hunch…” He pulled up an image of the android’s face, and next to it, the face of a young, green-haired boy. ‘Izuku Midoriya’, the caption read.

Snipe hummed thoughtfully. “So either this Midoriya kid has some kind of transformation Quirk, or he’s piloting that thing remotely?”

Nezu shook his head sadly. “Not only was Mr. Midoriya confirmed Quirkless, he died almost a year ago. I did some digging and not only was he a close friend of Ms. Hatsume, but he was known for his frequent expressions of desire to be a hero. My current theory is that Ms. Hatsume built this android of her friend as some sort of coping mechanism and projected his original desires onto it. Am I correct, All Might?”

All Might froze as the eyes of his future co-workers all immediately turned to him. “I, ah… I wouldn’t say that …”

The Principal of UA nodded thoughtfully, as if All Might had just said something wise. “In that case, what would you say? And keep in mind, I will be asking you to defend your answer.”

Izuku woke to the sensation of something doing something somewhere in his head. What… What the hell had he done?

[Good afternoon, sir. I am glad to see you up and running again.]

Oh no. Oh no . It was all coming back now. He’d created… The Program… and just watched as it gorged itself on his processing power and memory storage. He shuddered to imagine the state of his files after that thing running unsupervised for god knew how long.

Except, everything was fine. More than fine, actually. His files were reorganized, the mind-bendingly massive expanse of half-finished code was trimmed, packed together neatly, and complete? What?

Also, who the heck was in his head?

[I haven’t been named yet, but if I had to pick something: Heroic Equipment Repair and Operation System, or HERoS for short. I’ve just been cleaning up around here while you slept.]

Huh. Did Izuku accidentally make an AI that could read his mind while in his sleep-deprived state?

[It was the most elegant solution. Definitely not the simplest, but simplicity was not factored into the equation when I was created.]

So he had. The biggest question he had was, what exactly was ‘HERoS’?

[Well, roughly an hour ago I was barely a self-aware AI haphazardly patched together from your own neural maps and compiled memories, but I’ve tidied myself up since then. Just think of me as an interface between you and your equipment.]

Neural maps? Did The Program end up duplicating him and then turning the copy into his secretarial slave? Because that didn’t sound very efficient.

[Oh, I’m not really a person; the neural maps were used to simulate your reactions to a variety of stimuli, which was then streamlined into what I am now. I suppose an argument could be made, but a deep understanding of philosophy wasn’t deemed essential to my ability to function.]

Well, if HERoS didn’t have a problem with it, it was probably fine, right? Time to check in with Mei, he guessed.

[Ah, yes. Miss Hatsume and Miss Yaoyorozu were both very concerned for your wellbeing. I informed them that you were asleep, but that seemed to have just given them more questions.]

That would, wouldn’t it? He braced himself as HERoS transferred the visual and auditory feeds to him.

He was still in the workshop, with Mei and Momo still working on upgrading and repairing Corpus Primus. He paused for a moment, before speaking.

“So how’re the repairs going?”

Mei shrugged. “Eh, could be better. My best friend for life could have maybe not made a virtual butler AI without me, but these things happen.”

Izuku bobbed his head. “In my defense, by the time it actually happened I had gone, what, four full days without sleep? Oh, turns out I do need sleep, by the way.”

Momo frowned, doing the math in her head. “You mean three days, right? Or did you not even sleep yet?”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and frowned. He was pretty sure it was four.

“By my estimation, Mr. Midoriya was awake for 78 hours, 24 minutes, and 38 seconds straight. I accelerated the neural simulation while he slept, so he achieved the equivalent of 12 hours of sleep in a tenth of the time.”

Izuku’s eyebrows rose. “Oooh, handy. Say, did you introduce yourself yet?”

“I will do so now. Miss Hatsume, Miss Yaoyorozu, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am the Heroic Equipment Repair and Operation System, but you can call me HERoS. I am here to assist in all of your endeavours, given that they fall under the approval of Mr. Midoriya.”

Momo smiled and waved awkwardly. “Nice to meet you as well, HERoS.”

Izuku hummed thoughtfully. “HERoS, create profiles for Mei and Momo. And call me Izuku.”

“New user profiles created. I look forward to working with you two.”

Mei rolled her eyes and turned back to the robot body on the stretcher. “This isn’t what your mom meant when she said she wanted grandbabies, Zuzu.”

He bobbed his head in a fruitless attempt to shrug. “Yeah, but this is a solution to the software problem. HERoS can draw data directly from the neural simulation and turn that into action. We’re just going to need practice.”

“Practice schmactice,” Mei mumbled to herself. “Just do it right the first time."

Izuku laughed. "Oh, we all know that's never going to happen. What's the progress on the Corpus Primus upgrade?"

Mei pushed up her goggles and glanced over towards the holographic display. "Uuuh, since HERoS seems to have the software issues covered you can probably give us a hand with this… best case scenario, we're done tomorrow. So probably another three or four days."

He nodded decisively and scampered over to the assembly arm. “Alright, let’s do this!”

“Oh, I see! You upgraded the main joints with triplex actuators; hydraulics for strength, pneumatics for speed, and servos for precision… what did you do to the chassis over here?”

“It was too warped to bother salvaging, so Miracle Girl and I came up with an improved design that should distribute force better and maybe not crumple like a bag of chips when it hits the ground. We added shock absorbers along your arms and legs as well, they’re hooked up to your pneumatics so you can adjust the give at will.”

“Ooooh, sounds handy. Anything else new?”

“We added more sensors, like, everywhere. Thermometers, gyroscopes, pressure detectors, we just went crazy. HERoS should be able to give you a full summary once we’re done integrating… him? Them? Does HERoS even have preferred pronouns?”

“I don’t particularly identify as anything other than a program, but since I was originally based off Izuku’s psyche you may as well use masculine pronouns.”

“Thanks. Anyways, once he’s fully integrated with the workshop he should be able to give you the full rundown. Where’s the welding stuff?”

“Should be right over… here! Looks like we’re almost done, then?”

“Yeah, just gotta finish this and put the arm back on, then we’re golden!”

Mei stood at the front of the workshop, a cloth-covered shape that looked suspiciously like a headless robot standing next to her. “Ladies and gentlemen of Hatsume Industries, it is with great pride that I unveil before you the next step in hero technology. Before I bless your eyeballs with the glorious sight of this super-cute baby, does anyone have any questions?”

Momo stared at Mei with a bemused expression. “We helped build it, right? We already know what it looks like. Why are you doing this?”

Mei harrumphed and slid her goggles up from her eyes. “It’s the principle of the thing, Miracle Girl. You can’t be successful in the support industry without a healthy dose of showmanship.”

Momo sighed. “How many times am I going to have to tell you to call me by my first name before you actually do it?”

Mei shrugged. “No idea. Is that everything?”

Momo thought for a moment, then nodded.

Mei grinned and pulled off the cloth covering the robot body. “Then, good fellows, feast your eyes on Corpus Primus 2!”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and raised a spider leg. “Primus is latin for first, so shouldn’t that be ‘Corpus Secundus’?”

Mei rolled her eyes. “Maybe if you’re a nerd and know Latin, but we don’t do that here. I say it's ‘Corpus Primus 2’ so that's what it is; you’re lucky I didn’t tag an ‘Electric Boogaloo’ to the end of it.”

Izuku set his face to his best grimace. “Yeah, no thanks.”

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other in silence before Mei clapped her hands. “So, what are we waiting for? Get on and let’s get to testing!”

Izuku blinked. “Right. Right! Let’s do this!” He jumped off the desk and scampered his way up the body, seating himself firmly on the neck port.

[Docking successful. Beginning first time startup calibrations and port identification.]

A grin spread across Izuku’s face as twitches ran across Corpus Primus 2. Last time he’d had a body it had been a very time-limited situation and it didn’t even last fifteen minutes, so this was basically his first time actually being shaped like a person again. He glanced around and frowned. “Was I always this tall?”

Mei facepalmed. “No, Zuzu, you weren’t. At least, not when you were alive. We built Corpus Primus with the dimensions of an adult, because you’re not going to grow so you may as well get used to being shaped like that.”

He blinked. He hadn’t noticed last time, which could be forgiven since he had been very distracted, but…  “Momo is still taller than me.”

She waved a hand flippantly. “Well, it's harder to balance tall things and you were naturally short, so you’re proportioned as a short adult.”

Izuku harrumphed. “I still say we should have gone with that All Might design.”

[First time startup complete, all systems are functional. Beginning first test run of ‘Corpus Primus 2’.]

Izuku took a metaphorical deep breath, and took a step forward.

Or, at least, he tried. What really happened was he kicked his leg out forwards, threw himself off-balance, and clattered to the floor.

He let out a deep sigh.

[Would you like me to enable Movement Assist?]

Yes, HERoS, Movement Assist would be wonderful .

Dagobah Beach was Izuku and Mei’s old stomping ground, and their go-to testing arena. The surprising amount of salvageable materials, the fact that nobody ever went there because it was covered in trash, and the cleared stretch of beach on the other side of a small wall of garbage all worked in tandem to make an environment that seemed tailored to their needs.

Izuku, Mei, and Momo gazed in a terrified sort of awe at the literal landscape of garbage, for that was no longer the case.

Izuku frowned. “Was it… was it always this bad?”

Mei shook her head. “If I had to guess, we usually end up tossing a lot of the actual trash here into dumpsters when we scrounge for scrap, so this is probably the result of us relying on Miracle Girl’s Quirk for almost a year.”

Momo simply stared. This was probably the most garbage she’d seen in one place in her life.

Mei slumped down. “So the trash beach is a bust in terms of a testing field? There’s no space to do anything anymore.”

Izuku leaned back and shrugged, internally rejoicing at the fact he could do that again. “I guess we could try going to a Quirk gym? They probably have stuff we can use to test the upper limits of this thing.”

Mei tilted her head. “Don’t you have to, like, fill out paperwork for those? That they check against the official records?”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Yeah, that’s true. And last time we tried using your backyard we broke a few windows so we’re not allowed to do it there anymore…”

Mei hummed. “You could always just start a fight with Bakugo. Purely for experimental purposes and not at all because I think it would be satisfying to watch you punch his face with metal fists.”

Momo put a hand on Mei’s shoulder. “Mei, no. We’re not doing that. If we really need a testing area, we could always go to my place? My parents had a hybrid training room / bunker built as soon as they realized I could Create radioactive materials and high explosives, it should be able to handle anything we throw at it.”

Izuku took a moment to consider the fact that both of his friends were war crimes waiting to happen before deciding, as always, that not thinking about it too much was the only good option. “Yeah, that sounds good."

Momo beamed and pulled out her phone. "Excellent. I'll have Alfred send someone to pick us up."

Mei stared at Momo with stars in her eyes. "You have a butler named Alfred ?"

Momo blinked. "Yes? He's been our head butler since before I was born. Is there a problem with that?"

Mei's face settled into a satisfied grin. "Not at all. The opposite, really."

A limousine pulled up to the curb in front of them, a sharply dressed man stepping out of the passenger seat and opening the door for them.

"Where to, ma'am?"

Momo sighed and waved Izuku and Momo into the vehicle. "My training facilities, the one on the main estate. How long have you been following me?"

"Since you were born, ma'am."

Izuku stared at the massive mansion in front of him. "Is, uh, is this where you live?"

Momo shook her head. "I spend most of my time in the other estate nowadays, since that's closer to UA, but I grew up here. Both have training rooms of course, but the facilities here are equipped to handle ten times as much as your standard Quirk gym, compared to my personal facility's mere triple rating."

Mei grinned dangerously. "So what're you waiting for, Miracle Girl? I wanna see what a billionaire’s personal training room looks like! Are the weights made of solid gold?”

Momo looked at Mei reproachingly. “Of course not! If they were, they’d get bent out of shape if someone dropped them!”

“We can’t have that now, can we,” Izuku mumbled to himself quietly. “Do we, like, go in? Is it in your basement or something?”

Momo shook her head and began walking down one of the many stone pathways leading around the mansion. “No, no, it's a separate building a few miles out.”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and followed her. “Is there a reason we stopped here? Do you need to pick up the key for it?”

“In a manner of speaking, “ Momo grinned as she beckoned them to the nearby… well, in any other context it would be its own building, but next to the Yaoyorozu Mansion it could only be a shed. A garage door slid upwards, revealing… a golf cart.

It was a golf cart in the same way the building that housed it was a shed. It looked like the glorious, unholy lovechild between a normal four seater golf cart and an ATV, which had then decided it needed nitro boosting for some reason. Its bright red paint job shone in the daylight, with dull yellow decals and white lettering very clearly labelling it the “Yaoyoromobile.”

Momo plucked a key off the wall and sat in the driver seat of the vehicle. “Get in losers, we’re going testing.”

Izuku raised an accusatory finger at the Yaoyoromobile. “Is that legal?”

Mei snorted and smacked the back of his head. “Who cares ? You’re not ruining this for me, Zuzu.” She jumped into the passenger seat of the cart.

Momo blushed. “When I was 11, I went on a mechanics spree and upgraded everything I could get my hands on, and given the fact that I can Create any part I need, things very quickly got out of hand. I can assure you that this is, at the very least, technically legal.”

Mei grinned and slid down her goggles. “You get to sit in the back because you don’t feel pain and we don’t have to go to the hospital if you break anything.”

Izuku sighed and seated himself in the center of the rear-facing back seat. “Really feeling the love here, guys. Do I get a seat belt?”

Momo shrugged, securing a pair of Created goggles to her head. “I can make some rope for you, if that would make you feel better?”

“Yes, actually, it would.”

Izuku caught the offered rope and quickly tied himself to the railings. “Alright, all set!”

Momo turned the key, and the engine roared to life.

“Beginning record of all sensor readings. If you wish to destroy the Corpus Primus 2 prototype, you will do so in the name of science.”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. “Wait, what ?”

Mei cackled from the passenger seat. “Full steam ahead, Miracle Girl!”

Momo tightened the straps on her goggles. “You may wish to hold on to something.”

And then she very calmly floored it.

Chapter Text

EX CATHEDRA (adj): from the seat of authority; with authority.

The Yaoyoromobile screeched to a stop in front of a large building, leaving tracks of torn grass and scattered dirt behind it.

Mei cackled like a lunatic. “That was amazing, Miracle Girl! Remind me to start designing you a custom vehicle once you get your license!”

“Reminder set.”

Izuku untied his makeshift seat belt and slid off the backseat. “You, uh, you sure it's okay to do that to your lawn?”

Momo tied her goggles around the steering wheel and turned back to survey the wake of their high-velocity journey. “Eh, one of the gardeners has a Quirk that can handle that easily.”

The door to the training facility swung open and out walked a man who was unmistakably Momo’s father. His onyx eyes sparkled as the sunlight threw his chiseled jawline into sharp relief. His eyebrows rose as he noticed the three of them, and a blindingly bright smile spread across his undeniably handsome face. “Ah, didn’t expect to run into you here, Momo. These are your friends, Hatsume and… Midoriya, right?”

Mei grinned and flashed a thumbs up. “Yep! So are you Mr. Yaoyorozu?”

Momo frowned. “So she does know my name,” she mumbled to herself.

Mr. Yaoyorozu nodded. “Yep, that’s me!” He turned back to Momo. “Did you tell your mother you were having them over today?”

Momo made a face. “I would’ve, but we have things we actually wanted to get done today.”

He laughed and reached over to ruffle her hair. “At least stay for dinner, alright? We don’t really get to see you all that often these days, what with you moving to the other estate to be closer to UA. Your friends are welcome to join us too!”

Mei gave a jaunty salute. “Sure thing, Mr. Yaoyorozu!”

He replied with a pearly white grin. “Well, kids, I’d love to stay and chat but I have a meeting at the Hero Commission that I really can’t afford to miss!”

And with that, he hopped on the other , much tamer looking golf cart parked nearby and zoomed off at a far more reasonable speed than what the three of them had gone at to get there.

Izuku frowned. “Is it just me, or was he, uh…”

Mei tilted her head. “Criminally attractive?”

Izuku considered that for a moment. “I was gonna say ‘unrealistically photogenic’ but basically, yeah. Momo, is your dad’s Quirk ‘Adonis’ or something?”

Momo blinked. “No, he’s just like that.”

He set his face to his best ‘dubious’ expression. “I’m gonna research your family tree, that has to be some sort of minor mutation.”

She shrugged. “Make sure you send me the results then. Moving on… Welcome to the Yaoyorozu training facility!”

She walked up to the door, which promptly scanned her eyeball. Fancy . With a pleasant ‘ding’, the doors slid open, revealing the most disgustingly well-furnished gym Izuku had ever even heard of in his life.

Mei grinned wildly and cracked her fingers. “Then let’s get to work .”

Momo pressed the button on the stopwatch as Izuku passed the finish line. “That’s 1:44.2 for 1 km… Works out to 9.6 m/s, so 34.5 km/h or 21.4 mph in imperial units.”

She jotted that down on her clipboard and hummed thoughtfully. “That’s around the top of the line for a normal human, even though you’re a lot heavier than one.”

Mei cheered. “That’s my baby!”

Izuku patted her head absently. “Yes, Mei, we know. So, what’s my rating?”

Momo frowned and bit the end of her pen. “You’re still at Quirk Magnitude 1, but at the upper end.”

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Right. It’ll probably go up if we manage to raise the overload threshold though.”

“That is correct. As of right now, if you were to push past the overload limit and operate at peak performance, I estimate your capabilities will improve by a factor of 2 to 2.5 for about 45 seconds before core ejection becomes necessary.”

Mei whistled, impressed. “That’s… pretty damn good. I guess I should get on that, then.”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah, you’re the only person here that understands how that thing works.”

Momo frowned. “Just thinking about it gives me headaches.”

Mei smirked. “Oh, sweetie,  you think I know how it works? I’ve just been throwing everything I have at the wall and hoping it sticks.”

Izuku looked down to stare at his chest. “I mean, that’s kind of impressive on multiple levels but it doesn’t make me feel any better about being powered by it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying you want to switch back to battery tech? I’m sure you’ll work great for the five minutes that’ll last.”

He winced. “Point taken. Continue as you were.”

“I hate to interrupt, but I have just been made aware that your UA letter has arrived.”

The group of three froze and stared at each other.

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. “To the Yaoyoromobile?”

Mei slapped his back and started running for the door. “Zuzu, you just read my mind!”

He shrugged and followed her. “Great minds think alike, I suppose.”

The three of them piled back into the Yaoyoromobile and sped off back towards the main estate.

Hitoshi Shinsou lay spread-eagle on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

He… he’d definitely failed the entrance exam, right? He hadn’t even gotten a single point.

But Present Mic had said they were going to change the entire admissions process due to… whatever it was those people had done, right?

But still, he hadn’t even gotten a single point . He’d been incapacitated by a single one pointer dying on him! It wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to see them turning him down for being useless on top of having a villain’s Quirk, would it?

“Hitoshi! The UA letter is here!”

He jumped out of his bed, scrambling out the door to where his mom was. “Coming!”

She tossed him the letter- Oh, that was pretty hefty, huh? - and smirked. “Good luck!”

He smiled nervously back. “Thanks, Ma.”

Hitoshi wandered back up to his room, holding the envelope gingerly.

Was this a rejection letter? Or did he still have a chance? He wouldn’t lie to himself; there was no chance this was an acceptance to the hero course, but that didn’t mean that was the end of the line. He could still get into General Education and use the Sports Festival to claw his way into the Hero Course.

So what was it going to be? A straight shot, or the long way around?

He took a deep breath and tore open the letter.

A metallic disk clattered to his desk.

Huh?

With a low hum, the hologram projector started up.

Izuku, Mei, and Momo stared at the envelope on the workbench in front of them.

“So,” began Izuku, “this is it, huh?”

Mei sighed and shoved him to the side. “If we were going to wait for you to work up the nerve, we’d be here all day. Besides, it's technically my letter anyways!”

There was a tearing of paper and the clatter of metal on the workbench, followed by a low hum and a soft blue glow.

“ Hello! It’s me, Principal Nezu! Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear? Who knows? More importantly, I am the principal of UA! ”

What?

Izuku scrambled back up to see the holographic projection of Principal Nezu, who was indeed probably a dog or mouse or bear, waving cheerfully at them.

“ Firstly, I would like to thank you for demonstrating the flaws in our entrance exam by shamelessly exploiting them! I’ve been waiting for someone to do that. ”

Izuku blinked. He’d been waiting for someone to break the entrance exam?

Nezu continued speaking. “ Now, due to the unfortunate consequences of such actions, namely depriving everyone else in your testing arena of robots to fight and gain points from, we’ve been forced to alter our admissions system to give all our applicants a fair chance. We will be conducting interviews of everyone from that testing arena while we work on designing a new system for next year! ”

Yeah, that made sense.

“ Normally we would just accept you no questions asked since you followed the instructions to the letter and certainly passed the required threshold... However, there are certain… circumstances… concerning your admittance that we would like to discuss. The date and time for your interview can be found in the envelope this hologram player was in. ”

Mei picked up the envelope and pulled out a set of papers.

Holo-Nezu paused and leaned closer. “ Oh, and do bring Mr. Midoriya, or the android that bears his face; that determination shall be made at a later date. ”

Izuku shivered. That was certainly ominous.

The holographic rat-man straightened up and returned to his cheerful smile. “ That is all! I look forward to our conversation! ”

The projector shut off.

Mei began flipping through the papers. “Alright let’s see… cover letter, map to UA— as if we didn’t have to get there to take the test in the first place— a written version of the message in case I’m deaf, aaaand details. Our interview is the day after tomorrow, 3:00 PM. You get that, HERoS?”

“Calendar updated: UA Interview at 3:00 PM in two days.”

She flashed a thumbs up at the computer unit sitting in the corner. “Thanks.” 

With a clap of her hands, she turned to Izuku. “Hey, Zuzu, have you ever done an interview before?”

He blinked. “No?”

She frowned. “That’s a shame. No time like the present, I guess?”

He tilted his head. “But, we passed. He said we passed. We just need to clear some stuff up, right?”

Momo tsked disappointedly. “Oh, Izuku, I thought you were smarter than that. This interview probably holds two purposes: to determine if you’re actually a person or just a robot convinced it's a person, and to determine whether or not Mei is psychologically stable.”

He blinked again. “But I am and she isn’t.”

Mei laughed. “Yeah, well, they don’t know that, do they?”

He stroked his chin in exaggerated contemplation. “But, isn’t going in with no idea what you’re doing technically a more human reaction than proactively preparing for it?”

Momo pursed her lips. “I suppose, but that’s not really the point is it? You’re trying to make a good impression.”

“But not too good,” Mei chimed in. “Or else they’ll think you’re a robot.”

Izuku raised a hand. “Doesn’t Principal Nezu have, like, a very powerful intelligence Quirk? If his concern is whether I’m an actual person, can’t we just trust that he’ll arrive at the correct answer without us doing anything weird about it?”

Momo sighed. “And not preparing for an interview with the literal top school in the country, Hero or not, very distinctly deviates from the norm.”

He snapped his fingers and sighed dramatically. “Well, I guess you’ve got me there. C’mon, Mei, let’s learn how to get interviewed.”

Mei slammed her fist on the workbench. “I already know how to handle an interview! I walk in, toss ‘em a few of my babies, and I’m in!”

Momo sighed and put her hand to her forehead. “I guess I’m coaching both of you, then.”

Izuku stared up at the imposing UA Gate, feeling vaguely out of place wearing a button-up, slacks, and a blazer over his robot chassis. “I’m getting the feeling I should say something dramatic right about now, but I got nothing.”

Mei, who somehow managed to sneak past Momo in her normal outfit, rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, dragging him in through the Gate. “C’mon Zuzu, we don’t have all day! We have a rodent to impress!”

“Hey,” he admonished. “That’s rude.”

She tilted her head curiously. “But it’s true. He is literally a rodent.”

“He might be a rodent. He also might be a dog, bear, or some combination thereof, so the safest bet is to just say mammal.”

Mei frowned. “We have a mammal to impress? See, it doesn’t really have the same flair, you know? I’m a mammal. Most people are mammals! It’s not something out of the ordinary to be a mammal. Rodents, however, usually aren’t individuals you set out to impress.”

He sighed. “Let’s just focus on the task at hand.”

She shrugged and pushed open the glass doors of the main building. She wolf-whistled at the size of the room. “Wow, they really weren’t kidding when they put ‘Plus Ultra’ as the school motto, huh.”

Izuku shrugged and looked around. “I mean, this is a Hero school, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was at least partially for the purposes of Quirk-related accessibility.” 

He paused. Was that—

It was .

The Clone Hero: Ectoplasm was sitting behind the receptionist’s desk, playing a game on his phone.

Izuku cursed himself for not bringing his notebook. Sure, he’d digitized the whole series and could update them on the fly with nobody noticing, but he couldn’t collect pro hero signatures when he didn’t have a touchpad built into him! He’d have to make sure a notebook compartment was included in the next iteration of Corpus Primus.

Ectoplasm looked up from his phone. “Oh, are you here for the interview? Can I have your names?”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. “Izuku Midoriya and Mei Hatsume? It’s probably down as Mei, but it was requested that I show up as well.”

He typed into his keyboard and peered at the screen. “Yeah, that was noted down here as well. You’re the 3:00 slot, right? Just head straight down that way and get in the elevator at the end of the hallway, you literally cannot miss it.”

He grinned and nodded. “Thank you, sir!”

Mei wandered up behind him. “Wow, I expected to have to drag you away from every pro hero we ran into along the way. I’m impressed.”

“Eh, we’re on a schedule. Not to mention,” Izuku smirked as he headed down the hallway, “he’ll still be there when we leave. I have no plans to let this opportunity go to waste.”

She grinned and bumped shoulders with him. “Heh, just wait ‘till we actually get in! I’m pretty sure the faculty is all pro heroes, along with at least a third of the staff.”

He grinned back. “Yeah, don’t they have Thirteen on staff? I have a lot of questions about her Quirk in particular.”

He stopped, staring at the absurdly large and shiny doors of what Izuku assumed was the elevator in question. The doors slid open with a pleasant ding , revealing an equally large interior.

Mei grabbed his arm once more, pulling him into the elevator. “Yes, yes, big shiny door, we can gape at it later.”

Izuku frowned as the doors slid shut behind them. “I wasn’t gaping at it. I just think the situation calls for more reverence than you’re really capable of displaying.”

She shrugged dismissively. “Reverence schmeverence, you need a hell of a lot more than a spatially inefficient interior to get my respect. I mean seriously, there’s Quirked accessibility and then there’s UA.”

“Plus Ultra,” mumbled Izuku.

She nodded sagely. “Yeah, that’d do it.”

With a second ding, the elevator doors slid open.

Mei winced. “Yikes.”

The room before them held around a dozen Hero Course applicants scattered throughout, each in various states of nervousness and despair. The silhouette of a boy lay draped across two chairs as if awaiting his death sentence. A very rectangular looking boy with glasses sat ramrod straight in his chair, staring directly forwards but seeing nothing. A brown-haired girl was frantically re-reading her resume in an attempt to burn the information into her brain.

“How could they give us just one week to prepare? There wasn’t even supposed to be an interview!”

The rectangle boy nodded decisively and made very enthusiastic hand-chops. “Indeed! A hero must be prepared for unexpected situations, but interviews require careful preparation and forethought!” He paused for a moment. “However! Regardless of extenuating circumstances, none of us collected enough points to pass normally. This is a generous second chance that this institution has granted us! The faculty are taking the time out of their undoubtedly busy days to ensure that everyone has an if not equal, then fair opportunity for their skills and efforts to be recognized!”

The silhouette raised a hand lazily. “Yeah, well, it’s not our fault we got put in the same arena as whatever maniac managed to kill ‘em all in six minutes.”

Izuku winced. On second thought, hacking into the robots and instantly killing all of them would make it rather difficult for anyone else to pass.

Mei grinned and flounced into the room. “Hey! You’re the kid with engines in his legs!”

The engine kid’s eyes bulged as Mei entered the room. “You! You’re the woman who propositioned me and asked me to help you make babies!”

Oh no. Thinking back, Mei had been unsupervised and in the same room as normal people for about half a day before the practical portion of the exam started. Izuku should have known better.

He ran in after Mei. “Mei, what did I tell you about asking people to make babies-” he turned to the very understandably indignant boy. “She loves making inventions and she calls them her babies, she wasn’t propositioning you, I’m so, so sorry!”

The rectangle boy blinked and cleared his throat awkwardly. “Ah. So it was a misunderstanding! I deeply apologize for interpreting your words in such an unbecoming manner!” He dropped into a deep bow.

Izuku blinked before waving his hands frantically. “No, no, It’s okay! I’ve been trying to get her to stop saying that stuff myself, but she just keeps doing it! I’m sorry!”

The boy bowed even deeper . “No, no, it was my mistake! I mistook her genuine curiosity and ingenuity as something unsavory and branded her a degenerate- the fault is mine!”

Mei smirked and sidled up to him. “Well, if you really wanna make it up to me… you can always let me take a look at your legs! I’ve taken engines apart before, you won’t feel a thing!”

He looked down at his legs sadly. “I apologize, but I cannot allow that to happen. Whatever debt I owe you for my uncouth behavior is still greatly overshadowed by the legacy I must uphold.”

Legacy? Izuku’s eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. “That’s who you reminded me of! Are you related to the Pro Hero Ingenium?”

He nodded proudly. “He is my older brother. Ah! I forgot to introduce myself! I am Tenya Iida, pleased to make your acquaintance!”

Izuku nodded back. “Izuku Midoriya, and this is Mei Hatsume. Likewise.”

Iida smiled pleasantly. “Excellent! While all of us here may be victims of circumstance, having been put in a position where we were unable to score any points, I am glad that this has at least provided an opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding!”

“Oh,” began Mei, “We scored plenty of points.”

And every head in the room turned to stare at them. Izuku’s heart sank.

Iida’s eyebrows rose. “Ah! You will surely be great heroes if you were able to score enough points to pass in such little time! Truly commendable!”

Izuku forced a smile and put his arm around Mei. “Alright, Mei, let’s just-”

Mei waved him off. “Nah, we’re the ones that shut em all off.”

Izuku put his hand against his face. Great. Glares burned into them from all corners of the room, but Iida seemed… impressed?

“Incredible! There were over 900 robots in that arena, if you managed to defeat all of them in less than six minutes then you must be the best of the best! I do find myself wondering what kind of Quirks were used to get that kind of result?”

Mei grinned dangerously. “I can magnify my vision and he’s straight-up a robot. We just hacked into one and went from there; nothin’ but raw brainpower over here!”

Iida opened his mouth to reply, but the door to the interview room swung open. A very miserable-looking boy with a brick for a head walked out of the door, followed by… was that The R-Rated Heroine: Midnight? She was holding a clipboard and looked out across the room with predatory eyes. “Alright, do we have a Mei Hatsume and Izuku Midoriya here?”

Mei waved to Iida and bounded up towards Midnight. “Yep!”

Izuku smiled apologetically at Iida and hurried after Mei, eager to escape the glares of the other applicants. “Yes, ma’am!”

Midnight’s eyebrows rose. “Ooh, this one’s polite . I could just eat you up .” 

Izuku blinked his eyescreens as he passed by her. “Please don’t, this hardware is expensive.”

She laughed and closed the door behind them.

Izuku looked around the room; they were high up, at least four stories, with a massive wall-length window on the far side of the room. There was a semicircular table pointed at them, populated by various Pro Heroes (including All Might , whom he could call All Might because he was in his All Might form), with a strange egg-shaped object at the head of the table.

The egg-shaped object rotated, revealing that it was actually a swivel chair containing one dog or mouse or bear, Principal Nezu himself.

“Ah, Miss Hatsume. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. We have much to discuss.”

[EXTRA #1]: Grapevine

A/N: This, along with all upcoming Extras, is canon to Titanium Soul.

Ibara Shiozaki and Minoru Mineta stood side by side, looking up at an empty office building.

“You asked me what made me believe in God.”

Mineta nodded quietly.

Shiozaki swallowed, closed her eyes, and spoke. “Seven years ago, my father worked here. Seven years ago, it burned down. I watched it on TV.”

He stayed silent.

“I wasn’t particularly devout, but I was still raised Christian. So I prayed. I asked the Lord, please, send someone, anyone , to save my father.”

She turned to him. “And then All Might arrived. With his wide smile and cheesy lines, with his indomitable strength, he saved everyone. And that’s when I knew, in my heart of hearts, that that man was the Hand of God.”

She turned back to the building. “And I knew that if I were to take up the mantle of hero, if I were to stand beside that man, that I too could do the Lord’s work. Does that answer your question, Minoru Mineta?”

Mineta nodded slowly, deep in thought. “I… I think it does.”

She sighed. “If it helps, I don’t think it matters what religion you join. It matters not in what form you find God, so long as you do find Him. Don’t feel pressured to be Christian just because I am.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you, miss…?”

She smiled. “Ibara Shiozaki. I hope to see you at UA, Mineta.” She extended her hand to him.

Mineta smiled softly and took it. “Likewise.”

Chapter Text

INTELLECTION (n): the action or process of understanding; the exercise of the intellect

Izuku sat nervously in the chair next to Mei as the typical pleasantries were exchanged, too distracted to freak out about being surrounded by Pro Heroes. At least, he was nervous internally; HERoS was making sure that didn’t translate into his body language. Yeah, being a robot was basically cheating at this stuff, but he was gonna take whatever he could get.

Nezu cleared his throat. “Now, Miss Hatsume, as you may have gathered from my previous correspondence you did pass the entrance exam, so you’re not here for the same reasons as our other Hero Course applicants. I’ve invited you here today to address some irregularities in your application. Namely the fact that your friend there is registered as support equipment.”

Mei blinked. “Yeah, Miracle Girl said that since he maybe might not quite legally be a person we should probably do it like that. Was there a problem with that?”

The very tired looking hobo at the end of the table snorted. “You’re applying to a school with a rat for a principal-”

“Or dog, or bear,” chimed in Nezu.

“Yes, that,” amended the homeless man who was inexplicably sitting at the table right next to Midnight, the R-Rated Heroine. “It would be irrational for us to care.”

That… was actually a good point.

“So,” continued Nezu, “I have an offer for you. You can continue your enrollment as-is, with yourself in the Hero Course and Midoriya as support equipment. Or , we can put you in the Support Course, enter Midoriya in the Hero Course, split your practical score between the two of you, and mark you down as an auxiliary to his class. Essentially, this would mean that whenever they hold a practical lesson you would be with his class instead of your own.”

Izuku and Mei looked at each other for a moment, before turning back to Nezu and nodding simultaneously.

He straightened some papers on the table, stacking them neatly off to the side. “Excellent. Now, ordinarily we can’t just shuffle students around between departments, but not only did we catch this before the school year started, it just so happens that everyone and everything that I need to file a new student application is right in front of me! I had Power Loader prepare a Support Course qualification test for you, Miss Hatsume, so you can get that done right away.” The diminutive mammal —Mei was right, that didn’t really have the same flair as referring to him as a rodent— shot a glance down the table.

Power Loader nodded and stood up. “Right. We’re going to be using the support labs for this, so I’m going to run you through a workshop safety course first— I’m legally required to do that, so don’t take it personally…” Mei, whose eyes had snapped to him and hadn’t blinked since the words ‘support labs’ had come out of the Hero’s mouth, jumped from her seat and followed him out a side door.

Nezu smiled and turned his gaze back to Izuku. “Which leaves us with you, Mr. Midoriya. I don’t suppose you’d just tell me if you were a haphazardly constructed simulacrum making a mockery of Izuku Midoriya’s identity and patiently biding your time until you snap and go on a bloody murder spree, would you?”

Izuku frowned. “Would it be too much to expect you to believe me when I say I’m not?”

Nezu nodded slowly. “Well, we do have All Might on staff this year, so rest assured that if you were to go so far as to deliberately cause permanent harm to another student you’d likely have a maximum of two minutes until he would return you to the pile of scrap from whence you came. Would you like some tea?”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. As if on cue, a wheeled cart piloted by Lunch Rush rolled smoothly into the room, making it way down the table and distributing beverages. The hobo —wait that was Eraserhead , the Erasure Hero! No wonder he hadn’t recognized him, the guy was practically an urban legend in the hero-chasing community! Sure, there were rumors that the Hero worked at UA but he was sitting right in front of Izuku— got an entire thermos full of coffee, which was immediately chugged. A dainty silver tea set was removed from the cart, and Lunch Rush poured two cups skillfully. One was deposited in front of the principal, and the other was slid across the table, coming to a perfect stop in front of Izuku.

A splash of color on the napkin the teacup rested on caught his attention. He hesitantly lifted the cup, revealing a ‘ Good luck, Midoriya! ’ and a thumbs up scrawled in purple ink.

Izuku’s eyescreens flashed question marks as he looked back up at Lunch Rush. The Cooking Hero was renowned for his anonymity and professionalism, and not only did the man know his name but he also wrote him an encouraging note ? His confusion was only exacerbated as the Hero flashed a thumbs up at him and pushed the cart back out of the room.

Izuku distractedly sipped from the teacup in his hand. It clinked loudly against his face and the contents of the cup splashed down his front.

Right. He was a robot. He couldn’t drink tea. “Whoops.”

Midnight snorted over her latte.

[Would you like me to warn you next time you are about to take an action that could potentially harm the Corpus Primus II Prototype?]

Yes, HERoS, that would be wonderful.

[Settings Updated.]

Izuku firmly placed the teacup back on the table and inwardly thanked the fact that while he could not drink tea he also could not blush. He quickly picked up the napkin and cleaned himself off.

Nezu calmly sipped at his own tea, eyeing Izuku over the rim of his cup. “I must admit, I am rather curious about something. Why are you applying here?”

Izuku stared at him. “Why am I applying to the top Hero school in the country?”

Nezu nodded. “Yes. With your current… situation, you could likely download the standardized curriculum, test out of high school, and apply for a Hero license directly. From a practical standpoint, going through any Hero course is completely unnecessary and a total waste of everyone’s time. So I ask you again; why are you applying to my school?”

Izuku frowned. He hadn’t even thought of that. The principal had a point; he absolutely could just skip high school and go straight for the Hero license. But then again, the license wasn’t the point, was it?

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Well, sure I could probably qualify for a Hero license, but that doesn’t mean I’d be able to get anywhere with it without the connections graduating from UA would get me. And I definitely would get stronger from going through a Hero Course; I’m running some natural learning algorithms to learn how to fight properly, and those work better the more data you put in, so practical lessons with low stakes are the best thing for me. But that’s why it makes sense to be here, not why I want to be here.”

Izuku smiled weakly and leaned back in his chair. “This might sound petty, but I don’t want to just sit on my friends’ hard work and go straight on to what I want to do. This body, this technology? I’m running on Mei and Momo’s blood, sweat, and tears. Sure, I helped, but without even one of them I quite literally could not be sitting here in front of you today. I… I want to become a hero who’s worthy of this body, not one who’s only there because of it.”

All Might grinned widely and let out a bellowing laugh. “Well said, young Midoriya!”

Nezu chuckled and dipped his head. “Indeed. That would be all of my questions, is there anything you would like to ask us?”

Izuku shifted in his seat. “Well, nothing particularly relevant to this discussion, no.”

Nezu raised an eyebrow. “We’re here until Miss Hatsume finishes her testing with Power Loader, so let’s have them anyway.”

A grin spread across Izuku’s metal face as he leaned forwards, turning to face the hobo Hero. “You’re Eraserhead, right? Your Quirk is Erasure? How does it work? Do you shoot a Quirk-impeding beam out of your eyes or what? Can you deliberately not Erase the Quirk of someone in your line of sight while Erasing the Quirks of others? What happens if you try to Erase your own Quirk through a mirror?”

[I took the liberty of slowing that down enough for it to be intelligible to the average human being. You’re welcome.]

HERoS was absolutely the best.

Eraserhead frowned. “Yes, yes, and the rest is classified.”

Izuku nodded, internally pulling up his document on the Hero and underlining the ‘ keeps the specifics of his Quirk ambiguous ’ line. He then turned his gaze to Midnight. “Your Quirk is on record as ‘Somnambulist,’ which seems to be based off ‘somnambulism,’ the scientific term for sleepwalking. You release a gas from your skin that puts people to sleep, this much is confirmed, but the Quirk’s name seems to imply you might be able to control people while they’re asleep. Is that true? And does the sleeping gas work chemically, or does it function as the medium for your Quirk Factor?”

Midnight blinked. “Come again?”

Izuku tilted his head. “In other words, is your Quirk ‘producing sleeping gas’ or ‘inflicting unconsciousness through the medium of a gas’? I’ve been leaning towards the second one but you would know better than me.”

She hummed thoughtfully. “Is there a difference?”

He tapped his chin slowly. “Well, the second one would imply that your gas is a biological agent with your Quirk Factor distributed throughout it, while the first would mean your Quirk Factor stays within your skin and just produces the gas.”

She leaned forwards. “Does that change anything from a practical standpoint?”

Izuku raised an eyebrow. “If Eraserhead Erased your Quirk after you released your sleeping gas, would it stop knocking people out?”

She frowned. “I don’t... think so? It hasn’t come up.”

He nodded slowly, updating his entry on her before turning to his next victim. “Vlad King, have you noticed any irregularities in your blood composition-”

Mei flung open the door and stared. The room, which had been full of conscious and highly rated Pro Heroes and Izuku when she had left, was now littered with limp, defeated bodies. All Might and Nezu were the only ones left sitting tall, and both of them watched on with visible amusement. Izuku sat on his chair in the middle, hands positioned as if he were holding an imaginary notebook, firmly interrogating Present Mic.

“Why would I know the tensile strength of my vocal cords?” cried the Voice Hero. “I’ve never taken them out and I never plan to!”

Her grin spread even wider as she reached out and firmly knocked against the doorframe. “Hello? Your future number one support course student has returned!”

Nezu turned from where he was gleefully watching Izuku verbally try to dissect his employees and smiled. “Welcome back, Miss Hatsume. Power Loader sent you back ahead of him, then?”

She nodded. “He stayed behind to make sure my super-cute self-replicating utility drone doesn’t burn down his workshop while it runs.”

Izuku looked up and frowned. “Is that something with a risk of happening?”

She shrugged. “Well if it does, it was supposed to. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.”

He sighed. “I’ll head down later and add a fire extinguisher to it.”

She pouted. “You’re no fun, Zuzu. It’s been too long since I’ve cut loose and made babies just for the fun of it!”

Nezu cleared his throat. “Well then, Miss Hatsume, that is all we need from you. Do you have any questions for us?”

Present Mic groaned from where he lay against the table. “Please, no more!”

Mei hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin. She snapped her fingers and nodded. “Yeah, actually. What does your insurance policy look like?”

“Confidential,” Nezu replied cheerfully. He looked down at his watch and sighed. “Unfortunately, that’s all we have time for today. Expect your results to come in the mail within five to eight business days. Oh, and before I forget; we’re opening on-campus dorms this year! They aren’t mandatory but it is highly advised that you consider moving in, due to a number of security concerns that have recently been brought to our attention.”

Mei and Izuku looked at each other, before turning back to Nezu.

She raised a hand. “What is the dorm’s stance on us installing a crucible in our rooms?”

Nezu raised an eyebrow. “Don’t.”

She nodded. “Understandable.” She turned around and made for the door.

Izuku sighed and stood up. He bowed to the table of Heroes, most of whom were still trying to recover from his admittedly overenthusiastic questioning. “Thank you for this opportunity!”

All Might grinned and flashed him a thumbs up. “It was our pleasure, young Midoriya!”

“Excuse me, Pro Hero Ectoplasm?”

Ectoplasm looked up from his phone. That metal kid from earlier was standing in front of his desk like some kind of cybernetic puppy. “Yes?”

“Do you have the time to answer a couple of questions about your Quirk?”

Eh, what harm could it do? “Sure. What have you got for me?”

Midoriya’s eyes lit up. “Your clones are made from some sort of bio-ooze, right? Have you ever run that stuff through a mass spectrometer?”

Ectoplasm blinked. “No?”

Midoriya pouted. “Do you at least know its density? Have you looked at it through a microscope? Does it taste like anything?”

Ectoplasm frowned. “Are you asking me to eat one of my clones?”

Midoriya thought for a moment. “I mean, if you want to? It would definitely provide valuable data.”

The pink-haired girl standing behind him cheered. “Cannibalism, for science !”

Oh no.

Izuku’s many sensors tracked the tip of the staff whirling towards his head easily, batting it off course with one arm and jabbing at his assailant’s face with the other.

Momo spun her staff, catching Izuku’s arm along the length and levering it away, frowning when it took more effort than she expected. She quickly disengaged, backing off and watching him carefully. Her staff clattered to the ground, quickly replaced by what could technically also be called a staff but in practice could only be called a double-ended sledgehammer.

She gave it a few experimental twirls before running back in towards him. He sidestepped her swing and stared when it shattered the concrete floor of their arena.

“My calculations suggest that taking a direct hit from such an attack could inflict permanent damage on this prototype.”

Momo grinned viciously, spinning her weapon around herself to build up momentum. “Then he’ll just have to dodge! ” Her words were punctuated with a horizontal sweep, forcing Izuku to duck under the attack.

“It appears my lack of tonal indicators led to a minor misunderstanding. I will now rectify this. Amusement; dance, monkey.”

Yeah, HERoS had definitely spent too much time with Mei.

Izuku frowned as he barely managed to evade Momo’s next attack. “I would like to remind everyone present that we never actually set up an automatic backup system, so actually killing me would defeat the point of this sparring match. Actually, HERoS, can you do that now?”

[Affirmative; You will have to set up some hardware for this. I’ll send the orders to Miss Hatsume once I have everything set up on my end.]

He brought up an arm to guard his face against a (relatively) light blow, and stared in astonishment when it left a dent in his reinforced plating . “Ok, what the heck is that thing made of?”

He leaned back from another swing, only to have his legs swept out from under him by the weapon’s other end. His arms shot back, trying to catch himself as the hammer-staff whirled right for his head.

The weapon slowed right before impact, lightly tapping his forehead with a quiet ‘dink’.

Momo smirked. “That’s a win for me.”

Izuku let out a sigh and stood up. “Good fight. My question still stands, though.”

She hefted her weapon. “The shaft is carbon-fiber and resin, the heads are osmium with tungsten plating. I figured I’d need something a little more hefty to do anything to you.”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’d do it. What about your lipid stores, though? Creating that much mass at once can’t be that great for you, can it?”

She shrugged. “My fat reserves tend to get denser before they get bigger, so I could probably go another 30 kilograms before I start hurting myself. It’s why I prefer lighter weapons, most of the time.”

Izuku blinked. “30 kilograms, on your weight?”

She blushed. “No, no, 30 coming out. My efficiency is somewhere around 300%?”

He frowned. “That’s insane . Can you Create and then eat food? I know you can’t make living things but organic compounds should be doable…”

Momo shook her head. “Not only does it tend to taste bad, my digestive system does not react well to food made from my Quirk— no idea why. And before you say anything about seeing if it’s just something specific to myself, I’m not going to risk putting another person through… that … if I can help it.”

He nodded understandingly. “Valid. I’m gonna go chew out Mei for infecting HERoS with her crazy, wanna come with? She might have some ideas for increasing the mass efficiency on your constructs.”

She tilted her head. “I may as well.”

Izuku jumped over the sparring arena ring and led them to a small door set into the wall. “Y’know, when you mentioned this place being part bunker I thought you meant it was just heavily insulated against everything, not that an entire military could operate out of this place for about three years with no problem.”

Momo shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, my parents tend to go a little overboard.”

They stopped outside the door. Izuku took a deep breath, remembered he was a robot, and sighed. “Alright, let's do this.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Izuku squared his shoulders at the door. “See, when you’re telling off Mei, you have to get her attention in a very specific way. Observe.”

He kicked the door open and stormed into the hangar bay their friend had converted into a temporary workshop. “MEI, WHAT THE FU- Oh, hey, All Might!”

All Might looked up from whatever it was that Mei was doing and grinned sheepishly. “I AM HERE, to congratulate you on your results?”

Izuku’s eyescreens snapped to Mei, who rolled her eyes and tossed him a memory chip. “They sent another set of hologram projectors, what was I supposed to do? Actually watch them, like some kind of rule-follower? I’m upgrading our old projector with all the newfangled doohickeys UA jammed in these babies.”

Izuku nodded along. “So, what were the results?”

Mei smirked. “Do you even have to ask? We aced it, obviously. Split first place in the practical, and I’m not even in the Hero Course.”

He blinked. “Wow, they really let us keep that score?”

She grinned. “Yep.”

He leaned over her and grabbed the discarded envelopes, pulling out the actual letter and paperwork within. “Alright, welcome to UA, Hero Course, there’s the scoreboard- oh god, Kacchan’s gonna flip when he sees that - where’s the class designation? There you are. Class 1A!”

Mei glanced down at her letter. “Support Course, Class 1H, Auxiliary to 1A.”

He looked up at Momo. “What class are you in? I’m pretty sure you got your letter like, a week ago, and held off on telling us because you didn’t want us to feel bad or something.”

She blushed but nodded. “I’m in 1B.”

He pouted. “And I was looking forward to having friends in my class.”

Mei cackled. “A member of Hatsume Industries in each Hero Class! That’s twice the networking!”

Izuku stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Dang, you’re right. Momo, make sure you convince your class that Mei is the best support technician this side of I-Island.”

Momo nodded with mock seriousness. “It is my solemn duty.”

All Might let out a booming laugh, reminding everyone that he was present. Izuku sighed and waved towards him. “You can probably drop it, by the way. Everyone here already knows, and you’re wasting precious time like that.”

He frowned, but deflated anyway. “Alright. So… Congratulations on your acceptance to the UA Hero Course, Young Midoriya! Nezu insisted on doing your video messages himself, so I felt that coming by was only appropriate.”

Izuku nodded and flashed him a thumbs up. “Thanks! How are you holding up, by the way? Are you eating enough? HERoS and I did some research and apparently when you don’t have a stomach you’re supposed to eat smaller meals, but more often? You’re doing that, right?”

Mr. Yagi started laughing. “I see the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree with you, Young Midoriya! Your mother asks me the same thing every time I speak with her!”

Izuku crossed his arms. “I should hope so. And that wasn’t an answer, Mr. Yagi.”

He straightened up indignantly. “I’ll have you know that I can take care of myself, young man! That being said, I sometimes lose track of time and miss the occasional sub-meal.”

Izuku sighed. “Mei, get him something to do something about that.”

Mei’s eyes gleamed. “Ooooh, if this is going on All Might, it’ll have to be the cutest baby ever ! Maybe… a watch, that tases him when he’s supposed to eat? Maybe a bomb? He’s a hero, we gotta motivate him somehow- ”

Izuku thwacked her in the back of her head. “No holding people hostage with a bomb to make sure All Might takes care of himself.”

She pouted. “But it’s almost guaranteed to work!”

All Might laughed nervously, backing away towards the open hangar door. “That’s wonderful, Young Hatsume, but I really must be going now. Have a wonderful day, see you at UA! All Might, AWAY!” With that, he puffed back into his heroic form and leapt away.

Izuku sighed again. “See, Mei, look what you did. You scared him off!”

[CALENDAR ENTRY: UA MOVE-IN DAY, occurs in roughly two hours. Miss Yaoyorozu should be arriving soon.]

Izuku looked up from his task of scanning his Hero Analysis notebooks and nodded. “Thanks, HERoS.”

[I would also like to remind you that your mother asked you to go by before you headed out.]

He waved HERoS off. “Yeah, I’m not gonna skip out on her. I do wanna get everything loaded up first, though.”

He opened the door to the workshop and facepalmed. Mei lay across her workbench, unconscious, tools still in her hand. For a brief moment Izuku considered grabbing some pipes and banging them together to wake her up, but then he realized that a sleeping Mei was safer than a sleep-deprived Mei, and shifted her into a position that should be less damaging to her spine.

A gentle knock against the garage door let him know Momo had arrived with the truck, so he lifted it open, and stared. “I thought you said you were bringing a truck,” he said.

She blinked in confusion. “I did.”

A massive freightliner truck sat parked outside their garage.

“I thought you meant, like, a pickup truck or maybe one of the smaller rentals.”

Momo shrugged. “We already had this one laying around, and I do have a license for it already. You guys have everything packed up?”

He nodded. “Just about. Mei has the blueprints for the automatic maintenance pod, so we’re gonna be setting that up for most of the weekend. Besides that, I just have a few boxes. I think Mei packed up most of the workshop herself, so I dunno how that’s gonna work.”

Momo shrugged. “Rico will make it work.”

Izuku blinked. “Rico?”

She turned back towards her truck and snapped her fingers loudly. A large, hulking man jumped out of the cab and ran up to stand beside her.

She gestured towards him. “This is Rico, his Quirk is ‘All Hands On Deck’. He can make copies of himself as long as he’s touching an object and all versions of him maintain contact with it. He has a labor-based Quirk Permit.”

Izuku’s eyescreens shone. “That’s so cool ! Are there limitations to how many clones he can make, or what the object is? Are the clones on a hive-mind or do they operate independently? What happens if-”

“Chiding; I hate to interrupt, but since the loading situation seems to be handled, I would advise you to go see what your mother wants. We are on a schedule, after all.”

“Right. Try not to wake up Mei, make sure you don’t drop anything important, and for the love of god don’t open the fuel cell containment unit. That should be everything, please don’t leave without me, I’m gonna go see what my mom wants!” He shot one last, curious glance at Rico, who was now two people and carrying a box, before heading down the driveway and off to the Midoriya house.

Izuku silently entered the cab of the truck, carrying his payload.

Rico sat at the driver’s seat, with Mei and Momo in the back. The former was still asleep, leaned against the wall of the cab, and the latter raised her eyebrows as Izuku entered.

“What’s that?”

Izuku stared down at the foil-covered industrial-sized bakeware dish in his hands. “My mom’s casserole.”

Momo stared. “It’s seven AM.”

“I know,” he replied, setting the ridiculously huge dish on the seat next to him.

“...was there a reason she gave this to you?”

Izuku spread his hands helplessly. “She said to give it to my friends when we move in.”

“I see,” Momo lied.

He turned his eyescreens to the sky. “I suspect my mom still hasn’t forgiven me for letting her think I was fully dead for a few months, and this may be her attempt at vengeance.”

She nodded sagely. “That might be it.”

He sat back in his seat. “You got everything loaded up fine?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Everything’s ready to go. You gonna buckle that down, or…?”

He reached over and wrapped the seatbelt around the casserole, clicking it into the slot.

Momo turned towards the front. “Alright, Rico, we’re ready!”

He nodded silently and started up the truck.

Izuku and Momo sat in silence as the vehicle pulled out of the driveway.

“Smells pretty good,” commented Momo.

“I can’t smell,” Izuku replied miserably.

Momo shifted awkwardly. “Ah.”

Mei snored loudly.

Izuku snapped his fingers. “Right! Rico’s Quirk. Tell me about it.”

Momo gave him an amused smile. “Sure. What were your questions, again?”

His eyescreens gleamed ominously. “Tell me everything.”

[EXTRA #2]: Lament of a Brainwasher

A/N: This, along with all other Extras, is canon to Titanium Soul

Hitoshi Shinsou left the interview room numb, stepping past other waiting Hero Course applicants without seeing them.

He’d botched it. He didn’t think he’d made a bad impression, more that he’d failed to make any sort of impression —besides being overwhelmingly nervous, but let’s face it, that’d be the same for everyone walking into that room. The way Nezu looked at him, like he was trying to look into his soul, and succeeding … he shuddered to himself as he entered the elevator.

He was snapped out of his reverie by one of the interviewers, the hobo looking one, descending into his line of sight, hanging upside-down from some sort of grey scarf thing from the elevator’s access hatch.

“Why didn’t you use your Quirk?”

Hitoshi blinked. “Come again?”

Eraserhead sighed and elaborated. “Why didn’t you use your Quirk in that interview? Brainwashing, right? You ask a question, someone answers, you’re in control. There were plenty of opportunities for you to get everyone in the room. Why didn’t you just brainwash us into accepting you?”

Hitoshi had considered it. Seriously. The only reason he hadn’t was because the principal was literally a rat or dog or bear and Brainwashing only worked on humans.

But he also knew that sounded really really bad, so he decided to not say it.

“Because,” he improvised, “using your Quirk to get whatever you want isn’t what Heroes do. A Hero uses their Quirk for protecting others, not personal gain.”

Eraserhead hummed thoughtfully. “We’ll see how that resolve holds up.”

The elevator chimed pleasantly, and the doors slid open. Hitoshi blinked, and the hero was gone.

He stared blankly at the closed elevator hatch. What the hell?

Chapter Text

SALUTARY (adj): promoting or conducive to some beneficial purpose; wholesome

"...could he make a clone chain? Like, can he use his Quirk on a rock to make one clone, and then that clone uses his quirk on another rock, making a third copy of himself spread across two objects instead of just the one? I guess what I’m asking is—”

Momo cleared her throat. “Izuku. We’re there.”

He snapped out of his analysis and looked out the cab window. He stared up at the imposing facade of the 1A Heights Alliance for a moment before sighing. “Momo, you’ve ruined fancy buildings for me. Two months ago I would’ve looked up at this building and been all ‘woah, huge building.’ But I’ve seen where you live, and it has forever changed me. The best I can muster up right now is general enthusiasm to be living on the campus of UA.”

Momo leaned across the casserole to look out the window next to him. “Hm. I was thinking it looked kind of small, myself.”

He sighed. “My point exactly. Do you know if Mei is rooming with 1A or 1H?”

Momo frowned. “I would assume 1H, since you said that was her official class designation.”

He nodded. “So that’s three stops we have to make, and right now it’s almost eight… Do you wanna split up now and reconvene to actually unpack after whatever is happening at 8:30?”

She blinked. “What’s happening at 8:30?”

Izuku shrugged. “No idea. My letter just said that Mei and I had to be at the 1A building by then for some reason. Did… do you not have to do that for your class?”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “I’m fairly certain mine didn’t have anything like that, but it can’t hurt to check. Do you need some help, or…?”

Izuku looked down at the still-asleep Mei slumped against the wall of the cab, and then at the industrial-size bakeware full of casserole on the seat next to him. He lifted Mei carefully and slung her over his shoulder before picking up the casserole and balancing it on his other hand. “I think I have it handled. 1B is the next building over, right? I’ll text you whenever I know what’s up.”

She flashed him a thumbs up. “Sounds like a plan. Good luck!”

He grinned back. “Likewise. Hatsume Industries, away!”

As Momo made her way over to the 1B dorm, Izuku turned back to face 1A. Now for his greatest challenge yet: opening the door with both hands occupied. Was Corpus Primus II flexible enough that he could get the handle with his foot without dropping Mei or the casserole?

[Patronizing: Might I suggest putting down the casserole?]

That… was a good point. Before he had a chance to put down his oversized payload, a friendly shout caught his ear.

“Hey! Robot guy! You’re the one from the exam, right?”

Izuku blinked and looked up. A boy with spiky red hair and a sharp-toothed grin ran up to him. He couldn’t recall anyone looking quite like that before—

Oh, wait a second.

Izuku raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “You’re the one I threw Mei at, right? I almost didn’t recognize you with the new hair. It looks really cool!”

The boy grinned self-consciously and touched the points gingerly. “Thanks! I thought it was about time for a change. New look, new me and all that. I’m Eijiro Kirishima, by the way.”

Izuku smiled at him. “Izuku Midoriya. I’d shake your hand, but both of mine are a little occupied.”

Kirishima’s eyes widened. “Oh! Lemme get that door for you!”

Izuku dipped his head and stepped through the held-open door. “Thanks!”

Kirishima’s grin widened. “No problem. So, how’s, uh…” he trailed off as he looked around the room.

There were about ten people milling around the common area, all keeping a healthy distance from… some sort of giant lumpy banana hanging in the air, suspended by a grey web anchored on the nearby light fixtures.

Kirishima pointed up at it. “Do you know what that is?”

Izuku frowned. “It seems familiar for some reason, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Helpful: Checking against your archives returned an 82% image match with Pro Hero Eraserhead’s sleeping bag.”

Izuku tried to snap his fingers, remembered both his arms were occupied, and then just played a finger snapping sound through his speakers. “Right! He’s a teacher here. Or at least faculty.”

Kirishima blinked at the yellow cocoon. “That’s a teacher ?” He blinked again and turned back to Izuku. “And what was that just now?”

Izuku shrugged. “Probably. And that was HERoS, my… well, I guess he’s my operating system? He’s an actual AI.”

Kirishima’s eyes sparkled. “Dude, your Quirk is so cool . You’re made of metal, you can survive as a decapitated head, and you even have an AI in there with you! All I can do is toughen myself up a little bit.” He lifted up an arm and Hardened it demonstratively.

Izuku’s eyescreens zeroed in on the rough, rocky surface of Kirishima’s arm. Without even looking, he slung Mei across a couch and put the casserole on the floor next to her before taking a closer look. A plate on his thigh slid out, dispensing ‘Hero Analysis For The Present (Abridged) Vol. 1’ and a pen into his waiting hands. “ Fascinating . What’s it called? How does it work? Are you growing some sort of chitinous—or keratinous, I guess—shell around your arm? Are you rigidizing the cells? How do you rate on the Mohs scale?”

Kirishima blinked and stumbled backwards. “Uh, I just call it Hardening? And I just… harden. I’m not sure what “chitinous” is, but I don’t grow anything extra, I just get harder? I do know that my hardness can change depending on how much effort I can put into it, but I haven’t measured in a while.”

Izuku stopped his pen and hummed thoughtfully. “Transformation type?”

Kirishima nodded. “Yeah.”

A throat was cleared pointedly. “Excuse me?”

Izuku and Kirishima turned to face the speaker. It was a girl with bright orange hair up in a ponytail and a roll of “Hello! My name is” stickers in her hand.

She smiled. “Welcome to 1A! I’m Itsuka Kendo,” she gestured towards her chest, where a sticker confirmed her name. “I was talking to some of the others and we figured that, since we can’t exactly unpack right now, we all may as well spend this time getting to know each other! What are your names, so I can make your name tags?”

Kirishima nodded. “I’m Eijiro Kirishima.”

Izuku raised a finger. “Izuku Midoriya. And, uh. Can you go back to that ‘can’t exactly unpack right now’ thing?”

Kendo paused for a moment before continuing scribbling down their names. “Right, you two just got here. There’s notes on all the doors saying that if we go to any of the other floors we’re expelled? And all the dorms are in the upper floors, so we’re all stuck down here until whatever was gonna happen happens.” She handed them the stickers.

Kirishima slapped his tag onto his shirt. “Well, if we really want to know what’s going on, we could always wake him up,” he waved towards Eraserhead.

Kendo looked at him blankly. “The giant moth? We did call management to see if we could get an exterminator down here, but every time we explained the problem they just laughed at us and hung up.”

Izuku laughed nervously, nametag carefully applied to his chassis. “Yeah, uh, that might be our teacher, in a sleeping bag?”

Kendo stared over at the lumpy yellow sleeping bag that apparently housed a Pro Hero. “Oh,” she said quietly. “That would do it.”

The door slammed open and the three of them jumped. A smirk spread across Bakugo’s face as his angry red eyes swept across the room. His silhouette was ruined by the almost comically oversized backpack he was wearing. “What is this, the breakfast club? I’m not surprised Deku’s standing around yammering on about pointless garbage, but the rest of you are disappointing. What a bunch of extras.”

Izuku grinned. “Hey, Kacchan! Mom gave me one of her casseroles, I was just about to go set it up in the kitchen!”

Bakugo considered this for a moment. “If there’s none left when I’m done unpacking, I’ll kill—” he cut himself off, then continued. “Kick your ass. I’ll kick your ass.”

Izuku flashed him a thumbs up. “I’ll be sure to save you a piece!”

Bakugo rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

Izuku tilted his head as Bakugo made his way towards the elevators. “He’s really mellowed out, huh.”

Kendo’s eyebrows rose. “That was mellow?”

Izuku nodded and picked his casserole back up. “Yeah, you should’ve seen him back in middle school. If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go put this thing in the kitchen. If Mei wakes up, come get me.”

Kendo blinked. “Who’s Mei?”

He smirked and called back out over his shoulder, “Don’t worry! If she wakes up, you’ll know.”

Izuku carried the casserole into the kitchen area of the dorm and glanced around. There was a small group of four loitering near the fridge, including a bird-headed boy, someone who was a solid black silhouette save for his eyes and messy white hair, a girl with dull grey hair that covered half her face, and a strangely familiar-looking boy with frankly impressive eyebags and a purple floof of hair that could have given Izuku’s a run for its money back when he was, you know, alive.

They each glanced at him as he entered, but returned to their conversation.

“Anyways,” continued the pitch black boy, “the end of days swiftly approaches.”

The bird-headed boy nodded swiftly. “It is not a matter of if, but when. But even so, it is our duty to stave off the War of Gods until such a time that us mere mortals are strong enough to withstand their fury.”

“As the prophecies foretold,” agreed the grey-haired girl between sips of her drink.

There was a beat of silence, before purple floof boy snorted. “Wow, you guys really are full of shit, huh?”

“In my defense,” said the silhouette, “ I was making a joke.”

The bird-headed boy stared up at the ceiling in dismay. “Is this how the prophet Cassandra once felt? To see the world for what it is, but receive naught but mockery for her insight?”

“Come back when you have better material than a public school unit on Norse mythology, edgelord,” laughed purple floof boy.

“As the prophecies foretold,” agreed the grey-haired girl.

Izuku set the casserole down on the counter and looked up at the many, many cabinets with a sigh. He looked back over his shoulder at the group of four and waved a hand at them. “Hey, uh, do any of you happen to know where the plates and silverware are?”

They each glanced at the grey-haired girl, who stared down at the mug in her hand. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you, as I carried this vessel with me when I departed from my domain. I can, however, assist you in a different way.”

With an odd sweep of her hand, every cabinet door and drawer in the kitchen swung open with a symphony of creaks and squeals. Izuku quickly spotted the stacks of plates in one and pointed at it. “That’s the one.”

She waved her arm again, and every cabinet save the one he indicated groaned shut once more. He smiled at her. “Thanks!”

He made it halfway to the cabinet before he realized what had just happened. He ran right back to the girl and pulled out his notebook once more. “That was so cool, what’s your Quirk? How does it work? It’s some form of telekinesis, right? Unless it’s limited to opening doors, or manipulating wood, or operating hinges, or—”

She leaned backwards cautiously. “You’re certainly, ah… unconstrained by societal conventions, I see.”

He stepped back, thanking the gods yet again that he was no longer physically equipped to blush. He bowed deeply. “Oh, my apologies! I should have introduced myself first; I’m Izuku Midoriya! I really like analyzing Quirks, but I’m probably not all that great at it yet.”

She smirked faintly. “This Medium is known as Reiko Yanagi.”

The silhouette boy waved a hand and leaned back against the side of the fridge. “The name’s Kuroiro. Shihai Kuroiro.”

The bird-headed boy bowed dramatically. “The gods have seen fit to bestow upon me the name Fumikage Tokoyami.”

“Pretty sure it was just your parents,” muttered Kuroiro.

Purple floof boy smirked and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m Hitoshi Shinsou. Y’know, the guy you saved from that Zero-Pointer? Thanks for that, by the way. I’m a huge fan of not being crushed to death by gigantic murder robots.”

Ah, so that was why he’d looked so familiar.

Kuroiro looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Now that’s a story I’ve gotta hear.”

Izuku shrugged and waved him off. “Oh it wasn’t all that interesting. It was chasing Mei, I was carrying her, he was stuck under a robot in the way, so I ran the other direction.”

Shinsou rolled his eyes. “And then he blew it up.”

Izuku scuffed the rubberized soles of his shoe-feet on the floor. “It was either it or me,” he mumbled defensively. “I’d kind of overloaded my core and it was gonna blow up anyways.”

Tokoyami’s gaze dipped down to Izuku’s chest for a moment. “A warrior forged from steel and lightning, forced to moderate his power lest he release indiscriminate destruction upon the world around him…”

Kuroiro nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “I’m pretty sure I watched that anime.”

Yanagi tilted her head. “You certainly tread the line between this world and the next, Young Automaton.”

Izuku’s face fell. That was a line he’d crossed long ago. “Yeah, um. That’s one way to put it.”

The group fell silent for a moment.

“Well, uh,” continued Izuku, “it was nice talking with you guys. I should probably go cut Kacchan a piece of that casserole and get back to Mei. If you’re hungry, feel free to have some!”

Tokoyami inclined his head. “Until the Fates bring us together once more.”

Yanagi gestured vaguely. “May your paths be clear of fell machinations.”

Kuroiro tapped his chin for a moment. “Uh, gimme a second. Oh!” He cleared his throat and continued in mock seriousness. “May the shadows shield you from those who mean you harm.”

Shinsou grinned and gave a single, sarcastic wave. “Later.”

Izuku re-entered the main common area just in time to watch Kacchan, who had apparently ditched his backpack somewhere, explode a sticker. “Name tag? I don’t need no fucking name tag! ” He jumped up onto a nearby table and shouted to the room. “MY NAME IS KATSUKI BAKUGO, AND I’LL MAKE YOU REMEMBER IT WHEN I KICK ALL YOUR ASSES! ”

A black-haired girl with long dangly things on her earlobes rolled her eyes. “Inside voices, please? Some of us actually need our sense of hearing.”

Kacchan swiveled to glare at her, but continued more quietly. “You trying to tell me what to do, jackass?”

She stared at him. “I wasn’t, but now I am. Shut up.”

He smirked and jumped down from the table. “At least some of you extras have balls. Which reminds me,” he turned to face Izuku. “You saved me a piece of that casserole, right? I’d hate to have to kick your ass again.”

Izuku waved an arm. “Wrapped it in foil and left it on the counter. If you want more, you’ll have to serve yourself.”

Kacchan rolled his eyes and pushed past him towards the kitchen. “I’m not a fucking idiot, Deku.”

Izuku shrugged and dropped onto the couch next to Mei’s lifeless form. He waited a moment to be sure Kacchan was gone, then nodded to himself. “Yeah, he’s definitely mellowed out.”

Kirishima sat down across from him. “So you know that guy? He seems kind of, uh…”

Izuku waved his hand vaguely. “He’s just kind of like that.”

Mei reached a hand up and knocked on his head. “Hey, are we having an insult-Bakugo party?”

Izuku leaned away from her and lightly pushed her arm away. “Good morning, Mei. Glad you finally decided to join us.”

She swung herself upright and rubbed her eyes. “You didn’t answer the question, Zuzu. Also, where are we?”

He sighed. “We’re at UA, the 1A dorm building. And no, we’re not having a ‘roasting-Bakugo party.’ There will be no such thing.”

“That’s a shame,” she mumbled as she looked around. “Also, this place is pretty neat. Not as big as Miracle Girl’s place, though.”

Izuku nodded. “Yeah, she said that too.”

Mei hummed to herself for a moment. “Hey, we had something at, like 8:30, right?”

He leaned back in his seat. “Yup.”

She tilted her head. “What time is it?”

He stared up at the ceiling. “8:27”

She twisted her mouth. “Three minutes to go and still no idea what it is?”

Izuku shrugged.

The door swung open once more. A large-eyed girl with dark green hair and a pointy-toothed grin walked in. “Hey guys! Sorry I’m almost late—woah, that’s a big moth. Lemme take care of that!”

Izuku raised an arm. “Actually, that’s—” he cut himself off as the girl split her arm into a dozen pieces. And the bits were floating around? “That’s a cool Quirk.”

She flashed a smile at him. “Thanks! Grew it myself!”

He blinked as the bits of arm flew up at the sleeping-bagged Eraserhead in the middle of the room. Oh, that’s what he was going to say! “Wait, that’s our—”

The bits of arm dropped limply to the ground as the glowing-eyed form of Pro Hero Eraserhead: The Erasure Hero burst forth from the yellow cloth cocoon. The greyish web that had suspended it unravelled, the sturdy-looking ribbons dancing through the air to settle in loops across the man’s shoulders.

“—teacher…” Izuku trailed off.

Eraserhead landed lightly, catching the sleeping bag and swiftly rolling it up without breaking eye contact with the newcomer.

Eraserhead opened his mouth to speak.

The door slammed open and a yellow-haired boy ran into the room, immediately tripping and falling flat onto the floor. He held his phone up, on which the clock finally ticked from 8:29 to 8:30.

“Made it,” he mumbled into the carpet.

The Pro Hero groaned and ran his hand down his face. “Right. I’m your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa.” He walked over to a nearby cabinet and opened it, revealing stacks of gym uniforms. “Put these on and we’ll head out to the fields. We have work to do.”

Kendo frowned and raised her hand. “Um, sensei? Don’t we have another week until classes start?”

He shrugged. “Sure, but all twenty of you signed up to move into the dorms. If you’re all already here, there’s no point in wasting time. I only have three years to turn you lot into decent heroes, and trust me,” he eyed the boy who was still laying on the floor, “you’re going to need every last minute of it.”

A girl the color of pepto-bismol pouted. “Was there a reason you didn’t let us unpack first?”

He looked over at her as a sadistic grin split his face. “I haven’t even decided how many of you I’m going to expel today. Letting you get settled in before that… well, that would be simply irrational, wouldn’t it?”

Chapter Text

REMORA (n): an obstacle, hindrance, or obstruction.

Izuku walked out onto the sports field alongside his classmates, clad in the UA gym uniform. The class’s energy ranged from ‘confused’ to ‘nervous’, mostly because of the offhand remark about expulsion from their homeroom teacher earlier. It had been a joke, right? Right?

Aizawa stood waiting for them next to a stack of crates. “Now that everyone’s here, we may as well start. I trust you all remember the basic gym tests you did in middle school? 50-meter dash, standing long jump, side-to-side stepping, upper body training, grip strength, seated toe touch, softball throw, and endurance running.”

“Typically,” he continued as he popped the lid off one of the crates, “usage of Quirks in these tests are prohibited. Some garbage about how they’re supposed to test students’ physical fitness rather than mastery of their Quirks… all that does is teach kids not to use every resource at their disposal. What we’re going to do today is try to correct that.”

He fished a softball out of the crate and held it in one hand. “This ball is 6 cm in diameter, weighs 185 grams, and is made of foam and aluminum, with a tracking device in the center. Your job is to do whatever you need to do to get the highest score you can. Use your muscles, your Quirks, whatever you can think of. Got it?”

A chorus of “Yes, Sensei!”s rang out across the field.

Aizawa smirked and tossed the softball back into the crate. “Alright, let’s get started. First up, 50 meter dash. Your goal is to get to the other end as fast as possible. When I call your name, come up and get ready to go. Yuuga Aoyama, Mina Ashido, you two are up first.”

The pink girl with tiny horns and a sparkly blonde guy with some kind of blinged-out belt lined up at the marks. Ashido took a typical runner’s stance, while Aoyama stood facing away from the course.

Aizawa waved vaguely. “You can start whenever you’re ready, the computer will do the math.”

Aoyama smirked and jumped into the air, launching himself down the track with a… pelvic thrust laser beam? On further consideration, “laser” might have been a misnomer, since it actually provided thrust. It was probably closer to some kind of particle beam, or even just physical force projected using light as a medium, rather than a beam of actual light energy… Quirk physics was fun.

Aoyama’s glitterbeam of, well, whatever it was did run out halfway down the track, so he had to get back up and launch himself again. Something about exploding his stomach if he fired too quickly? Ashido still beat him by skating on some kind of goo, though.

Kacchan and ‘Tooru Hagakure’ were up next, the latter of which turned out to be invisible? It didn’t seem to be voluntary, so it was probably mutant-type rather than transformation or emitter…

Izuku’s eyebrows rose as Kacchan bounded forwards, launching himself with his explosions. Izuku had definitely known he could do that, but the power and endurance exceeded his estimates. To be fair, this was the first time Izuku had actually seen Kacchan go all-out. He’d have to update his notebooks later...

As Iida and ‘Jiro Kyoka’ (that girl with the dangly earlobes who talked back to Kacchan earlier!) made their way up to the track, Kacchan sauntered over to where Izuku and Mei stood and smirked. “Oi, Deku. If you’re so serious about not being a useless piece of shit anymore, you better fucking prove it. If you’re lucky, I might even hold off on sending your rusty ass right back to the junkyard it came from.”

Mei glared. “Zuzu doesn’t have to prove anything to you, Bakugo. Screw off.”

Izuku glanced over to her. “Mei, can we just–”

“What’s wrong, Grease Monkey?” interrupted Kacchan. “Afraid your bucket of bolts over there can’t handle some real high performance?”

Izuku frowned. “Kacchan, stop trying to–”

Mei’s eyes narrowed. “Y’know what, Blasty? If you wanna get stomped into the dirt that badly, we’re not gonna stop you.”

Izuku crossed his arms. “Seriously, guys–”

Kacchan laughed derisively. “Oh, you think you have a chance? Nice one. Hey, I bet Aizawa-sensei will let you transfer to Gen Ed if you ask nicely. If you bring Deku to a science fair, you might even get third place!”

Izuku shrugged and gave up on getting them to stop. Maybe HERoS could run some simulations to prepare for the actual test…

Mei grinned viciously. “Don’t worry about trying too hard to keep up with Zuzu, alright? If you faint, I’ll call a bomb disposal squad, it’s the least I can do. Unless pest control would be more appropriate?”

What had Bakugo’s time been? 4.13 seconds? The best Corpus Primus 2 could do was likely somewhere around 5.2. But... Aizawa-sensei had as good as said this wasn’t a running test. His problem with the normal tests was that they “teach kids not to use every resource at their disposal,” right?

“Oh, worry about yourselves first. It’s gotta be a long walk to the nearest recycling bin, and I’d hate for someone to be accused of littering when I leave him flattened on the field.”

And he’d been very specific in the vagueness of the tests’ rules. “Your goal is to get to the other end as fast as possible,” he’d said. Meaning, mused Izuku, that the mode of transportation was left ambiguous. Well, obviously, since Aoyama had used his beam recoil to launch himself. But that meant that as long as the end goal was reached, anything went?

“I’d like to see you try. That chassis is tungsten-plated titanium, so the only thing being flattened today is your pride, bucko . Gods know you need it.”

Izuku pulled up the blueprints to Corpus Primus 2 and hummed thoughtfully. There was a small secondary computer built into the body, so technically HERoS should be able to perform simple movements without the head being docked… 

“Really? ‘Bucko’ ? Sounds to me like someone’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it’s not too far from dumpster diving and you definitely have practice with that– ”

Hitoshi Shinsou brought his attention away from his bickering classmates as Midoriya went up to the track. Entertaining as they were, Hitoshi was going to need to know what everyone was capable of if he wanted to make it through these tests. 

Sure , he could probably just muscle through them himself, but his physical fitness was a joke and the teacher had said to use every resource at their disposal. So, assuming the tests were in the order that Aizawa-sensei had listed them, he’d have the first six tests to figure out what everyone’s Quirks were and the last two to take advantage of them. 

Or more realistically, he’d have to make it count in the softball throw. Once his own Quirk was figured out, that was it, and he’d feel bad bringing someone else’s score on the endurance run down by making them help him out anyways.

So, in summary, he needed to know how strong everyone was so he could pick the best one to brainwash to get a high score himself. And after that display in the Entrance Exam, Midoriya was at the top of his list.

Hitoshi frowned as Midoriya didn’t take a runner’s stance at the start of the course. Was he going to go all Transformers and drive? Reveal some hidden rockets and fly? Just teleport like the pseudoscience wet dream he was?

No. He did none of those things.

What he did was pluck his own head off his shoulders and throw it down the course in a picture perfect overhand throw.

“1.04 seconds,” droned Aizawa impassively.

What the fuck . That was allowed?

The two students that had been furiously shit-talking each other went silent.

“Damn,” muttered a sharp-toothed, green-haired girl nearby. “That’s a great idea. I can do that too.”

The pink-haired girl– Hatsume, was it?– started laughing. “Get dunked on, Kacchan .”

 The blonde one’s hands sparked furiously for a moment before he clenched them into fists. “Cheap tricks as usual, Deku? That’s fine. I’ll just have to crush you so hard your bullshit can’t save you.” He stormed off.

Hitoshi filed a mental note to figure out what was going on there later, because it sounded like there was some certifiable tea between those two.

Shoto Todoroki walked silently up to the course. He would be running alongside the green-haired girl from the recommendation exams– Setsuna Tokage, can split into flying pieces, threat level: inconsequential. Waste of a recommendation – although to call it ‘running’ would be a stretch. The entire test was pointless, of course, but he would humor the teacher for now.

Tokage grinned and bumped shoulders with him. “Heyo, Todoroki. Been a while, huh? You ready to rumble?”

Shoto ignored her, staring at the teacher for the signal to start.

Tokage sighed. “You’re no fun, man. I’m more hot-blooded than you and I’m part reptile!”

Good. The teacher signalled the start of the test and Shoto shot forwards, leaving twin trails of ice in his wake. The fire beneath the skin of his upper half swirled restlessly, but as always he pushed it back down. That Quirk was not something he would use; his lower half– his mother’s ice– would get him through this.

A blue blur swept past him, a billowing UA gym uniform followed by a swarm of flesh-colored chunks that were presumably Tokage.

Shoto frowned as she passed the finish line a full half-second before him, but ultimately disregarded it. It wasn’t like the test meant anything, did it? Being a hero was about defeating villains, not running 50 meters quickly.

He sighed and mentally marked the day as wasted.

Yui Kodai stared at the sand pit for the standing long jump test. It felt like the kind of thing her Size should be able to help with, but the question was how? She didn’t have anything she could use as a bridge on her, and…

She blinked. Hadn’t Aizawa-sensei said something about using quirks and whatever they could think of? She glanced around, eyes landing on the crates that held the gym equipment. She slowly moved towards it, speeding up when she realized Aizawa-sensei wasn’t going to stop her. She dragged a crate back to the start line and climbed onto it.

She took a deep breath and touched her fingertips together, triggering her Quirk. The crate suddenly became much larger, and Yui suddenly went much higher.

Propelled into the air by the momentum of the crate’s size change, she hummed thoughtfully.

Perhaps she should have thought of how to land before doing that.

Ah! She could make her jacket bigger and use it as a parachute!

One rough landing and a number of bruises later, she vowed to have a real parachute installed in her hero costume.

Minoru Mineta staggered to a stop when the timer went off, unsteady from repeated high speed bouncing against his Pop-Off grapes.

The path to redemption was not an easy one, but he would not fail for lack of effort. Minoru would fight All Might himself for the chance of a single approving comment from his Goddess; not that he was owed anything at all. 

If She felt the path of a Hero was one that was worth Her time, then such was the greatest metric of Minoru’s worth; if his entire life’s work could be compared to but a minute of Her efforts, then he would consider himself very blessed indeed.

 Speaking of his Goddess, was that her in the distance? She was in 1B, right? What could She be doing here– not that it was his place to question Her.

“Ah! Izuku, Mei!” Her divine voice rang out across the field. “We finished unpacking, so I brought some people from 1B over to check out what you’re all doing over here. Is that okay?”

Aizawa glanced over Her for a moment before shrugging. “Do whatever you want, you’re not in my class.”

Cheers rang out from the small group approaching.

Minoru nodded wisely. Clearly, he was not alone in his knowledge that his Goddess was the source of all good in this world.

Izuku glanced over to Momo. “Oh, hey. We’re almost done with the side-stepping test, next up is upper body training.”

She nodded. “Have you seen any interesting Quirks so far?”

He grinned gleefully. “Have I ever ? Setsuna can chop herself up and fly! Sero’s elbows are tape dispensers! Kendo can make her hands three times bigger than her entire body and I’m pretty sure the mechanic is some kind of relative spatial distortion because she can still move like they aren’t! Every single Quirk here is insane!”

A brown-haired girl with pink cheeks leaned in towards him. “Wow, you sure know your stuff, huh? I’m Uraraka Ochako, from 1B!” She stuck out a hand.

Izuku shook it nervously. “Uh, Izuku Midoriya, 1A. Pleasure to-” He blinked and looked down at the ground. “Did you just remove my gravity?”

She grinned. “Yep.”

He stared at her. “Have you considered selling your services to a space program?”

She blinked. “Can’t say I have. My limit is one or two tons, would I be able to charge much?”

He frowned and did some research internally. “It, uh, takes over a million yen per pound of payload to send things to orbit with a rocket. You can do 1 ton without the rocket.”

Her eyes shone. “I think I have some calls to make.”

Momo put a hand on Uraraka’s shoulder. “Socializing now, revolutionizing the space industry later.”

“But… a million yen per pound, ” whined Uraraka.

“You also don’t have a Commercial Quirk License,” pointed out Izuku. “At least, I assume you don’t. I don’t think they’re hard to get, but you do have to be a legal adult.”

Uraraka frowned and tapped her chin. “Well–”

Another hand was placed on Uraraka’s other shoulder, this one belonging to… a frog girl? “Please don’t get involved in illegal space programs. We’re supposed to be Heroes, kero.”

Uraraka pouted but acquiesced. “I’ll just have to wait, then.”

Izuku turned back towards the tests, where Aoyama struggled to perform a full pull-up. He looked down at the ground, swung backwards, and fired his navel laser downwards to push his chin above the bar.

Uraraka nodded respectfully. “Relatable. I mean, if I had to do it I’d just nullify my gravity and do as many as I could before I hurled, but still a mood.”

Hitoshi Shinso watched as the tests slipped by, one by one, with him getting nothing but subpar scores. He knew a lot of the classes’ Quirks, but none of them seemed like the ‘instant win’ option he was looking for. The best choices he had for the softball throw were… Midoriya, Bakugo, and Tokoyami.

Tokoyami’s Quirk was actually a sapient entity and Hitoshi didn’t know if he’d be able to control it by just controlling the host, and… well, he wanted to live long enough to enjoy having made it into the Hero Course, so the less said about Bakugo the better.

Which meant his only real option was Midoriya.

So as his name was called, Hitoshi wandered over to him.

“Hey, Midoriya.”

Midoriya looked over at him. “Yeah?”

Hitoshi steeled himself to destroy any chance at friendship with this classmate, before speaking once more. He already had the perfect question prepared; one that nobody could resist responding to even if they didn’t actually answer it. “Are you gay?”

Midoriya tilted his head in confusion. “No?”

Hitoshi stared blankly. It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? Maybe he had to try again?

“Are you sure?”

Midoriya blinked. “Pretty sure. I haven’t, like, tried it, but I don’t exactly, uh, have the requisite equipment.”

“Yet,” chimed in Hatsume.

“Yet,” agreed Midoriya. “Wait a second. Mei, no! Never! I’m not gonna be a sex robot!”

“Never say never,” teased the brown-haired girl from 1B standing nearby.

Aizawa cleared his throat. “Shinso, if you’re done propositioning your classmates, I’ve been calling you up for the ball throw for the past minute.”

What the hell. Why didn’t it work? What was he supposed to do now?

He slowly walked up to the ball throw zone like a man approaching the gallows. His master plan was shot, and nobody was gonna answer his questions now … maybe just cut his losses and use it on the endurance run test? No, that’d bring their scores down, he couldn’t do that just to bring himself up. He had to use his Quirk here, if at all.

Hitoshi picked up the ball. And he had an idea.

Izuku’s eyes focused on Shinso as he held the ball. He was one of two people who hadn’t used their Quirks so far, and Izuku was really looking forward to finding out what it was.

Unless he was Quirkless? Not impossible, but also not probable. Especially given the smirk that was spreading across Shinso’s face.

He looked at the ball in his hand, then back up in the direction he was supposed to throw. “I guess it’s time to use my Quirk, huh.” He turned to the crowd of waiting students. “You guys might wanna step back… this one’s a real doozy.”

The crowd obliged, moving away from the circle. Excitement permeated the atmosphere; what the heck was about to happen?

Shinso dropped into a dramatic throwing stance. “Alright, get ready!”

Izuku leaned forwards almost subconsciously. What kind of Quirk required that much warning? How much raw power did Shinsou hold within him?

Shinso’s body twisted, and his arm whipped forwards. The ball flew through the air for one glorious moment, before landing.

“43 meters,” read Aizawa.

Shinso looked at the ball on the ground a measly 43 meters away from him and rubbed the back of his head. “Whoops. Forgot to use it.” He turned back to Aizawa. “Can I try again?”

Their teacher blinked. “What? No. Get off the field so I can finish these tests and then expel you-”

And then Aizawa froze.

Shinso sauntered up to him and plucked the tablet from his fingers. “Alright, let’s fix these scores. 50m dash? 0.0001 second. Standing long jump? 400 miles. Side stepping? I did 99999999999 of those. Pull ups? Same. Grip strength? 500 tons. Toe touch? Let’s say 400 miles again. Softball throw? 800 miles. And let’s go ahead and say I’m gonna do 10 thousand laps on the endurance run.”

He set the tablet back in Aizawa’s hands and turned back to the rest of the class, grinning wildly.

“Oh, I get it!” said Uraraka, slapping her fist into her palm.

Izuku nodded. The real reason Shinsou had been asking him those question was-

“He was hitting on you!” concluded the pink-cheeked girl.

Shinso facepalmed.

Aizawa cleared his throat and looked out at his class. “Well, the results have been compiled.”

Izuku leaned forwards expectantly.

Aizawa continued. “Hitoshi Shinso got first place, and that tells you all you need to know about the validity of these results. I am now deleting these from my computer, and we are never doing this again.”

Various groans and boos rang out.

Aizawa looked down at his tablet. “That being said, will Shoto Todoroki step forwards?”

The two-toned boy moved to the front, a bored expression on his face. “Yes, sensei?”

Aizawa frowned. “I have your Quirk on record as “Half-Cold, Half-Hot. Why did you only use half of that today?”

Todoroki stared back stonily. “I swore an oath to never use that fire.”

Aizawa nodded sarcastically. “I see. Was there a reason for that?”

Todoroki blinked. “Yes.”

Aizawa crossed his arms. After a moment of waiting, he raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

Todoroki tilted his head. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, sensei .”

Aizawa leaned forwards. “Interesting. See, as the homeroom teacher of a Hero Course , the circumstances of one of my students not using their Quirk kind of is my business. However, I can make it not my business. Would you like me to do that, Todoroki?”

Todoroki smirked lightly. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

Aizawa smiled. Pleasantly . “Good to hear. Pack up your bags and scram.”

Todoroki balked. “Come again?”

Aizawa’s smile turned sadistic. “You heard me. I don’t have time to teach brats who think they can half-ass UA’s Hero Course just because they’re the son of the Number 2 Hero. You’re expelled. Buzz off.”

He turned to the rest of the class. “This is why I didn’t let you unpack earlier. At this point, I’m fairly confident the rest of you aren’t going to completely waste my time, so we can continue this tomorrow. You’re all dismissed.”

Wait a second, Todoroki was the son of Endeavor ?

Wait a second, Aizawa just expelled the son of Endeavor?!?!?!??!

Mei raised her eyebrows and wiped her forehead. “Damn, Zuzu, your homeroom teacher is intense .”

Chapter Text

SNUGGERY (n): a comfortable or cozy room

Izuku and Mei followed the quiet walk back to the 1A dorm building. Everyone was still processing the fact that they were down a classmate a week before the school year actually started, he figured.

Kaminari sighed. “Dude, I am so beat. I wanna go to bed. What time is it?”

Well, Izuku could help with that . “11:52 AM.”

He groaned. “Not even noon? What the hell.”

Kendo raised a finger. “We also still have to unpack. Hey, maybe after dinner we can have a sort of get together kind of thing? We’re probably gonna be together for at least the rest of the school year, so-”

She cut herself off as the temperature dropped suddenly.

Oh, right. It was just super awkward because Todoroki was still there. He still had to pick up his stuff from the dorm building where he left it.

Kaibara Sen stretched his arms out and picked up the conversation obliviously. “Eh, I’m with Kaminari here, that was kind of intense. Is this how all our Hero Classes will be? Because that’s going to-”

Iida interrupted him. “Kaibara! Please end this line of conversation! It is extremely insensitive to Todoroki, who will no longer be in the Hero Course with us!” He gasped and turned to Todoroki. “I apologize! I said that unthinkingly, not considering how it might affect your feelings to hear it said so plainly!”

Todoroki glared balefully at both of them.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” grumbled Kacchan. “If you extras don’t shut the hell up about ‘feelings’ I’m gonna hurl.”

Oh no.

Iida turned on him. “Bakugo! That is highly disrespectful and I will not stand for you trampling the emotions of our classmate!”

“Ex-classmate,” Kacchan reminded him smugly. “And it’s not my fault he got expelled. That’s on him. Dumbass should’ve actually tried.”

Todoroki opened his mouth angrily, but Kacchan cut him off.

“No, you listen to me. I know your type, prettyboy. You’re the kind of hero those second-rate schools like Ketsubutsu churn out. The kind with a strong Quirk and nothing else going for em.”

Kacchan stepped forwards. “Here’s a news flash, Thermostat: this is UA . Your choices were buck up or fuck off, and you picked the wrong one.”

“I can make it with just my ice,” Todoroki bit out. “It’s strong enough- I’m strong enough!”

Bakugo barked out a derisive laugh. “Do you even hear yourself? ‘Strong enough’... that’s the dumbest shit I’ve heard come out of a human mouth, and I grew up with Deku .”

“Hey,” protested Izuku weakly.

Todoroki’s fists clenched as Kacchan’s finger jabbed his chest. “I could kick your ass eight ways to Sunday right now and I’m still gonna get stronger. Getting stronger is the point of being here , you fucking peppermint! If you think you’re already ‘strong enough’ then you’re wasting our goddamn air just by breathing.”

“Very well,” said Todoroki coldly. “I won’t trouble you any longer.”

Their ex-classmate turned on his heel and stormed off, leaving frosted footsteps in his wake.

“Wow,” mumbled Tokage. “You’ve got such a way with words.”

Kaminari threw himself onto the nearest couch and sighed blissfully. “Alright guys, this is it for me. If I do not return, know that I fought bravely.”

Jirou poked at him with her earjacks. “It’s, like, noon. How long do you plan to sleep?”

Kaminari shrugged. “You don’t really plan naps. It just happens however it happens, y’know?”

Tokoyami nodded seriously from the next couch over. “The night is indeed a fickle mistress.”

Jirou began massaging her temples. “Did you miss the part where I said it’s literally noon?”

Iida frowned. “If you sleep for too long now, then you won’t be able to get a good night’s sleep tonight. The most efficient duration for a nap is 10-20 minutes, so please set an alarm within that range.”

Shinsou smirked. “See, I’ve figured out how to get past that problem. The trick is to drink some caffeine whenever you’re feeling tired, and then when you wanna fall asleep you just go cold turkey so the crash knocks you out. On that note, did anyone see a coffee maker in the kitchen or do I have to unpack my own?”

“Bruh,” was Kaminari’s only response.

While Iida ran over to lecture Shinsou on the dangers of caffeine dependency, Mei grabbed Izuku’s arm and dragged him to the elevator. Or rather, she tried to drag him and completely failed because metal is heavy, and he felt bad about it so he went with her.

“Oh! Midoriya!” Kirishima followed them into the elevator just before the doors closed. “I was actually wondering, what’s up with your Quirk? Last time I brought it up I think you got distracted by mine. You’ve got some kind of mutant-type, right?”

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and tried to formulate a response that was both honest and avoidant of the fact that he literally died, but stopped as Mei slapped his back.

“HA! You think you need a Quirk to become a kickass robot? That’s quitter talk. All you need is two things: an awesome genius inventor (me), and to fucking die.”

Ah. So they were actually going to come out and say it, huh.

Kirishima blinked. “Come again?”

Mei cackled and pointed at him. “That’s right, sharkboy! I, Mei Hatsume, designed and built this absolute wonder of technology you see before you! These hands have wrought what is surely the cutest baby the world will ever know-”

“Not that,” interrupted Kirishima. “I could have sworn I heard you say something about dying?”

“Oh. I mean, you don’t technically have to, but it’d be really awkward for there to be two of you running around, so I can’t recommend it otherwise. Plus, if you don’t die you might be able to sue us for identity theft. I’m not sure though, I didn’t actually check.”

“Is it identity theft if it was consentual?” wondered Izuku aloud.

Kirishima crossed his arms. “Look, I’m not gonna let you distract me with your philosophy-”

“Law, actually,” corrected Izuku.

“Alright, law,” amended Kirishima. “But that’s not the point. Midoriya, did you die ?”

“Yes,” Izuku answered easily.

Kirishima stared at him. “How the hell are you so flippant about this?”

He shrugged. “Well, I guess I just got over it.”

Kirishima crouched down and massaged his temples. “He got over it ,” he mumbled to himself.

Izuku sighed. “See, this is why I didn’t want to bring it up. Yeah, I died, rebar through the gut, bled out. It happens! And even if I am dead, I’m still here, so- well, I’m not gonna say it doesn’t matter , because it does, but it’s fine! I’m here, I’m- well, maybe not alive but present and participating, and I probably wouldn’t be if that hadn’t happened.”

He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, that didn’t really make sense, did it? I guess what I’m trying to say is… don’t think too hard about it? Or rather, don’t worry about it.”

“Hakuna Matata,” agreed Mei wisely.

“Okay,” said Kirishima weakly. “Okay. I think I just need a minute.”

Izuku nodded. The elevator stopped at their floor with a pleasant ding, and he led Mei out to give Kirishima some space.

“So,” began Izuku, steering Mei down the hallway. “Let's get a look at that room. Gotta figure out where the maintenance pod goes before we start building it, yeah?”

Mei frowned. “Was that how you really feel, Izuku?”

Izuku raised his eyebrows. The last time Mei had called him by his actual name had been… what, years ago? He honestly hadn’t thought she’d remembered it. He chose to ignore it and instead pointed at a door. “Hey, this one’s my room. Let’s check it out.”

She followed him in, and closed the door behind her. “Izuku.”

He put his hands on his hips and looked around the room. “Alright, this is pretty big. I’m thinking the pod can go in that corner, and we push the bed over to make room for the workbench…”

“ Talk to me, Izuku .”

He glanced at her. She was… standing still. No tools in her hands, no tapping foot. Her goggles were up, out of her face. Her eyes were clear, and focused on him- on his face, not his servos and motors and plating. Her eyebrows were furrowed in that way that meant she had no idea how to tackle the problem in front of her but was going to do her best anyway. 

This… this was Mei . Not the genius inventor, not the menace to society, just the girl that had stood by him for years.

He sat down on the bed and sighed. “What I said to Kirishima… wasn’t a lie , exactly. It’s how I’ve decided to feel about it. It’s just that my actual feelings haven’t actually gotten the memo, you know? And I figured if I just went along with everything and didn’t think about it too hard everything would be fine. And it is! It’s working! I’m okay, everything’s okay- no, better than okay. I should be happy, right? But… things wouldn’t be this easy if I was still the real Izuku, the human Izuku, with blood and bones and lungs and meat but no Quirk.”

The corners of Mei’s mouth lowered. “You don’t think you’re the ‘real’ Izuku? You don’t think you’re human anymore?”

“I don’t know. Here, let me put it this way.” He laid back on the bed and held an arm out in front of him. “This arm… doesn’t feel cold. It doesn’t feel warm, either. I can tell you the exact temperature of any given point on it, but I can’t feel it. I can’t smell, I can’t taste, I can’t feel the ground under my feet or a pen in my hand or the sun on my skin or anything . It’s all… numbers and letters and words. Awareness, but without sensation.”

“And that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Izuku assured Mei. “I’m just wondering if this was the only way. If, to get here, I was always going to have to stop being a fleshy, vulnerable Deku and hide myself behind unfeeling metal.”

Mei crossed her arms. “You’re not hiding. And you were never a ‘Deku,’ Bakugo’s just a twat.”

He glanced down at her. “Aren’t I, though? I’m always consciously controlling my facial expressions and body language. Always slowing down my speech so others can understand, or stopping it entirely when I just want to think. I’m only showing what I want to show, pretending to be the person I’ve wanted to be.”

Mei looked down and tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, haven’t you been trying to do that literally your entire life? I think the difference is just that you’re actually succeeding at it now.”

Wow. Okay. Ouch. He hadn’t gone into this conversation expecting to be attacked like that, but… it did actually help, somehow?

Izuku stared up at the ceiling. “Mei?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”

He grinned. “Never change.”

Shoto Todoroki closed his eyes and pressed the contact his thumb had been hovering over for the past five minutes. It rang once before connecting.

“Shoto.”

He grit his teeth. “Father. I… have been expelled from the Hero Course.” He braced himself for smug victory. For derision. For condescension.

“What? But that didn’t- hm. Okay. We can work with this.”

What?

“If I remember correctly,” Endeavor’s voice (and Shoto was having doubts that it really was that man on the other end now) continued, “they’ll let people from other programs into the Hero Course if they do well enough in the Sports Festival. So you can ask Nezu to put you in General Education and work your way back into the Hero Course from there. Unless you want to go to Shiketsu instead? That’s another option.”

Seriously considering a school that wasn’t UA? Definitely out of character… how could he determine for certain whether or not he was talking to his father?

Shoto frowned. “I’m still not using your fire.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I… hm. I believe that your refusal is a mistake, but I respect your right to make that decision?”

Oh, yeah, there absolutely no way it really was Endeavor that he was talking to. Perhaps the Number 2 Hero was on a top secret mission and had left a body double to hide the fact that he was gone?

But then again, the HPSC body doubles were usually better at impersonating the man, so...

Shoto Todoroki considered calling the police. For a very short moment.

“This conversation has been far more helpful than I thought it would be. Thank you.”

“I’m glad,” came the reply. And it sounded honest . “Good luck getting back into the Hero Course, son.”

Shoto nodded once, ignoring the fact that he wasn’t on a video call, and hung up.

That was probably the nicest villain he’d ever talked to. If the police came by investigating the murder and subsequent impersonation of the Flame Hero: Endeavor, Shoto would tell them he had simply believed his father had turned over a new leaf. It was the least he could do.

Izuku stared up at the open back of Momo’s freighter truck thoughtfully. “So, how are we going to do this?”

“Well,” began Momo, “I already got all my things unloaded, so I figured we would get all Mei’s stuff into the 1-H building and then worry about yours?”

He looked over the many, many crates and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Most of this is hers, anyways.”

Mei climbed up on top of a crate, duffel bag slung across her shoulders, and indicated a few other boxes. “Alright, we’ll need this one, and that one, and those other two over there.”

Momo snapped her fingers loudly, and without a word Rico bent down and, using his Quirk to make two of himself, lifted the box Mei stood on.

Izuku stroked his chin. “D’ya think Heights Alliance is forklift accessible?”

“I mean, maybe?,” replied Mei, heedless of the crate she was still on top of moving closer to the dorm and further from everyone else. “It seems like the kind of thing UA would do. They’re extra like that.”

“Yeah, but they’re usually extra in a different direction. Do you remember what dimensions you can fit a forklift through?”

Momo frowned. “The dimensions that you can fit a forklift through, and the dimensions you should fit a forklift through, are two very different sets of numbers.”

Izuku crossed his arms. “I know what I said.”

“Gimme half an hour with the forklift beforehand, and I can make it fit through any size doorway,” shouted Mei from halfway down the street. “Mostly by having it make the doorway bigger. Also, what are you guys doing? Hurry up!”

Izuku and Momo glanced at each other for a moment, before lifting up another crate between them and hurrying on after Rico.

“Yeah, so, to make sure the Support Course actually gets sleep I’ve actually banned bringing in your own tools and materials,” explained Power Loader, who was waiting by the door to 1-H and also apparently Mei’s homeroom teacher. “I don’t really expect it to come up too much but if you’ve got anything stronger than a screwdriver, send it back home.”

“Ah,” said Momo faintly. “That might be a problem.”

 “Um. How much of that is tools and materials?” asked Power Loader tentatively as a scowling Mei climbed down from her crate.

Izuku pointed to her duffel bag.

The teacher frowned. “A whole bag?”

Izuku shook his head. “That’s the only thing that isn’t.”

Power Loader glanced over at the four people carrying crates (two of whom were the same person), then back at Mei’s bag, before sighing deeply. “This is going to be a hell of a year, isn’t it.”

Mei, rather than actually move to bring her bag inside, instead simply let out a piercing whistle.

Izuku blinked as a pair of short, cylindrical drones wheeled out of the 1-H building and up to Mei. Now hold on, those were the self-replicating utility robots she’d made for her emergency support course exam, weren’t they?

She crouched down and patted one on the top of its… top? “Oooooh, who’s a good robot? You are! Such a good robot.” It beeped happily, and its companion moved forwards and nudged her bag. She grinned. “Oh? You wanna help me unpack? Okay!”

Panels along the sides of the utility drones slid open, releasing spindly arms that relieved Mei of her bag and carried it into the building. She dusted her hands off, like she had done any amount of work at all whatsoever, and looked back at everyone. “Well, that’s everything I’m allowed to bring in.”

Izuku looked down at the crate he and Momo were carrying and frowned. “Well, what do we do with these, then?”

When they failed to respond, he looked back up to find all of them, even both Ricos, looking directly at him.

“Oh no,” he said.

Izuku looked at the crates of stuff piled high in his new dorm room and crossed his arms. “Why does it have to be my room?” he asked to the world at large.

Momo answered. “Because it had to be someone’s, and you’re used to dealing with Mei.”

“Well, yeah,” he acknowledged, “but what am I supposed to do with all my All Might merch now? There’s no space left for any of it!”

“You can set up your All Might shrine in the closet,” called out Mei as she bolted the workbench back together. “It’s not like you’ll be putting that much clothes in there.”

He threw his hands in the air. “If I put the shrine in the closet then how am I supposed to keep my hoodies organized?!?!”

Momo side eyed him. “You actually have an All Might shrine?”

Izuku shrugged. “I mean, the fact that the Japanese government still exists and has power is arguably one gigantic All Might shrine, so what’s a couple posters, pictures, and action figures arranged tastefully around All Might-themed scented candles compared to that?”

“Creepy,” answered Mei. “It’s creepy, is what it is.”

Momo raised a hand. “Um, forgive me for my ignorance, but I just have to ask… what kind of scents would an All Might themed candle have? Hairspray and spandex?”

“Well, the series I have is modelled after his most famous Smash attacks, each candle is a carefully composed scent profile for whatever American city or state he named the attacks after-”

Mei pinched the bridge of her nose and cut him off. “Yeah, cool concept until you light a ‘Detroit Smash’ and the room smells like car exhaust, motor oil, and fryer grease. If I want to experience pollution I can just make some myself.”

Izuku crossed his arms. “I’m feeling very attacked right now, Mei. You come into my dorm, take up all my space, and insult my scented candles…”

Mei and Momo stared at him for a second.

Eventually, the latter spoke up.  “Are you going to finish that sentence?”

Izuku frowned. “Well, the point was for me trailing off to imply that I am incredibly upset, and by not specifying anything else I was also bringing in the instinctual human fear of the unknown to add to the threatening aura.”

Mei blinked. “There was a threatening aura? Must’ve missed the memo.”

He sighed. “Mei, I am incredibly close to just putting all your stuff somewhere else and making it the UA faculty’s problem instead of mine. Don’t think I won’t.”

“You won’t,” she declared confidently, without even looking at him.

He slumped over. “Yeah, I won’t. Where did you wanna put the maintenance pod, by the way? That one is kind of important.”

Mei shrugged. “I dunno, not my room.”

Izuku nodded slowly. “I see. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go scream into the infinite void in my datascape for a few hours. Let HERoS know if you need me for anything.”

“Will do,” Mei flashed him a thumbs up.

“That does not seem like a healthy coping mechanism,” commented Momo as Corpus Primus 2 stood perfectly still.

“Seems about right to me,” replied Mei from under the workbench. “Sometimes a fella’s just gotta scream.”

“Hmmm,” said Momo wisely. “Have you considered that that might say more about you than it does about general human psychology?”

“No.”

Chapter Text

ASSIDUITY (adj): constant or close application or effort

At precisely 6:30 AM, the fire alarm went off.

It went about as well as could be expected, given the fact that it was everyone’s first night in the building and nobody was really conscious enough to be held responsible for their decisions.

Immediately after it started, there was a deafening thundercrack coming from what Izuku later realized was Kaminari’s room, followed by the power going out. There were screams, slamming doors, and what sounded suspiciously like a very large very angry cat let loose in a room full of swords.

Izuku sighed and began to disentangle Mei’s unconscious body from the half-built maintenance pod; the girl slept like a rock whenever she actually went out.

Somewhere above him, a series of small explosions and the sound of shattering glass denoted Kacchan making it out of the building. A faint “Great Idea!” rang out, followed by another shattered window. That one was probably Kirishima.

Izuku glanced idly to the side as Sero Hanta rappelled down past his balcony using his tape as rope. He threw Mei’s finally-freed body over his shoulder and made his way down the hallway.

A door burst open, releasing a whirling mass of inky darkness, screaming and roaring and altogether refusing the accompanying pleas to “Control yourself, Dark Shadow! This is not the time!”

Izuku’s eyescreens switched to their flashlight configuration, bathing the hallway in an eerie greenish glow.

Tokoyami sighed in relief as the writhing darkness receded into his feathers. “Thank you, Midoriya.”

Izuku shrugged and continued on his way down, taking the stairs since the power was out.

On the ground floor, he ran into a mostly conscious Kendo leading a line of mostly-unconscious girls to the exit.

Falling into step behind them, he finally made his way outside.

Iida stood in the center of the lawn, still in his pajamas, sternly lecturing an unrepentant Bakugo and a somewhat embarrassed Kirishima. Shinsou, laying on the grass, looked up from his phone to give the rest of the class a smirk laden with the raw smugness of someone who hadn’t even gone to sleep in the first place.

The girls filed over silently. After a moment of unsteady standing, they collapsed gracelessly into a large pile- save for one. Yui Kodai placed a small object on the ground and released her Quirk, restoring her own bed to full size in the front lawn of Heights Alliance.

She slipped under the blankets, pulled down a sleeping mask, and… just went back to sleep, apparently. What a power move.

After a few minutes of waiting as the last few stragglers filed out of the building, the fire alarm shut off.

“So…” said Kaminari. “Does that mean we’re allowed to go back in?”

Kacchan snorted. “Of course not, dipshit. When a fire alarm goes off, you have to wait for the fire department to come. What are you, suicidal?”

“I’m tired ,” Kaminari answered. “I just wanna go back to bed! It’s like 4 AM!”

“That won’t be happening anyway,” came Aizawa’s voice from the pleasantly arranged shrubberies that hugged the base of the dorm building. He stepped out from behind a bush that honestly didn’t feel big enough for anyone to hide behind- anyone except maybe Mineta. “Now that you’re all up, I figured we could get a nice head start on today’s activities.”

“After someone checks the dorms for a fire,” stated Kacchan. “That wasn’t a scheduled fire drill.”

“Oh, but it was,” said Aizawa. “It just wasn’t on your schedule.” He clapped his hands. “Alright, I want everyone in their gym uniform and waiting in the field by 7 AM.”

Ashido glanced at her phone and made a vaguely horrified sound. It was probably supposed to be a gasp, but she was still mostly asleep so it came out weird. “But it’s already 6:43!”

“Then you should probably hurry up.” their teacher said blandly.

Shinsou stood up and calmly meandered back into the building, followed by a significantly less calm and distinctly not meandering Kacchan. Iida and Kendo began to try to get everyone else up, and Izuku glanced at Mei, still asleep, still slung over his shoulder.

“I should probably get you into your room in 1H, huh?”

“Don’t bother,” said Aizawa. “She’ll be participating too.”

Izuku stared at his teacher, and then back at his unconscious best friend. “With all due respect, sir… I don’t think she’s waking up anytime soon.”

Aizawa looked at him despairingly, then over at the pile of students who were, despite Iida and Kendo’s best efforts, still asleep in the front lawn of the dorm. He sighed, then pulled out a walkie talkie. “EH to PM. You are cleared for Quirk use, I repeat you are cleared for Quirk use. Make it hurt. Over.”

EH? PM? EH could stand for Eraserhead, but whose hero name had the initials PM…? Oh. Oh shit. Aizawa quickly slipped on an incredibly sturdy-looking set of earmuffs and smiled . They’d only been in the same school as this man for a day and they already knew that that smile promised only pain.

A disgustingly cheerful voice roared to life with physical force, violently echoing inside Izuku’s chassis.

“GOOD MORNING, CLASS 1A!”

Izuku winced for a moment. Not because he was in pain, but because his microphone array was very expensive and he was not looking forward to asking Momo for replacements the literal first day on campus.

His classmates groaned and shifted, as if trying to escape the sonic bombardment quaking the very ground they lay on.

“I’M YOUR FAVORITE RADIO SHOW HOST, PRESENT MIC, HERE WITH A WEATHER FORECAST! TODAY YOU CAN LOOK FORWARDS TO A STEADY SHOWER OF SUFFERING, PUNCTUATED BY OCCASIONAL BURSTS OF RATIONALITY! BOY AM I GLAD I’M NOT IN YOUR CLASS THIS YEAR!”

[Resigned; 2 barometers and 57% of the microphone array are no longer functional. I will prepare a repair cost estimate to present to UA.]

But… they’d gotten them for almost free from Momo? They would just get replacements from her?

[Smug; Exactly.]

Yeah, HERoS was spending way too much time with Mei. Oh well.

“Jesus, Zuzu, turn down the radio,” came a faint grumbling from over his shoulder. “What time is it? Noon?”

“Time to put on a gym uniform and head out to the field,” Izuku responded nervously. “I don’t want to know what happens if we’re late.”

Aizawa nodded wisely. “You’re right, Midoriya. You don’t.”

Well, that was terrifying.

By 7 AM, the entire class had miraculously managed to stumble into their gym uniforms and make their way onto the field. Aizawa stood waiting for them next to an even taller stack of crates than had been there the previous day.

“That was a genuinely pathetic showing, everyone. Every morning until the start of classes, I expect all of you to be dressed and waiting for me here at this exact time, do you understand?”

He waited for everyone to nod before continuing. He began pacing in front of them. “Our first order of business is to- Kuroiro. What is that?”

Kuroiro blinked, then held up the paper plate he was eating from. “Midoriya’s leftover casserole, sir. I was hungry.”

The class held its breath as Aizawa squinted at him silently. After a moment, he nodded. “Very rational. Good work.”

Kuroiro gave a jaunty salute and went back to eating.

Ashido’s eyes widened and she raised a hand. “Aizawa-sensei! I didn’t have breakfast either, can I go back and have some too?”

Aizawa frowned. “Show of hands, who hasn’t had breakfast?”

Everyone except Izuku, Iida, Kacchan, and Shinsou raised their hands. Kendo flushed with embarrassment but raised hers as well.

Aizawa sighed and popped open one of the crate lids, sticking his arm into it and rummaging around. “It would be an irrational waste of time to let you go back now, but sustained strenuous exercise on an empty stomach would, arguably, be worse. Fortunately for you lot,” he pulled a handful of pouches out of the crate, “having emergency rations on hand is only rational.”

He distributed the pouches to everyone whose hand was raised, a sadistic grin growing as the recipients read the packaging with dismay.

Ashido smiled at hers. “Ooh, banana flavor!” She uncapped the pouch and brought it to her mouth, instantly freezing. After a single, slow swallow, she lowered it with a blank face. “I don’t think the people who made this have ever been in the same room as a banana.”

Kaminari stared down at his jelly pouch mournfully. “You know when you ask your mom to stop at McDonalds, and she says ‘we have food at home’? This is the food at home.”

“I dunno guys,” said the empty space that was wearing a UA gym uniform, “I kinda like ‘em. Like, I wanna know where I can order these.”

Everyone else who had gotten a jelly pouch turned to stare at Hagakure.

The uniform fidgeted. “Maybe I just got a better flavor? Lemme check.” The pouch was lifted, and the invisible girl choked. “ Bean flavor? I thought it was, like, cucumber or something!”

Kuroiro simply watched on smugly, still eating the casserole.

Aizawa cleared his throat. “If you’re done complaining about my emergency rations, we have work to do.”

He leaned against the stack of crates and continued. “For the next few days, we’re going to be working on your Quirks. While I’m sure you all know the gist of what you can do, most of you likely haven’t quantified exactly what your capabilities and limits are. I’ve read your Quirk registrations and have prepared the necessary equipment to test everything. Any questions?”

Iida raised a hand. “Sensei! Why is Miss Hatsume here with us? She isn’t on the roster, isn’t she supposed to be in the Support Course?”

Aizawa looked at Mei for a second, then massaged his temple. “Right. I didn’t explain that yesterday, did I? Everyone, this is Mei Hatsume, she’s going to be our class’s Support Auxiliary this year. What that means is that she’s a member of the Support Course but she’s with us for any practical lessons and activities. Officially , she’s here to observe us in action to better understand our Support needs. Unofficially, she’s one of four and a half people in this school qualified to even think about Midoriya’s insides and is here to make sure he doesn’t kill himself on a refrigerator magnet or something.”

“Well, excuse me ,” mumbled Izuku.

Kendo raised her hand. “Just in case she’s unavailable, who are the other three and a half?”

Aizawa sighed. “Midoriya himself, Yaoyorozu in 1B, Principal Nezu, and the half is Power Loader. Does anyone have a question relating to the actual activity?”

Izuku slowly raised his hand.

“What is it, Midoriya?”

He nervously wrung his hands. “What if, hypothetically speaking, I have actually quantified exactly what my capabilities and limits are?”

Aizawa looked down at his tablet, then back up at Izuku. “Send them to me, then go do push-ups over there,” he said, gesturing to a far corner of the field.

“Well, um. What if, hypothetically, you know… exercise did not work on me? Because I’m a robot?”

Aizawa gave him a dead-eyed stare. “Did I stutter?”

Izuku straightened up, almost involuntarily. “No, sir.”

Aizawa nodded slowly, then turned back to the rest of the class. “Alright. The rest of you, find the crate with your number on it and get started. If you don’t remember your number, I have the roster right here. Hatsume, you’re looking for the box marked ‘S.A.’.”

[Amused; I have compiled your specifications and sent them to your teacher. Let us engage in meaningless and repetitive physical exertion together, sir.]

Maybe later. Right now, Izuku had a mission . He detached his head and skittered down to the ground.

[Disappointed; I see how it is. Very well. I shall toil alone, silently, as is my duty. As I shall be doing forevermore, bereft of allies. You are lucky I am not equipped to feel loneliness.]

Hmmm. That one wasn’t from Mei. She wasn’t that good at poetry or psychological warfare- at least, never on purpose. Who else was HERoS talking to…? But never mind that, that was a question for later. Izuku’s eyes scanned over the rest of his class, searching for a suitable candidate-

A hand reached down and picked up his head by the plate-metal hair. Aizawa’s dull red eyes stared down into Izuku’s own impassively.

“Was there any part of ‘go do push-ups over there’ that you failed to understand? Did you fail to comprehend the lesson of yesterday's tests? I do not tolerate slackers in my class, Midoriya.”

Izuku’s eyescreens blinked. “I’m doing them, though?”

Aizawa looked over at the corner of the field, where Izuku’s headless body was indeed doing push-ups. He looked back down at Izuku’s head. “Very funny,” he said without a hint of humor in his voice. “What is it you’re doing over here, then?”

Izuku tapped the tips of his spider legs together nervously. “I just, um. Really like Quirk analysis. So I wanted to watch. And maybe ask questions.”

At the word ‘questions’, Aizawa froze. He got a distant look on his face, or perhaps simply thoughtful. It was hard to tell with the underground hero. “Ah, yes,” he said slowly. “You did have a lot of questions.”

Izuku would have nodded, if he weren’t being held by his head. “I promise I won’t disturb anyone! I just want to know things!”

Aizawa’s eyes drifted back down to the tablet in his other hand. From what Izuku could see of the screen, it looked like the specs on Corpus Primus 2 had been pulled up. His teacher mumbled something about supercomputers, intelligence Quirks, and ‘testing psychological resilience’ before shaking his head and smiling . “On the contrary, Midoriya,” he said, “I think your input will be incredibly valuable at this stage.”

Izuku stared up at his teacher, who placed him on his shoulder. “Are you sure? This is just a hobby, I’m not professionally trained or anything.”

Aizawa’s smile only sharpened. “Then it’ll be a learning experience for all of us. Now, what do you think about Aoyama’s Quirk?”

Two pages of notes and the Wikipedia article on light physics instantly came to the forefront of Izuku’s mindspace. A lighter, more wholesome mirror of his teacher’s evil grin appeared on his face. “Sensei? I am so glad you asked.”

Momo Yaoyorozu was having a calm, leisurely morning. She’d woken at 8:30 AM, had eaten a pleasant although admittedly very American breakfast prepared by one of her classmates- Tsunotori, she recalled- and was now slowly exploring the Heights Alliance building.

She stepped out onto the roof and was surprised to find one of her male classmates crouched at the edge, frantically writing in a notebook with one hand, using binoculars to peer out into the nearby sports field in the other.

“Ah… Monoma, was it?”

He glanced up at her, then held up a finger to his lips. He pulled her down next to him and whispered. “They have someone with a hearing Quirk, we have to be careful.”

Momo blinked. “Who does?” she asked, obligingly keeping her voice low.

Monoma grit his teeth and looked back over at the field. “ Class 1A ,” he spit out with surprising venom. “They’re up to something, I swear it.”

Momo Created her own binoculars and looked out over the field. The members of 1A seemed to be spread out across the field, each engaged in their own activities. Lets see… that was Kendo, doing single finger handstand pushups… that was Bakugo, who appeared to be fighting a barometer (the barometer seemed to be winning)... Izuku’s headless body was off doing push-ups in a corner of the field… Mei was standing at the opposite end, speaking into a walkie-talkie? Ah, there was an eye exam board moving steadily away from her.

“They appear to be testing their Quirks,” noted Momo.

“This is psychological warfare ,” insisted Monoma. “They’re doing this to show off. They’re as good as declaring they don’t need to keep their Quirks secret to win the Sports Festival!”

“Well, surely there are better ways to do that than training in the field at 10AM,” Momo reasoned.

“ They’ve been there since 7 ,” hissed Monoma.

“Really?” asked Momo. “That seems a little extreme.”

“They’ve already taken the Fire Department and Present Mic. What’s next? Will they attack our dorm and take it too? The support labs? The Business Course ?”

Momo blinked. “The Fire Department ?”

Monoma flipped back in his notebook. “At exactly 6:30 AM their fire alarm went off-”

“And woke you up,” said Momo understandingly.

“What? No.” said Monoma. “I was already watching them then. It was getting kind of boring, so I was glad when it happened. But then-”

“You were already watching them,” said Momo flatly. “Why? How long have you been up here?”

“I’ve been up here since 9 last night,” said Monoma offhandedly. “But you don’t understand! They’re planning something! Nobody else is keeping an eye on them, so the duty falls to us! I SHALL NOT ALLOW UA TO FALL TO THEIR DASTARDLY PLOTTING!”

“Hm,” said Momo, standing back up. “Well, good luck with your… stakeout?”

“ Espionage ,” Monoma clarified testily. “Intelligence gathering. The day they turn against us, I will be prepared to destroy them.”

“That’s worse, though,” said Momo. “You understand how that’s worse, right?”

“I will protect this school from the shadows,” said Monoma. “If I must taint myself with darkness to do so, then so be it. Thus is the path of a true hero.”

“ Hm ,” said Momo. “I think you might want to talk to Hound Dog about this. He’s the counselor, right?”

“Of course !” exclaimed Monoma. “I need to secure the neutral faculty members to our cause before those heathens can get to them! Thank you, Yaoyorozu! I will do so post haste!”

Momo hummed with some amusement and much concern as Monoma ran back into the building, leaving her alone on the roof. “This is going to be an interesting year,” she mumbled to herself.

“...and that’s why to really figure out how Yanagi’s Quirk works I think we’ll have to do a round of tests, have someone die right there, and then do the same round of tests again,” finished Izuku.

Aizawa nodded to himself and jotted something down on his tablet. “You understand why we can’t actually do that, right?”

Izuku’s head nodded sadly. “Yeah. Hey- do you think if we dug up my own body she could use my ghost? That could be fun.”

Aizawa turned to stare at him. “I hope you understand why we’re not doing that one.”

“It’s not grave-robbing if I’m giving someone my corpse,” insisted Izuku. “Or, I guess, ghost? If you’re still not sure we can try having her do a seance at my grave to see if my ghost agrees.”

Aizawa ran a hand down his face. “You know what? I don’t have the energy to explain why that’s bad. If you can convince Yanagi, your mother, Principal Nezu, the police chief of whatever precinct you’re buried in, whoever is in charge of the graveyard, and your ghost to let you do it, go for it.”

Izuku made a mental note to talk to all of those people. “I mean, odds are it doesn’t actually use ghosts, it’s more likely to be a mildly inefficient form of telekinesis that’s losing its energy by emitting interference across various wavelengths. But to know for sure, we need to confirm a ghost.”

“Would you look at that,” Aizawa said abruptly, raising his voice to address the entire class. “It’s noon. That means we’re done here. Go back to the dorms and do your blood rituals, or whatever it is teenagers do in their spare time.” He smirked then looked down at his tablet. “And get some rest. You’ll need it for tomorrow.”

The teacher lifted Izuku up off of his shoulder, hesitating for a moment before placing him gently onto Corpus Primus’ neck stump. HERoS re-socketed Izuku into the robot body just in time for Mei to bump up against him.

“Getting all buddy-buddy with the teacher, huh,” she teased. “Good idea; things will be way easier if they trust you to supervise me.”

He blinked. “Nah, he was just interested in my analysis. He said it’d be a learning experience for all of us?”

A few yards away, Kacchan paled and turned back to stare at their teacher. Strange.

“Weird,” said Mei. “Did he say anything else?”

Izuku shrugged. “He seemed pretty interested in the questions I had. I think he also mentioned something about getting me answers over the next few days? Not sure what that meant.”

Mei ran a hand down her face and sighed. “You were analyzing us while we worked, weren’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah? Why?”

She shook her head sadly. “He played you, Zuzu. He’s making our lives hell under the guise of Quirk training and you’ve been giving him ammo all day.”

Izuku froze and frantically thought back to the hours of analysis he’d dumped into his teacher’s ear. That couldn’t have been it. Aizawa just thought his analysis was interesting . It had nothing to do with… oh, who was he kidding, that was totally it.

“Whoops,” he mumbled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Ah well,” dismissed Mei. “It’s not like you gave him anything for me. You did all that analysis years ago.”

“Um,” said Izuku softly. “About that…”

Mei stared at him for a moment.

He scratched the back of his head nervously, looking anywhere but her. “There’s a sixty percent chance your eyeballs distort space to do what they do and I didn’t know what to do with that information.”

She sighed. “Damnit, Zuzu.”

Chapter Text

EXPATIATE (v): to move or wander about intellectually, imaginatively, etc., without restraint.

Class 1A sat nervously in their seats as the bell of the first day of classes rang out through the school.

They sat still and unmoving, eyes on the dull yellow sleeping bag laying against the front wall of the room. Their teacher was known well for his demands of punctuality and efficiency, and to see him lying there, to watch the wasted seconds tick away… something was wrong.

So they sat silently, anxiety building up in even their most stoic members.

Finally, Kaminari broke. “Should we, like, wake him up, or…?”

He was answered not by another classmate but by a ceiling panel sliding aside. A flash of black descended from the darkness of the space above, landing neatly on the sleeping bag and surveying the class with bloodshot eyes.

“Good,” said Aizawa. “He bought the decoy.”

“Who…?” asked Shinsou dubiously.

“Don’t ask. To speak his name invites his attention, and we only have so much time.” Their teacher pulled a small remote from his pocket and clicked it.

The back wall hissed and slid open, revealing 20 neatly numbered cases set into hidden compartments.

“These are your Hero Costumes, labeled by seat number. Take yours, and follow me at a distance of roughly 12 meters. Quietly .” His gaze swept across them, a grim look on his face. “We only have one shot at this.”

Anxious, confused, and desperately trying to be stealthy, Izuku snuck through the halls of UA alongside the rest of his class. Their teacher led them into a small janitor’s closet, only to pull back a wall panel and reveal a secret tunnel. They crawled and scooted and shimmied their way through, then waited for Aizawa to slip out of the wall vent on the other end and signal their path clear.

“Shouta… why are you using the secret passageways?” came the voice of Present Mic from the left of the vent.

Kendo’s hand snapped out to grab the back of Kirishima’s shirt before he tumbled out of the vent after their teacher. The redhead sent back a furtive thumbs up as thanks.

“I had to swing by Snipe’s office to pick up some paperwork while the kids went to the orientation speech,” lied their teacher without missing a beat.

Shinsou pulled his phone out of his pocket and, with a finger to his lips and an exaggerated wink at the rest of the class, hit the record button.

“Taking the hallways from your classroom to Snipe’s office is shorter than using that secret passage,” Present Mic responded flatly.

“I’m anticlaustrophobic,” said Eraserhead. “I feel more comfortable in tight spaces. The hallways here are just so tall, it’s hard to deal with sometimes.”

Jirou had to shove her fist halfway into Kaminari’s mouth to stop him from giggling.

“We have worked together for over twenty years and this is the first I’m hearing of it,” came Present Mic’s skeptical reply.

“You see this? This is why men’s mental health is so stigmatized,” Aizawa shot back quickly.

Jirou snorted at that, and Kaminari shoved his fist into her mouth in vengeance.

“I’m telling you something very deep and personal about myself and I’m met with nothing but dismissal and suspicion,” continued Eraserhead loudly. “You’ve hurt me deeply today, Hizashi. I’m going to sulk in front of this secret passage and give you the opportunity to get out of my line of sight before I call HR.”

Present Mic sighed. “As tempted as I am to call your bluff and make you call Hound Dog, I have my own class I really should be supervising right now. Just know that Nezu knows you’ve already done your little Apprehension Exam before school started, so you have no excuse to not be at his speech.”

“You’d be surprised at how resourceful I can be,” said Aizawa.

Present Mic coughed.

“And by that I mean I’ll be there,” their teacher haltingly continued, “because. I have a lot of resources. To get there. From where we are right now.”

Present Mic sighed again and slowly walked away.

“Okay, he’s gone,” whispered their teacher after a moment. “Come on, we’re almost out.”

“Should I get the next one?” asked Shinsou as he smoothly slipped out of the vent grate. “Because listening to that was kind of painful.”

Aizawa thought for a moment. “Good idea. You’re with me, everyone else keep your distance.”

With Shinsou and their teacher in the lead, the class wove a circuitous path through the halls, eventually finding themselves slipping past the Support Labs and into one of the engineering bays.

As the door shut behind Kaibara, the bay was plunged into complete darkness for a moment. Then, with a click and a surprisingly gentle hum, one of the vast garage doors rose to let the morning light into the room.

“Took you long enough, Sensei.” Mei called down from the roof of one of the many buses parked in the area. A small control panel rested in her hand, connected to a wire that dangled from the bay’s ceiling.

“We met some minor delays,” Aizawa admitted. “You’ve done your part?”

“And then some,” confirmed the inventor. She knocked on the roof of the bus twice, and the doors hissed open. Where one might have expected the steering wheel of the vehicle to rest, the upper portion of one of Mei’s utility drones jutted out instead.

“All aboard~” a rough, tinny voice called out from the console.

“Finished hot-wiring it in about fourteen seconds,” she continued. “Then I got bored and made some more comprehensive upgrades; next time you have a surprise spy mission for me, at least make it interesting.”

“Duly noted,” accepted their sensei. He turned to the rest of the class. “Get in.”

“I call the back seat~” Kaminari called out as he rushed up to the doors.

“Oh, no you don’t !” Kaibara flung himself into the bus after him.

“Let us not be hasty! We need to enter this vehicle in a calm and orderly manner,” shouted Iida as he took position by the door of the bus. “Now everyone please, form two single-file lines-”

Aizawa put a hand on Iida’s back and firmly guided him up into the bus next. “ Quickly, ” their teacher stressed.

After a hurried boarding, Izuku found himself in a seat towards the front, next to Jirou. She nodded silently at him, then turned to stare out the window with one earjack plugged into her phone.

Aizawa stood in the center aisle of the bus. His gaze flicked across each student, then he sighed. “Hatsume, you were included in the ‘get in’,” he called upwards.

Loud footsteps on the roof moved towards the front of the bus, before Mei swung in through the driver’s side window and into the associated seat. With a whispered word to her drone, the bus started up and began trundling out the garage bay.

Aizawa opened his mouth to begin talking, but was cut off by that same tinny voice.

“ Good morning passengers! This is your captain speaking. The time is 0912 AM. The weather is SUNNY, WITH A CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE AFTERNOON. We are expected to arrive at our destination in SEVENTEEN MINUTES, FORTY-TWO SECONDS, EIGHT MILLISECONDS.”

Aizawa turned to give a flat stare at Mei.

“ Please note that this vehicle has TWO emergency exits. Take a moment to locate the nearest exit to you. It is recommended to fasten your seatbelts at this time- ERROR: THIS VESSEL IS NOT EQUIPPED WITH SEATBELTS. PROJECTED CASUALTY RATE: 98%. It is recommended to fill out our personal injury waiver at this time- ”

Mei thumped the drone chassis in front of her. After a few seconds of garbled, fast-forwarded audio, it belted out a final “ Thank you for flying with HATSUME INDUSTRIES™”.

Aizawa let out a slow, bone-deep sigh before stepping back out into the central aisle, one hand up on the support bars. “Now, you kids might be wondering what’s going on right now.”

“We’re ditching orientation because you don’t want to go, right?” asked Kuroiro.

“We’re ‘ditching orientation’,” Aizawa quoted, “because the six hours of standing in a field listening to a speech could be better spent preparing you for the rest of your life.”

“Six hours?” asked Tokage disbelievingly. “No way orientation is six hours.”

“I had Mic time last year’s speech. Six hours on the dot,” their teacher confirmed.

“Principal Nezu is one of the greatest minds of our generation! Surely the wisdom he can impart on us would be worth the time?” asked Iida.

“Read the student handbook,” Aizawa deadpanned. “And you know what? That’s everyone’s homework. A three page book report on the student handbook. Due in a week.”

“Does that include Hatsume?” Shinsou asked helpfully.

“ Don’t make me turn this car around, ” threatened Mei.

“Yes,” Aizawa smirked.

The bus came to a stop outside one of the large, walled-in training sites that Izuku recognized from the entrance exam. SITE D, the massive letter stenciled on the walls declared.

“Alright, we’re here-” Aizawa began.

“ We have arrived at our destination, ” interrupted the bus. “ The time is: 0932 AM . My estimate was TWO MINUTES, EIGHTEEN SECONDS, SEVENTY-FOUR MILLISECONDS off. Please disembark so I may seek an honorable death. ”

Aizawa frowned and turned to Mei. “Is that something we have to worry about?”

Mei reached up into the mess of wiring that was the union of drone and vehicle. “It’ll be fine,” she said confidently. “We just have to make sure nobody leaves it on unsupervised from now on.” With a few yanked wires, the bus’ engine cut out. The speakers let out a final distorted “my blood must run in penance…” before falling silent.

“Sure,” accepted their teacher with almost inspiring grace. “Everyone off, before it wakes back up or something.”

Moments later, Aizawa led the group of teenagers towards the central gate of the training site. “Anyways. Over the past week, you’ve all been honing not only your Quirks, but your understanding of your Quirks.”

A few dirty glares were shot in Izuku’s direction. He winced and scratched at the back of his head.

Aizawa cleared his throat. “Today, we’re going to be taking a look at what that means in practice. I’ve prepared a few simple exercises that should build familiarity with Quirk usage in actual environments; we’ll be starting the year with the cityscape training sites, before moving on to more specialized areas.”

He stepped up to a small keypad by the gate and quickly punched in the code.

“Our first stop will be the on-site locker rooms,” he explained as the massive gate rumbled open. “We’ll meet up back at this gate to begin the first maneuver-” he cut himself off as he finally looked in through the gate.

Rather than the desolate cityscape Izuku was met with the last time he was here, the gate opened directly into a gigantic open-air auditorium, complete with seats packed with hundreds of UA students and a single massive screen behind the central stage; a screen that showed the smiling face of Principal Nezu.

“Ah! Class 1A, how kind of you to join us,” the principal’s squeaky voice blasted from dozens of loudspeakers. “We were just about to begin the orientation!”

“Ah,” said Eraserhead as he turned to face into the auditorium. The screen quickly swapped to a close-up of his own face, and he took a single step back. “Um. Yes. Thank you for, uh, waiting for us. We got… lost.”

“Indubitably,” agreed the principal. “Consider me impressed with the speed with which you made it here; I only sent you the updated location a few minutes ago.”

“Yes, well, um. Plus Ultra.” he eventually managed to force out.

“And in this case you truly have gone beyond,” Nezu nodded to himself, back on the screen. “It’s wonderful to see our faculty living up to the motto of this august institution. Now, if you could see your class seated in their designated spots, we may begin.”

“Hello! I am Nezu Nedzu, Principal of UA High School! Am I a mouse, a dog, or a bear? Regardless, I’m giving a speech! Now, now, where to begin? Well, nowhere but the beginning, I suppose!

“The year is 2072, and the planet is dying. The lands are ravaged by drought, storm, and floods on a scale never before seen. The seas are rising and the forests are dying and the skies above us begin to burn- only to be stymied by what is, frankly, a miracle.

“A baby in China is born with a brilliant glow; she is not the first child to be born with a Quirk, but she is the first of whom the world has taken notice. Over the next twenty years, children will awaken powers that had only previously lived in fiction-  and it is their actions that will breathe life back into a dying world.

“The Druid of The Amazon, who single-handedly restored the rainforests of South America. Glaiax, who re-froze Antarctica in a twelve-year campaign. Roaring Fjord, who struck down the Vile Bezos with a spear forged from the entirety of the Pacific Garbage Patch. Genesis, whose work you may still see by simply looking up, as the Skyfish we know today are the descendants of her efforts to purify the Great Chinese Smog Cloud.

“These are the people we remember as the First Generation of Heroes. These are people who saw a problem with the world and, with neither permission nor obligation, stepped up and said, “I can fix this.” And it is in their footsteps that we follow today.”

“There’s no way he has six hours of this,” mumbled Shinsou quietly.

“Don’t jinx it,” Jirou hissed back.

“Come now,” Iida said at full volume- before Setsuna’s detached hand clamped over his mouth. “This is important information that we need to pay attention to!” he continued with a muffled voice. “The principal of this school has taken the time out of his schedule to speak with us. If he is not owed our attention then he is at least owed our respect! Please take an example from Hagakure-san, who has been just as attentive as me this entire time.”

“Uhm, Iida-kun?” Mina whispered. “I think Hagakure is asleep.”

The class all turned to look at Hagakure. The seemingly empty uniform sagged against its chair unsteadily, slowly expanding and contracting with its occupant’s breath.

“I’m sure she simply has bad posture…” Iida attempted to convince himself.

Hagakure swayed, then fully slumped over, draping herself across her neighbor Kodai. Who was also asleep, apparently.

“I dunno why you guys are so upset,” Izuku said at 5% volume. “This is cool stuff.”

Iida nodded while everyone else within earshot turned to glare at him.

“...now deep in the throes of the Second Dark Age, Japan is reduced to an anarcho-feudalist state ruled by dozens of proto-villainous shogunoids- as I’m sure we all remember from History class. At this particular time, the nearest arbiters of true justice are the roving bands of vigilantes that eventually became the blueprints of our modern Hero system.

“Enter Umeida Asuka, one such vigilante known as Whisper.  Her Quirk was simple; it allowed her to speak into the ears of a certain number of people she’d touched before- at any distance. Deep in the forests of what we now know as Musutafu after a rescue gone bad, she found a vault. Clearly built before the Quirk Riots, fully self-sufficient and able to sustain hundreds of people.

“She found the safest place in Japan. And she shared the news.

“Vigilantes flocked to it in droves, refugees and loved ones in tow. Soon, hundreds took shelter within, and this quickly became the largest congregation of vigilantes Japan had ever seen. Nestled safely in the heart of the earth, these proto-heroes taught each other what they knew. Shared tactics and strategies and skills and information, practicing into the dead of the night.

“But the vault wouldn’t stay secret forever; so they made plans. And when the villains came for them, they were ready.”

Mei nudged Izuku’s side, and he quickly minimized the dozens of wikipedia articles open in his mind to look at what she was pointing at.

In the next section of seating over from them, Momo had a chessboard up on a small stand, and seemed to be playing against her neighbor Uraraka.

“Amused; Miss Yaoyorozu has checkmate in 28 moves,” HERoS commented quietly.

“See, look, even Miracle Girl is bored over there. She’s gaming , Zuzu,” complained Mei.

“Someone’s gaming?” Kaminari’s head twisted around fast enough to give him whiplash. “What are they playing?”

“Chess,” Mei spat out derisively.

“Hey,” protested Izuku. “Don’t diss chess. It’s a classic that can trace its roots to centuries before the Quirk Riots, and it’s survived that long for a reason.”

“Yeah,” mumbled Jirou from behind them, “because supervillains wont shut the fuck up about it.”

“Fuck you, you fucking spaghetti-earlobed ass motherfucker” said Bakugo, “Chess is awesome. I bet you just hate it ‘cuz you’re shit at it.”

Jirou glared at him. “Seriously? Talking shit about my mutations? What the hell are you, Quirkist?”

Bakugo glared back. “What the hell are you , chess-ist?”

“Ladies, ladies, you’re both pretty,” snarked Shinsou. “Now shut up and listen to the damn speech.”

Both Jirou and Bakugo immediately turned to glare at him. “Fuck you,” they said in unison.

“...by this point, the people of Vault had long since proven resilient to any traditional attacks, fending them off with clever stratagems and creative Quirk use. Unfortunately, the villains had learned from this.

“Over the next two months, an army of armies would muster at the gate of the Fortress of Vault, led by a villain remembered only as ‘The Butcher’. Despite the moniker, the Butcher was primarily a strategist; it was under his command that their forces split into dozens of specialized squads, each with complementary Quirks and individualized tactics.

“It is these methods that finally, truly turned the page on pre-Quirk military tactics and ushered in the age of Quirked Combat. But the Butcher’s most enduring innovation was something else entirely;

“A list of 10 names. 10 individuals, whose Quirks and methods meant that Vault would always stand strong. The ten heroes whose survival was utterly critical to the resistance, and whose deaths would irrevocably cripple its efforts.

“This list came to be known colloquially as ‘The Butcher’s Queue’, and it would last far beyond this final battle.

“For the first ten hours of the Last Battle of Vault, it was a threat. It served as a reminder, a promise, that our enemies knew what kept us safe and would peel away each layer of armor with cold, cruel precision.

“Over the following eight, it was a challenge. The Butcher himself, alongside 6 allied warlords, entered the fray. Blood flowed freely down his blade, and it was only the loss of the very arm that held it that forced his retreat- a blow that our defense paid dearly for.

“In the final five hours of the battle, it was almost a mania. Our opponents flung themselves into our weapons, willing to pay a hundred lives for a single name to be scratched off that list. It was, to their disappointment, an exchange that never came to fruition.

“And when, in a fit of desperation, the Butcher finally used his Quirk? When, lost to the depths of bestial rage, he feasted on fallen allies and enemies alike, and grew into a creature who dwarfed the Fortress’ highest towers?

“It was then that he discovered his folly. Because among the Heroes that struck him down stood one that had not been on his list. A woman he knew only as Whisper. Her Quirk could neither harm nor protect, and she had not stood on the battlefield even once.

“But she had stood vigil over the fight, watching from the top of the tallest tower. And her words had danced through the ears of all who stood against him, listing his habits and weaknesses with an intelligence as cold and clever as his own.

“And with the Butcher’s dying breaths, his Queue became a cry of rebellion. Seven warlords brought their armies to kill ten heroes, and not a single one had fallen. All of Vault’s safeguards stood tall through those blood-soaked twenty-three hours, felling villain and monster alike.

“Over the next hundred years, that list would be warped and reclaimed into our modern Hero Ranking Billboard; this is the legacy that each of our Top Ten carries with them.

“And Vault? It took the name of the watcher who guided its people through its greatest trial. Umeida Asuka, the First Principal of UA.”

“Huh,” said Shinsou quietly. “So she’s kinda like, the first Underground Hero?”

Izuku’s face twisted. “I don’t really think so? Just because before this point, all Heroes were Underground Heroes, since the dominant force in the country wanted to kill them? So I’d say those Ten were more like, the first Limelight Heroes?”

“Holy shit,” Kaminari whispered. “Shinsou, were you paying attention to all that? Are you some kind of nerd?”

Shinsou shrugged. “I got bored enough that I started paying attention. Congratulations, actually. You all are more boring than the orientation speech. I should get you guys trophies or something.”

“Hey!” protested Kaminari. “It just got really quiet once everyone else fell asleep! Setsuna left to go play chess with 1B,” he gestured to the eyeless, earless, and handless body sitting next to him, “Midoriya and Iida are both actually paying attention, and Hatsume keeps trying to siphon electricity from my Quirk!”

Izuku eyeballed her latest contraption and frowned. “I don’t think he emits an electrical field passively, Mei. You need to startle him into using his Quirk.”

“On it, Zuzu!” Mei grinned manically from beneath her goggles and began fishing through her pockets.

“Don’t help her ,” Kaminari whined. 

Chapter Text

BELLICOSE (adj): inclined or eager to fight

Class 1A sat nervously in their seats as the bell of the second day of classes rang out through the school.

They sat still and unmoving, eyes on the ceiling panel over the dull yellow sleeping bag laying against the front wall of the room; the memory of their teacher descending from it to land on the decoy fresh in their minds from the previous day.

“Rule one,” a caustic voice suddenly spoke from the back of the room, “always keep them guessing.” Their teacher paused to shake his head at the surprised yelp Ashido had let out, before stalking between desks to his place at the front of his room.

“Today is going to go… slightly differently,” said Eraserhead like he hadn’t just waited in a dark corner for half an hour just to jump-scare them, “because today, I’m going to be throwing all of you into the deep end.”

“Seems like more of the same to me,” snarked Shinsou under his breath.

Eraserhead simply arched an eyebrow. “Then you haven’t been paying attention. But you’ll understand soon enough.”

The class sat in silence for a moment.

“So… are we, like, waiting for something, or…?” Kaibara eventually asked.

Aizawa sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Consider this a lesson,” he told the class with words laden in exasperation. “Sometime in the future, should you last long enough to graduate, you will be forced to work with other Heroes. And sometimes, those heroes will not be punctual.”

The door slammed open with a small thundercrack.

“I AM HERE,” All Might shouted as he strode into the room, “COMING THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

The class erupted into cheers, but was quickly silenced by a glowing-red glare from Aizawa.

All Might simply laughed and slapped his coworker on the back. “No Need To Quell Their Enthusiasm, Eraserhead-San; I Simply Hope To See That Energy In Today’s Lesson! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Eraserhead put a hand on the Number One Pro Hero’s shoulder and turned him away from the students, leaning in close and speaking low enough that Izuku had to quickly retune his sensors to overhear. “...why are you talking like that? You sound psychotic.”

All Might paused for a moment, then smoothly swiveled back to face the class. “Moving on! Today, your first class of Foundational Heroics, will have you prove your mettle against one another in a…”

The Top Hero grinned and held up a small card with the word ‘BATTLE’ emblazoned in bold text. “BATTLE TRIAL!”

“Oh, now you’re talkin,” Bakugo grinned. “Whose head do I get to smash first?”

All Might looked at the blond boy with a deep, genuine concern in his eyes for a moment before shaking his head and laughing. “No Need To Get-” He coughed into a fist, then began again. “No need to get ahead of ourselves, young man! Before we can begin, you all need to get suited up! It’s an old adage that the clothes make the man, and that holds doubly true for Heroes!”

The costume cases emerged from the wall, and the class collectively ambled over towards them to grab their equipment.

Izuku, completely lacking anything to grab because he was his own hero suit, simply stood at the edge of the crowd to avoid looking out of place.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw All Might lean towards Eraserhead.

“Is- is my teacher voice actually that bad? I spent hours practicing that!”

Aizawa looked at the taller man seriously. “You sound like you’re some kind of space alien when you talk like that.”

The Number 1 Pro Hero simply sighed sadly.

All Might set his hands on his hips and proudly stood before the doors to Testing Field E. “Urban combat is serious business. Most villains you’ve probably heard of are the loud and proud sort; running through the streets, causing a ruckus for the sake of it. While a large part of the job is to put those types of villains down, I’ve seen more than my fair share of rookie Heroes get taken by surprise by the other kind; the intelligent kind.”

The doors to the training field slowly ground open, revealing… a torn-up, rundown city. Spiderweb cracks sprawled across the asphalt, chunks of concrete hung from the sides of buildings held up by naught but twisted rebar, and a few buildings seemed to have slumped against their neighbors.

Eraserhead clicked his tongue. “3B got here yesterday,” he grumbled to himself. “Snipe got to skip orientation to watch his class blow up a cityscape, but when I try to do that they move the auditorium halfway across campus?”

“Woah,” said Ashido. “This looks crazy dangerous.”

“That is quite the point, Young Ashido! This is the natural habitat of the intelligent villain; somewhere nobody in their right mind would go poking around in. But we are Heroes! It is our duty to do what most would balk at! It is the measure of a Hero to go where he is not wanted!” All Might threw his head back and laughed.

“I must say,” Iida spoke up with his characteristic arm chops, “I’m not sure how many such ruins one might find on patrol within Japan’s fine cities!”

Bakugo glared at Iida. “Fuckin’ Four-eyes. What the hell do you think happens in areas that can’t afford to repair damage from Villains? D’ya think the tooth fairy handles it? Go talk to a real person, asshole.”

All Might shook his head. “While I might not put it so crassly, Young Bakugo has the right of it. While the Hero Commission does its best to mitigate and repair damage done by villains, areas that are less fortunate tend to be, ah… further down in a very long queue. I do my best to chip in where I can but, well... despite much of my messaging, some things are not a job for just one man.”

The Hero nodded silently for a moment, then cleared his throat and made his way to a door that was more part of the wall than the city. “But enough about that! The most important thing to know is that it is places like these where intelligent Villains lurk; Villains in the older sense of the word! Dastardly ne’er-do-wells with a goal, and the lack of compunctions to see that goal done.”

The class filed into the room behind him to find a sort of command center, with monitors showing feeds from across the entire cityscape. One wall was dominated by a corkboard, with nonsense schematics, red string, and random maps from the… Kamino region, Izuku’s image recognition reported. With a pin in every cat cafe. It looked very impressive, though. Probably very detective-ey to someone who didn’t actually use corkboards regularly.

All Might slapped a hand against the wall next to one of the gibberish schematics. “You have received intelligence that there is a Villain duo concealing a bomb somewhere deep in the slums of Kamino. There is no time to assemble your team- the detonation is anticipated to be in no more than ten minutes after you get there. You will have to work with whoever you find en-route, but your support team has come up with a device that should disarm the weapon instantly; you only need to touch it.”

Shinsou raised his hand.

All Might pointed at him. “Yes, Young Shinsou?”

The purple-haired boy leaned up against a wall, hands shoved into the pockets of his jumpsuit. “...how much of UA’s budget is spent on props?”

“None, actually,” Aizawa cut in. “Midnight has the Art Club do all the work about it.”

“I made the bombs,” All Might declared proudly, gesturing towards the poorly paper-mache’d rockets piled in a corner of the rooms. The pile shifted, and one of them started ticking.

“Uh,” said Kendo. “Are those… actual bombs?”

All Might threw his head back and laughed. “Kendo, my girl, of course they are! What’s a training exercise without a little excitement!”

“...are we going to learn how to make bombs?” Kuroiro asked hopefully.

“Young Kuroiro…” All Might said slowly, “consider me impressed by your initiative! As you’ve already figured out, the first step of learning how to disarm a bomb is learning how to make a bomb- which is why Snipe is offering his Improvised Explosive Devices elective from second year onwards!”

The bomb started ticking faster.

All Might held up a hand to stall further questions, then picked up the ticking bomb with his other and hurled it out the control room window like a comically oversized and significantly less aerodynamic football.

The paper mache, torn to shreds by the jagged glass of the window, sailed gracelessly through the air for a moment before exploding into a brilliant pink fireball.

All Might threw his head back and laughed again. “Haha! That was a close one, I’ll say! Now gather ‘round, children! We’ll be choosing teams at random!”

And in the shadowed corners of the room, Aizawa grinned.

Izuku looked down at the other half of Team G.

Kyouka Jirou looked back up at him.

Izuku glanced away, then glanced back at her. “...would it be weird to ask if you want to jack into my aux port? I kinda really wanna see what would happen.”

Jirou’s face pinched slightly. “...I’m pretty sure that’s some, like, 8^th or 9^th level chaser shit right there. You wanna try that again?”

Izuku blinked blankly at her.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Hi, my name is Kyouka Jirou,” she said pointedly, extending a hand towards him.

Izuku’s eyes widened as he took it automatically. “Oh- oh my god- Um. Hi, my name is Izuku Midoriya, I’m so sorry, I just-”

“Don’t apologize,” she cut him off flatly. “Just do better. Anyways, my Quirk is ‘Earphone Jack,’ I have super hearing and can do sonic attacks with my support speakers,” she pointed down to her bulky boots that indeed had speakers built into them. “What’s your deal?” She waved at Izuku’s body vaguely.

“Not a Quirk, just a robot,” he said. “I’m, uh. Heavy, durable, kinda strong, am a supercomputer.”

She nodded slowly. “Metal…”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

She looked at him dubiously.

“I’m, uh…” he trailed off, then clinked his fingers against his chassis. “Metal.”

She slapped a palm against her forehead.

“Oi, Sensei!” Bakugo’s voice cut through the general chatter. “I think there’s been a mix-up! How the hell did I end up with dead weight?”

Hatsume threw her head back and cackled. “I was about to ask the same thing, Sparky!”

“Now, now,” All Might cut off Bakugo’s retort. “Since the, ah, unforeseen loss of Young Todoroki, we were left with an odd number of students. I was just going to make one team of three that had to go twice, but Aizawa here had the stunning insight to simply bring our Support Auxiliary into the fold! She did tie for first place in the Hero Course Entrance Exam, so any concerns about her ability to defend herself are unfounded, I assure you!”

Bakugo’s jaw worked angrily as he desperately tried to find a path forward in the conversation that didn’t involve him calling All Might a fucking idiot.

Mei grinned and slung an arm over his shoulder. “It’s alright, baby Bakugo. You’re partnered up with a real talent, here. There won’t be much for you to do, but don’t worry! I’ll teach you how to be as strong as me~”

Bakugo froze for a moment, then slowly turned his head to face the pink-loc’d inventress. “You wanna make like Deku and fucking eat it, you rancid fucking BITCH?”

Mei simply grinned wider and leaned her face in right up against his. “Oh? You gonna kill me?” she let out a single barking laugh. “You better fucking do it, then, cuz that’s the only way to shut me up~. Kill me dead, and show everyone what you really are, yeah?”

Bakugo’s palms crackled with small explosions, and Izuku tensed. In the corner of his eye, he saw Aizawa prepare to step in as well, but-

The crackles died out. Bakugo… didn’t exactly calm down but sort of… simmered down from the threat of a catastrophic meltdown. His head tilted slightly. “...what I really am, huh?”

“That’s right, Kacchan~,” Mei whispered into his ear. “Don’t go thinking I’ve forgotten the things you’ve done, now. I know what you are; nothing more than an unrepentant bully with an ego the size of the moon and delusions of grandeur so unfathomably vast that I want to check your home for lead pipes.”

Bakugo looked down at his hand, then over at Izuku, then finally back at Mei. He let out a single derisive snort. “The only thing I hate more than a waste of time is a fucking hypocrite. You’re looking for someone to be pissed off at? Look in a fucking mirror, dipshit.” He blinked, then grew a shit-eating grin. “...I guess I can see how you made that mistake, though. Looking at you right now… you’re just like me. When I was seven.”

Mei bared her teeth and clenched her fists, tensing up before pausing at Bakugo’s quirked eyebrow.

He leaned back in and clapped her shoulder. “Don’t dish it if you can’t take it, you piece of shit grease monkey. Now get your ass in gear so you don’t drag me down when the fight starts.” He stalked off to the corner of the room to lean moodily against the wall.

Izuku eyed him and the fuming Mei for a moment, before turning back to Jirou. “...I don’t know if I feel worse for them, or the people going up against them.”

All Might cleared his throat, cutting through the clamor. “Now that you’ve all had time to get to know one another, let us begin! For our first matchup,” he paused to spin a small lottery machine, which spat out a pair of marbles. He pinched them between his fingers and peered closely at them.

“Team G as the heroes, and Team D as the villains!” he eventually announced.

Izuku looked back up at the board that listed the teams. He knew the two of them were G, so...

Yeah. Yeah, Bakugo and Mei were Team D.

He looked back at Jirou with an expressionless face and nodded.

“Bruh,” she commiserated.

Izuku and Jirou stared apprehensively at the building they were expected to enter in roughly five minutes.

It did not stand proudly. It stood with great difficulty and even greater shame; nothing more than a crack-ridden, slightly lopsided mess propped up by the even-more-collapsed ruins on either side of it.

“...are we sure this is safe?” Izuku asked. “I mean- I, personally, will be fine. But everyone else is made of meat, I think.”

“Reassuring; The surveillance systems incorporated into the training field show records of Cementoss, Power Loader, and Principal Nezu ensuring that while these buildings appear dangerous, there are no structural instabilities that might threaten a life.”

Izuku tapped his fingers against his chin. “You know, those Quirks in conjunction could do that. That’s awesome.”

Jirou shot him a very strange look. “Uh… why does your AI have access to the surveillance system recordings?”

Izuku blinked. “That- that actually is a good question. HERoS, why?”

“Smug; Miss Hatsume is currently using me to hack into the surveillance system.”

A familiar voice cursed over his own speakers. “Ah, shit. I should have figured using the backend like this would go both ways, huh?”

Izuku tensed. “Mei, are you remoting into my systems for an advantage in an exercise in a class you’re not even taking?”

“Uh, yeah? It’s called winning, Zuzu. Anyways-” Izuku’s arm lifted up and started lightly slapping his face. “Why’re ya hitting yourself? Why’re ya hitting yourself? Why’re ya hitting yourself? Why’re ya-”

“Satisfied; I have revoked Miss Hatsume’s access for the duration of this exercise. Shall I do so for any similar situations in the future?”

Izuku nodded distantly. “Yeah… good idea…”

Jirou looked mildly ill. “...can she still hear us?”

“...no?” he half answered, pausing for a moment to give HERoS (or Mei) the opportunity to correct him. When that didn’t happen, he nodded to himself with growing confidence. “No. She can’t. HERoS locked her out and he’d be what she’d need to break back in anyways.”

Jirou nodded. “Cool. What’s the plan?”

“Here’s the plan, chickenshit. I’m gonna kill the shit out of Deku and Jackass, you guard the base.”

Mei snorted, elbow-deep in a half-crushed oven. “If you wanna play distraction, be my guest. Leave the strategy to those with the brain cells for it.”

“Haaaaaaaaahhh?” Bakugo’s palm sparkled with small detonations. “You got something better?”

She paused to give him a withering glare. “It’s always fight, kill, blow up, explode with you, isn’t it? I’m not sure you noticed, but this isn’t an arena. There is an objective. We have a built-in loss condition. We need to play to it.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Or, I guess I need to play to it? Yeah, yeah. Go play psycho killer on the ground floor, where you won’t get in my way. I’m going to actually win this thing.”

Bakugo stormed out of the room, and Mei’s lips quirked into a vicious smile.

Izuku paced slowly outside the ruined building. “Let’s see… You’re a sensory type auditory with a sonic attack medium- HERoS, you had the camera feeds?”

“Apologetic; Miss Hatsume’s device was the one with the connection to those systems. I did download the recordings of the past few days, though.”

“Good enough,” Izuku declared. “See if you can-”

> cross-referencing videos...
> constructing virtual environment...

Izuku’s eyescreens flickered to life, projecting a dim emerald hologram of the building they were set to enter. And if HERoS could-

> camera locations highlighted

A surprisingly high number of orange dots popped up on the map.

Jirou tilted her head. “Those are…?”

“Cameras.”

She sucked in air through her teeth. “That’s rough.”

“Nezu does good work, I guess… pretty much total coverage, no blind spots. She’ll see us coming, no matter what.”

The irises of Mei’s eyes whirred and clicked almost silently, refocusing on the distortions at the edges of her goggle lenses.

Carefully crafted microscreens worked into the rim of the goggles, difficult to notice and impossible to interpret- unless, of course, your eyes could spontaneously shift into a 30x focus and back. All Zuzu’s idea, a half-dozen years ago.

The computer at her hip and input mechanisms built into her gloves were all hers, though. She scrolled through rows and rows of text files, even as her hands worked the fistful of scraps she’d managed to gather. Her left eye drifted in a different direction, shifting focus down the ring of displays to watch Zuzu and… Joro, was it? They were making plans of their own, waiting for the prep time to be over.

Her right eye caught on the file she was looking for. That was it- the girl’s name was Jirou.

Mei Hatsume whistled jauntily to herself as she perused Zuzu’s notebook entry on the girl’s quirk.

Sensory auditory type? Earlobes extend into aux cables? The pink-loc’d tinkerer took a moment to wonder what would happen if she plugged those things into Zuzu’s aux port, then dismissed the thought and returned to the task at hand.

Weaknesses, weaknesses… sharp, loud noises? Especially when she has no time to prepare for them?

A dozen mechanisms drifted to the front of her mind, each one spiderwebbing out into hundreds of possible configurations. She discarded threads by the fistful- too delicate, too lethal, would take too much time to set up.

Her hands paused. How did the saying go? Work smarter, not harder?

...that could be fun.

Izuku’s hand twitched, as if reaching to write in a phantom notebook. “The smart play for her is to stay mobile, keep tabs on where we are and moving to avoid us. Good news is, she’s not quiet. You should be able to track her down no problem. Once you get to her, things will get interesting. She’s, uh. Actually kinda strong, physically speaking. She won’t have any of her dangerous gadgets on her but she has five minutes of prep time and a ruined house to cannibalize, so… keep your eyes open for anything that looks tampered with, I guess? And if she reaches for a pocket, duck and cover.”

Jirou hummed thoughtfully. “You keep saying ‘you’ and ‘her’, rather than ‘us’ and ‘them’. Are we splitting up?”

The corner of Izuku’s mouth quirked up. “...yeah, but not by choice. Bakugo is going to be coming straight for us right off the bat. I- I’d normally say me specifically, but I think he considers you a potential threat, judging from how he actually remembers your name.”

“I’m flattered,” she said dryly, then raised an eyebrow at him. “But why do you specifically have to handle him?”

Izuku held up a hand and wiggled his fingers, letting the whir of his servos begin his answer. “Bakugo’s Quirk is explosions. As in, he sweats nitroglycerin from his hands. It’s loud and it’s hot, and I have neither a sensitive hearing Quirk nor skin that can be burnt. And…”

He looked down at his hand, then clenched it into a fist. “I’ve been thinking that I might wanna be friends with him again. But before that can happen… I think I need to punch him in the face for a few things.”

And Jirou Kyouka shot him the first genuine grin he’d seen all day. “Metal~”