Danger First

What if the first quirk in One for All to activate wasn't the power stockpile, but Danger Sense?
Now with a TV Tropes page! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/DangerFirst

Notes:

For pocketramblr.

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Notes:

Edited for minor errors on 7/26/23.

Chapter Text

In the swirling darkness of an unreal landscape, a white haired man cackled as four ghosts watched on with varying levels of worry. Four ghosts, although there were eight present in total. Two of the others were off in a corner pouting, a third wasn't really conscious (or a ghost, but, technicalities) and the fourth was, well, the one laughing.

"You know," said the singular woman ghost, leaning towards the youngest-looking member or the group, "when I first got here, I couldn't see the resemblance, but now..."

The laughter cut off. "Why would you say something so cruel, Nana?" he asked. "I'm just excited for our new bearer. The Ninth."

"You didn't act this way for Eighth."

"Shut up, En."

"You didn't act this way for Nana, either," said an older man.

"Banjo. How could you say that? I was thrilled when we were passed to Nana."

"Not this thrilled..." said the final (extremely tall) ghost. "...you're laughing like..." He paused, thinking. "A witch, maybe? And why are Second and Third like that?" He waved at the pouting ghosts.

"Yeah, you guys can't possibly be that annoyed over li'l Ninth, can you?" asked Nana, loudly. "You can't possibly be that angry that Toshi decided to pass us on, even though All for One's dead."

Second and Third did not respond. The other ghost started to chuckle again.

Nana's brow pinched. "Seriously. Do you guys know something we don't? Second? Third? Yoichi?"

"It'll be better if you find out later," said Yoichi, mysteriously, while Nana muttered better for who. "Now, where were we?"

"Checking Ninth's stats and starting to plug in the stockpile," said En.

"Right you are. Let's just... ooh. Ah."

"Hm," said En.

"Oof," said Banjo.

"I knew I had a bad feeling about this..."

"What is it?" asked Nana. "I don't see anything that would stop the stockpile from enhancing him, or from, well, stockpiling."

"Okay," said Yoichi. "You know how you broke your arm the first time you used the quirk?"

"Yeah? A greenbone stress fracture. Didn't that happen to all of you, too? Everyone but Toshinori?"

"I mean, not to me at first," said Yoichi, "but yeah. Thing is..."

"If Ninth uses it he'll powder his bones."

"Hikage..."

"What? It's true."

"But all the training he and Toshi did..."

"It probably won't powder his bones," said Yoichi, quickly.

"Probably?"

"But it'll break them and badly, if he can't regulate the flow, and he doesn't have that thing that'll let him do it right off, like Eighth. We'd have to ramp it up slowly, so his body gets used to it and starts to develop countermeasures, like we did for you."

"And you still broke bones," added En.

"And he's about to take the practical exam in, what, a few hours?" Nana drew her hand down her face. "Dammit, Toshi, you couldn't have given it to him last week?"

"Would a week really have made a difference?"

"Not helping, En."

The ghosts stared blankly at nothing.

"So... either he takes the exam quirkless and probably fails, or we give him enough power to use, and he possibly cripples himself?" Banjo slumped down in a chair that hadn't been there a second ago. "That sucks."

Nana frowned at the quirk, trying to see what the others were seeing.

"What if," she said, slowly, "we didn't give him the stockpile?"

"That is what we're discussing," said Yoichi.

"No, I mean... We have more quirks than just the stockpile. Look." She pointed in a way that was more metaphysical than anything else.

"What the hell," said Banjo, jumping from his chair. "Are those-?"

"Our quirks?" asked En, edging closer for a better look.

"Those were not there before."

"Looks like One for All hit singularity," said Yoichi, quickly, in a way that wasn't suspicious at all.

"Are you sure-" started Hikage.

"After all, there's nothing else it could possibly be."

"We can't give him too many," said Nana, slowly, remembering some of All for One's victims, "but two should be fine. One of ours now, and the stockpile later. He and Toshi will probably just assume it's Ninth's original quirk, that just showed up late."

"Wait," said Banjo, with dawning delight. "Does this mean I can give the kid Blackwhip?" He started forward, only to be physically restrained by the others.

"NO!" they shouted in unified alarm.

"Don't you feel how much repressed rage Ninth has?" demanded Yoichi.

"That's why it'll be so good!"

"It's like you want to kill him!"

Nana clapped her hands. "Okay, people, we have until the end of the written exam to figure out which of our quirks is most likely to help Ninth pass without permanently scaring and possibly killing him."

"Blackwhip's out," said En, contemplatively, "sorry, Banjo."

"No, no, you guys are right," said Banjo waving it off.

"That leaves Float, Smokescreen, Danger Sense, Fa Jin, and-"

"Don't you dare give him our quirks!" shouted Third while Second glared silently.

"What is your problem?" snapped Nana at the once again unresponsive ghosts.

"We have Float, Smokescreen, and Danger Sense."

"Hm," said Hikage.

"It would be easier if we knew what the practical was," said Yoichi. "But we don't know how long this will take..."

"I passed with Float," said Nana, "but I also knew I had it and how to use it." Flying-type quirks often took an extra layer of training just to get the right mindset.

"Yeah, the kid thinking he'll have superstrength and focusing on trying to activate it might be a hurdle, here," agreed Banjo. "At least Blackwhip is pretty reflexive."

"En?"

"Much like Banjo, I would love to pass on my quirk, but..." He sighed. "I am well aware of my quirk's drawbacks. It might give him more trouble than help to find himself with it without warning."

"Come on," said Nana. "Between the five of us, we've got to be able to find a way for a kid with a heart of gold, abs of steel, and nerves of... uh, anxiety to pass a test."

"Anxiety?" said Hikage. "I have anxiety-"

"Don't say it," warned Banjo.

"Super anxiety."

Banjo launched himself at Hikage, who dodged easily, and they started to tussle.

"Actually..." said Nana. "Hikage, I think you have a point."

Izuku had been nervous all day. All week, really. Who wouldn't be? This was only the most important test he had ever taken in his entire life.

If he passed, his dreams would be in reach. If he failed...

Visions of All Might's disappointed face danced in his mind's eye. He'd been catastrophizing all day. What if he couldn't use One for All? What if he was kicked out for being quirkless? What if he tripped and fell and broke both his arms and had to go to the hospital and missed the exams?

(Thank goodness for that nice girl who caught him with the floating quirk. It was so cool! She was so cool! Izuku was so lame.)

But that didn't explain why he was mentally calculating the likelihood of things like the roof collapsing or the light fixtures falling on him or the doors crushing his fingers or...

He needed to stop.

He wound through the crowd on the way to the auditorium, hyperaware of possible collisions and the possible results thereof. If he got hurt before the practical...

What would they even have to do for the practical? He'd done research online, but the information he found was conflicting- enough for Izuku to suspect a misinformation campaign on UA's part. Maybe there'd be robots, or they'd fight teachers, or they'd fight each other, or there would be a race, an obstacle course, a maze. One particular post had claimed that they'd had to stand in front of a panel of heroes and demonstrate their quirk and its potential effectiveness in different fields of heroism.

For obvious reasons, Izuku hoped the last one was false.

He finally reached the auditorium that the practical orientation was going to take place in, and slid into his assigned seat, only to be hit with a wave of fear and a sense of danger so intense it made him nauseous.

Kacchan sat down next to him.

Ah.

"Maybe we shouldn't have given him a quirk that makes anxiety worse."

"Yeah..."

Izuku's nerves were so bad he could hardly read the handout in front of him. At least, he was able to absorb that the exam would involve fighting robots. Which. Was terrifying. But somehow not as terrifying as a hypothetical panel of judges.

Present Mic's exuberant arrival and continued presence made Izuku feel a little safer, enough to let his thoughts linger on something that wasn't Kacchan right there, because surely even Kacchan wouldn't do anything to him with a pro hero right there.

Of course, Izuku's relative relaxation meant he was called out in front of literally everyone for mumbling, and he spent the rest of the time between then and arriving at the test stewing in mortification. And sweat. He could admit to himself there was a lot of sweat involved.

After practically jittering off the bus, dread buzzing in his ears like a swarm of flies, Izuku decided he needed to find some way to distract himself from his nerves while waiting for the test to start. Eavesdropping, quirk analysis, interestingly shaped gravel- anything would do!

Oh! It was the girl from earlier! He could tha-

He narrowly dodged a large hand and twisted to see the scary boy from earlier, the one who had called him out in the auditorium. The boy blinked once, with faint surprise, then launched into a lecture about not distracting others.

Some distraction.

Static seemed to build under his skin, urging him to get ready get ready get ready. The sensation swirled with that of mocking eyes drilling into him. The faux city loomed menacingly.

"AND... BEGIN!"

With all the pressure on and behind him,, Izuku shot off like a cork. He was soon outpaced by students with mobility quirks, and shortly after that realized he had no idea what he was doing.

He rolled out of the way of a one-pointer that broke through a nearby wall- how to fall properly and how not to break his hands with every punch were the only combat techniques All Might had had time to teach him- and, despite a spike of trepidation, brought up his fist.

"Smash!" he shouted, plowing his fist into the side of the robot and breaking his hand. Like an idiot.

All Might's quirk use instructions sure left something to be desired.

En patted Yoichi and Nana on the shoulders consolingly. "I think it's just sprained."

Yoichi covered his eyes. "I can't watch."

The next second saw the robot destroyed by a laser blast from another examinee who made what was honestly a rather hurtful comment about Izuku not passing. Which, fine, his prospects didn't look all that great right now, did they? Still...

From then on- well, apparently a decade of getting bullied kicked in, because he was dodging robots like a pro, but that didn't matter because dodging did not give him points.

He yanked another boy out of the way of a two-pointer's scorpion tail, levered a piece of rubble off a girl's arm, experimented with throwing rocks at a three-pointer to distract it from a crying mouse-eared child, and then ran from said three-pointer for what felt like miles but realistically couldn't have been, interrupting several fights, un-cornering two separate groups of students, and briefly riding a two-pointer like a cowboy.

He still hadn't destroyed any robots. Unless he could get points for tag-teaming that last two pointer. Personally, he doubted it, considering the other anti-cooperation rules, but he wished he'd been brave enough to ask.

More troubling were all the friendly fire close shaves. He knew no one was actually trying to hit other people, that would get them disqualified, but it sure didn't seem that way. On his mad flight from the three-pointer alone he must have warned, pushed, or pulled half a dozen people out of the way of their own or others' quirks, a fact that frightened him far more than the robots. Thankfully, only one had actually hit Izuku, and it was a relatively non-harmful sticky... ball... thing...

(The less said about his encounter with the invisible girl the better. Izuku wasn't even sure how he knew she was there.)

Then the ground started to shake. An earthquake? Now?

... for some reason it didn't freak him out any more than he already was. Even when the absolutely enormous robot emerged from behind a skyscraper.

He... he should be running, now, shouldn't he? And try to get some points so that All Might wasn't completely disappointed in him.

A spike in anxiety and a horrible but commiserate spike in what was shaping up to be a nasty headache made him turn around just in time to see the nice girl put her foot down in a crack in the road, fall, and then get partially pinned by rubble. All with the giant robot bearing down on her.

"Owwww," she said, just audible over the noise of all the other examinees fleeing and the destruction caused by the robots.

Izuku changed directions.

On reaching the girl, he put his whole weight up against the boulder and shoved, revealing the girl's rapidly bruising leg.

"Can you-"

She shook her head. "I'm stuck!"

Izuku grabbed the end of her shoelace and pulled. "Leave your shoe!"

This did the trick. The girl was up and running- or at least stumbling, away. Izuku made to follow her, but abruptly realized he was stuck to the boulder by those stupid purple sticky balls.

Izuku could not, in fact, lift the entire boulder. He had one recourse. Clench his butt and hope One for All deigned to work for him this time.

Before he could attempt to break his hand even more, however, a hand slapped the boulder, imbuing it with enough buoyancy to float above the ground.

"Come on!" shouted the girl, pulling him along.

"Your quirk is really cool!" shouted Izuku, back.

They managed, barely, to stay ahead of the zero-pointer until Present Mic called time and they both collapsed on the ground.

"Well," said Izuku, after the girl 'released' the boulder from her quirk. "I'm not going anywhere."

The girl nodded, then turned to vomit.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, weakly. "Quirk overuse. I'm fine."

"Thanks for coming back, by the way," said Izuku.

"You too," she said. "I'm Uraraka Ochako."

"Midoriya Izuku. It's, uh, it's nice to meet you."

"Y-yeah," said Uraraka. "How, uh, how do you think you did? I got twenty-eight points, I think..."

"I, uh..." Izuku wilted as much as the sticky balls would let him. "Didn't get any."

"Oh," said Uraraka. "But, um! You saved me! That has to count for something!"

"I guess," said Izuku. "You know, you don't have to stay here, I know I'm a downer... and kind of annoying..."

"Oh, um, well, I don't think so! And I'd stay anyway, but I think I messed up my foot..."

"Sorry..."

"Don't be! It wasn't your fault."

They were too tired to say much else until some teachers came to help Izuku get free.

The air in the mindscape was subdued.

"All of that," said Nana, "and he still broke bones and didn't get any points... and we exacerbated his mental illness... what kind of heroes are we?"

"I still think it was just a sprain," opined En, again.

"UA has stupid tests," said Yoichi, lying on the ground and hugging a pillow. "Izuku showed he has the soul of a true hero! Making a heroics test all about combat is stupid. Stupid UA. Stupid tests." He fell to muttering.

"Wow," said Nana, "there are some pretty nasty threats in there. Also, why are you calling Ninth Izuku? I thought the policy was numbers only until we meet for real."

Yoichi rolled over.

"Eighth looks happy," said Hikage.

The five ghosts turned to the last, silent, not-quite-a-ghost. He did, indeed, look happy.

"Hey," said Nana, approaching and grabbing on to the sides of 'Eighth's' face. "What do you have to be happy about? What's going on in that fluffy yellow head of yours?"

"Maybe he bribed the principal into letting Ninth in anyway?" suggested Banjo. "Or not," he said, raising his hands in surrender as the others glared at him. "But, man, I wish there was some way to cheer the kid up."

"I got in?" whispered Izuku without comprehension as he stared at the projected screen. Fat tears wobbled down the side if his face. Then the screen changed to a leader board, and- "I GOT THE HIGHEST SCORE?"

"Man, Eighth, bribery has limits-"

"Toshinori didn't bribe anyone-"

Chapter 2 Notes:

Edited on 7/26/23.

Chapter Text

Izuku expected his anxiety to subside, one way or another, once the exam was over.

As always, the universe set out to prove him wrong.

Home was more or less okay. But, for some reason, minor household repair issues started to bother him so much he spent the rest of weekend working on them.

Then there was school, which was even more hellish than usual, despite being exactly the same as it had been since the sludge incident. Izuku was way too aware of how much of a threat everyone there was to him, specifically. Especially the teachers.

His hyper-vigilant state did keep him from getting poked (smacked) quite so much by the teachers, or cornered by 'fellow' students as much as usual, but it also led him to hide in the library storage room. He'd never be able to look at the librarian the same way again. Not knowing she kept multiple copies of books by anti-quirkless hate groups on hand.

And all through the week, he got nothing but silence from All Might.

But the end of the week came, and with it a letter from UA, which told him-

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FIRST PLACE?"

"I don't know, Nana, Banjo makes a good point."

"Don't take his side just because he was your predecessor. You all know a One for All holder would never resort to such devious- Yoichi, why are you making that face?"

"In an unjust world, bribery can be a tool for justice. I'm sure Eighth didn't have to, though."

"That's it, I'm not talking to any of you anymore."

"Anyway," said All Might, wiping blood from his mouth and glancing nervously at the other beachgoers. "Congratulations, young Midoriya."

Izuku felt his lip wobble. "You're not mad that I couldn't use One for All?"

"Not at all! Actually, in some ways this might be better. We'll have some time to experiment privately. And if you're in school when it finally turns on... well, we'll just say you're a late bloomer, alright?"

"Okay," sniffed Izuku, rubbing his eyes. "I just... I couldn't use it. What if-"

"Hey, hey, it's alright, my boy. No need to cry. You passed the entrance exam without using a quirk at all! You should be proud. Even with a quirk, it's an incredible accomplishment. Also, just so you know, I had nothing to do with the selection process. Just in case you were worried about favoritism."

Izuku sniffed and nodded.

"What a strangely specific denial."

"Uh, Banjo, usually I'd be reveling in the chaos, but I think Nana is seriously considering ghost murder right now. Maybe you shouldn't insult her kid anymore?"

"You and Hikage would protect me, right?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd sell you to Satan for one corn chip."

"So would I; it's been way too long since I've eaten. As long as it is Satan and not All for One, you've got my blessing."

"You certainly proved this old man wrong."

"You aren't old," protested Izuku.

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that," said All Might. "Here, sit down with me," he said, settling on the sand.

Izuku hurried to follow suit, and for a while, they both just watched the ocean. It was nice, today.

"I owe you an apology, young Midoriya."

"H-huh?"

"For what I said on that roof," said All Might, "and for what I... implied later."

"You already apologized for the roof, though?" said Izuku, confused. "I mean, that day..."

"That's what I'm talking about," said All Might. "I shouldn't have- The way I apologized, when I offered you One for All... It was like saying that you couldn't do it without a quirk, that you needed a quirk to 'fix' yourself and... well, obviously I was wrong. Quirk or not, you're going to be an amazing hero."

"Oh," said Banjo, "I can already tell this is going to be a problem once he finds out about Danger Sense. Gonna blow a hole right through his confidence."

"Maybe he won't find out?" suggested Nana, who'd wrestled her murderous impulses into submission. Temporarily. "Danger Sense is pretty low key."

"I feel like I should be offended..." said Hikage. "But if I got offended, that would be offensive to people who don't have quirks..."

"I don't know," said En. "If someone insulted your legs by saying they were so skinny it was like they weren't even there, would you being offended be offensive to people who don't have legs? Or would the original statement be the offensive one?"

"Somehow, I feel more offended after that."

"Oh," said Izuku. He felt himself crying again. "Are you, um. You're not going to- Are you- Do you want it back?" he whispered. "One for All?"

"No, no, of course not. You... There's no one I'd rather have it. I'm just... even if you didn't, you could be a hero. But I'm hoping... I'm hoping you'll keep it."

Izuku swallowed and nodded. All Might awkwardly raised his arm.

"Do you mind if I...?"

"Sure?" said Izuku, not entirely sure what he was asking.

All Might put his arm around Izuku and gave him a sort of sideways hug. Izuku leaned into it. It was the safest he'd felt since the entrance exam.

Because, surprise, surprise, that anxiety hadn't gone away.

"What did you say?"

"Oh! Uh... it isn't important, it's nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing," said All Might, concerned.

"I, well, I, ever since the entrance exam... maybe even a little bit before? I've been really... jumpy? About everything. I think it's just because I'm a wreck, but..."

"Huh. Well, you know, that could be a facet of One for All."

"R-really?"

"After I got One for All, it seemed like it was easier for me to tell when people were in danger and needed help," said All Might. "S- A friend who knew about One for All used to joke it was my original quirk. But it was subtle and intermittent, not constant."

"Huh," said Izuku. "So... it might have been One for All all along? Trying to get me to help people?" He picked at his lower lip. "Maybe... I noticed a bunch of stuff I usually don't... I'm not sure I would have seen all the people in trouble during the exam."

"So much for not noticing-"

"His confidence... let him have it for at least a little while..."

"He seems to be taking it alright," said Yoichi, hopefully.

"I'm sure you would have helped them if you did notice, regardless," said All Might, "and that's what was really being measured, so my earlier point still stands."

Izuku nodded. "It would be really strange for a quirk to have two completely different applications like that."

"Yes, but One for All is a rather strange quirk, and I've seen odder split quirks." He fell silent for a moment. "I can't think of a way to test for it, though. Speaking of which, we should find some time to try and work on One for All before the school year starts. How do you feel about coming to UA after school?"

"Th-thank you for helping us with this, Recovery Girl!"

"It's no trouble, dear," said Recovery Girl. "I'd be here at this time, anyway. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork I have to go through. Just try not to break too many bones."

Izuku nodded vigorously, still somewhat in awe of being in the presence of not one but two incredible pro heroes. And at UA!

It was like living in a dream.

Except for the highly suspicious mostly-hidden wall panels and the very intense feeling of being watched through camera by an incredibly threatening being. It was fine.

"Alright, young Midoriya! Are you ready?"

"Y-yeah!"

"Then come at me, you zygote!"

Nana stared at her (former) student in despair. "Toshi... why... out of all the people..."

"So, you admit he can make bad decisions-"

"Bad and immoral are two different things."

"I think calling people zygotes is pretty immoral, actually..."

Silently, Nana agreed.

Izuku blinked at All Might- not because of the zygote thing!

... Okay, partially because of the zygote thing.

But mostly because he was still in his skinny, prone-to-coughing-up-blood form.

"Are you sure?" Izuku asked. "What if I..." he trailed off, blushing. What he was about to say sounded so stupid, and more than a little conceited, but...

"Hey, even like this, I'm much tougher than I look, young Midori- Ahem, I mean, zygote!"

"Toshinori, don't you think role-playing as Gran Torino is a little much?" asked Recovery Girl.

"Ah, do you think so?"

Recovery Girl shot All Might a truly terrifying look, but Izuku's mind was on something completely different.

"Is- is Toshinori your name?" he asked, awed.

Blood drained out of All Might's face, making him look more skeletal than usual. Should Izuku not have asked? Was it supposed to be secret? Oh no...

"Please tell me you haven't been training this boy for most of a year without him even knowing your name."

"Oops?" said All Might, faintly.

"He did do that, didn't he?" asked Yoichi, his eyebrows almost touching his hairline. "Nana, your boy is a disaster."

"All of us were disasters. We're still disasters."

"I'm not."

"Hikage, you spent most of your adult life living in the woods, completely isolated from humanity."

"I know, it was great."

"Unbelievable."

"Back to what we were talking about before," said Mr. Yagi (Mr. Yagi! Izuku knew All Might's name! And had permission to use it!) after Recovery Girl was done scolding him. "Focus on actually hitting me before worrying about accidentally hurting me. Today, I just want to get a baseline. Next time, we can work on basic punches and throws."

"So, do I just-?"

"Yep, just come right at me!"

The next hour consisted mainly of Izuku being thrown bodily into various padded surfaces. Despite this, according to Mr. Yagi, he was much better at dodging than expected. As a bonus, although he certainly felt sore and bruised, he didn't break any bones.

He also didn't manage to activate One for All. Not even a little bit.

Nor did he on any of the other days leading up to his first day as a student at UA.

Aizawa Shouta, down two nights of sleep and dreading the new batch of bright eyed hero hopefuls he'd be teaching- and crushing the dreams of- next week, glared blearily at a computer screen. Currently, it displayed a student's name, a quirk name, and the single least helpful quirk description he'd ever seen. Which was saying something, because he'd seen Hizashi's original quirk description.

Midoriya Izuku

Quirk: undetermined

Description: None.

I am either too tired or too sober to deal with this, decided Shouta. However, sleep simply wasn't on the table, and getting drunk was illogical. In that case, simply not dealing with it was the only option.

Nevertheless, he picked up his phone and called Nezu.

"Good evening, Aizawa!" said the internally chipper maybe-rodent. "Or should I say good morning?"

"Midoriya Izuku."

"Ah, you're browsing your class list, I see. Any thoughts about their potential?"

"Illogical." It would be, to make a call about a student's potential without meeting them first.

"Quite so!"

"Midoriya. Quirk," grunted Shouta, reminding him why he was calling.

"Ah, yes, he is a strange case. He's listed as quirkless in the registry."

That woke Shouta up, just a little. He'd seen a handful of documents for the quirkless over the years. If Midoriya was quirkless, his file should read N/A, not undetermined.

"What?"

"I have reason to believe that he might have been diagnosed in error," said Nezu. "I am still investigating. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on him. Assuming, of course, that he isn't expelled!"

Shouta grunted and hung up. He minimized the window on his computer and pawed through his files until he found the entrance exam video for Midoriya.

A kid who passed the UA hero course practical entrance exam either entirely quirkless or with a subtle, stubborn, or invisible quirk on rescue points alone. A kid who seemed to run straight for danger on purpose (mostly on purpose, Shouta amended after seeing him collide with the invisible girl, coincidentally pushing her out of the way of some sort of water pressure quirk. There was just no way he could have known she was there). A kid who had almost certainly faced brutal quirk harassment since the time he was four and most likely possessed the self-confidence and trauma to match.

"Least he's good at dodging..." muttered Shouta. He rubbed at one grainy-feeling eye and pulled his sleeping bag closer around his shoulders. Kid wasn't all that bad at falling, either. Some light martial arts instruction, maybe?

He paused the video and reopened Midoriya's file, flipping to school and admission records and exam results. He usually didn't look closely at this part of the file, it was enough for him that the students passed, but, exceptions...

Speaking of exceptions, Midoriya's file was a mass of contradictions. Unusually high written test score that didn't correspond with middle school grades. Dozens of citations and black marks on his disciplinary record that should have kept him from even being invited to take the exam, but a letter of recommendation from All Might.

He frowned at the last one. There was no way...

He shook his head, and clicked on the link at the bottom of the file. It brought him to a herotube video about a year old. A hostage situation with a vaguely familiar middle schooler and slime-like villain. Also, a bunch of heroes, but none of them seemed to be addressing the suffocating child. Shouta felt his lips curl. Even if this was in the past...

Then Midoriya Izuku ran into the frame and tried to pull the other boy free, just seconds before All Might arrived and punched the villain so hard it started to rain. Then the video ended.

Alright, then.

Shouta's admittedly currently-less-than-razor-sharp mind presented him with two possibilities. One, Midoriya was All Might's secret child and All Might had bribed Nezu into letting him take the exams despite his less-than-stellar records. Two, this child had, with bloody fingernails, managed to claw a single spark of luck out of an otherwise bleak existence by impressing All Might enough that he got Nezu to ignore the otherwise damning records.

If the first, well, he had still passed the practical without use of any obvious quirk. He probably had some potential.

If the second... Shouta had been a hero long enough to recognize the circumstances that drove people to desperate, and sometimes unforgivable, acts. Dangling a single hope in front of someone only to snatch it away at the last minute...

Forget the maybe-quirk. This was the real conundrum of Midoriya Izuku.

The rat knew he wouldn't expel Midoriya with these stakes. It would be the height of irrationality.

(Even if he did turn out to be All Might's kid.)

What a pain.

He flipped through a few more profiles, quickly reviewing 1-B as well, before hitting redial on his phone.

"Calling again so soon?" asked Nezu with a squeaky chuckle.

"I want Monoma." He paused. "In my class," he elaborated.

"Oh? Whatever for?"

"If I'm going to have to figure out Midoriya's mystery quirk, I want to make it as easy for myself as possible."

There was silence on the other end of the like, and Shouta checked to see whether or not he'd hung up accidentally. He hadn't.

"I must say," said Nezu, finally, "I had not considered that solution. Depending on the mechanics of Monoma's quirk... I cannot think of any reason to deny your request."

That was a strange way of phrasing it.

"We'll exchange him with Bakugo, in that case."

"Not that I'm complaining," said Shouta, "but why him? Why not..." He racked his memory. "Mineta. He's got one of those body part quirks Kan likes."

Nezu chuckled again. "Normally, I would pick Mineta, but, by my calculations, a classroom that contained both Monoma and Bakugo would be demolished within thirty minutes of their arrival."

Shouta groaned. Why did they even let people like that in?

No, wait, he had an answer to that, actually.

"Forget a mouse, a dog, or a bear," said Shouta. "You're a sadist."

"Some certainly think so! But one thing's for sure! I'm the principal!"

The door to class 1-A sure was big... and intimidating... and radiating a faint sense of malaise. But, then, Izuku's middle school classroom had done far worse, so...

He opened the door. No Kacchan. Thank goodness. He must be in the class B, then, because there was no way he'd let Izuku beat him to school.

The strict boy from the entrance exam was there, though, and, oh, dear, he'd noticed Izuku and was coming right for him.

(Oh, gosh, and the invisible girl was here, too. He felt himself blushing furiously.)

Still better than Kacchan.

"Hello!" he said, rather loudly. "I'm from Somei Private Academy! My name is Iida Tenya!"

"Oh, uh, I- I'm from Aldera Middle School..." said Izuku. Was stating the name of your middle school a normal thing? He hadn't read about this in any manga... "I'm Midoriya Izuku."

"Pleased to meet you!" He moved his arm in a rather robotic fashion, taking a deep breath.

Oh, no, was he about to yell at Izuku again?

"Danger Sense isn't even going off right now, Izuku," said Yoichi, despairingly. "Why are you still so nervous?"

"Maybe we never really gave him Danger Sense after all, and it was his natural anxiety the whole time."

"Please stop denigrating my quirk."

"Midoriya... you... you perceived the true nature of the practical exam. Meanwhile, I was blind! I misjudged you! I hate to admit it, but you were the superior candidate."

Oh, that was nice, but... "I didn't perceive anything, though. I had no idea rescue points were a thing. I was mostly just trying not to die."

"Ah! That curly hair! It's Midoriya!"

"Oh! Um, Uraraka?" Please, please, let him have remembered her name right.

"Yeah!" said Uraraka, smiling brightly.

Augh! Too cute!

"I'm so glad you're in my class! I was so worried I wouldn't know anyone here."

"Y-yeah. T-this is Iida, by the way," said Izuku, trying to get attention off of himself.

"Nice to meet you, Iida."

"It's nice to meet you as well, Uraraka!"

"Yeah! So, we've got the entrance ceremony and guidance sessions today, right? I wonder who our teacher will be- They're all supposed to be pro heroes, right?"

"Um," started Izuku, "that-"

"If you're here to socialize, then get out."

"That's a teacher, huh," said Yoichi.

"Why are you saying that like you've never seen one before?" asked Banjo.

"I've seen teachers before," said Yoichi. "I've seen all of your teachers. The ones you've had while you had One for All."

"Okay, now you're saying that like you've never had teachers."

"Yeah, that is kind of strange, Yoichi," said Nana.

"I had professors," said Yoichi.

"Still weird."

"I went to college. And med school."

"Did you graduate?" asked En, interested.

"No."

"Why not?"

"My brother kidnapped me, kept me in a vault for a while, and then I died."

"I didn't know what I expected," said En, shaking his head.

"Wait, weren't there several years between the vault and the whole dying thing."

"Yeah, but I'm ignoring them."

"Because?" Banjo hooked his thumb over his shoulder at Second and Third.

"Yep," said Yoichi.

"Todoroki. You were the highest scorer on the Recommendation Exam. See how far you can throw this ball with your quirk. Stay in the circle. Anything else goes."

A boy with white and red hair stepped forward, scowling faintly. He took the ball and stared at it.

"Time is valuable, Todoroki."

And then there was a glacier.

Izuku felt his jaw drop. How was he supposed to compete with that?

"My name is Monoma," said a blonde boy, offering his hand.

Izuku stared at it a moment before remembering handshakes were a thing.

"Midoriya," he said.

Monoma then offered his hand to Uraraka and Iida as well. "I look forward to experiencing UA's superior brand of education with you," he said.

Izuku laughed nervously. "You're confident," he said, glancing at the track where two others students were doing sprints. It would be their turn soon.

"But of course!" Monoma struck a sort of pose, fingers splayed out on his chest. "I welcome this sort of challenge, this opportunity to prove myself! It just goes to show, UA only accepts the best of the best!"

Monoma was called away to the starting line a moment later. "Two good, one dud," he mumbled under his breath.

What did that mean?

Then Monoma was at the starting line, and he was using Iida's quirk. Did he have a copy quirk? That was so cool!

... Is that what he meant by good and dud? Did he... did he see that Izuku didn't have a quirk? Oh, no... What if he told everyone? Even if people were being nice to him now...

"What's wrong?" asked Uraraka.

"U-um," said Izuku. "Nothing?"

"Oh, gosh," said Yoichi, crying. "I just want to wrap him up in a warm blanket. You deserve friends."

"Yeah, kid, it'll be okay," said Banjo. "Bakugo's just a freak. And so was your whole school. Place gave me MLA flashbacks."

"Sure glad they aren't around anymore," agreed En.

All in all... Izuku didn't do terribly. Especially given that he didn't actually have a quirk, and this was a quirk assessment. At least, he didn't think he did. At least, he hadn't tripped or hurt himself.

It had, in fact, been a rather good day. No Kacchan. No bullies. The teacher had clear standards and requirements, and he stated them up front.

He had been getting... bad vibes... from the short, purple-haired kid, and he'd noticed other people frowning at him, especially the girls. But he hadn't been able to put his finger on why, even though he had been watching him carefully during his turns.

Other than that...

UA really was the best.

"By the way, no one's getting expelled. It was a logical ruse."

Monoma raised his hand.

"What is it?"

"I must object!" said Monoma.

"You... want someone to be expelled?"

"In fact, I insist! To allow this to continue would blemish the reputation of the school."

"Well said, Monoma!" exclaimed Iida. "Living up to the reputation of UA and all the alumni who have come before us is a duty of us students! But what blemish are you talking about? Surely, as Mr. Aizawa said, we all went plus ultra!"

"Maybe so, but my concern has more to do with moral standards!"

"If you kids keep going like this, I'm just going to go to sleep. You're giving me a headache."

Izuku caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and a wave of unease went through him. He turned to see-

"Hey! What are you doing?" he demanded, shocked and more than a little horrified.

Once again, he was mortally embarrassed on behalf of the invisible girl.

"I wasn't doing anything!" said the small purple boy.

"You were looking up her skirt!"

"It isn't like there's anything to see!"

The invisible girl gasped and quickly moved away. "Gross!" she said. "That's terrible!"

"See? See?" said Monoma, wildly. "This is what I'm talking about!"

"Next time," said Aizawa, "get to the point faster. Time is valuable. Mineta."

"What?"

"You're expelled."

"What? You can't do that!"

"Go complain to Nezu."

UA really was the best.

"Midoriya."

Okay, never mind. He was doomed. Completely doomed.

"Monoma. I want to talk to you after class. The rest of you are dismissed."

Izuku stood nervously as Uraraka and Iida bid him goodbye. Was this it? Was Aizawa going to expel him after all? At least it wasn't in front of absolutely everyone... But what was Monoma doing here?

Speaking of which, Monoma looked nervous, too... Was he okay? Surely, Aizawa wasn't going to expel him, too.

"Is this about me using other people's quirks?" demanded Monoma. "Because you said anything goes! I wasn't cheating. You can't expel me!"

Oh. There was some trauma there. Izuku could tell. Did people make fun of him for his quirk?

"I'm not going to expel you," said Aizawa, looking up at them from where he laid in his sleeping bag in the grass. He almost looked like he was praying for patience. "I need to ask you some questions about your quirk. For future reference and to better serve your needs as a student. I know how tricky meta quirks can be."

"Oh," said Monoma, slightly deflating. Then he sent a curious glance at Midoriya. "Is he-?"

"His matter is slightly more sensitive. If you would like me to send him away while we talk, I can do that."

"No, no, it's fine." Monoma sniffed, his eyes suspiciously wet. "What's the question?"

"You copy quirks through DNA contact. Do you decide when to activate passive quirks you copy, or can you choose?"

"I can choose, as long as it's within my time limit."

"When you first make contact, can you tell what quirk a person has?"

Monoma shook his head. "No, sir, I have to activate it to do that, so I can get duds- oh, that is to say, quirks I can't use because I don't have the proper activation conditions, like Midoriya's. He's got some kind of stockpile. I can get duds without realizing it. But I can tell whether or not someone has a quirk."

"Were you able to test all your classmates' quirks today?"

"Not everyone, yet," said Monoma. "I usually try to avoid more extreme mutation quirks outside of controlled conditions."

Aizawa's head bobbed up and down minutely. "Great. That should be enough for now. You're dismissed."

"Yes, sir! I look forward to seeing your superior lesson plans tomorrow!" He paused. "Midoriya."

"H-have a good day, Monoma."

Monoma had felt One for All! What a relief. Izuku had been half worried he'd lost it somehow.

But why did Aizawa want him?

"Um, sir?" he asked. Sort of asked. 'Sir' alone wasn't a question, even if it was said in an inquisitive tone.

Aizawa's eyes turned red, and his hair started floating. Izuku felt... Huh. Calmer, somehow? He was no longer vaguely aware of how the light post over there could fall on him, or any of the other many minor dangers surround him and oh, gosh, he was no longer aware of the dangers! How was he supposed to stay safe like this, when he felt like he'd been blindfolded?

Aizawa blinked. Everything came back.

"Wow," said Izuku. "That was so cool! Was that your quirk? Is it an emotional quirk? It made me feel calmer at first, but then I was, I don't know, too calm, and it made me anxious, but then-"

"Problem child," said Aizawa, and Izuku froze at the reprimand. "What I just did was erase your quirk."

Erase?

His quirk?

"Oh my gosh! You're Eraserhead! I'm a huge fan!"

Aizawa closed his eyes. Was he counting? No? Did he fall asleep?

"You do know you're listed as quirkless, right?"

"Yes?"

"But you just had a reaction to my quirk that a quirkless person definitely should not have."

"O-oh?"

"Combined with Monoma's ability to sense your quirk, I'd say you are not, in fact, quirkless."

"But I have the toe joint?" Izuku wasn't sure why he'd said that. He shouldn't be arguing against this, because, as Aizawa had said, he did have a quirk. It just wasn't exactly his.

"Yeah, that's an old wives' tale."

"Really?"

"As real as my quirk counselor license. Whoever diagnosed you was a quack."

"O-oh."

"My initial impression from your entrance exam video is that you might have a sensory quirk of some kind. On the other hand, we should take Monoma's assessment into account, and consider stockpiles. Either way, I would like to schedule some time to test things out with you."

"You- You'd do that? For me? I mean, I don't want to be a bother-"

"This is literally my job."

"It... yeah, I guess so." His previous teachers would have considered it a bother. Except Mr. Yagi, but Mr. Yagi wasn't really a teacher. He was more of a... a mentor.

(Or a dad.)

(Oh, no, he did not just think that. Bad. Bad brain. Bad brain that read too much All Might RPF as a pre-teen.)

"Besides, even if your quirk doesn't have many applications in hero work, it will be useful for you to know what it is and how it affects you." Aizawa yawned. "Also, don't tell your class that I'm Eraserhead."

"O-okay," said Izuku. "Of course, sir, but... why?"

"I have two full time jobs. I get my entertainment where I can. You can go now. We'll schedule tomorrow."

Izuku nodded, and Aizawa just... zipped his sleeping bag the rest of the way closed and rolled over.

Was... was he just going to go to sleep here? In the middle of the field.

"Um? Mr. Aizawa?"

A grunt came from the sleeping bag.

"This is... isn't this kind of a dangerous place to sleep?"

"Go home, problem child."

"... okay."

Chapter 3 Notes:

Edited on 7/26/2023.

Chapter Text

"WAIT!" shouted Nana abruptly, as Izuku was talking to his (weirdo) teacher. "I know who that is! Quick, get ready to turn everything off!"

"Turn what off?" asked En. "We live in a formless mental void. We don't even have electricity."

"The quirk! That's Eraserhead!"

"Oh, yeah," said Yoichi, while everyone else (sans Second and Third) scrambled to grab onto the quirk. "I remember Eight meeting him, now! So, he's a teacher, huh?"

"How do all of you forget the one person who might be capable of one-shotting All for One?" demanded Nana.

"Doesn't his quirk not work on mutations?"

"Stop daydreaming and get over here, Yoichi!"

The quirkspace began to glow faintly, ominously red, and the ghosts pulled hard on the quirk, holding it temporarily out of Izuku's reach.

Then, the red glow abated and they dropped it back into place.

"Well, that was exhausting," said Banjo. "So, we'll have to be constantly ready for that, huh?"

"As long as he's around, yeah," said Nana.

"Why did we just do that, anyway?" asked En.

"So we can continue to masquerade as a normal, non-haunted quirk?"

"We could have just let him think he didn't have a quirk, or that the anxiety-"

"Super anxiety."

"-isn't part of it."

Yoichi gasped, as if scandalized. "You'd want us to lie to Izuku?"

"Okay, seriously, what is up with you and Nine?" asked En.

Despite not having a body, Yoichi began to visibly sweat. "Nothing, nothing at all. I just... think he's neat?"

"If you're going to lie to us, can you not do it with archaeomemes?" asked Nana.

"No, no, actually, I can get behind this," said En. "Would you say Izuku has... vibes?"

Yoichi nodded solemnly.

"Young Midoriya!"

Izuku shrieked and jumped back from the sudden sound as All Might emerged from an otherwise innocuous bush.

Both of them froze, staring at each other.

"Are you..." said All Might, hesitantly, sounding much more like he did in his small form than usual, "alright?"

"I... think so?"

"That's good, then." All Might coughed slightly into his fist. "I was wondering if you had a few minutes."

"Of- of course!" said Izuku, immediately.

"Then allow me to lead the way!"

All Might led him through a door labeled 'staff only' and immediately deflated. "All the staff know about my condition," explained Mr. Yagi.

Izuku nodded. Then a thought occurred to him. "Mr. Yagi?"

"Yes, my boy?"

"Why, um, why don't you teach, um, as Mr. Yagi? Instead of as All Might? Wouldn't it save your time?"

Mr. Yagi stopped and scratched his head. "I hadn't really thought about it before," he admitted. "But part of the reason I took this job, other than wanting to help train the next generation of heroes, of course, is that I want to get people used to the idea that I am going to retire." He tugged on one of his bangs. "Also, ah, I'm not sure if my qualifications to teach are quite up to par without my reputation."

"I'm sure it would be fine! You're the best, after all!"

Mr. Yagi chuckled. "I'm glad you think so," he said. Then he reached behind him and opened a door. "In any case: my office."

"Wow," said Izuku, quietly, stepping in. "All Might's office..." Who knew when he'd get another opportunity like this again? He kept his eyes wide to drink in the details.

The rather sparse details. The office was rather bare. Which made sense, seeing as All Might was a brand-new teacher. It was sort of... disappointing, as thrilling as it was.

Mr. Yagi sat down behind the desk and gestured for Izuku to take one of the other chairs. It had a lot of cushioning. A lot a lot. Izuku sank down into the fluff as Mr. Yagi fiddled with a drawer on his desk. He got the drawer open, and pulled out a notebook. A notebook of the same brand Izuku liked to use, actually.

"Since your experiences with One for All are so different from mine, I thought it might be a good idea to do some research into past holders and take a leaf out of your notebook, as it were." He passed the notebook over to Izuku, who took it with shaking hands and a slightly open mouth.

"I'll treasure it," he declared, voice wobbling.

"Not so much that you don't use it, I hope," said Mr. Yagi. "As it is, it's only an overview. The earlier holders, especially, don't have many records associated with them. Consider it a starting point. I haven't had much time to work on it."

"I can't believe you found the time to write this at all," said Izuku, flipping through the pages. The information was sparse, but each holder had a basic profile, all the way back to the fourth. "I mean, between being a hero, training me, and preparing to be a teacher, I'm stunned nothing fell by the wayside!"

Mr. Yagi proceeded to turn a very interesting color.

"Uh, nothing fell by the wayside, right?"

"Why don't you take a few minutes to skim through. If anything jumps out at you right away, we can talk about it. And then I'll let you go get changed and go home, and we can discuss more later, after you've had more time with it."

"Okay!" said Izuku. He'd start with just the basic profiles. Name, date of birth, date of death, quirk... wait, those ages... "They all died young," he said, softly.

"Hero work is dangerous," said Mr. Yagi, hand going to his side.

"There's something else, isn't there?"

"Not something you need to worry about. I took care of it, years ago." The hand holding his side spasmed slightly.

"... Six years ago?" asked Izuku, aware he was pushing his luck. But this sounded both important and relevant.

There was a long pause. "Yes," said All Might, finally. "A villain with a longevity quirk. He... had a history with the first user."

Izuku got the feeling that was an understatement. It also seemed unlikely that the only application of the villain's quirk was longevity, given what he'd done to All Might. But the subject was clearly making All Might uncomfortable, so he dropped it in favor of burying his nose in the notebook again.

(Social fumbles aside, this was the most secure Izuku had felt for... a while.)

"The sixth user had a smoke quirk?"

"Yes, it seems so. Although it doesn't seem to have been actual smoke, but a biological compound."

"I wonder if that has anything to do with all the steam you release when you deflate. Actually..." he flipped back through the quirk. "I wonder if you're using Float, too, subconsciously, when you jump."

"What?"

"I- I mean," said Izuku, "I noticed, when, um, when I grabbed your ankle and also in videos of you- Your hang time is kind of messed up? You're in the air for longer than you should be, but it isn't, like, consistent? Plus, you can change direction mid-air, which I thought was because you were shooting out blasts of air pressure with your quirk, but with me on your ankle, you definitely didn't do that. There was- there was a forum I was on where some people thought your quirk tapped into magnetic fields, somehow, but that doesn't make any sense, because you'd expect a lot more electronic interference and that similar locations would produce similar results, given the Earth's magnetic field, but they don't. But subconscious, low-level use of a telekinesis-based flying quirk would explain everything. If we take into account what you said about my anxiety after the entrance exam, then that's minor expressions of three out of four of the quirks listed here, not counting the base stockpile and enhancement quirk. Do you think the unknown quirks of the second and third users might have partially manifested for you as well? Have you experienced anything else that's atypical for a strength enhancement quirk?"

Mr. Yagi stared at Izuku.

Oh, no, he'd gone too far.

"Nothing immediately comes to mind, my boy," he said, faintly. "But... magnets? Really?"

"I told you it didn't make any sense."

Mr. Yagi rubbed his chin. "There might be something, but... it's too unclear to say either way. I'll keep an eye out. It's just... a lot to take in. I thought One for All was done surprising me."

"When has it surprised you before?"

"Oh, under the influence of certain mental quirks, you can wind up hallucinating the previous users."

"Hallucinating?"

"Yes. But being under the influence of a mental quirk is always the larger issue, so..."

"Mr. Yagi," said Izuku. "That's really the kind of thing you should let people know about up front."

"I- is it?"

The ghosts all stared at Nana.

"Hey, don't blame this on me! None of us explained that kind of stuff before passing One for All on."

"In our defense," said En, half raising a hand, "we were usually dying when we passed it on."

"More importantly," said Hikage, "do you think Ninth is right about the quirks?"

"It would make sense," mused Yoichi. "Although then we'd have to wonder why Blackwhip didn't manifest similarly."

"Is it too much for me to get someone to use my quirk? My extremely awesome quirk, that has no downsides?"

"It is powered almost exclusively by rage."

"No downsides."

"You-"

"No. Downsides."

Aizawa passed him an envelope labeled 'quirk counseling' along with the standard schedule and orientation packet he was handing to everyone else. It didn't look like any of his class mates had noticed, though, for which Izuku was grateful. He didn't want to be known as a weirdo who didn't know what his own quirk was.

He heavily suspected he was tapping into Danger Sense, somehow, but he didn't know how, and the fourth user of One for All had lived so long ago there weren't any records of him. Not easily and publicly available. Everything Mr. Yagi had written in his notebook (that Izuku had probably stayed up way too late reading... and texting Mr. Yagi about it... and comparing it to his notes... and texting Mr. Yagi about that... and reviewing old All Might compilations and theory threads... and having Mr. Yagi threaten to call his mom if he didn't go to sleep...) about the fourth user had been retrieved from the journals Mr. Yagi's mentor had passed down, according to one of the source notes in the margin.

(Mr. Yagi had really neat, small handwriting, which Izuku wouldn't have ever expected from his large, dramatic signatures as All Might, and his notes were meticulous and carefully cited. If Izuku didn't know better, he would have thought it belonged to a secretary.)

But despite Izuku's suspicions, he didn't actually know. He didn't know it's range, what it defined as danger, whether or not it 'ranked' dangers, how to distinguish it from normal anxiety, or- Well. Anything, really. And he would really like to.

He opened the envelope quietly. Inside was a handwritten note instructing him to pick one of three schedules for quirk counseling and return it to Aizawa by the end of the day. The other pages were printed, with times and possible locations. Options for both before and after the school day.

Izuku felt his eyes tearing up. This was easily the nicest thing a teacher had ever done for him... Although he was nervous about being alone with Aizawa. Some of his other teachers, when they asked him to stay after class it was... not good.

Nothing bad happened, not like in movies or TV shows or the awareness videos the school had shown sometimes. The teachers didn't hurt him, really, didn't do anything to him, other than talk or yell, mostly, but it still wasn't good.

Maybe he could ask Mr. Yagi or Recovery Girl to sit in... But he already felt bad, taking up so much of their time.

He picked one of the after school schedules. He was already staying late on the other days to work with Mr. Yagi, and if something did go wrong, he wanted to have the night to recover before he had to face Aizawa again in class.

He put it to the side, so he'd remember to give it to Aizawa before he left, then looked over the class schedule. Homeroom, Math, Hero Art History, History, and English in the morning. At least this morning. The history classes alternated with something called Heroics-Applied Science and Hero Law and Ethics. Afternoons, meanwhile, were entirely occupied by Hero Basic Training.

And every class would be taught by a pro hero. He wondered if it would be rude to ask for their autographs...

Shouta grunted as Hizashi flopped down onto the couch next to him on the couch in the staff breakroom. "What a morning! I just love seeing all those bright little faces at the beginning of the year. Anyone have a favorite first year yet?"

Shouta kicked Hizashi through his sleeping bag. Sadly, this had no effect on the man.

"I think mine might be the little green guy. He's the only one who was actually paying attention, and you know how rare that is, when everyone is anticipating their first heroics lesson. The rest of us just pale in comparison."

Shouta attempted to kick Hizashi again, this time for an entirely different reason. Midoriya was already All Might's favorite (probably)- he did not need more pull with the staff.

"I know who my least favorite is," said Kan. "Kid's certainly dedicated and competitive, but I wouldn't be surprised if he threatened his middle school teachers into giving him those glowing reviews. His personality needs a lot of work. How did you get Nezu to saddle me with Bakugo, anyway, Eraser?"

"I had nothing to do with it."

"Don't give me that, I was going to have Monoma. At least he's a team player."

"You're being illogical," said Shouta, zipping his sleeping bag closed over his face.

"How about you, Nemuri?" asked Hizashi, cutting off Vlad King vs Eraserhead round five hundred.

"It's hard to choose! They're all so cute and eager! Full of the passion of youth! I think they're all my favorite."

"You always say that..."

The door opened and closed.

"All Might! What about you? Any favorites yet?"

Yagi coughed. "I've only had the one class of third years so far. Don't you think that's rather... premature?"

What an incredible nonanswer.

"How did that first class of yours go, anyway? They didn't sour you to the whole idea of teaching, did they?"

"Not at all! The students were wonderful. The third years are very advanced, aren't they? For some of them, I wouldn't be shocked to see that skill level on an active sidekick."

"What can I say? We start them off right," crowed Hizashi.

"They did seem a little surprised by the scenario, however."

"So was I, t'be honest," said Snipe, who was in charge of the third years.

"Ah, was it no good...?"

"It was fine. Lesson plan was a bit rough around the edges, but you and Nezu'll be goin' over that later. But... quirk traffickin' doesn't quite seem like your thing."

"Ah, well, set-pieces," he said, using the slightly derisive underground slang for large-scale spotlight hero battles, "may be what I'm known for, but before my injury, the majority of my battles and investigations weren't publicized."

"Shield laws?" asked Nemuri.

"Generally, yes, but some of the investigations were tied to others, so we were using the organized crime secrecy laws to keep those under wraps. Simply put, my popularity isn't the only reason I keep the number one spot despite Endeavor having more completed cases than me on paper."

Shouta had known there was more to All Might than 'punchy, over-the-top, eyestrain-causing, bombastic muscle guy,' but part of his stupid, illogical brain was annoyed at Yagi for pummeling that image into imaginary dust, anyway. It seemed like the man's only two flaws were horrible interpersonal skills when not using his public persona, and his vast suite of health issues, the latter of which all heroes who operated long enough picked up.

Oh, and a possible inclination towards bribery.

Made it hard to dislike him, which Shouta wanted to do, because he was loud, flashy, and gave him headaches, literal and metaphorical. He ignored the fact that Hizashi was the same way, and had forcibly become Shouta's best friend. Clearly, there was no connection here.

"By the way, why is young Aizawa completely zipped in like that?"

"Nap time," said Hizashi, solemnly.

"Sir?" said Iida, raising his hand.

"Yes, young man?" boomed All Might.

"There are nineteen of us. How are we handling the odd person out?"

"Excellent question! In other exercises, we may handle it differently, but for today, one of you will be working alone! Occasionally, a hero may find themselves isolated when they originally expected help. However, for better balance, I have also arranged it so the odd hero out will be taking part in the last battle, so you'll have more time to strategize!"

But the other team would also have more time to strategize, Izuku noted. He really hoped it wouldn't be him... not that he wanted to force it on any if his classmates! He just didn't want yet another handicap on the first day of training.

All Might walked around with the box of ballots, pausing for each student to take one. He reached Izuku and held the box out to him with a wink. Izuku smiled back, reached in, and grabbed one.

A chill ran up his back and he froze, fingers wrapped tightly around the little ball. Something told him this was definitely the cursed, single-person ballot. Could he let it go? Would it be considered cheating if he picked a new one?

But All Might was already walking away. Every part of his body tense, Izuku turned his hand over and forced his fingers apart.

The tenth character of the Latin alphabet. For the tenth, last, team.

He watched as everyone else started to pair up, and All Might looked at him apologetically.

Izuku approximated a smile. Plus ultra, right?

Chapter 4 Notes:

Edited on 7/26/23.

Chapter Text

While the other ghosts watched poor Izuku sweat more and more, Yoichi gathered a pile of pillows and beanbags, and a small container of popcorn, then dropped unceremoniously onto the pile, ready to watch a bunch of teens beat the tar out of each other. En noticed this, glanced at him, and did a double-take.

"Since when do you have popcorn? How do you have popcorn? Where did you get it? Have you been holding out on me? Can I have some? I'll fight you!"

"Uh... it isn't real," said Yoichi.

"Neither are we!"

"No, I mean, you can't taste it. Or smell it. It's just a construct. For the aesthetic." Something none of them really bothered with, lately, but Yoichi wanted to put the effort in for Izuku. Even if Izuku probably would never be aware of it.

"But... popcorn..."

"Shhh! It's starting!"

The first round was Kouda and Satou vs Yaoyorzu and Kirishima.

If he had to guess, he'd say Yaoyorozu and Kirishima would win. Yaoyorozu's quirk was perfect for setting up quick and simple barriers and traps, and Kirishima's was good for defense as well.

That wasn't to say Kouda and Satou couldn't win as well... Satou had what seemed to be a fairly powerful strength enhancer, perfect for ripping through hastily constructed defenses, and Izuku didn't know if Kirishima would be able to completely counter him.

Izuku also wasn't entirely sure what Kouda's quirk was. His first guess would have been a physical mutation, given his appearance, but thinking back, it didn't seem like he'd used anything like that during the quirk assessment, so those features were most likely vestigial, like Izuku's hair color, which suggested a less physical quirk. It had to be something that could be applied in combat against robots, though. Izuku was the only one who'd passed without villain points.

So, it could go either way.

He could continue to analyze, but his attention was drawn back to the team he'd be facing. Hagakure and Monoma.

A blush rose up in his cheeks. It had to be Hagakure. He still hadn't apologized for running into her during the entrance exam. Hand to hand against her was going to be tough- he could only hope the support department had given her an invisible costume, and she wasn't... well... uncostumed. Again.

But, beyond that, not being able to see her would be a problem. She could get to the fake bomb without him even noticing.

Monoma would be a challenge, too. Given the number of pocket watches on his costume, Izuku suspected he had a time limit for how long he could copy a quirk. But he had no idea how long that could be, and it could be misdirection, too. Izuku certainly wouldn't want to telegraph a weakness like that if he had that kind of quirk.

Another option could be that he could only hold one quirk copy at a time. That'd be trickier for Izuku to deal with. Either way, he doubted Monoma could permanently hold an unlimited number of quirk copies. Monoma's personality was all wrong for that, and he didn't have Iida's engines anymore- unless he could choose to dump quirks? But why would he do that? Izuku's (formerly) quirkless sensibilities rebelled against the very thought.

He was overthinking this. He'd have to assume that Monoma could come at him with any quirk in the class. So. What would be the most inconvenient? All Might's, except Izuku had All Might's, and Monoma wasn't able to use it.

(Oh, and that could be a problem, couldn't it? Could Monoma be able to tell All Might didn't have a quirk anymore?)

Well, judging from what he was seeing right now, Izuku really didn't want him to take Yaoyorozu's quirk. It was sort of terrifying.

Other scary ones would be Todoroki (he'd launched that ball with a glacier) and Tokoyami (a sentient quirk! So cool!) but he thought Monoma would avoid Shouji and Asui (full body mutations). Other than that... Monoma would probably wait and see who did the best, or which quirk would work best with Hagakure's.

He'd have to take Hagakure's quirk into account, too. What if they both came at him invisibly (and naked)? Izuku would die...

Each battle lasted for up to fifteen minutes, not counting the ten minutes the villain team had to set up. That's how long Izuku had to defend the fake bomb. As the defender, Izuku had another handicap. He only had to fail once to fail entirely...

No. Stop that. This was a school exercise, and All Might wasn't going to expel him. Losing would suck, but he'd be together with half the class on that front. The important thing was learning from the experience. And not getting too hurt.

Right. He returned his gaze to the screen as the match started.

"We're a sentient quirk, too," said Banjo. "Aren't we cool?"

"He doesn't know we're sentient, though," said Yoichi. "Also, he spent like two months straight gushing about how cool One for All was when we were with Eighth. Didn't you get enough?"

Banjo sulked. "It isn't the same."

"Speaking of Monoma," said En, "why didn't you slap his little grabby hands away from One for All yesterday?"

"Because a late bloomer is one thing, but someone confirmed not to have a quirk suddenly having bone-breaking super strength? Yeah. No. Yagi might have beaten my brother, but that doesn't mean everyone who worked for him is gone. Eight never knew about Garaki at all."

"Way to bring down the mood, En," said Banjo, elbowing the younger ghost.

"The mood was already brought down by the fake popcorn."

Izuku wrote furiously in his notebook, trying to record every detail of the match. He pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth to get a better grip on his pencil. He'd need to practice writing with gloves on. He was missing important notes. Speaking of which...

"Can we get copies of these recordings?"

"You should be able to access them through your Ultra Account on the school website!"

Izuku nodded and continued writing. As expected, Kirishima and Satou had gotten into a one on one fight down the hallway from the bomb room. Unexpectedly, however, they had seemed rather hesitant to hit each other. At least, until Satou dumped a packet of white powder (sugar according to All Might) into his mouth and started smacking at Kirishima indiscriminately. Kouda, meanwhile, had sent a small army of mice (animal control! Very cool) at Yaoyorozu, who had responded with mousetraps.

The clock ran out, to the villains' victory.

"It was surprisingly hard to hit someone," admitted Kirishima in the debrief.

"We've been socialized to avoid violence," said All Might, nodding. "Overcoming that hesitation is part of our training. As is when not to use force."

Next up were Kaminari and Sero vs Aoyama and Jirou.

Kaminari entered the building first, quickly engaging Aoyama, who had been directed towards Kaminari by Jirou. That fight got loud quickly. Sero, meanwhile, scaled the outside of the building with his tape.

Kaminari ultimately defeated himself with his own quirk (that was a pretty severe drawback- maybe Kaminari should consider other fighting styles?), which allowed Jirou to hear Sero climbing up the wall. But Aoyama couldn't get back fast enough to prevent Jirou from being captured by Sero.

"I think Kaminari was the MVP," said Izuku. "He did hurt himself, which was bad, but his sacrifice allowed his teammate to safely reach the objective. If he hadn't, um, shorted out...? It would have been better, of course, but..."

Yaoyorozu shook her head. "Sero managed to capture one of the villains and safely reach the bomb. Additionally, he's the one who came up with the plan of attack."

"Ah," said Izuku, "that's- that's true..."

"Regardless, it is a plan that only bore fruit due to teamwork! Excellent work! Jirou, Aoyama, your division of labor was also a good plan, but don't forget the enemies you don't see! Time for our next match!"

This time, Asui and Tokoyami were defending against Todoroki and Uraraka.

"Good luck," Izuku said, waving slightly to Uraraka.

"Thanks!" She gave him two thumbs up as she trailed slightly behind Todoroki. "So," she said, as they walked out through the door, "how are we doing-?"

The door closed. Izuku winced. Surely, they had strategized beforehand...

"Young Todoroki," said All Might, somewhat sternly, "you... that was certainly an impressive display, but even when dealing with real villains, a hero has to be conscious of the damage they may do. A large number of villains are only minor criminals, or even otherwise ordinary citizens having a bad day."

"That's not what the media says," mumbled Todoroki, though he looked pale as medi-bots carried Asui from the scene.

"The media is full of sensationalists. And even if it weren't, Asui isn't a real villain. There is a difference," he said, very gently, "between going beyond and going too far."

All Might paused. Todoroki hunched his shoulders. There was something familiar about his posture, something that made Izuku's stomach knot.

All Might continued. "It was a good strategy. Against another team, or against real villains, it would have been a more than appropriate strategy. In fact, it was even an appropriate strategy in this case, since you didn't know Asui had trouble with cold temperatures. But when you encountered her in the hall and noticed how poorly she was doing, you should have hit the emergency stop button."

Instead of laying down more ice when Asui struggled to get free, which was what actually happened.

"Why didn't you stop the match?" He didn't sound accusatory. Just flat and resigned.

All Might made a face and gestured to the screens on the wall. About half of them showed static and the rest blurry shades of white and gray. Like the rest of the building, they had been iced over.

Todoroki sighed. "How much trouble am I in?"

"You aren't," replied All Might. "In trouble, that is. As your teacher, this is entirely my responsibility. I shouldn't have set you against Asui or should have gone over safety concerns more clearly..." All Might paused, his face that of someone who knew they weren't getting their point across but didn't quite know what the problem was. "Injuries are inevitable in heroics and hero training, but you don't want to maim your classmates. Or minor villains, really, if you can help it. So... consider this a learning moment."

"But it was just ice," said Kaminari.

"Cold kills people frequently," said All Might. "People lose fingers and toes to frostbite regularly. Again, for anyone but Asui, this level of ice for such a short time period wouldn't have caused lasting damage, but it is something to be mindful of. Does... that make sense, young Todoroki?"

"Yes," said Todoroki, head bowed.

"All right. Young Uraraka, thank you for hitting the emergency stop button. It showed good thinking and good awareness. Young Tokoyami, your decision to hide the bomb in the basement was a good one, complimentary to your quirk."

Izuku glanced over at Monoma. He had a sinking suspicion he knew what quirk he would copy.

After moving to a new building, Iida and Ashido managed to pull a win as heroes from Ojiro and Shouji by melting a hole in the ceiling above the bomb and then jumping through to tag it after Iida confirmed its location with a scouting run. The general consensus of the class was that it was surprisingly clever and out of the box, but that it probably wouldn't have been feasible in real life. Ashido had then sheepishly admitted that she'd come up with the idea after hearing Izuku mumble about it.

This, of course, made Izuku blush. Strawberry would probably be his nickname from now on.

Better than Deku.

It was his turn to go set up, now.

He was unlikely to be able to beat Hagakure and Monoma at the same time, even if Monoma didn't copy any quirks at all. Assuming they didn't split up, a ridiculous course of action, he'd have to find a way to protect the bomb other than physically defending it.

This was the problem that had been plaguing him all afternoon.

He had to hide it. Then, he either had to hide himself or use his location to steer them away from where the bomb really was. His capture would also lose him the match, so he had to be careful.

He carried the bomb to the top floor. Uraraka's quirk could get them up there, but Izuku didn't think Monoma could handle the nausea. And if he did have a time limit, he wouldn't want to be airborne when it ran out. Sero had demonstrated his quirk could get him up the side of the building, but that had clearly also required a lot of skill in climbing, not just the quirk itself.

Iida's quirk would get Monoma to the top of the building fast, but since he'd have to go room by room... Either way, the top floor would slow them down the most, buy Izuku the most time.

The room he picked was full of prop boxes. Izuku had to rearrange them to completely hide the bomb, and there was a chance Monoma and Hagakure would remember what it looked like before, from the camera feeds, but he hoped they'd overlook it.

He still had time. Next...

The second floor had office equipment in it. Clearly old junk the school didn't mind loosing. Izuku pulled as much of it out into the hallway as he could, his experience from the beach helping him maneuver quickly. He dumped a lot of it into the stairwell. The rest he left in the hallways.

How much time did he have?

Not long.

He ran up the stairs, to the fourth floor, where Ashido had melted a hole in the floor. Here, he had multiple egress points. It would be harder for them to corner him. Also...

He randomly closed half the doors on the floor. He could pretend to be guarding one of them. Delay them. How much longer?

No time at all.

Right on schedule, the air went dry and cold. Izuku, having planned for this, leapt for one of the door frames and held on. A thin layer of ice, not as thick as the one on the floor, crusted over his gloved fingers.

Izuku counted to five, then let his hands slip out of his gloves and dropped to the floor. Then he reached up and tugged his now empty gloves out of the ice.

He inspected the ice momentarily, and tested his ability to move on it. It wasn't as even or as thick as it had been when Todoroki used it, and the surface was a difficult and unpredictable mixture of smooth and rough... but it would become slicker as it melted.

Good. Izuku had predicted this. It made his closed doors and stacked boxes much more formidable obstacles. The ice wouldn't allow doors to open easily, and the boxes would also be reinforced and hard to move.

Izuku was glad for the conversation All Might had with Todoroki. Although it probably hadn't been his intention, the way he had phrased his commentary on Todoroki's freezing strategy had made it seem like an automatic win, given that it wasn't used against someone who'd be seriously injured by it.

Izuku hadn't been sure they'd do it, since it would handicap Hagakure so much. She couldn't walk around on ice barefoot. Unless she had a secondary mutation that made her skin tougher, or less sensitive to temperature- that would be so cool! No, focus, focus.

Monoma wouldn't have Iida's quirk, either with this strategy. Even if was unfamiliar with speed quirks, he would know that high speeds and ice didn't mix... Unless you were a speed skater, Izuku supposed. But Monoma didn't have ice skates- Unless, unless he took Yaoyorozu's quirk and made ice skates. But that would be horribly impractical with this uneven ice, and probably wouldn't work with Iida's quirk at all. So.

He'd probably have Yaoyorozu's quirk anyway. And after that, for this exercise, Jirou's would be the most valuable. With Jirou's quirk, Monoma would be able to locate Izuku quickly.

Another reason to separate himself from the bomb.

They were coming.

He hid himself out of immediate sight, in the room with the hole, on the off chance that Monoma couldn't hold that many quirks.

There was a clatter from the stairwell.

They were coming.

Muffled voices. A louder thump.

"Maybe if you hadn't frozen everything-"

A sort of fwoosh brought an oddly warm breeze and Izuku hissed. Todoroki's quirk must be more than ice. Given his overall appearance... Fire? Izuku was screwed.

Well. Hopefully his precautions would at least get him a good grade.

There were more scrapes and clatters as Hagakure and Monoma forced their way through the stairwell. Then, relative silence.

They were coming.

"I thought you said he was on this floor," said Hagakure, plaintively.

"He must have gotten free," said Monoma.

"Can't you listen for him again?"

There was a pause. Monoma must have responded nonverbally.

"We'll just have to be careful checking everything out," said Hagakure. "The bomb must be on this floor, after all."

Okay. Okay, great, this was good news for Izuku. He eyed the hole in the floor. Part of him really didn't want to jump through. His brain was supplying him with all the things that could go wrong with such a jump. Especially with the layer of ice. Ugh, he should have dragged one of the office desks up underneath it.

Too late now.

Minding his visibility, Izuku crept over to the side of the hole and lowered himself until he was hanging by his finger tips.

It was still a long fall. Monoma and Hagakure's footsteps were growing closer.

He let go.

He tried to hit the ground properly, but his roll turned into a slide, and he hit a wall at a higher speed than he would have liked. Reflexively he grabbed at his left arm. Ow.

He knew this was going to happen.

"He's on the third floor!"

"What?"

"He jumped through Ashido's hole!"

Izuku forced himself to his feet and sprinted towards the stairs. The second floor had more hiding places than the third. At the last minute, something twinged in the back of his mind, and he tried to stop. Tried. The ice made this difficult.

His legs went out from underneath him, and he went skidding down the hallway on his back, taking a mercifully, mercifully, clothed Hagakure out at the ankles. They slid together into the bottom of the stairs descending from the fourth floor, further battering Izuku's poor arm.

He dodged Hagakure's capture tape and briefly considered pulling out his own, but there was Monoma, cautiously coming down the icy stairs.

Icy stairs.

It seemed neither Izuku nor Monoma had fully considered the obstacles that would result from coating a building like this in ice. Todoroki's ability to maneuver easily on this terrain was, in retrospect, a keystone of the 'freeze everything' strategy, not incidental.

He needed to get away.

He pushed Hagakure off of himself (and noted that she was just as muscular as he was) and slid on his knees to the banister. He pulled himself up and slid down the rail, using the ice to his benefit. Using his uninjured arm, he gripped the end of the banister connected to the wall to slingshot himself down the second floor hallway.

... and almost right into a desk he'd half forgotten he'd put there. He dodged it and recovered quickly before scrambling over the other obstacles in the hallway. He came to a scraping halt and tucked himself into the leg well of one of the desks. A convenient bar meant he could keep his feet off the ground and out of sight as well.

Just like hiding from bullies. Only less dangerous and more fun.

How much time was left?

It had taken them about five minutes to get past the desks on the stairs, then maybe two or three to get to the fourth floor? They hadn't been moving quickly, probably because of the ice. Then, they'd been on the fourth floor for another couple of minutes before Izuku dropped to the third, even if it had felt longer to Izuku. The tussle on the third had taken a minute, tops, so he had... Four minutes left? Less, now.

He could win this. He could run out the clock. Maybe it wasn't the most heroic way to win, but he was supposed to be playing the villain, and he hoped Mr. Yagi would be proud of him anyway.

"Show yourself!" called Monoma. "Or I'll freeze you out."

Could he do that? Maybe he had Jirou's quirk at first, but switched to Todoroki's later, and lost access to Jirou's? If only he knew more about how Monoma's quirk worked... It could be a bluff, too. Even if it wasn't, why would he reveal himself? This late in the game, even if he was frozen in place, he could still win.

And winning... it wasn't something he got to do very often.

A buzz signaled the end of the match. "Villains win! Or, rather, villain wins? Good job everyone! Come on out for the final debrief."

"MVP, MVP, MVP," chanted Yoichi, Banjo, and En, arms slung around each others' shoulders.

"Our boy is MVP!" cried Banjo.

"You know what this means, of course," said Hikage during a pause in the noise. The other ghosts looked at him. "It means, my quirk is the most valuable. The greatest power in the universe is the power of anxiety."

"Take that back!" said Yoichi, throwing an imaginary kazoo at Hikage. It bounced harmlessly off his head. "The most powerful thing in the universe is the power of friendship. Everyone knows that!"

"What about those two?" asked Hikage, pointing at Second and Third.

"Unfortunately, the power of spite is also great," said Yoichi. "Even so, they will soon find themselves defeated."

Nana rubbed her temples. "If I hadn't given up on sanity within ten minutes of waking up in here, this would be what did me in."

After an intense practical, the next stop was the nurse's office. There, the class found Asui already mostly recovered, and Izuku found out that he had, in fact, broken his arm.

"Are you sure it isn't just a sprain? It is broken?"

"A fracture, and, yes, quite sure. But a sprain can actually be worse than a break- many true sprains never quite heal correctly... either way, with my quirk you don't have to worry about it." She pressed her lips to Izuku's forehead. He felt his energy ebb to a new low. "You should talk to Mr. Aizawa about falling techniques. Your body type is more like his than your other mentor's."

"I- I will," promised Izuku.

"Good. You can go get changed, now."

"Thanks," said Izuku, not quite wobbling out of the room.

"Midoriya!"

He almost jumped out of his skin. "A-ah! Uraraka!"

"Sorry to startle you!"

"No, no, it's fine. What is it?"

"Oh, well, Iida and I were wondering if you'd like to come out with use to a café after school? It's nearby and apparently it has discounts for UA students?"

"Indeed! My older brother talked about it frequently when he was a student here!"

"W-well," said Izuku. He looked at All Might, who was awkwardly supervising and directing other students in the hallway to the locker rooms. All Might caught his eye and nodded. "Sure! That sounds like fun!"

This would be the last time Shouta would have to nap after school for a while. From tomorrow on, he'd be alternating quirk counseling with Midoriya with hero work. Why did he agree to do this again?

Kan opened the door to the break room. With him came the acrid smell of smoke and hot dust. "Which companies did the first year costumes this year?" he asked, voice dangerously soft enough to impress Aizawa.

"Why?" asked Hizashi.

"Because I want to... talk to whoever thought it was a good idea to give a fifteen-year-old with no training in demolition not one, but two weapons that could level buildings at full charge. I just want to talk."

Judging by the expression on Kan's face, Shouta seriously doubted that.

Kan took a deep breath. "What about your hellions?"

"Don't know. Yagi had them today."

"And you didn't watch?"

"I was in court."

"What's wrong with Yagi, anyway?"

Shouta, Hizashi, and Kan all turned to where Yagi was splayed in a chair. If the scene were a painting, it could easily be titled 'depression.'

"I'm a failure as a teacher and a hero," he moaned.

"Huh?" said Hizashi. "Why?"

"Young Asui nearly became hypothermic, and young Midoriya fractured his arm."

There was a beat of silence as the others waited for him to go on.

"What?" Kan asked. "Is that it?"

Chapter 5 Notes:

Edited on 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

The day started off well. Really, it did. Izuku got up on time, still filled with warm fuzziness from the time he spent with his friends (friends!) the afternoon before, had a good breakfast, left early enough to catch an earlier train, saw an interesting hero fight, and then...

He was hit with a wave of nausea as he caught sight of the crowd outside UA's gates. Was it a mob? An attack? Terrorists?

... Reporters?

Yeah, those were cameras and microphones. But why was a crowd of reporters making him feel this way?

Maybe they were terrorists disguised as reporters. Or, maybe Izuku had picked up some paranoia to go with his anxiety. How fun.

If they were real reporters, they were probably here about All Might. Him cutting back on active hero work to teach had been big news.

Ughhhh. What should he do? Whoever they were, they weren't likely to leave. He didn't want to walk through them, though. What if they were dangerous? (And even if they weren't, he didn't want reporters looking at him, asking him questions. What would he say to them?)

He bit his lip and watched the crowd from around his chosen corner. Why did he have to be so wimpy and timid? He was a hero student, now. He should be better. Braver.

Oh! There was Iida!

He scuttled over to his friend.

"Ah! Midoriya! You're early today! Few people arrive at school at the same time I do!"

"Y-yeah! I managed to catch the earlier train today, so..." He looked back at the crowd of reporters. Maybe reporters. Maybe terrorists. "I think, maybe we should wait to go in as a group, though. I mean, it'll be more efficient than trying to fight through those reporters one at a time, right?"

"An excellent idea, Midoriya!" exclaimed Iida, waving his hands enthusiastically. "It's very admirable of you, to always be thinking about how to help others."

"W-well," said Izuku, blushing. It wasn't untrue, but it also wasn't the whole story. "I mean, I don't... It's more that they kind of freak me out a bit? The reporters..."

Iida nodded sagely. "There are heroes like that, too. Are you planning on going underground, then?"

There was a certain amount of appeal to underground heroics, but he was supposed to be All Might's successor. Then again, if One for All never worked properly for him and Mr. Yagi asked for it back... Quirk or not, Izuku was here, now, in UA, in the hero course, and Mr. Yagi had said he could be a hero without a quirk.

"I haven't really decided yet. But UA teaches all hero course students the three main branches of heroics, so we don't really have to choose a specialty until later, and even then there are heroes like Sir Nighteye who blur the lines, right?"

"Yes, it's one of the things that make UA such a superior institution!" chortled Monoma.

"Ah, Monoma! I agree! It is important for all heroes to be aware of the work their colleagues do, and to be well-rounded individuals!"

Monoma!?

"Um," said Izuku. "When did you get here?"

"Just a minute ago," said Monoma. "I was looking for a way around these savages when I overheard your conversation. Really, it's a shame that UA allows such rabble to prevent students from entering. If only there was something they could do..."

"I'm afraid I must disagree," said Iida. "Freedom of the press is exceedingly important for the function of society!"

Monoma looked slightly alarmed. "I don't mean to say it isn't, it's just-" he gestured at the gates, "-we can't get in. The other entrances are like this, too. It's aggravating."

"There... might be another way in," said Iida, after a moment.

"Oh?"

"Yes, my brother told me about a hidden entrance that was here when he attended UA. I suppose... I suppose these would be the right circumstances to use it."

"Lead the way, then, Iida," said Monoma.

Iida nodded stiffly. "We should wait and see if any of our classmates would like to come with us."

Several of their classmates did want to come with them, including Uraraka, Asui (who was still a little under the weather), Tokoyami (Dark Shadow was not a fan of flashing lights), and Hagakure. They were also joined by a couple of 1-B students, a cadre of business course kids, and a pink haired support course girl who seemed very interested in Iida's legs, much to his flustered confusion.

Kacchan did not join them, much to Izuku's dismay, instead choosing to bulldoze his way through the ranks of reporters, nearly giving Izuku a heart attack when he body-checked a man with blue-white hair.

At this point, their group was becoming rather large and noticeable, and Iida was getting antsy about the time, so off they went.

Iida led them to what appeared to be an entirely unnoteworthy piece of wall and knocked. There was a pause just long enough to make Iida start to sweat, and then the wall opened, revealing Midnight- Ms. Kayama!

"Oh?" she said, clearly delighted. "Chibiida using the top secret teacher's entrance? Has high school done what we couldn't? Are you finally loosening up?"

Chibiida.

Chibiida.

CHIBIIDA.

Firstly: how? Why? Iida was over ten centimeters taller than Izuku! Secondly: Iida was never going to recover from this.

"That- that's not it! At all! I am simply attempting to help my fellow students enter the school without being harassed by reporters, Ms. Kayama!"

"You can still call me big sis Nemuri, you know."

"I refuse! It would be inappropriate of me as a student!"

Ms. Kayama sighed. "Well, you aren't wrong about those reporters. They can be a pain. So, just this once, let me welcome you kids to the forbidden environs of the staff area!" She made a grandiose gesture with her arm. "And it's all thanks to Chibiida here."

Iida started muttering about propriety and rules.

Izuku had the feeling it would be a long day.

"All right, Hikage, in your professional opinion-"

"What does building inspecting have to do with anything?"

"What?" said Nana. "I didn't say anything about building inspecting."

"You asked for my professional opinion."

"Yes?" said Nana, already dreading where this would go.

"I was a vigilante. For the purposes of money, I was a professional, licensed building inspector."

"I thought you were a professional hermit," said En.

"I was an amateur hermit. You don't get paid for that."

En blinked. "I can't believe people let you into their buildings."

"There were a few times-"

Nana decided to table the question of how neither she nor En had known Hikage was a building inspector. "Okay, fine. Forget the professional part. In your opinion, what was going on with that one reporter guy?"

"Oh," said Hikage. "He's definitely planning a murder."

"A murder!" exclaimed Yoichi.

"Yes, and probably of someone close to Ninth."

"Why didn't you say something?" demanded Yoichi, attempting to lift the taller man up by the front of his shirt and failing.

"Because there's not much we can do about it?"

"Just because you're right doesn't mean I have to like it!" He spun on his heel and stalked up to the silent and incomplete ghost of Toshinori. "It had better not be you, do you hear me? Don't you dare pull an Obi-Wan on poor, sweet Izuku!"

"Does anyone know what he's talking about?" asked Nana.

"Not really," admitted Banjo.

"Today," said Mr. Aizawa, after he finished passing out feedback from the battle trial, "you'll pick a class president."

All around Izuku, his classmates threw their hands into the air, eager for the chance to show off their leadership skills.

Izuku kept his hand down. It wasn't that he didn't want to stand out or do the work! It was just... between training after school with Mr. Yagi and Aizawa and trying to get his anxiety under control, he didn't think he'd do a very good job.

Yoichi started disappearing his "Izuku for President" banners.

Iida, though... Iida would do well, Izuku thought. Look at him, organizing everyone into a vote.

"You're not running, Midori?" asked Hagakure.

"N-no, haha, I have too many other commitments to do a good job, I think."

"That's too bad! I would have voted for you."

There was a smattering of agreement, mostly from Iida and Uraraka. Izuku started blushing.

"R-really? Why?"

("Strawberry," someone whispered.)

"Well, you helped me out during the entrance exam, and you were pretty cool during training yesterday." More agreement. "But if you're not running, I guess I'll pick Monoma. He did get rid of the purple creep."

"Ahahaha, yes, I am clearly the superior candidate!" crowed Monoma, standing up and putting his foot on his chair to pose.

"But his personality's really weird, which is why you would have been my first choice, Midoriya."

"I think Iida would be a good choice!" said Uraraka, raising her hand. "He's super organized and he helped a bunch of us get past the reporters this morning."

More general agreement. Then Todoroki cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him.

"Yaoyorozu," he said.

That was it.

"Good point," agreed Jirou.

"A TIE?!"

As the only one who hadn't voted for one of the three in the tie, Aoyama was forced to be the tiebreaker. This was done as dramatically as humanly possible.

Yaoyorozu was now president of class 1-A.

This led to a ferocious battle between Monoma and Iida that Iida won by a single vote. Monoma was promptly chosen as class treasurer. Just in time for their other classes.

"Those who possess forbidden knowledge should stay together," said Tokoyami gravely as he sat down with Uraraka, Iida, and Izuku.

"Are you talking about the staff area?" asked Asui, who slid in after him.

"Indeed," intoned Tokoyami gravely. "The dark path we have all walked-"

"Fumi is just bad at asking people to be his friends!"

"Dark Shadow!"

Izuku almost started crying into his rice. Having friends was so great.

"I'll be your friend!" said Izuku.

"Me, too!" said Uraraka, pumping a fist.

"Ah," said Tokoyami, coughing into a fist. "I am sure we will be great companions in the darkness of the coming days."

Speaking of darkness... Izuku couldn't help but feel uneasy about... something. He had been ever since seeing those reporters.

"So, Midori, is your hair full of secrets?"

"Wh-what?"

"Don't listen to her! She's just being silly! Like a little sister."

"It's what you always say about that actor you like! His hair is fluffy because it's full of secrets!"

"So, you and Dark Shadow are like brother and sister?" asked Midoriya, changing the subject.

The conversation segued into discussion of their families, and just when Iida was extolling the virtues of his older brother, Izuku's unease spiked. He dropped his chopsticks.

"Is something wrong?" asked Uraraka.

"I... don't know? It just feels like something bad is going to-"

The school alarm promptly went off.

"Wow!" said Kirishima. "Iida can do entrances and exits! Manly!"

"Wow," said Banjo, "I guess they picked the right guy for the job, after all. He can find entrances and exits! More than my class vice president ever did..."

"Are you copying the small red child?" asked Hikage.

"What?"

"Never mind."

"Today's heroics class will be focused on how to fall safely and other basic combat techniques. Before we begin, although you may practice these techniques on your own, outside of class, if you want to spar with others, you need adult supervision until you reach a level where I'm satisfied you won't seriously injure yourself or others by mistake. Now, firstly..."

"Mr. Aizawa? Is- um. Was it really just the press breaking in earlier?"

It was time for his first special quirk training with Aizawa, and he should be asking what they were doing today (especially since Aizawa had him change out of his gym uniform and back to his regular uniform), but he couldn't stop thinking about the break-in.

"What makes you think otherwise?"

"I'm, well, I'm not sure? I just, this morning, when I saw them, I got a really bad feeling? Like something bad was going to happen. And it doesn't seem, um, logical, that normal reporters would be able to do that to UA's gate. I mean, anyone can have any quirk- no such thing as a villainous quirk. But someone with a quirk like that, they'd put a lot of effort into controlling it and stuff so stuff like this wouldn't happen by mistake. I guess a reporter could have done it on purpose, though, but then it'd be really easy for UA to find out it was them, wouldn't it? Or the police. Since heroes and police have access to the national quirk registry, so you just have to cross-reference reporters with the registry to find quirks that could fit. But would they know that? Anyway, it seems more logical for a third party to have used the press as cover to infiltrate the school. But why? If nothing is missing and no one is hurt, which would be grounds for school being canceled, the next conclusion would be information gathering. But that still leaves the question of the ultimate ends- Mr. Aizawa? Are you okay?"

His teacher had been glaring at a camera mounted in the corner of the classroom and mouthing things at it.

"I'm fine," said Aizawa. He sighed. "You are right that we haven't located the person who destroyed the gates, but please be assured that we are investigating the incident throughly. Especially Principal Nezu." He shot another glare at the camera, as if to say he'd better be.

"Regardless, it isn't something you need to worry about as a student. We're adding more safety protocols to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Oh, okay. S-so, what are we doing today? Sensory deprivation? Electric shocks? Stress positions? Bean bag barrage for dodging? High stakes hell exam?" He was ready for anything and very excited.

Aizawa stared at him flatly. "We're... doing quirk counseling."

"Yes?"

"Kid... except for maybe the last one... what exactly gave you the idea that any of those things had anything to do with quirk counseling?"

Izuku started to get the feeling he'd seriously messed up. Except he didn't feel particularly anxious about it.

"Oh, uh, Mom used to get brochures like that in the mail, after I was diagnosed? She didn't ever answer any, but... Apparently, some people originally thought to be quirkless got quirks after being in a high stress situation."

"But no one actually did any of those things to you."

"Not really?"

"Midoriya..."

Izuku looked away. He shouldn't have said anything. He didn't like the quirk counselor at Eisley Elementary, but he didn't want to get her in trouble, either. After all, he was the only one she had to do that stuff with, since his quirk hadn't shown up...

Aizawa sighed with the air of someone exercising a lot of self-control. "Except for that last one," said Aizawa, "and that's debatable, all of those are torture techniques."

Ah. Well. That maybe explained a few things.

"They are not a normal part of quirk counseling. At some point, we may incorporate some combat into this, but that will be to help you become more familiar with your quirk. Not just for the sake of making you stressed."

"But if we aren't doing combat, what are we doing?"

"Well, first we're going to try to figure out what your quirk is. Why don't you sit down." He took out some papers as Izuku made his way to his desk. "Alright. I'm going to go through these questions and write down your answers... then we're going to go through them again while I'm canceling your quirk." He paused. "Actually, first. What did you mean when you said you had a bad feeling about the reporters?"

"If I were alive," said Yoichi, "I would be committing so much murder right now."

"I thought we left this behind when Ninth graduated," said Nana. "I thought you said you were going to forgive them because they were stupid kids and Ninth forgave them."

"Well, first off, I lied. Secondly, teachers aren't kids. If we ever get hit by a quirk that brings us back to life, the quirk counselor at his old school will be my first victim."

Nana sighed. "That isn't going to happen."

"Who's going to stop me?"

"Less a who, and more the fact that there has never been a quirk that could revive the dead."

"Meaningless!" exclaimed Yoichi. "Death cannot stop me!"

"Think he's finally lost it after all this time?" asked En, leaning towards Nana.

"No, I think he's just messing with us," hoped Nana.

"Alright, kid," said Aizawa exhaustion evident in his tone. "Between your answers, your exam results, the battle trial results, how you react when I use my quirk on you, and Monoma's assessment... Your quirk is at least partially sensory.",

Izuku tried not to feel disappointed, but that seemed rather incomplete as a conclusion. Even though he knew about Danger Sense and this probably was Danger Sense.

"Yeah, I know, it's underwhelming, but remember this is the first session. Whatever your quirk actually does, though, you seem to be using it to detect threats."

Okay, that was more in line with expectations.

"I mean... maybe? I think so. That feels right."

"We also need to figure out what it's stockpiling. Have you ever felt any particular draw to certain situations? More than your peers?"

"Um. I watch a lot of hero fights?"

"You're a fight chaser?"

"A little bit?" admitted Izuku, squirming a little.

Aizawa sighed heavily. "I seriously hope your quirk doesn't stockpile danger- don't test that."

He wasn't going to!

Probably.

Speaking of, though, what did One for All actually stockpile? Power was a very vague description... He'd just gone along with it because a) quirk and b) All Might, but it would probably be good to know.

"Next time we meet, I'll be running you through the basic quirk assessment battery - that's a series of tests usually given to five-year-olds to help their pediatric quirk doctors and quirk counselors identify difficult or stubborn quirks. You should have gone through it when you were younger."

Izuku shook his head. "All I remember is the x-ray."

"Why would you get an x-ray?"

"For the toe joint? To tell whether or not I was quirkless?" Why was he insisting on this? He was going to blow his cover and his secret out of the water! This was so dumb.

But he did say it. Maybe it was his guilty conscience from lying to and misleading Mr. Aizawa so much.

"That's a myth," said Aizawa.

"What?"

"It isn't true." Aizawa began to slump down in his seat. "It's an old wives' tale. Everyone quirkless has the double joint, but not everyone with the double joint is quirkless. I have the double joint, as do about twenty-five percent of people with meta quirks." By the time he finished, only the top half of his face was visible.

"Oh," said Izuku. He wasn't sure what else to say. At least the secret of One for All was completely intact. "You did say something like that before..." He'd been too upset and nervous about the test to really process it.

"I hate to say this, kid, but it sounds like everyone involved in your early quirk education was incredibly incompetent. You shouldn't have had to deal with that, even if you were truly quirkless. It takes just as much counseling to deal with that in today's day and age as something like, say, Ashido's quirk."

Izuku had never heard it put like that before. "Okay."

"Now, before I send you off for today, do you have any questions about anything we'll be doing? Any of the tests we'll be running, normal quirk counseling procedures, anything. It's important for you to feel comfortable about this."

Izuku's eyes teared up. This had already been a very emotional day, and he wasn't sure a teacher had ever asked him that and meant it. "Mr. Aizawa," he said, earnestly, "you're the best teacher I've ever had."

"Is that a joke?" asked Aizawa, flatly.

Izuku shook his head, centrifugal force flinging his teardrops away.

"That's messed up, kid. I'm terrible."

"You're the best," protested Izuku.

"I just need you to know how incredibly low that bar is. Your other teachers must have gotten shovels to dig tunnels under it. They must be dancing limbo in hell."

Izuku blinked. He had no idea what that meant. "I think they're all still alive..."

"Not for long," muttered Aizawa.

Chapter 6 Notes:

Edited 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

Shouta trudged back to the staff break room. His counseling session with Midoriya had lasted a little over an hour, so while there were still teachers in the building, many of them had left. With the exception of semi-retired heroes like Recovery Girl, everyone working here had two full time jobs. Hizashi, despite his carefree air, had a third in the form of his radio show. Hizashi had probably left with the students.

But Hizashi wasn't either of the ones he wanted to talk to. Not today.

He opened the door. Three, no, four teachers were there, but Snipe didn't count, seeing as he was completely passed out on one of the couches with his gas mask half off. He must have had an early shift patrol today, poor sucker.

Nemuri was there, too, with most of her hero outfit on. She was applying her hero-grade makeup (water proof, resistant to three common contact poisons, and guaranteed not to react badly with mace).

More importantly, Kan and Yagi were both there, poring over papers on the same desk, no less. Shouta walked up to the table and looked down at sheets and sheets full of incomprehensible numbers.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"We-"

"Don't tell him!" said Kan, urgently. "This is going to be my class's leg up on Aizawa this time around."

"Haha! Good one!" Yagi slapped Kan's back, and apparently even in his skeletal form he could pack a punch, because Kan had the air knocked out of him. Before he could recover, Yagi continued, "I'm making personalized nutrition plans for his class!"

"What?"

"One of my undergraduate degrees was in nutritional and health sciences, after all!"

Wow, there was a lot to unpack there, but Shouta was more than happy to leave it in its box. He had other fish to fry and topics to interrogate. Small talk requirement fulfilled, he moved on.

"How well do you know Midoriya?"

Yagi blinked and put down his pencil. "Moderately so? We met about this time last year and have been meeting regularly since then."

So, so much to unpack.

"Why?"

"Ah, he... impressed me, I suppose? He was involved in the bodysnatcher incident last year."

That was an understatement.

"He had a lot of heroic spirit!" continued Yagi. "But... not so much in the, ah, body category. I thought it would be a shame, a waste, really, if he wasn't able to pursue his dream, and a hero school prep course wasn't really in the cards for him, considering his quirk status and the timing... And I did have this degree..." He waved his hands vaguely at the table. "I just gave him a little help."

"What brought all this on, anyway?" asked Nemuri. "Midoriya is the little green haired kid, right? One of Chibiida's new friends?"

"If you keep calling him that, I won't be held responsible for when he snaps and attempts murder. But, yes, that's Midoriya."

"So...?"

"He told me I was the best teacher he'd ever had."

Nemuri started laughing.

"Oh," said Yagi. "I'm glad the two of you are getting along so well."

"I think he's pulling your leg, Shouta," said Nemuri, coming over to pat him on his shoulder. "Man, I didn't think a friend of Chibiida's would have it in him. Such youth!"

"I cannot even begin to tell you how much he wasn't."

Nemuri's laughter died off.

"Judging from some comments he made today," said Shouta, "not to mention the discrepancies between his record and his observed behavior in the classroom, I'd say he's been the target of severe quirkism in the past, particularly from his teachers. Did he ever mention anything like that to you?"

Yagi's face darkened and the mood in the room grew much more somber. "Not in so many words, no. However... some of his comments about his teachers disturbed me enough to bring it to the attention of the Musutafu Educational Services District, but as an unrelated stranger without concrete proof..."

("You can use the acronym, you know," muttered Vlad.)

"You're telling me they ignored the number one hero."

Yagi made a face. "I didn't go to them as All Might. Can you imagine the media frenzy if I did that? I didn't want to paint that kind of target on young Midoriya's back."

That was fair, actually. If largely-anonymous Shouta had enemies, All Might had ten times as many. Not to mention supposed fans.

"Other avenues of inquiry were also fruitless," said All Might, countenance darkening. "I asked some of my police colleagues, but they don't have full discretion over the direction of their investigations, and, again, if I were to use my weight to move them... It would get out, and people would wonder why I was so concerned with an apparently normal middle school."

"Did you try talking to Nezu about it?"

"No? Why?"

Shouta reminded himself that although Yagi was an alumnus, he was also very new as a teacher, and was as of yet unfamiliar with Nezu's more interesting traits.

"I'm going to," said Shouta, "and you're going to come with me." He turned to Kan. "Have you heard anything from Bakugo about quirk discrimination?"

"All I've heard from him are explosions, threats, and some kind of complex I don't have nearly enough psychiatric training to- They're from the same school," he realized.

"Yeah."

Kan pinched his brow. "So, the sweet shy kid you keep gushing about-" Both Shouta and Yagi attempted to reassure Kan they weren't gushing, "-and the demon brat are from the same school."

"That is what their records say," agreed Shouta. "Did you know, Yagi?"

"Oh, that they knew each other? Yes. Actually, I was rather under the impression they were childhood friends, as Midoriya ran out to help him during the bodysnatcher incident."

Shouta grunted. It was possible. He hadn't seen the two of them interact, at any rate.

"I'm going to Nezu with you," said Kan, standing up. "No matter what else this hell school did, they deserve to suffer for inflicting Bakugo Katsuki on me with those recommendations full of lies."

"Why don't you just expell him if he's that bad?"

"Because he's talented, hardworking, and hasn't actually broken any rules except for the swearing. He's just a pain I wasn't prepared to deal with and will probably contribute more to my hearing loss than Yamada by the end of the year."

"Wait, wait," said Yagi. "What exactly are you expecting Nezu to do in this situation?"

"Well," said Nemuri, who still hadn't left yet, "let's just say there's a reason his name is 'god' in the staff group chat."

Terrible did not even begin to describe how Izuku felt when he woke up. His skin was static. His mouth was dry in a way that hurt. It felt like a siren was going off in his brain, and also like it was too quiet. He wanted to both run all the way to the school and hide in his closet.

This, of course, left him paralyzed in bed.

He hadn't felt remotely like this since the first time someone had left spider lilies on his desk at school. What was wrong with him?

No, that was the wrong question. All signs pointed to him having Danger Sense. He was in danger. And also immobile in bed.

With a great deal of effort, he turned to his bedside table and grabbed his phone. The clock in the corner read 4:42. Far too early to call anyone. And yet...

With shaky fingers, he navigated to Mr. Yagi's contact information and pressed dial. To Izuku's surprise, it only rang once.

"Young Midoriya? Is something wrong?"

The sound of his voice loosened the terrible knot under Izuku's breastbone. "I- May-maybe? I don't- I don't know, I think so."

There were sounds of movement on the other side of the line. "What happened?"

"I just- just woke up, and I- I think it's Danger Sense. It- Something bad is going to happen."

"I'm on my way. Is your mother with you?"

"N-no. She's at a- at a tech conference in Tokyo. She won't be back until- until tomorrow. Mr. Yagi, I don't- I don't think it's something here. I think it's later... at the school."

There was a pause. "My boy, are you quite sure?"

Izuku's laugh was just a little hysterical. "I mean, I'm- I'm pretty new to this, but..." he'd like to think his flight or fight reflex would have a more constructive response to am immediate threat. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have woken you up, I should have waited-"

"Nonsense! Forewarned is forearmed, and time is one of the most valuable resources a hero can have! I'm still picking you up, I'll just-" Mr. Yagi coughed, "-take the car instead."

"The car? You mean Hercules!?" The excitement was enough to free Izuku from his paralysis and propel him into a sitting position.

"Well, yes, but, my boy, how did you know? I don't think I've ever mentioned the name in my interviews..."

"But you did! In one of your American interviews. It was for a local station and you and Mr. Shield were on together."

"But those were in English."

"I know! When I found out about them, it really motivated me to work on my English! I think I could probably pass the Level Two fluency test..."

"Young Midoriya, have I ever told you how glad I am that you aren't a villain?"

"Hikage, did Danger Sense ever make you feel this bad?" asked Nana as Yoichi fussed in the background.

"Super Anxiety made me feel this bad all the time. Sometimes, it made me feel worse. I got used to it."

Nana let out a sigh of relief. It sucked for Ninth right now, but if it was normal for the quirk...

"That's good, then," said En. "Not for Ninth, obviously, but if that's just how the quirk works, he'll be able to figure it out. What did it usually mean, when you felt like this?"

"Generally, that someone was planning on killing me in the next few hours."

Dead(er than usual) silence.

"Ah," said En.

"You know," said Nana, "sometimes the kinds of lives we led slips my mind, but then the universe is always real happy to turn around and slap it back into me."

Yoichi started screeching.

"Do you feel any worse now that we're here?" asked Mr. Yagi after shutting Hercules down.

"Not really," said Izuku. He slumped down in his seat and looked away. "I'm sorry, I dragged you out of bed and this is probably just a stupid pointless meaningless panic attack..." He felt tears begin to prick at the edges of his eyes. He was so stupid. And selfish. All Might could be out helping people right now. Or taking care of himself (which, according to Recovery Girl's comments during their training sessions, he didn't do nearly enough of).

"Hey, hey, there's no need to cry, it's alright."

"Because you're here?" asked Izuku with a sniffle.

"Well, yes, but also, even if it was 'just' a panic attack, I'd still want to be here for you." He reached across the central console to pat Izuku on the shoulder. Then his face twisted into something rather sheepish. "But on the subject of panic attacks, something did occur to me on the way here."

Izuku looked back down at his knees. "What is it?"

"This is the anniversary of the day we met."

Izuku... had known that, actually. Waking up as he had had driven it from his mind, but the date was marked on his calendar. He'd even gotten All Might a gift, although he hadn't yet talked himself into being brave enough to give it to him, and with what happened today, it would most likely languish in his desk drawer for an indefinite period of time as the idea of giving it became progressively more awkward.

"My boy? I can't quite make out what you're saying. You're mumbling."

Izuku clapped his hands over his mouth. "Sorry."

"It's quite alright. I'm just an old man with hearing problems."

"You're not old! It's... I just- I just don't see how- how that's connected to this." He gestured at himself in all his vaguely-trembling glory.

"Young Midoriya... you almost died three separate times that day. That's traumatic. And sometimes anniversaries are... reminders."

"I only almost died once?"

"The first time with the sludge villain, grabbing on to my leg - and I don't think I ever apologized for telling you to let go, I was just so surprised - and then the sludge villain again."

"But I only almost died the first time..." He trailed off as Mr. Yagi gave him a look. He'd thought his mother was the only one who could give looks like that... "Do you really think this is connected to that?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Yagi. "Do you feel like it might be?"

"I don't know," said Izuku. He bent over and knotted his fingers in his hair.

"Do you think it might help to stay home today?"

"No!" yelped Izuku. "No," he repeated, trying to calm his racing heart.

"Alright, alright. Never fear, my boy." Mr. Yagi gave him another steadying shoulder pat. "In that case, let's go into this with the assumption that this is danger sense, and it is attempting to warn you of a real threat."

"Okay," said Izuku. He rubbed at his eyes. "What do we do first?"

Mr. Yagi tensed and looked up at the top floors of UA. "Well..."

"Hm!" said Nezu. "That is something of a conundrum! The extent of your quirk is unclear, and it is not properly registered, so we cannot go through the official routes we normally would for a warning given through a precognitive or clairvoyant quirk, even given that we are aware of One for All and the probable nature of Danger Sense."

Nezu knowing about One for All had been a bit of a surprise. In retrospect, maybe it shouldn't have been. All Might would have had to tell Nezu something so that Izuku was allowed on campus before he was really a student, and seeing as how All Might was originally teaching here to find a successor... well, it made sense. Izuku just wished he'd been told.

How many other people knew was a question for later, however.

"Your inexperience with the quirk and other circumstances further complicates the matter."

"Sorry," said Izuku.

"Whatever for? It isn't your fault." Nezu did not wait for an answer. "Then there is yesterday's incident to consider... You say you felt something with the reporters?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Hm. Yes. Toshinori, I do believe you have a contact who could clear this up much more efficiently."

"I know," said Mr. Yagi. "He isn't picking up his phone."

"You don't think-?" started Izuku.

"No, no, he just hasn't been speaking to me lately."

"Oh? I was under the impression you had been communicating with him regularly since returning to Musutafu."

"He thought I would change my mind about something I didn't change my mind about, apparently. It doesn't matter. What else can we do?"

"A good number of things, luckily. Midoriya, I am going to make a series of phone calls. I would like you to tell me if the sensation you are experiencing changes at all while I make them."

"Yes, sir."

Nezu began methodically going through Izuku's list of teachers, warning them that something 'like yesterday' might happened and going over lesson plans and safety procedures. Nothing really changed. Until Nezu called Thirteen.

(Oh, gosh, they were going to go to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint on a field trip today? That was so cool!)

But after Nezu talked to Thirteen about checking safety systems, a little bit of the tension he'd been holding onto leaked away.

"Interesting," said Nezu. "Perhaps we should reschedule rescue training until-"

Izuku dove for Nezu's garbage bin.

"-or perhaps not," mused Nezu as Izuku expelled the meager contents of his stomach.

It was a good thing he hadn't eaten breakfast.

"Hikage," said Banjo. "I'm sorry for calling you a dead-eyed emotionally stunted bastard with a warped sense of humor if this is what you had to put up with all the time."

"You called me a dead-eyed emotionally stunted bastard?"

"Not to your face, but yes."

"Well. It isn't as if those things aren't all true..."

"I'm okay," said Izuku. "That just... felt bad."

"No cancelations in that case," said Nezu as Mr. Yagi hovered.

"Y-yeah. Oh gosh, now I know how Uraraka feels..."

"Perhaps you should stay home-"

"No! I can't! That would be..."

Nezu held up his hands- paws? "It was merely a suggestion. Can I offer you some tea?"

"Yes, please," said Izuku, voice catching uncomfortably on his raw throat.

"I do have a few more calls to make. Do you feel up to staying, or would you prefer to head down to Recovery Girl? Or perhaps even the cafeteria? I imagine you haven't eaten breakfast."

"I'd like to stay."

"Very well." Nezu picked up his phone again. Izuku could just make out the click on the other end when it was picked up. "Am I a mouse? A dog? A bear? One thing's for sure! I'm the principal!" There was laughter on the other end of the line. "No, not at all! I am in fact calling for you, Tensei. Or should I say, Ingenium? I'm aware this is last minute, and you were planning on taking the day off - How do I know? It was quite simple, really - but between the break-in yesterday and a tip I received this morning regarding a threat to the school, I would like a few more hands on deck than usual. Why, yes, you can stay with your brother's class. Do try not to tease Shouta too much. He has a reputation to maintain." After a few more pleasantries, Nezu hung up. "Midoriya?"

"I... think that's better? I'm sorry, it's hard to tell what could be the quirk and what's just me feeling bad."

Nezu nodded. "In that case, I do recommend that you head to Recovery Girl's office. My other calls will be similar, and the other heroes will not be with your class."

"Why not?" asked Mr. Yagi.

"Because Midoriya's reaction to the field trip being canceled suggests that the danger may not be limited to himself or his class. Oh! And one more thing. Midoriya, I noticed that you put in some costume alteration requests. Naturally, most of them will not be finished until some time next week, however, some of the support items you mentioned are fairly common. If you have time before the field trip, you should pay a visit to Power Loader."

Izuku hadn't expected it, but he did feel much better after eating, despite his continuing sense of impending doom. It was also about half an hour from the beginning of homeroom, so he had the time to go to the support department and check if they had anything he could take.

He hoped they had grappling hooks. Izuku had always wanted a grappling hook.

Mr. Yagi took him most of the way there, but students had started to arrive at this point, and Izuku convinced him to go prepare for classes (and hide in the staff area so that no one would wonder why he, a skeleton man not recognizable as a hero, was at the school). Before too long, Izuku stood in front of a rather sturdy-looking metal door. He hoped this was the right one.

He raised his hand to knock just as something crashed into him. Ah. This was it for sure. The way he would die. The danger he had foreseen.

No. Wait. Never mind. He was fine, just on the ground.

"Oh! There was a person there! You okay?"

"U-um," said Izuku, sitting up and rubbing his head. "I'm fine, just a little startled."

"What're you doing here, anyway?"

"I- I'm here for... support... gear?" He sort of trailed off as he looked up.

It was the intense pink haired girl from the other day. As he watched, her expression changed from one of mild concern to calculating interest.

"Support gear, you say?"

Shouta answered his phone as he walked down the hall. "Nezu, I've already done every security check I can think of that'll fit-"

"Not quite why I was calling, although I can see why you would think so. One of your students needs to be rescued from the support department."

Shouta changed direction without missing a beat. "It's Midoriya, isn't it?"

"Why, yes."

"Did you send him down there without warning him?"

"Yes, again. You know me so well!"

Shouta hung up.

Chapter 7 Notes:

Edited 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

"Hey, Midoriya?" asked Uraraka, after Aizawa passed out a costume revision assignment and feigned passing out.

"Yes?" said Izuku, knowing that his eyes were preturnaturally wide and fine tremors were running through his body. He was a wreck.

"Are you okay? Why did you come to class with Mr. Aizawa?"

"And what's that you're holding onto?" asked Kaminari.

"Um," said Izuku. "I was sort of... abducted by the support department? But in a nice way... And they gave me this grappling hook."

"Wow, cool! I didn't know we could get stuff like that from the support department."

"You should really read the student handbook, Kaminari," said Iida, pushing up his glasses.

"But it's so long!"

Iida tsked and adjusted his glasses more vigorously. "You're a student! You should at least be familiar with what is expected of you! Speaking of which, Midoriya, do you know how to use that?"

As much as he could learn from a ten-minute crash-course. "... yes," said Izuku, but it was clear from Iida's face that he had hesitated too long.

"Midoriya! You shouldn't have something like that in the classroom without knowing how to use it!" Iida half stood up, and Izuku clutched the grappling hook closer to his chest.

"No! Mine!" Maybe he was too attached to something he'd only had for a little over an hour, but the support department hadn't been able to give him any smoke bombs or flash grenades due to 'new school regulations regarding explosives' and he'd gone through a lot this morning.

Distress washed over Iida's face, and Izuku wondered if he'd accidentally smacked into some old trauma.

"I wasn't going to take it!" he said, earnestly waving his hands. "I just wanted to make sure you knew where the safety-"

The door to the classroom slammed open. "Is that my little brother I hear?" asked a beaming man in a track suit. Without waiting for an answer, he bounded over to where Iida was sitting and clapped him on the back. "I have come to embarrass you horribly!"

From the expression on Iida's face, this venture was doomed to failure. "I thought you were joking when you said you'd see me today!" exclaimed Iida, beaming.

"Why... why would I joke about that?"

"You joke about a lot of things. Like knowing vigila-"

"Okay! Yes, haha, funny jokester, that's me! Now why don't you introduce me to your classmates?"

"Of course! I have been remiss in my duties as vice president." He stood and executed a ninety-degree bow. "Forgive me! This is my brother, Iida Tensei! Also known as the pro hero Ingenium!"

Izuku could almost see his classmates start to put together the puzzle pieces of Chibiida and extremely tall older brother. He was more concerned about whether or not it would be rude to ask Ingenium for his autograph... and to check his analysis page on Ingenium...

"That's me! And I'll be your special guest TA today! Now, where's Aizawa? You're supposed to have him for homeroom, right?"

As one, the class pointed to the giant yellow caterpillar in the corner of the room.

"Oh my gosh, Shouta, I thought you were joking-"

Ingenium was, to put it in a single word, cool. To put it in two words, he was unbelievably cool. So cool Izuku was almost able to forget the impending field-trip-related DOOM they were all facing.

But not quite.

So Izuku slogged through his classes, still thrilled to be there and wanting to do his best, but unable to truly focus past the crushing weight of what might happen. His classmates and maybe-friends hovered at the periphery of his suffering, clearly wanting to help, but just as clearly unsure how, or what lines they could or couldn't cross, leading them to resort to painfully awkward normal small talk.

Until they sat down for lunch, that is, by which time Monoma and Iida had gotten into a conversational spiral about how amazing UA was, how awesome Ingenium was, and how UA was truly superior for being able to have pro-heroes like Ingenium come in as TAs on such short notice.

"Midoriya," said Uraraka, startling him out of his fourth or fifth 'Kacchan sweep.'

(It was still possible that his bad feeling was related to Kacchan hunting him down and blowing him up. He'd be mortified about making such a big deal over it if that was the case, but it would be preferable to, say, a terrorist attack.)

(Why did he keep coming back to terrorist attacks?)

"Are you... okay? You've just seemed really down today, and-"

"Invisible hug!" shouted Hagakure before grabbing Izuku and lifting him over her head.

There was a beat of whispering near-silence. Then Uraraka stood up, slamming both hands on the table and inadvertently making it float. "You have got to tell me your work out routine!"

Izuku agreed.

("Strawberry," someone whispered.)

"I generally say what's on my mind," said Asui as the Iidas had radically different reactions to the bus seating arrangement.

"Aha," said Izuku. The swaying of the bus plus the strain of probably-Danger-Sense was making him nauseous. "What is it, Asui?'

"Call me Tsuyu."

The first time a person his age let him call them by name since kindergarten, and he couldn't properly appreciate it. Figured.

"I was watching the videos of the battle trials I missed last night," Tsuyu continued, "and I realized, I don't think any of us know what your quirk is."

Izuku's first impulse was to lie or redirect the conversation. Years of quirklessness had left their mark. But on second consideration... was there really a reason to lie? He wasn't going to talk about One for All, obviously, but the rest of it was harmless and bound to come out eventually anyway.

"Well," said Izuku, adjusting the fit of his air filter self-consciously. "That's a good question, actually."

"If you're keeping it a secret, I won't press."

"No, no, that isn't it!" Yes, it was. "It's just that, um, it's really subtle? As in, so subtle I thought I was quirkless until recently. Haha."

"Oh, wow," said Kirishima, "that must have been hard. I mean, I got teased for having a boring quirk, I can't even imagine-"

"Your quirk isn't boring! It's more than enough to be a pro!"

"But what is your quirk?" asked Monoma.

"Um," said Izuku, "well, we're not entirely sure, but... We think it lets me sense things that are dangerous? But I've also got anxiety, so..."

Monoma was frowning, but before he could speak, one of Hagakure's gloves waved frantically in front of his face.

"Is that how you knew I was there?" she asked. "In the battle trial and the entrance exam?"

"Maybe? I think so?"

"You were kind of anxious this morning," said Uraraka, concerned. "Did something bad happen to you?"

"Not- not yet," said Izuku, weakly. "It- We still don't really know how it works, so it could just be the anxiety..." He trailed off. Everyone was kind of staring at him. He pressed back against his seat, wishing there was somewhere to hide.

"Well!" said Uraraka, suddenly pumped up. "We'll just have to keep an eye out! We're hero students, aren't we?"

There was a general cheer of consensus and Izuku managed a shaky smile. So, this was what it was like to have friends.

Eventually, Mr. Aizawa told them to calm down, but there was no heat in the scolding. Maybe, Izuku thought, past the ever-increasing buzzing in his head, today would be okay after all.

"Yeah," said Hikage, "there's really no chance of that."

The Unforeseen Simulation Joint was an incredible space!

Space Hero Thirteen was about a thousand times cooler in person than on TV!

All Might, in his golden age rescue-specialized costume, looked like he'd just stepped off the pages of a comic book!

But just like Tsuyu's name, Izuku didn't have the ability to appreciate it.

As the other students marveled over the USJ, Izuku watched the adults quietly talk to one another. It seemed to be something serious.

"Did you find anything else with the safety checks?" asked Shouta.

"A few of the areas had the difficulty set too high- apparently some of the third-years decided to get some practice in and their supervisor didn't reset everything. Other than that? Nothing." Thirteen shook their head. "No signs of structural failure, no security gaps. Everything seems, well, normal."

"Well," said All Might, "whatever happens, we're prepared!"

Aizawa seriously doubted they were prepared for anything, but the most obvious, most likely things? Yeah.

"What do you think, Ingenium?" he asked.

"Everything looks fine to me," said Tensei, shrugging. "But if it was something obvious, then it wouldn't be so much of a threat, right?"

"We're still not sure how Midoriya's quirk really works," said Shouta. "It could be a threat just to him." He sighed heavily.

Tensei smiled in a way that just about guaranteed Shouta would be teased about this later.

"Well, I'm going to start my speech now!" said Thirteen giving the others a thumbs up. "Wish me luck!"

As soon as Thirteen finished their (surprisingly moving) speech, all of Izuku's attention zeroed in on the air next to the fountain. A swirl of dark mist appeared next to it.

Izuku felt like he couldn't breathe.

"Mr. Aizawa-!" But he was already looking in that direction, already watching the man made covered in emerge from the dark hole, followed by a veritable horde of villains.

And Izuku didn't use the term villain idly here. Several of the people he saw were on wanted lists.

Ironically, now that he was faced with real danger, the panicked siren in his head eased off slightly. Evidently, at least some of the strain had been fear of the unknown, and now the threat was very, very known in the worst way, that particular stressor was gone.

"There he is!" cried the man covered in hands. "All Might! The one we've all come for! Nomu! Get him!"

A large villain with an exposed brain who practically sang with danger charged All Might, who grabbed him by the wrist and flung him away, towards the landslide zone. "Ha! That's not much of a challenge! You'll have to do better than that, villains!"

"Maybe," said a villain made of the same mist as the portal that had brought the others. The large villain came charging out of the landslide zone, none the worse for wear. "Maybe not."

"You might be an elite player, but can you fight the boss and protect the noobs you're powerleveling?"

The other villains surged forwards.

This is when Mr. Aizawa and Ingenium jumped into the fray, and everything immediately got more chaotic. Izuku rapidly lost track of the multiple battles occurring around him - except, wow, Mr. Aizawa was really mowing through villains, wasn't he - that Nomu guy had to have a regeneration quirk, there was just no way - he'd have to write down that villain's monologue as soon as they got out, it might have clues - Izuku had no idea that Ingenium could fly and wow that gave him some ideas for Iida-

Speaking of Iida-

"This is no time for analysis! Hurry up and evacuate!"

Right.

"I won't allow that."

Yeah the misty villain definitely had some kind of teleportation quirk, which made this whole thing even more gutsy. Quirks like that were always monitored by the government. These guys must not care about their identities.

"Greetings," he said, a metal colar slipping into place around his neck. "We are the League of Villains. Forgive our audacity, but... today we've come to-"

A gust of air from All Might's fight pushed the mist villain back. But the move had left him partially unguarded, and Izuku watched helplessly as Nomu pounded a fist into his exposed side-

Nomu knew about All Might's injury.

Oh, no.

Izuku didn't have time to process that, however, as Kirishima and Monoma jumped forward, attacking the mist villain.

The feeling of danger spiked, and Izuku barely registered Monoma's bewildered expression.

"Only students... but the best of the best... yes he was right to say you'd be a threat." Darkness spread like an ink stain from the villain's body. Darkness... and portals.

Izuku slammed into Tsuyu and Kaminari, pushing them out of the way of forming portals. He wasn't able to do the same for himself.

"Begone," intoned the mist villain, his voice echoing all around Izuku. "Writhe in torment until you breathe your last."

The next thing Izuku knew, he was in clear light and falling. From at least two stories up, over the flood zone.

And then he stopped.

The ghosts whipped their heads around to stare at Nana. She was sitting on a stool, hiding her face in her hands, though whether it was out of embarrassment or fear for Izuku was unclear.

"Nana..." said Yoichi, softly.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry I saw him falling and pani-"

"What did you do that for!" exclaimed Banjo. "He was only fifteen, twenty meters up! Into water!"

"That's twice as high as Olympic divers go! And they screw up their bodies all the time if they hit wrong!" shot back Nana, other emotions abandoned in favor of rage.

"Uh, guys...?" said Yoichi, weakly.

"Who still watches the Olympics?" muttered En.

"If we had to give him a new quirk, it should have been a combat one!"

"You're just jealous that he has Float and not Blackwhip!"

"So what if I am?" demanded Banjo. "If he had Blackwhip, he wouldn't need that stupid grappling hook gun!"

"So, you admit Blackwhip is just a glorified grappling hook?"

"Better than a glorified- glorified-" He puffed out his cheeks. "I'm going to give him Blackwhip right now!"

"NO!" shouted the other ghosts.

"Banjo," said En, "what do you remember about people who All for One gave three quirks to?"

Banjo went pale.

"Oh, hell," said Banjo. "I'm sorry, I got carried away."

"You can say that again," grumbled Nana.

"But," continued Banjo, "doesn't this mean we can't give him the stockpile?"

They turned to Yoichi, who was far and away the expert on the stockpile quirk. He held up his hands and offered a sick, shaky smile. "We've already started the process of giving him stockpile access. There's... there's really no way to stop it."

Nana started swearing, and even Second and Third looked tense.

"But that's borrowing trouble! Maybe he'll be compatable?"

"With three quirks?"

"It's possible!" protested Yoichi. "I mean, he's- um, he's got One for All? Maybe it's more like All for One than we thought?"

"Disgusting."

"No."

"Absolutely not."

"Never say that again."

"But, again, that's a future problem, unlike the villain attack, which is a now problem."

"I see what you're saying," said En, "but we can't do anything about the villain attack, and we could theoretically do something about quirk troubles. Unless you'd rather watch helplessly while our latest-possibly-last holder is murdered?"

Yoichi sighed. "Okay, yeah, let's take a look."

Izuku's first thought was that Uraraka must have tagged him, but he had been way too far away from her for her to do that. Unless she had run at him when he dove for Tsuyu? Tsuyu had maybe sort of been between them...

But, no, this didn't feel like Uraraka's quirk. He'd only experienced it a couple of times, but it felt like falling. This felt more like floating on the surface of a pool.

This was, he realized as he drifted helplessly upwards and slightly sideways, Shimura Nana's quirk.

It would be really, really cool if the circumstances were different or if he had any control over the quirk whatsoever. As it was, he didn't appreciate the way he was getting progressively higher. Hitting the water at his previous height would have sucked, but he probably would have survived. Now? Not so much. So, if the quirk decided to stop as suddenly as it had started, he was doomed.

Beyond doomed.

He'd be dead.

Wait! The grappling hook!

He pulled it carefully out of its holster, making sure to wrap the loop around his wrist. He could get back to the ground with the grappling hook, anchor himself at a decent height and make use of this, or even attack, but if he dropped it...

Well. Doom and all that.

His best bet was the top of the downpour zone. It was the closest structure by far. He lined up his sights, fired, and watched as the hook fell several meters short.

That was less than ideal.

He rolled over and looked up. He wasn't that far from the ceiling-

Danger Sense screamed at him, and he was falling, just in time to miss getting hit by a jet of water from below. Izuku, naturally, started screaming as well and fired the grappling hook blindly. He rejoiced as a metallic thunk told him it had hit something and immediately hit the stop button, almost wrenching his shoulders out of their sockets. However, his joy quickly turned to horror as he realized he was now headed toward the hard, unforgiving side of the downpour zone at a dangerously high speed. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Float turned back on.

Izuku let out a somewhat pathetic whine in relief, and hit the retract button on the grappling hook gun, letting it pull him up to the roof.

From here, he had an acceptable view of the rest of the USJ. He shaded his eyes to look back at the main plaza and entrance. He could see Eraserhead and Ingenium fighting back to back in the central plaza. All Might and Nomu were tearing up trees in one of the forested areas, and near the entrance he could see Thirteen, Iida, Uraraka, Shouji, Sato, Sero, and Ashido facing down the mist villain. Hopefully, with those numbers, they'd be able to get past him.

Looking elsewhere, Izuku had to assume Todoroki was in the landslide zone, with the spiky ring of ice in the middle of it. He must be holding back. He could make out a fight happening in the mountain zone, but couldn't tell who was involved.

That was more than half the class unaccounted for, including Tsuyu and Kaminari, who he'd thought he'd pushed away from portals. They were probably in the other zones, but...

He took a deep breath. Focus. Where would he do the most good? Danger Sense couldn't tell him that right now, with all these bright threats all around him. He had to decide on his own.

The fight in the mountain area wasn't going well. The number of visible villains was only increasing.

Could Izuku get there? He bit his lip as he contemplated the distance, then jogged back to the opposite side of the downpour zone roof.

Then he ran.

Then he-

-jumped-

-off the roof.

Float activated at the top of the arc of his jump, and his momentum sent him tumbling forward towards the mountain zone. As he approached and began to slow (air resistance still being a thing, apparently), he was able to see Yaoyorozu and Jiro fighting for their lives. Yaoyorozu did not look good.

This wasn't a great way to be proven right about her quirk having drawbacks.

He aimed the grappling hook at one of the larger, closer villains, not really caring about how much damage it would do, and fired.

"Wow," said En. "Kid definitely has a bit of a ruthless streak."

"Imagine how much better he'd do with Blackwhip."

"He wouldn't have been able to get there in the first place without Float."

"Honestly," continued En, "I don't get why Second and Third don't like him. They never shut up about Nana and Eighth being too soft, after all."

"What? They said that stuff about me, too?"

"Yeah, I think they're just unsatsifiable at this point. It's annoying."

"I was much more violent and ruthless than Toshi, though."

"I know."

"Yoichi," said Hikage. "I'm not seeing any sign of additional stress on Ninth's body."

"That's because Izuku is the best."

"Or," said En, "it's because he's only had Nana's quirk for, like, five, ten minutes, tops."

"Or because he's the best. Just look at how he's helped his friends defeat all those villains!"

"Compelling argument," said Hikage.

"What- what now?" asked Yaoyorozu, holding herself up with one of her staffs. The mountain zone was littered with various weapons and shrapnel from Yaoyorozu's quirk use. This included a canon. Which was really cool, but seemed a bit over the top... and maybe not the most efficient thing to make, considering Yaoyorozu's limitations.

"I don't know," admitted Izuku. He'd been flung around the field as a makeshift flail/bola by the girls a few times, and was a little dizzy.

He looked back out at the battles still taking place in the plaza. "I think... Maybe we should go down, and make our way around the edge to the entrance. We could pick up Todoroki and see if there's anyone in the ruins zone who needs help-"

Then he saw the hand villain step forward, facing down Eraserhead as Ingenium was lured away in defense of Tsuyu and Kaminari, who had just run out of the wooded area, trailing villains. Danger flared in his mind's eye, and, for the second time in his life, his body moved by itself.

Chapter 8 Notes:

Edited 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

As much of a disaster as this was, it would have been about a thousand times worse without Tensei there. The Nomu guy had All Might pinned down, and as terrifying as that was, it was only made worse by how little he reacted to Shouta erasing his quirk whenever he caught sight of him.

No wonder Midoriya had been a wreck this morning. If nothing else, this confirmed his quirk was some kind of precognitive danger detection, and Shouta fully intended to get it registered as such the minute they got out of this mess, so that the next time Midoriya showed up shaking in his red shoes, they could hit the problem with an army.

The hand-covered villain started reciting numbers. What was he doing? Counting something? Time?

Shouta blinked. The villain said a new number.

Oh, hell. The bastard was measuring the length of time he could keep his quirk active.

Distantly, because he was currently fighting about a dozen villains and really needed to keep his attention on not dying, Shouta registered an approaching young scream. Then something thunked into the fountain, and a line - a carbon fiber cable? - appeared between Shouta and the hand villain, giving them both pause. The pause lasted just long enough for two pairs of red shoes to plow into the side of the hand villain's head.

The momentum of impact took both Midoriya and the hand villain into the fountain. Then the fountain disintegrated. Shouta turned his quirk back on, and Midoriya log rolled away from the remains of the fountain.

"Get out of here!" ordered Shouta.

"Yes, sir!" said Midoriya, scrambling to his feet and managing to dodge several villains' attacks in a way that looked both natural and uncanny.

Shouta refocused on the hand villain, who could evidently disintegrate things by touching them. What a joy. A completely terrible match up for close range fighters like himself and Tensei. Or All Might, for that matter.

As Shouta strategized, part of his brain filed the question of how Midoriya had gotten there under 'for later.'

It would be best to restrain him while he was still disoriented-

Then the portal villain was there, between him and the disintegration villain.

Shouta found himself falling.

Izuku did not reach Ingenium in time to stop him from being pinned by the tree. Not that he'd known Nomu would throw a tree that way, but he'd been more than aware that something bad was going to happen.

From what Izuku had seen so far, All Might had been trying to keep his fight with Nomu away from others while still occasionally throwing an assist. But Nomu was strong. If Izuku didn't know better, he'd say the villain had multiple quirks-

-except maybe he didn't know better. Here was Izuku with two quirks, after all. Who was to say there couldn't be another quirk like One for All?

That could be bad.

Judging by the way All Might's direct attacks and punches barely moved Nomu but throws seemed to work normally, in addition to a regeneration quirk, Izuku would say he had something else that absorbed impact. And then possibly a strength quirk...?

All Might and Nomu rolled out of the trees. All Might was ever-so-slightly bloodied. Nomu looked unscathed.

It would be a gamble, All Might probably had already realized it, but...

Knowledge was power.

Izuku cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "All Might! I think he has more than one quirk!"

Black bled into the air.

"You certainly are a golden egg, aren't you?"

The mist villain and the hand villain were there. The hand villain, who bore a strong resemblance to a drowned rat, cackled.

"You've been trying to seal his movements, haven't you?" he said, voice scratchy. "But it's no good, he's just as powerful as you. Nomu- our specially made multi-quirked anti-All Might weapon. Kurogiri."

"Yes, Shigaraki Tomura."

More portals started to form, and Izuku started to get a better, horrible idea of what the villains' goal here was.

He needed Ingenium, and Kaminari.

He edged away, then turned to run. He couldn't directly help All Might right now, but if All Might could just hold out a little longer-

He grabbed Kaminari and Tsuyu's hands. "Help me get Ingenium free! I have a plan!"

"You have a plan, Midoriya?" asked Ingenium.

"Y-yeah," said Midoriya. "Just, we have to get this off of you for it to work-"

"Explain to me as you go."

"Well-"

"Multiple quirks," said En quietly.

"No! Toshinori killed him!"

"Never thought he was human enough to die-" started Banjo.

"Please tell me you aren't quoting pre-quirk literature at us right now," said En.

"Yoichi?" asked Hikage.

The ghosts shifted their attention to their first member.

"You don't seem very surprised," observed Nana.

"I guess it's like Banjo said," said Yoichi with a pained smile. "I just... never really felt like it was over... Even if I didn't think he'd attack Izuku of all people..."

"Well, he isn't. Clearly he's sent his goons after Toshinori. But why wouldn't you think he'd go after Ninth as soon as he realized Toshi passed on One for All?" asked Nana, putting her hands on her hips.

"Probably because it doesn't look like he has One for All?" suggested En.

"Oh," said Nana. "Yeah. Good point."

Izuku didn't miss the pain that flickered across Ingenium's face as he stood, or the way he was clearly favoring one side of his body, but they didn't have a lot of options right now. This was the best they could do. All Might was still avoiding the portals, and Nomu reaching through them, but he'd had to abandon his cape.

Worse, he was still obviously worried about the four of them, and had left himself open to injury to knock small-fry villains away from them multiple times as they levered the tree off Ingenium.

They didn't have time. They didn't have options.

(This would be a great time for reinforcements from the school to arrive.)

(They didn't.)

Izuku handed the spooled out end of the grappling hook to Ingenium, and the gun end to Kaminari. Tsuyu wrapped her tongue around Izuku and they jumped away, out of range.

Then Ingenium took off, compensating for less thrust output on his injured side. He was wobbly, and the hand villain easily dodged him, but the mist villain, with his focus on the portals, didn't. Ingenium slammed the points of the grappling hook into the man's metal collar, and ran.

Lightning struck, racing down the conductive cable from Kaminari to the mist villain. The man convulsed, the portals snapping shut.

One of them snapped shut on Nomu.

The villain's arm flopped onto the ground, and Izuku swallowed hard. That could have been All Might, if they hadn't timed that right.

Nomu roared, but its muscles bulged, and its arm, rapidly, disgustingly, grew back.

They'd gotten rid of the portal threat, but what now? Nomu and the hand villain were still very much threats, and if the hand villain got even one hand on All Might, it was game over.

Third cursed, surprising everyone.

"Ooh, are you finally acknowledging Izuku's superior skill in strategy and quirk analysis?" asked Yoichi, striking a pose.

"No," said Third, stepping away from the wall. "You can keep him to yourself. I just don't want Eighth to die." He walked over to the fiery form that was Yagi Toshinori's placeholder in the mindscape. "He's still connected."

"Well, yeah," said Yoichi. "What are you doing?"

"I'm giving him Fa Jin."

"What! He can do that?" demanded Banjo. "What about Blackwhip?"

"How the hell would Toshinori explain Blackwhip? Give it a rest already."

Third put his hands on Eighth's shoulders.

"Midoriya!"

"Monoma?" Izuku staggered as Monoma dropped both hands on his shoulders. "What?"

"The portal villain!" said Monoma, eyes wide. "He has multiple quirks!"

"It's true," said Kirishima, running up behind him. "After we were zapped to the ruins zone, Monoma was able to do all sorts of stuff."

"So, he's like Nomu?"

"That thing has multiple quirks, too?"

Normally, calling someone with a quirk that affected their appearance a thing was frowned upon, but in this case they were all going to let it slide.

"Yeah," said Izuku. A terrible idea began to rise up in his mind. But then he was distracted by Kaminari starting to wander towards the fight. "I think it has three," he said in a rush. "Regen, strength, and shock absorption if you can think of anything-" he cut off. "We need to get Kaminari."

"I've got him," said Kirishima quickly, "I can take a hit."

Izuku nodded.

"Midoriya, Ingenium!" said Tsuyu with a gasp.

Ingenium had collapsed, clutching one of his legs. Tears pricked at Izuku's eyes. There was too much going on!

A wave of ice crusted over Nomu.

Todoroki!

All Might took advantage of his opponent's temporary incapacitation and leaped back to where Izuku and the others were, grabbing Kirishima, Kaminari, and Ingenium on the way. "You kids need to get out of here!"

"But the shock absorbtion-!"

"Geez, plain kid, what are you, some kind of exposition dump?" asked the hand villain, scratching his neck. "A secret gimmick boss?" He laughed. "Yeah, Nomu has shock absorption. Like I said-" Nomu ripped itself free of the ice, "-he's a specially made living sandbag, a damage sponge just for-"

The hand villain cut off as a floating tree branch hit him over the back of the head, knocking free one of his costume hands. He staggered but didn't fall, swiping behind him with one hand. One of his own hands, that was. Hagakure yelped.

Not really thinking, Izuku picked up a rock and threw it at the hand villain, who caught and disintegrated it. "That's it, you hero brats!" He was blown back by a gust of wind.

"Go!" urged All Might. "Shock absorption quirks always have limits! So do regeneration quirks!"

So did All Might.

"If I could touch him," started Monoma. "If I could touch you-"

"Go," repeated All Might, more urgently.

"You heard him," said Tsuyu.

"Running away?" taunted the hand villain. Then, more quietly but still audible, "Wake up, Kurogiri."

All Might smiled grimly. "Not at all," he said. Then he charged the Nomu.

The silver lining to being shipped express to the location of one of the most traumatic events in his life was that Shouta had cell service. He could call UA.

Literally everything else sucked.

"Nezu," he croaked into the receiver. "Attack-"

"On the USJ, yes. I gathered reinforcements when the computer system stopped returning my pings and I couldn't contact you or Thirteen. What is your- oh, dear, how did you get all the way out there?"

"One of the villains has a warp quirk," said Shouta, he shifted and hissed. "Dropped me from over a story up." Probably more like two. Or even three. "Kinda want to know why he dropped me here."

"I'm sending a ambulance your way," said Nezu brusquely.

"There's also a guy who can turn stuff to dust with a touch - got me a couple times, but only got my skin - and really... muscly guy. Fighting All Might. Lots of cannon fodder. My kids-"

"You've done everything you can. Focus on not dying. You were always one if my favorite students. I'd hate to lose you."

"I'm a teacher."

"And? Ah! That's Iida Tenya on the road!"

"'S he okay?"

"Somewhat winded, but unharmed! Anything else we should know?"

"One of the villains was going toe-to-toe with All Might," said Shouta, blinking black spots out of his eyes. "The leader had a five-point disintegration quirk- Got me a couple times, just lost some skin though." He inhaled deeply, and groaned at the distinct sensation of a cracked rib. "Kids were scattered. Don't know where they all were. Saw Midoriya." He took another gasp of air. "I think Thirteen was injured."

He could hear sirens.

"I think," he said, weakly, "that's... no, there were a lot of canon fodder guys... Did I say that already? I think that's it."

"Thank you, Shouta. I'm going to leave you on speaker. If you can think of anything else, let us know. We need to debrief Iida, now."

"Hn," said Shouta.

By the time All Might punched Nomu through the roof of the USJ, the hand villain was shaking the mist villain vigorously, and Izuku and his classmates were halfway to the exit, carrying Ingenium and Kaminari.

Izuku was relieved, despite the danger still hanging in the air. It couldn't have been more than thirty minutes since this all started, but it was probably shorter, and Izuku knew All Might had all his time for today.

With Nomu gone, there was no way All Might would lose. Not even to someone with a destructive five-point quirk. Izuku could write a whole article on his reasoning, with sources cited.

All Might flipped a cube out of his pocket, and it unfolded into a pair of handcuffs designed specifically for restraining people with five-point quirks. It was obvious that the hand villain wasn't going to come quietly.

The mist villain's yellow eyes opened groggily. All Might moved-

-too slow.

The hand villain and the mist villain were gone.

The other villains who had come with them, however, were still very present. Which is why, Izuku would maintain until he died, he passed out when the rest of the teachers stepped through the door of the USJ and he finally felt safe.

Shouta watched as the two villain leaders stumbled out of a portal not far from him. He had the presence of mind to silence his phone, but couldn't focus enough to do much else. Hopefully Nezu still recorded all his calls, the paranoid rodent...

"Kurogiri," growled the hand villain. "Where the hell are we, and why are we here?"

The mist villain - Kurogiri? - shook his head slowly. "I am unsure, Shigaraki Tomura. I do not recognize the area." His voice was unsteady and itched at Shouta's brain. "I suspect... I suspect that the electric attack of that student has damaged my quirk control."

"Then get it undamaged, idiot. Goddamn sun... we're out in the open! I can hear sirens."

"I believe that those are ambulance sirens. Police sirens have a different pitch-"

"I don't care! Open a portal back home!"

"I am uncertain if that is-"

"Take us back to the bar. Now."

The villains left again, all without noticing Shouta. Maybe they were just desensitized to corpses lying in dark alleys or something. Not that he was a corpse yet. Even if his eyes were sliding closed.

What an illogical affair.

This was a stupid place to die.

"Alright," said En, in a tone that indicated he wanted attention. "Now that Ninth is no longer in danger of immediate death, I think we have some things to talk about. Firstly, Yoichi, I have a question for you."

Yoichi looked resigned. "Ask away, then."

"Before I ask it, I just want to preface that I've always had the utmost respect for you, and obviously there's nothing you can do to act on it from in here, but I can't help but notice that you seem... unusually attached to Ninth."

Yoichi gestured for En to contine.

"So, I have to ask... Yoichi, are you a pedophile?"

"No, I'm not rel- a pedophile?"

"Like I said, you seem unusu-"

"I'm his uncle!"

"What," said Nana.

"What," said Banjo, not quite at the same time.

"Wha- Not that I'm not pleased I won't have to figure out a way to double murder you, but what?" demanded En.

"I can't believe you thought I was a pedophile! What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with him?" said Banjo, phantom representations of Blackwhip peeling off his body. "What's wrong with you? How are you Ninth's uncle?"

"In the usual way!" shouted Yoichi, who seemed to have gotten stuck on high volume. "I'm actually kind of shocked none of you noticed right away!"

"How could we possibly have noticed?" demanded Banjo.

"I noticed," said Hikage.

"I- Wait, what, really?" Yoichi turned to Hikage.

"Yes," said Hikage, gravely. "All for One was in the family photo on the wall in Ninth's house. The one in the living room. I thought we were just avoiding the subject to be polite."

"Hikage," said Nana, "I cannot begin to tell you how much that wasn't what was going on. Is that why you two were sulking?" she asked Third.

"We aren't sulking. We're protesting the ridiculous decision to give One for All to the son of All for One. And I'm going right back to it."

"Bah!" said Yoichi, waving him off. "Go sulk in your corner! You're just jealous that Izuku is the coolest One for All holder!"

En's eyes had narrowed suspiciously. "Those two were sulking way before we were in Ninth, let alone his house. When did they find out?"

"Like, the day after Eighth met him. I told them because I wanted advice, but I got sulking instead. See if I tell them any more secrets, ever."

"That was a year ago," said Nana. "Are you- How in the world did you know, anyway?"

"He looks just like Hisashi did at that age," said Yoichi. "Also, he always said that if he had kids, he'd name them Tomura and Izuku, so..."

"Ninth looks like his mother, though," said Nana.

"Yeah, and All for One is a grade-A narcissist," said Yoichi.

"You're saying he picked, ugh, what was her name- Inko. He picked Inko because she looked like him?" asked Nana.

"Yeah, essentially."

"Wait, wait, back up," said Banjo. "Tomura? Did you say Tomura?"

"Yeah?"

"That's what the mist guy called the hand guy that one time. Actually- Didn't All for One go by Shigaraki for a while there, too?"

The only audible sound was a heartrate monitor's muffled beep. Presumably from Ninth being hooked up to one.

"That's messed up," said Yoichi, finally. There wasn't much else to say.

Chapter 9 Notes:

Edited on 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

Banjo took Hikage to the side while the other ghosts were still wading through their existential crisis.

"Man," he said, "Hikage, bro. You know I love you."

"You do?"

"Like... at least eighty-five percent of the time."

"Ah, continue."

"But next time you think one of us has a secret relative out there, you've got to say something so we don't get blindsided."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

"Alright, then. I couldn't help but notice that both Ninth's mother and 'Tomura' share a strong resemblance to Nana."

"... I've changed my mind."

Although Midoriya Inko had abandoned the tech conference as soon as she heard about the attack on the USJ, she, unlike the mist villain, could not teleport. Therefore, Izuku was stuck in the nurse's office even after he had woken up and paramedics had confirmed that his injuries began and ended at bruises and quirk exhaustion. (And a potentially fractured bone in his foot, but that wasn't worth mentioning.)

Sitting next to the police officer with nothing to do was... awkward. Very awkward. His hands itched for his notebooks, but everything they brought to the USJ was evidence, and he hadn't been allowed to go back to the classroom. He wanted to know what happened to his classmates and Mr. Aizawa, who he hadn't seen since he ran away from the plaza and left him with the hand villain, and Mr. Yagi, who had really taken a beating from Nomu. Danger Sense was quiet, relatively speaking, but Float was just waiting to be used and tested.

Plus, he really, really had to talk to Mr. Yagi about that. Loads of his classmates had seen him use Float. How was he supposed to explain having Float right after telling them he probably had a sensory quirk?

Plus, if he got Float, it stood to reason that he'd get all the other One for All users' quirks as well. So he had to figure out how to make Danger Sense, Float, Smokescreen, Blackwhip, and a strength enhancement all look like the same quirk. Which, maybe they were, technically, considering that Monoma had sensed One for All as a single quirk but whatever was going on with the mist villain as multiple quirks...

Point was, One for All definitely functioned as multiple quirks.

Would his friends think he was lying? No, he'd definitely proven Danger Sense existed by predicting, however loosely, the attack.

"Hey, Tamakawa."

Izuku and the officer looked up at one of the detectives who had come to take initial statements. His name was... Tsukauchi, Izuku thought. Mr. Yagi (as Mr. Yagi) was standing behind him.

"I can take it from here. I have a few more questions for Midoriya."

"Yes, sir. Midoriya." He nodded at them as he left the room.

"How are you feeling, Young Midoriya?" asked Mr. Yagi, taking the officer's spot with a slight groan.

"Uh, better than this morning, actually," he said. "But, um, but what about you? That Nomu guy kept, um..." His eyes trailed towards the detective.

"Ah, this is Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa. He's an old friend of mine. He knows... well, just about everything about me."

Izuku nodded slowly. "So, he knows about, um..."

"I know about One for All," said Tsukauchi.

"Oh," said Izuku. He rapidly gathered together his thoughts, trying to decide what the most important piece of information he had to impart was. "Do you know what happened to Mr. Aizawa? And Ingenium?"

That was most definitely not a piece of information. Stupid brain.

"The portal villain, Kurogiri, teleported Aizawa off UA grounds, but he was able to get help quickly after that. Ingenium had some injuries that need a specialist, so he went home. They'll be alright, but they'll probably have to take a few days off."

"Yes," said Tsukauchi, giving Mr. Yagi one of the driest looks Izuku had ever seen. "Because you heroes are so good about that."

"Teaching isn't exactly strenuous, Naomasa."

"Remind me again how you got injured this time."

Mr. Yagi made a face Izuku would have found hilarious under other circumstances. "That's different," he said, plaintively.

"Is it though?"

Mr. Yagi coughed. "Now, Midoriya, my boy... I'm sure you have things you want to talk about... I think I glimpsed you soaring through the air, earlier. Did you unlock the enhancement aspect of One for All?"

"No," said Izuku. "Not exactly."

"Well," said Mr. Yagi. "That's, hm. Certainly something."

"Sorry," said Izuku.

"You have nothing to apologize for, my boy," said Mr. Yagi, patting his knee. "In fact, it's a good thing that you got Float this time. I'd be at a loss about what to do with Smokescreen or Blackwhip. But I'm fairly familiar with my master's quirk, and, well, there's someone else who I should... get back into contact with..." Mr. Yagi forced the words out as if they physically pained him to say.

Which they might have. He did have the whole... coughing... thing. Maybe he was just trying to hold one back?

"Mr. Yagi? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine."

"Okay, are you sure?" He wasn't sure if he wanted to bring the next part up if Mr. Yagi wasn't feeling well.

"Yes," said Mr. Yagi. "I just, hm. It's just... history."

Izuku nodded. "So, um. Did you hear Monoma say that the mist guy - Kurogiri? - had multiple quirks, too? Like Nomu?"

The mood plummeted.

"Yes," said Tsukauchi. "He told me, and I told Toshinori. It appears that Kurogiri's warp quirk is actually several different quirks working as one. Merged together, almost."

Izuku nodded. "I was just wondering... One for All can be passed on, so... are there other quirks like that? Like, if the first person with One for All had family members or something? Or..." Izuku trailed off. Mr. Yagi now looked actively ill. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Toshinori," said Tsukauchi, "you mean you didn't tell him already?"

"In my defense, I thought he was extremely dead."

"What- Who are you talking about?"

"My boy... I think it's time to tell you a story of two brothers..."

"So, One for All comes with a built in nemesis? Who may be immortal?"

"That- He's not..." Mr. Yagi bowed his head. "It would appear so."

"I am somehow both surprised and not."

"There's one more thing I wanted to ask you about before your mother arrives," said Mr. Yagi.

"Please tell me it's not something worse, like me being a descendant of the guy," requested Izuku, picking the worst, most ridiculous thing he could think of.

Tsukauchi snorted, then covered the noise up with a cough.

"I seriously doubt that All for One could maintain a romantic relationship of any kind," said Mr. Yagi, "and even if you were, it wouldn't really matter. I mean, his own brother hated his guts."

"That's a bit extreme..." murmured Yoichi.

"Considering some of the rants we've gotten you to go on," said En, "it really isn't."

"Maybe. Maybe not. But the rest of it-" Yoichi promptly left to harass Second and Third.

"How can you two be so close and yet so far?" mourned Nana. "How are you so smart and so dumb at the same time?"

"In Ninth's defense," said En, "he doesn't know what All for One looks like."

"Surely he knows what his father looks like. He sees his picture almost every day," said Hikage.

"Admittedly, I could have phrased that better, but are you rubbing that in, or are you serious? I've known you for, like, half a century and I still can't tell."

Despite the example being a joke, Izuku felt much better after hearing that.

"But, no, this subject is relatively neutral and nothing so dramatic. I was hoping to get your permission to tell young Aizawa about One for All."

Izuku opened and closed his mouth several times. "H-huh? Why? And why do you want my permission? You don't need my permission."

"One for All is your quirk, now," said Yagi, "and your secret. It's up to you who knows about it. Outside of an emergency, I suppose. As for why in general..." Mr. Yagi sighed. "There are things young Aizawa needs to know about the villains with multiple quirks and All for One. I can't tell you the details right now, but with how One for All is manifesting in you, if he only knows about All for One, it would be very easy for him to make incorrect assumptions."

"Oh," said Izuku. He could certainly see how that could be dangerous. He didn't want his teacher to associate him with a villain like that.

"Also, if he knows what's happening, it will be easier for him to help you," finished Mr. Yagi hopefully.

Izuku thought about it. "I guess that would be alright. But... He's not the only person who'll know about my quirk being weird and All for One, right? I mean, the Hero Commission, at least..."

"To be entirely honest with you, I tell the HPSC as little as possible about All for One and One for All."

"What? Why?" asked Izuku.

"Well-"

"Izuku!"

"Mom!"

"I'll explain later," said All Might quickly.

Kurogiri passed a damp washcloth over the burns on his neck. The metal of his collar was a conductor, and the charge the young man with the electricity quirk had sent through it had been significant. It was only natural for it to get hot, for it to burn.

He should go to the Doctor... Some of the collar's functionality seemed to be damaged. He brushed his mist covered fingers over the cool metal.

Tomura wouldn't tell the Doctor. Kurogiri cared deeply for Tomura, but the young man was certainly shallow and unlikely to realize the extent of Kurogiri's injuries. He was more likely to focus on his own, not insignificant, wounds.

In contrast to those, Kurogiri's paled. He wasn't nearly as important as Tomura, after all.

It should be fine to let his wounds and the collar be. It would do what it was supposed to and protect the vulnerable areas of his body, internal damage or no. He just had to be careful of the burns becoming infected, especially since he couldn't see them.

Sometimes, he wished his body was like it was before...

Kurogiri frowned at the thought even as it faded from his consciousness. He had been created by All for One fully formed. His body had always been like this.

Hadn't it?

Shouta had been in and out of consciousness the past few hours. Apparently he'd never been in serious danger of dying, except from shock, which was just his body being dramatic and didn't count. All his major organs were free of serious damage. He just had to regain his stamina so that Recovery Girl could heal him up, and then he'd be fine.

Unlike Tensei, apparently, who had cracked one of his engines, which needed specialist help and surgery to realign the pieces. Or All Might, who had taken hits to his old injury, and needed to take time off or lose more time from his hero form. Or his students, who hadn't been seriously injured but who were probably traumatized.

The last time he had woken up, though, Hizashi had been there. Now, All Might, Nezu, and Detective Tsukauchi were there.

"Thought I already gave my statement," said Shouta.

"You did," said Tsukauchi.

"We're here to give you more information about the attack, I'm afraid," said Nezu.

"Information I won't like?"

"It can wait until you feel better, of course."

"That's illogical," said Shouta. "The sooner I get the information, the more time I have to process it."

All Might, Yagi, sighed. "Nomu and the portal-using villain both had multiple quirks."

Shouta frowned. "You mean, they had quirks with multiple aspects?"

"No," said Nezu. "As Yagi said, they had multiple quirks. This was confirmed by both the villains' comments and by Monoma, who made contact with the portal villain and was able to copy multiple quirks."

"Kurogiri," said Shouta. "That's what the other one called him. Shigaraki."

Nezu nodded. "Indeed. We weren't sure you had heard that." He tapped his paws together. "What we are about to tell you is classified. We are only sharing it with you because of your unique position and history."

"In the wrong hands, it could cause a lot of damage," said Yagi.

Only two things kept Shouta from leaping out the window and escaping: the fact that he was basically immobilized in plaster casts and the fact that his students were already involved in whatever this was.

"Great. What is it?"

"To begin," said Tsukauchi, "Monoma said he was able to copy three quirks from Kurogiri."

"That's up from what he could do before," observed Shouta. Stress did push quirks to improve, sometimes, although Shouta hated for the improvement to be associated with trauma.

Tsukauchi nodded. "He made note of that as well. He said he picked up a quirk that allowed him to turn his body parts into portals that led to other body parts, a quirk allowed him to temporarily teleport his body parts, and..." he trailed off.

"And a quirk that at the very least bears a strong resemblance to Shirakumo Oboro's Cloud."

"What are you saying?" asked Shouta, ignoring the way his heart had almost stopped.

"At the moment? Only that it is very strange that Kurogiri had a quirk like that, and sent you to the place where Shirakumo Oboro died."

"Oboro would never-"

"We're not saying that," interrupted Yagi. He coughed into his hand. "There's more context. Have you ever heard of the quirk bogeyman?"

"I can't wait to never sleep again I'm my entire life," said Shouta.

"Wait," said Tsukauchi, "it gets worse."

"How could it get worse?"

"Naomasa, you're supposed to be on my side," complained Yagi.

"I am. That's why I'll stop Eraserhead here from trying to kill you after you finish explaining."

"Well, it has to do with young Midoriya's quirk..."

"Let me get this straight, you gave the quirk with an immortal supervillain archenemy attached to a child... and didn't tell him that the supervillain existed."

"When you say it like that, it sounds really bad-"

"It is really bad-!"

"If I'd known he was still alive-"

"What part of immortal do you not understand?"

"Shouta, I, too, believed that All for One-"

"Shut up, Nezu! I don't have the energy to be mad at both of you right now!"

Yagi, Tsukauchi, and Nezu were all shown out by an irate nurse while a different but equally irate nurse replaced the plaster cast on Shouta's arm.

It had definitely been worth it.

Just because school was canceled, that didn't mean training was canceled.

... except it did, both because Inko was too stressed to let Izuku out of the house, and because Mr. Yagi had a meeting to go to about the attack.

But the second day after the attack was a different story!

That morning, Mr. Yagi pulled up in front of Izuku's apartment in Hercules (still so cool!) and picked him up.

Izuku bounced enthusiastically into the car and then froze. "Oh my gosh, what happened to your eye? Was it a villain? How hard did they hit you?" his hands fluttered. "I have some cream-"

"Oh," said Mr. Yagi, "no need, young Midoriya! I, er, sort of deserved it. It's a sort of reminder to take it easy, too. People would be disturbed to see All Might with a black eye, after all!" He smiled, then winced.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, very. You should buckle up, my boy."

"Oh, right," said Izuku. "So, where are we going? You said there was someone you wanted to introduce me to."

"Yes," said Mr. Yagi. "My old teacher. It's been a while since I've seen him. Hopefully he won't make up for lost time with a kick to the face..."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it."

When Mr. Yagi spent most of the way over muttering about kicks to the face and head, Izuku decided that he should, in fact, worry about it.

The broken-down building was not what Izuku had been expecting.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" asked Izuku.

"Absolutely," said Mr. Yagi, who was shaking somewhat. "This Pavlovian response only confirms it."

"Um." The building looked condemned. "Maybe he moved."

"One can only hope," said Mr. Yagi. "Maybe you sh- No. I have to see this through." He steeled himself visibly, squaring shoulders. "Please not a kick to the face," he said, under his breath.

"Is he really that bad?" asked Izuku.

"My boy, I guarantee you that he's worse."

"Poor kid has no idea what's coming," said Banjo. "Although we wouldn't have believed it either if we weren't riding along and watching."

"Nana," said En, "I just want to reiterate that I'm very glad you never thought about giving One for All to Gran Torino."

"Come on. Sorahiko isn't that bad," protested Nana.

"We know," said everyone else, "he's worse."

They walked up to the apartment building door. Mr. Yagi sighed heavily on seeing the door was hanging open, which was a radically different reaction than what Izuku would have expected.

"Is Danger Sense doing anything?"

"I don't think so?"

"Let me know if that changes."

"R-right," said Izuku. Mr. Yagi pushed the door in, and Izuku followed cautiously after him.

They went down a few hallways, peeking in rooms. Then they got to the kitchen, and Izuku covered his mouth with both hands with a gasp at the grisly, bloody scene. Gran Torino laid on the floor in a pool of red liquid. "Oh my gosh, he's-"

At the same time, Mr. Yagi said, "At least it's not a kic-"

The supposedly dead hero was suddenly airborne, and flying towards Mr. Yagi, foot first. Specifically, at his face. "You thou-"

Danger Sense spiked. It was a tiny spike, but still.

Izuku reacted. Specifically, with nerves shot by the USJ attack, he reacted violently, lashing out with a fist, swatting Gran Torino out of the air and back into the puddle of what was, in retrospect, probably diluted ketchup.

For a moment, everything was silent.

"Oh my gosh," wailed Izuku. "I assaulted a senior citizen!"

Gran Torino bounced back to his feet. "I like this kid, Toshinori!"

"I'm... glad?"

"Now show me what you've g-"

"Gran, please, we're only here for quirk help, not battle training."

"What's the difference? You're going to want to use it in battle eventually, right?"

"I mean," said Izuku, hesitantly, feeling like he had whiplash several times over, "yes?"

"See?"

"Just help with controlling Float. Please." Mr. Yagi pressed his hands together. "Please do not pick a quirk fight with a civilian teenager. Please."

"We are on private property."

"Assault is still illegal on private property."

"He's the one who hit me!"

"I know! I'm so sorry," said Izuku, doing his best to bow in the cramped space. "It was a reflex."

"After you attacked me!"

"Yeah, but you knew I was going to do that!"

"That doesn't make it better!"

Gran Torino turned to Izuku. "Kid, I don't know how you did it, but it looks like you made this big softy grow a backbone. Next step is to see if you can get him to do this with Mirai, too."

"Um," said Izuku. "I think he already had a backbone? He's All Might, after all."

"Nah, he's just a giant spindly amoeba who needs to take better care of himself."

Mr. Yagi slumped.

"But back on topic," said Gran Torino, eyes much sharper than before. "Do you really have Nana's quirk, kid?"

"Y-yeah. I think so. It was only a little bit, during the attack, but... yeah."

"Let's see what you can do with it, then."

"Um," said Izuku.

"Gran, maybe you should get cleaned up first? Young Midoriya and I can take care of the kitchen..."

"You don't know how to turn it on, do you?"

"Not really, no," said Izuku.

"We've got our work for today cut out for us, then, don't we, you zygotes?"

Wow. Gran Torino really did call people zygotes.

Wild.

Chapter 10 Notes:

Edited 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

One day - and not even a whole day, because of travel time and Inko wanted Izuku home for dinner- simply wasn't enough time to master a quirk. Although he could turn Float on and off, now. So, they made plans to come back next week, and the next, up until the sports festival. Which. Wow. Really was only two weeks away.

Izuku had never realized how close it was to the beginning of the school year.

He was going to die.

"You're not going to die," said Mr. Yagi. "I'm not going to say the sports festival isn't important, because it is, it's one of the best ways to make professional connections for students, but not doing well isn't the end of the world, especially not in your first year. No one expects you to be perfectly polished."

"But," said Izuku, "I'm supposed to be the next you! I've got to stand out, right?"

Mr. Yagi looked very guilty. "I... may have given you that impression when we were first training, yes. But, since then, with all my research into the past holders... few of them were popular, flashy heroes. If you want to walk the same path as me, that's great. But you don't have to. Even I didn't really start that chapter of my life until after college."

Izuku looked down at his hands, letting silence fill the space between them as he contemplated Mr. Yagi's words. "This isn't about me manifesting One for All differently, is it?"

"What? No, no of course not, my boy. I mean, it certainly helped me come to this conclusion, I wouldn't have done so much research without it! But I certainly hope I would have come to the same conclusion eventually, even so."

"Okay..." said Izuku, still dubious.

"I mean it," protested Mr. Yagi. "Most of my work is essentially underground, you know. There's a reason the battle trial was what it was."

"H-huh? You? Underground? But you're so recognizable!"

"Am I? I firmly believe in bringing all my resources to bear in the fight against evil! Ha ha!"

His laugh devolved into a cough, and he fumbled for a handkerchief. But he recovered quickly enough.

"I guess that makes sense," said Izuku, cautiously, once he thought Mr. Yagi wasn't going to start coughing again.

"You didn't think I stayed number one by popularity alone, did you?"

"I- the formulas the Hero Commission uses to determine rankings are secret, and it only includes spotlight heroes, so when I extrapolated the hero billboard rankings, yes, I assigned a high weight to popularity. There were always some discrepancies between my predictions and the end results, but I figured I missed some events, or the commission assigned them different values…"

"That's quite impressive, my boy. But, though popularity is a factor, the HPSC does take unpublicized fights and rescues into account. Assuming you report them…"

That was the second time Mr. Yagi had mentioned not telling the commission something.

"Do you, um, do you do that a lot? Not tell the commission things, I mean."

"Eh? No, no, I try to stay up on my paperwork. I get a lot of help from Naomasa, though. Some heroes, especially independent ones, without an agency, do have trouble keeping up, sometimes."

"It's just… the other day you said something about not telling the commission about All for One."

"Ah," said Mr. Yagi. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "You're quite right. How should I put this… The HPSC knows All for One exists, and I have made them generally aware of his modern exploits. I haven't told them about his ability to give quirks, though they may know through other avenues, there are certain battles I've had with him that I haven't told them about, and they do not know about One for All."

“Why not?”

“Villains aren’t the only ones who seek power,” said Mr. Yagi. “The HPSC provides a vital service, and I think what one does matters more than why one does it, but… it is my observation that many of the people there are more concerned with personal power than doing the right thing. And positions of power and authority tend to draw in those who would abuse those things."

"Even heroics?"

"Especially heroics. The HPSC Ethics Review Board is supposed to stop that, but no system is perfect." He shook himself. "But look at me! I was trying to give you a pep talk, not saddle you with doubts about the government!"

Izuku laughed, nervously. "I mean, you've definitely distracted me from the sports festival…"

“Yes. The sports festival. Don’t worry about making a big spotlight combat debut. If you want to focus on rescue, or investigation, or the underground, I’ll support you all the way.” He paused. “You do need combat, though, because, because of-”

“All for One?”

“Yes, exactly. All for One.”

“Way to kill the mood, guys,” said Banjo.

“I think the mood was thoroughly dead already,” said Yoichi.

“Unlike your brother,” said En. “Ninth’s father.”

“Come on, it was just a little omission of information. It wasn’t even a lie!”

“It was definitely a lie. You’re so lucky that my relief about you not being a pedophile eclipsed my righteous fury regarding your mendacity.”

“You know, the fact that you’re delivering that completely deadpan gives me doubts about the fury part.”

“I’m mad at you.”

“You love me.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be mad at you.”

“Hey, hey, wait a minute,” said Nana, making a ‘T’ shape with her hands. “Time out. Ninth’s father is All for One.”

“Yes,” said Yoichi, hanging his head, “I thought that had been established.”

“So, are we… What Toshinori is saying is completely valid, by the way… but, are we expecting this kid to fight his father? Is that a thing we’re doing?”

“Uh,” said Yoichi, “in our defense, we did think he was dead.”

“Maybe Eighth will get ‘im before Ninth has to deal with it,” suggested Banjo. “He’s got to have a better chance of that, now what with Fa Jin and all.” He paused. “ But, you know what would give Ninth an even better chance, if he does have to fight his deadbeat dad-”

“He’s not a deadbeat,” interrupted Hikage.

“What?”

“Calling him a deadbeat would imply that he is neither supporting the Midoriyas financially nor regularly in contact with them. He is on both counts.”

“ What? ” squealed Bango.

“Did you miss his phone call with his father immediately following his return home after the USJ attack?”

“Oh,” said Yoichi, “no, I was very aware of my brother’s evil, evil voice. It’s just that these guys were too focused on scolding me to listen to anything I had to say. I still can’t believe he sent someone like that to attack his own son’s class.”

“Didn’t he, like, kill you?” asked En.

“No, my death was largely unrelated. You’ve got to remember, I was a chronically ill fugitive from the law with no money. Who told you that he killed me?”

Everyone looked at their immediate predecessor. Yoichi tracked the path back to Third, who had gone very stiff.

“What the heck, Third? You were there when I died. Why would you tell Hikage that?”

Third did not answer.

“Actually, what did he tell you, Hikage?

“Oh, it was very moving and heroic. It happened while you were saving a busload of metahuman orphans. You sacrificed yourself to let them get away from All for One. I even cried a little.”

“Is it weird that I’m now disappointed in myself for not dying like that?”

“Very,” said Nana.

“What were we talking about before this?” asked En.

“I have no idea,” said Banjo.

Izuku delayed going to class, nervous about everyone's reactions to his quirk. It wasn't that he thought they'd reject him, but more that he had no answers for the inevitable questions.

But he also didn't want to be late.

"Todoroki was so cool!" Hagakure exclaimed as he opened the classroom door. "He was all like, blam, bam, swish! And- and he checked whether or not I was there first, before attacking, which was super cool of him."

Todoroki's expression was halfway between 'statue' and 'help, I've been hit by a truck.' "Cool?"

" Very cool."

"You've grown since the first day, kero."

"Ah! Midoriya!"

All heads turned towards him. In the next second, he was hugged by several people, which was more friendly skin contact than he'd had since… ever, probably.

"Eep," he said.

"We were so worried about you," said Uraraka. "We made a group chat, after, but since you were unconscious…"

"Hm," said Monoma, "your quirk still is definitely a stockpile…"

"Monoma!" shouted Iida. "Did you join this hug just to copy quirks?"

"And what of it?"

"But speaking of quirks," said Jiro, "you can fly now? We kind of went along with it at the time, but that's kind of different from a sensory quirk."

"I know," said Izuku, "and I have no explanation."

"Maybe your quirk stockpiles danger," said Monoma, contemplatively. He rubbed his chin with one finger. "That could be why you can sense danger- you're stockpiling it. Then, when the danger gets over a certain threshold, you can release it as flight… why are you all looking at me like that?"

"Oh, nothing," drawled Kaminari. "Just that you're more thoughtful than you look, pretty boy."

"I don't want to hear that from you."

"Th-thank you, Monoma! I'll have to mention it when I go to quirk counseling next."

Which may or may not be this afternoon, depending on how Mr. Aizawa felt and- His head snapped to the door. "Mr. Aizawa's coming!"

They all rushed to their seats. The door creaked open.

"Oh my gosh, he's a mummy."

"Iida?"

"What is it, Midoriya?"

They were having a bit of a break during English while Present Mic cycled them through for short sessions with Hound Dog.

"I didn't have a chance to ask you earlier, but how's your brother?"

“He’s alright! It’s the first really major injury of his career, so he’s going to take it easy for the rest of the month, to make sure his engines heal properly. He’d prefer not to, of course, but, ah, there is a silver lining.”

“That’s good,” said Izuku, encouragingly.

“I really shouldn’t be happy about it,” said Iida, rubbing the back of his neck, “but he’ll be able to come see me during the sports festival, and he probably would have been too busy if he were active.”

“I think it’s okay to be happy about good things, even if they happen because of bad things,” said Izuku. “It isn’t like we can go back and make the bad things not happen, after all…”

“That’s very true, Midoriya! What a mature way of thinking about things.”

Izuku didn’t know about that, but he was willing to take the compliment.

“Midoriya,” said Shouta, who was absolutely and unquestionably recovered enough to teach. Even if he had zoned out in the corner of the room in his sleeping bag all morning rather than trekking back to the teacher’s lounge… or teaching any of his other classes… shut up. “What are you doing at the window?”

“O-oh. Mr. Aizawa. I didn’t know you were awake?”

It was, maybe, a little unfair to single Midoriya out like that, since the entire class was standing by the window. But the way Uraraka, Sero, and Midoriya were closest to it, with Monoma a close fourth, was concerning, and Midoriya was the first one Shouta saw, and the one most likely to to cave and tell him what was going on.

“Midoriya.”

“R-right. Well, going out the door seems a little unpleasant today, so we thought we’d switch it up?”

What did that even mean?

“We were going to bring you with us, of course,” continued Midoriya.

What did that even mean?

“Out the window.”

“Um. Yes.”

“What kind of unpleasant are we talking about?”

“Battle trial unpleasant?”

Shouta groaned and hauled himself up, walking over to the door. He looked out the window and made note of all the students from other classes standing out there, circling like sharks. Great. Maybe they needed to have an assembly about respecting boundaries or whatever, especially if the people whose boundaries were being crossed were potentially traumatized.

Something to bring up at the next staff meeting he attended. Which… would probably not be soon.

Anyway.

He opened the door.

(“A mummy,” whispered someone.)

(First his kids, then these kids… he wasn’t that wrapped up.)

(Was he?)

“What are you all doing here?” he asked, voice rasping rather more than he wanted it to.

The students didn’t seem inclined to answer. Someone did mutter something about the sports festival, but it was far from the complete answer that Aizawa wanted.

“Right. Whatever. Scoping out the competition is one thing, but you are aware that class 1-A is recovering from a traumatic experience. And you’re blocking traffic. Clear off.”

The crowd slowly dispersed. Shouta sighed. He knew this would only be the first of many such incidents. He made a note to talk to Nemuri about whether or not she’d be willing to donate some of her class time to talk about public relations.

“You know,” said Nemuri, “if you actually rested, Recovery Girl would be able to heal you.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” said Shouta, glaring at his desk in the staff room. “I’m forgetting something.”

All Might walked in. “Er, young Aizawa,” he said. He paused for a painfully long, awkward moment. “Are you still meeting with young Midoriya today?”

“Crap.”

Did Izuku expect Mr. Aizawa to come to their meeting? No. The man had casts on all of his limbs. But, he hadn’t cancelled it either. So, better safe than sorry, right?

But it had been a while, now. Izuku could probably safely assume he wasn't coming after a half hour. He got up, packed his bags, and reached out for the door handle-

Only to freeze as Mr. Aizawa yanked it open and pulled Mr. Yagi into the classroom after him.

Izuku scurried back to his seat.

"Nothing physical today," croaked Mr. Aizawa. "We're going to figure out your quirk."

“O-okay,” said Izuku.

Aizawa collapsed into the seat behind the teacher's desk. “To be short, this quirk, One for All or whatever, is complete nonsense.”

“Uh,” said Mr. Yagi. “Sorry?”

“Sorry,” whispered Izuku.

“You should be. Not you, Midoriya. You’re fine.”

“Okay?”

“Right. So. You’ve got two quirks right now. Danger Sense and Float. Unless something else showed up over the weekend?”

“No, it’s, um, it is just those two right now.”

“And you’ll most likely get Smokescreen, Blackwhip, and that strength enhancement eventually. Plus two mystery quirks.”

“That is what I’ve been able to find out,” said Mr. Yagi.

“So, we have to figure out some way to get all those under a coherent umbrella that can account for the mystery quirks, and before the sports festival, so the evil immortal supervillain doesn’t notice that you have quirks just like a bunch of people he had personal beef with.”

Mr. Yagi cursed in English. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Yeah, I wonder what else you haven’t thought about. Maybe this year I can get Nezu to take my suggestion about doing hero names before the sports festival seriously. You know we’ve had people stalk students before, because for some godforsaken reason we use their real names? I need a drink.”

“Ah, water?”

“No.”

“Young Aizawa, you’re a teacher…”

“A career choice I question daily. Midoriya, do you have any thoughts about how to make your quirk make sense in a way that won’t get you killed or abducted by the HPSC?”

“I- Does that happen?” despite his conversation with Mr. Yagi over the weekend, he still had generally positive thoughts about the hero commission.

“I have no idea. Wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Well, um, I was talking to Monoma earlier, and he said something about stockpiling danger, and how it might let out the stockpile as the energy necessary to levitate- which, really, would be a fascinating quirk if it did work that way- but I thought it might also work for Smokescreen and the strength enhancement? I mean, general responses to danger are fight, flight, or hide, so the strength enhancement is fight, Float is flight, and Smokescreen would be hide…”

“That might work. What about Blackwhip?"

“Yeah, that one has kind of stumped me.”

“Blackwhip sure is a problem,” agreed Mr. Aizawa.

The ghosts started laughing. “You’re a problem, Banjo,” chortled Nana.

“Come on, guys, that isn’t funny!”

"It is! It's hilarious!"

"They were just talking about All for One tracking the kid down and killing him!"

The mood sobered quickly.

"Considering that he is Ninth's father," said Hikage, "I suspect it's far too late for that."

"Yeah," said Yoichi. "But, just to be safe, and in case there are other weirdos out there, new rule: no giving him new quirks in public. Not that we can do anything about when he eventually manifests the stockpile…"

"What if he's going to die?" asked Hikage, raising his hand.

"He already got your quirk, why do you care?"

"We'd like to hear it," said Banjo, somewhat forcefully.

"Well, if he looks like he's going to die, do whatever you can to stop that from happening, I guess. But chucking a quirk he doesn't know how to use isn't always going to be the beat answer."

"Wait," said Nana. "Hold up a second. A few days ago we were talking about the potential for multiple quirk brain damage, weren't we?"

"Oh, good catch," said Yoichi. "I guess I forgot to mention it, which means Nana is the only one I'd trust babysitting my nephew in the event a quirk rewound him to elementary school age-"

"That is a suspiciously specific scenario," said En.

"-and all the rest of you are fired. You didn't even question giving him more quirks? Really?"

Hikage raised his hand. "I assumed you had discovered that Ninth had a constitution capable of handling multiple quirks, similar to yourself and your brother."

"That is true. Okay, Hikage would be another exception, but he's disqualified from babysitting for other reasons."

"That's fair."

"So we need something that can do all that, and has tentacles," said Izuku, squeezing his bottom lip in thought.

"Yeah," said Mr. Aizawa. "Honestly, even really dumb ideas would be welcome right now."

"Why are you looking at me?" asked Mr. Yagi.

"You know why."

There was only one creature Izuku could think of that could do all the things Izuku one day might be able to while maintaining room for the two mystery quirks. "Cthulhu."

Mr. Yagi looked mildly scandalized at the suggestion.

"Nah, it'd have to be something like eldritch. Cthulhu's trademarked in Japan, and that can give you aboveground types trouble."

"What is it a trademark for?" asked Mr. Yagi.

"Ask Midnight. I don't want to talk about it."

"Ah," said Mr. Yagi.

"The problem with that is that you currently have no justification to call it that. Now if you already had Smokescreen…"

The adults looked at him.

"... I don't think it's going to just show up like that," said Izuku.

"Why not?" asked Banjo, staring at En. "They practically asked you for it."

"Well, first off, I live for drama, so jot that down."

"Huh? What about me?" asked Yoichi.

"Nothing, it was just an idiom. Second…"

"...Right," said Aizawa. “For now, then, we’ll have to give it a temporary name, because it’s starting to get to the point in time where it’ll actually be illegal for you to not register it.” He shuffled his casts. “Yagi, start filling out those forms with what he can do currently. Midoriya, make sure you check him when he’s done. For now, we’ve got to come up with a name.”

“Um,” said Izuku. “Float’s the only one that’s really visible, so I could just call it Float?”

“Vetoed. You aren’t picking a name that the immortal supervillain knows.”

“He did seem to only refer to people by quirks unless he really hated them,” said Mr. Yagi. “Except his brother, who he always called ‘my foolish brother.’”

“Focus on the paperwork.”

“And he called himself by his quirk name as well,” mused Izuku. “Do you think it was a side effect? Quirks have documented impact on people’s personalities-”

“ Focus.”

“R-right. Um. Feather Fall? No, that’s part of a game. Flight Reflex?”

“Good enough for now,” said Aizawa. “Flight Reflex it is.”

Chapter 11 Notes:

Edited 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

As soon as Yagi and Midoriya were gone, Shouta picked up his phone and called Nezu. It took him an embarrassingly long time to hit the buttons right. Maybe he should take those painkillers more often.

"I don't get paid enough for this," he said, as soon as Nezu picked up.

Nezu tittered. "The paperwork for your raise is already underway."

The reprieve Mr. Aizawa had bought them only lasted so long. No one gathered by their door the next day, but they could all feel eyes on them when they sat down for a subdued lunch.

Izuku could especially feel eyes on himself, because all of his classmates were also looking at him.

"W-What are you all looking at me for?” he asked, ending his sentence with a nervous giggle.

“Well,” said Ashido, “you seem to notice when things are going to happen, so…”

That wasn’t untrue.

“Yeah!” said Kaminari, excitedly, standing up and slamming his hand down on the table. “You’re like a canary in a coal mine! Class 1-A’s early warning system!”

The class took a moment to stare at Kaminari instead.

“Didn’t those, like, die?” asked Hagakure. “From inhaling poisonous gasses or something?”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Sorry, Midoriya.”

“It-It’s okay!” said Izuku, waving his hands. He felt another blush creeping over his cheeks. “I mean, I’m not sure how accurate, or- or sensitive I am, though, so there’s, you know, I don’t know how much I’m actually noticing , I could be missing a lot , especially if--” He cut himself off. His heart felt like it had stopped.

“HEY, DEKU!”

Oh, so it was only the usual threat to his life. Izuku looked over his shoulder to where, yep, there was Kacchan, pointing at him from the other side of the cafeteria. He turned back around and buried his face in his hands.

“The usual threat to his life, he says,” muttered En.

“He did not say it out loud, he only thought it.”

“Thanks, Hikage.”

“What’s wrong with that boy?” asked Yoichi, frowning deeply.

“Anxiety.”

“It’s Super Anxiety.”

“Thanks, Hikage, but I wasn’t talking about Izuku.”

“ARE YOU IGNORING ME, CANON FODDER?”

He sure was going to die today, huh.

“Who is he shouting at?” asked Uraraka around the spoon in her mouth.

“I am unsure!” said Iida. “It would appear he has mistaken us for someone he knows!”

Ashido made a face. “Someone he knows that he’s calling ‘Deku?’ That doesn’t sound very nice.”

“Ha! This is why 1-A is the superior class! We would never have someone who behaved so uncouthly as to--”

Kirishima stood up. “HEY, MAN, NO ONE HERE IS CALLED THAT! I THINK YOU’VE GOT THE WRONG GUY?” He looked down. “Or do you think Deku might be a girl?”

“Sit down, you’re embarrassing us,” hissed Monoma.

This, of course, cued Kacchan to sprint across the cafeteria, vaulting the tables in between. He grabbed Izuku by the shoulder, dragged him out of his seat and spun him around. “What d’you think you’re doing, Deku, goin’ off and fighting villains like you think you’re-- Wah!”

Uraraka had slapped Kacchan across the face, and, because he had let go of Izuku in response, he was now floating in the vicinity of the light fixtures. Kacchan’s shocked expression transmuted into one of pure rage. His glare at Izuku promised a world of hurt.

“No, seriously, what’s his problem? Didn’t Izuku save his life?”

“I don’t know, but I do remember some tension at the school when we were still getting oriented in here,” said Nana, propping her chin up with her fist. “Maybe it’s related to that?”

“Maybe it’s a tsundere thing,” suggested Hikage.

“Seems sort of extreme for that,” said En.

“I will get a teacher!” said Iida, before a giant hand appeared in his way.

“Don’t bother,” said a new voice, belonging to the giant hand and a sporty-looking girl with a ponytail. “Hey, Blasty, don’t forget what Mr. Vlad said about not using your quirk!”

“Does it look like I’m using my quirk, you big-handed--”

“Ah,” said Yaoyorozu, ignoring Kacchan’s rather crude response with enviable ease, “Kendo. How are you?”

“Doing great,” said Kendo. “Looking forward to seeing you guys pulling out all the stops to try and beat us.”

“ Try?” exclaimed Monoma. “More like succeed! We have real experience now, after all!”

“Shut up, combover!” shouted Kacchan. “You’re all gonna lose! I’m aiming for the top and I don’t care about your crappy delusions!”

“Combover!” squawked Monomoa, hands coming up to cover his hair. “You take that back!”

“Oh, you have an aggressive blond, too.”

Yaoyorozu sighed. “I suppose we do.”

The awe Izuku felt at the situation (Bakugo, stuck floating) was sadly eclipsed by the crowd of people they’d gathered.

“Erm,” said Kaminari, “is it just me, or are they all looking at us?”

“Of course they’re looking at you, moron!” yelled Kacchan from his place near the ceiling. “They’re wondering how someone so idiotic could survive a villain attack!”

“I mean,” said a voice from the crowd, “that’s true.”

A tall boy with purple hair shouldered his way to the front and tilted his head back to look at Kacchan.

“We’re here to take a look at the competition. But I’ve got to say, I’m disappointed if this is what kids in the hero course are like.” He lowered his gaze to sweep across the 1-A table. “Those of us who didn’t make it to the Hero course are stuck in General Studies and other tracks. There’s quite a few of us, did you know that? Depending on the results of the sports festival, they might consider transferring us into the Hero course. I understand the reverse is also possible. For a General Studies kid like me, this is the perfect chance to--”

“Oh!” interrupted Kaminari. “That’s great, man! We have an open seat. You’ll be perfect. You’re even purple. You can replace the rancid purple guy we got rid of.”

“A much better purple than the last purple,” said Sero.

“A MANLY purple,” added Kirishima.

“A superior purple,” sparkled Aoyama

“Assuming he isn’t secretly a perv,” said Jirou.

“He’s already had a longer clean conversation with us than the grape kid did,” Mina pointed out.

“What?” said the purple boy, wisely backing away.

“What a mad banquet of darkness,” mumbled Tokoyami.

Iida strode to the purple boy in an alarming, robotic sort of way. “As vice-president of class 1-A, I would like to welcome you to the hero course!” He punctuated his greeting with hand chops.

“That’s kind of premature,” said Nana, “isn’t it? It sounds like he has to do well in the competition, first.”

“Ha!” said Banjo. “I think he’ll do just fine. He’s clearly primarily motivated by spite.”

“So, all he needs to make a win possible is friendship and anxiety,” said Yoichi, nodding gravely. “He will surely be the greatest obstacle to Izuku’s nonetheless inevitable victory in the sports festival. Later, he will become an invaluable ally.”

“Are you basing this off some manga you read, or…?”

“Off my observations of our lives.”

“Ah. Continue, then.”

“Gladly!”

“Uh, guys?” said Uraraka. When Izuku turned to look at her, her face was slightly green. “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep him up there…”

This was when Kacchan reached the light fixture, put his feet against it, and shoved off, rocketing straight for Izuku. Izuku bolted. This was, apparently, the correct decision, because Kacchan bolted right after him.

Sadly, Izuku’s daily runs focused more on endurance than speed and agility, and Kacchan was fast. Although maybe that was just the lack of gravity to slow him down. Either way, Izuku didn’t make the first corner, Kacchan slamming into him and pinning him against the opposite wall.

“Alright, you quirkless twerp,” growled Kacchan, “I don’t know who you bribed to get in here, but let’s get one thing straight, I’m better than you.”

“Okay, you know what I said about bribery? I take it back. I don’t want to have the same opinion as this kid.”

“HA!” crowed Yoichi, pointing at Banjo. “That’s right, Izuku got in on his own merits.”

“You keep going like this, you dare keep standing in the same place I am, after I warned you to go someplace else , then at the sports festival…” Kacchan straightened and leered down at Izuku. “I’ll crush you. I’ll mess you up so bad that no one will ever mistake you for a hero. So, why don’t you run away, you crybaby freak?"

“Holy crap,” said Banjo.

“Seconded,” said En.

“What?” called Second, from where he and Third were still sulking.

“No one’s talking to you!” Yoichi shouted back, throwing an imaginary brick at them. It unraveled before it got halfway to them.

“UA has really declined if they’re letting people like this in,” said Nana. “I’m glad Toshinori is here to clean it up.”

“Look, I love Eighth, too,” started Yoichi.

“What?” called Second, again.

“Since when have we called you Two? Go away! As I was saying, I also love Eighth with all my heart--”

“Do we have hearts?” asked Hikage.

“It’s a metaphor. Eighth is great for cleaning up corruption on the streets - even in the government and police force, sometimes! - but he’s… let’s say, under-equipped for the educational world.”

“I don’t want to hear that from someone who’d never seen a teacher before.”

“I’ve seen teachers before!”

Izuku gritted his teeth even as his lips wobbled… and tears started running down his face… and some snot, too… Okay, he was a mess. Still, he twisted so he could grab Bakugo’s wrist and squeezed.

According to the grip strength test in the quirk assessment, his grip strength was above average.

“S-someone,” he said, “someone told me I could be a hero, and that’s w-why, that’s why I’m not going to run away just because you said so! I’m going to be here, no matter what, Kacchan!”

Kacchan’s face darkened. “You--”

Kacchan was pulled back. Izuku’s friends had caught up with them.

“Chasing someone down in the hall? This is just the kind of rude, uncivilized behavior I’d expect from someone in class B!”

“Not to agree with Monoma,” said Hagakure, “but, yeah! Apologize to Midoriya!”

“What are you? An invisible gorilla? Get off before I--”

“And that’s enough of that,” said Mr. Aizawa, coming into view, his hair floating. Iida was behind him, chopping at the air with both hands. “Bakugo. Monoma. Hagakure. Midoriya. Let go of each other.”

Hagakure, Monoma, and Izuku all let go of Kacchan at the same time. Unfortunately, Kacchan was unbalanced enough that their hold on him and his grip on Izuku were the only things keeping him up. He fell down. He had not let go of Izuku. Hagakure, Monoma, and the other 1-A members who had made it to the hall, rushed to support Izuku, and then…

Well, it was a bit of a scramble.

“This is just painful to watch,” said Nana.

“Funny, though,” said En. “I hope someone steps on the blond kid again.”

"Which one?"

When they finally managed to straighten themselves out, Mr. Aizawa looked much like he had immediately following Izuku and Mr. Yagi’s explanation about One for All. That is, he looked like he was seriously questioning his life choices.

“Yaoyorozu, Kendo,” said Mr. Aizawa. “Explain to me what happened here.”

Izuku braced himself for detention. He’d thought he was doing so well, too!

Izuku did not get detention. Huh.

Shouta stepped into his empty classroom and picked the nearest security camera. “Forget the raise, I want an investigation into Aldera Middle School.” He’d meant to look into it before now, but he also hadn’t meant to get beaten to a pulp by a bunch of crazy villains, one of which may have had his dead best friend’s quirk.

“You are allowed to have both, you realize,” said Nezu over the intercom.

But did he deserve both, that was the question.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Nezu. “If it helps, think of it as less of a raise, and more of a stipend for the therapy you will need!”

“Why would that help?”

They filed onto the field for heroics several minutes before the class was due to start. Izuku hoped that those minutes would be enough for him to calm down. His heart was still going rabbit-fast.

“Are you sure you do not need to go to Recovery Girl?” asked Iida.

“Yeah, that was pretty…” Uraraka trailed off. “It was scary. I didn’t think there’d be anyone here like that.”

“You mean anyone with a steamed turd masquerading as a personality?” asked Kaminari. “There’s hot-headed, and then there’s villainous, and I know what side of the line that guy was on.”

“K-Kacchan’s not a villain! He- He’ll be a great hero,” said Izuku, shoulders slumping. “Someday.”

The silence was oppressive. And possibly judgemental.

“So, you all agree with me, then, that we need to absolutely crush 1-B in the sports festival?” asked Monoma, flicking imaginary dust off his suit.

“Well, sure,” said Hagakure. “But there’s only one winner. We’re going to be competing against each other.”

“Oh, contrary, my friend -- ”

“It’s au contraire, ” said Aoyama.

“Sure,” said Monoma. “There’s only one winner for the final event. The other two? Not so much. I say we use that to our advantage! Show 1-B - and especially that cretin Bakugo - our unity and conviction! Prove to them that we are the superior hero students! We will reign supreme over the first two events of the sports festival.”

“That’s a freakishly hypercompetitive way to put it,” said Kaminari, “but he’s got a point.”

“Of course I do! We just need to make a plan and victory will be ours!”

“How are we supposed to do that?” asked Sero, crossing his arms and tugging slightly at his elbows. “The events are secret until the day of. If we don’t know what we’re going to be doing, we don’t even know if we can cooperate. The events are random every year!”

“We might not know what the events are exactly, but there’s- there’s a pattern, ” said Izuku. He’d never really thought about the kinds of events too deeply, but he’d watched and analyzed the UA sports festival for years and years. “The first event is always kind of a free-for-all, with everyone from our year. It’s supposed to eliminate most of the competition, usually only the hero course and a few others get in. Then, the second event is usually something team based, like a relay or a game. The final event is the only one where individuals go head-to-head, because that’s when you need a clear winner and runners-up.”

“Exactly, Midoriya, exactly! Who’s with me?”

“I’m in,” said Kaminari. There was a smattering of other agreements.

Izuku wanted to say yes, but… He glanced over at Uraraka and Iida. He wasn’t the only one. Uraraka caught his eye and elbowed Iida. His armor made a hollow clanging noise and Uraraka hissed and held her elbow.

“Uraraka, are you--?” She jerked her head at him. “What?”

“You’re kind of the rules guru, man,” said Kaminari. “I think most of them are waiting to hear what you have to say.”

“Oh! Yes! Teamwork is an important part of heroism! I cannot imagine that they would ban us from cooperating to attain success!”

“I agree,” said Yaoyorozu.

“Y-yes!” said Izuku. “Me, too!”

From there, everyone else agreed. Except for one student. Todoroki stood apart from the group, facing away from them.

“Todoroki!” called Monoma. “Will you join us?”

Todoroki looked back at them, coldly. “I’m going to win myself, without anyone else’s power.” He turned away again, the wind picking up a few stray leaves and blowing them across the space in between them.

“Wow,” said Kirirshima, “ manly. ”

“I don’t understand how that kid thinks.”

“I don’t think you understand how anyone thinks.”

Yoichi frowned. “That’s just unnecessary.”

“Isn’t he just gay?” asked En.

“That does seem to be the easiest explanation,” agreed Hikage.

“That can’t be it,” said Yoichi, “I’m gay.”

“I thought you were bisexual,” said Nana.

“I thought he was ace,” said Banjo.

“...I contain multitudes.”

Izuku hung back after school for extra training with Mr. Yagi. Working with Gran Torino had helped a lot, but Float was still difficult for him to turn on and off at will. He could do it, but he was slow.

He did like the grappling hook, though.

He liked it a lot.

(He really needed to go talk to Hatsume and thank her for the literally life-saving piece of equipment. Especially with the sports festival coming up… he had some ideas… )

The gym they were in was designed with basic three-dimensional mobility quirk training in mind. High ceiling, lots of things to grab onto, various optional obstacles, but everything was padded. Quirks that needed a lot of space to reach their full potential rarely got a lot of practice. ‘Private property’ was usually a confined space. Especially in a city.

Even so, Izuku was feeling… Inadequate.

“You’re making wonderful progress, young Midoriya. You’ve had this quirk for less than a month. Give yourself time.”

“But I’ve seen videos of your teacher!” said Izuku, trying to propel himself towards the wall. “She could fly .” He managed to flip himself upside down, but did not move horizontally. “ Fast.”

“Wasn’t that just--”

“The stockpiled power? Haha. Yeah,” said Nana. “I did love how it improved my quirk.”

“Wait a second,” said En, rolling off the throne he’d constructed for himself. “If Nine doesn’t have access to the enhanced versions of your quirks now, what’s going to happen when he does get the stockpile? Will his head just explode from the anxiety?”

“Super anxiety.”

“Hikage, if you don’t have something productive to say,” started Banjo, half jokingly, half threateningly.

“I believe he does have the enhanced version of my quirk,” said Hikage. “As for Float…” He shrugged.

“You’d better not be implying anything about my quirk,” said Nana. She sighed. “It has only been about a week since he got it. Getting to the point where I could really move with it took a long time.”

“You can do it, Izuku!” cheered Yoichi. “I believe in you! Blow Nana’s time out of the water!”

“And she had her quirk for a lifetime,” said Mr. Yagi. “Try to get upright again, and then see if you can drop and catch yourself. Ah, I remember the first time I saw my teacher use something like that as a finishing move. An ax kick from a couple of stories up.” He shook his head. “It was quite remarkable. Ahem. Not that you should try that without more training… Or on your classmates at the festival… We don’t need any maiming.”

“That guy had it coming,” said Nana.

“Mhm,” said Izuku. He turned Float off, and tried to switch it back on before he hit the ground. He wasn’t quite able to reactivate it in time. He sighed and picked himself up. “At least this is good practice for falling.”

“So it is,” said Mr. Yagi. He checked his clipboard, which contained a legal pad and a singular sheet of loose leaf covered in Gran Torino’s distinctive handwriting. “Perhaps we should try some timed trials here on ground levels before we try that again. Just Float on and off as quickly as possible.”

Izuku made a face. He wanted to go faster, get better. But he nodded easily enough and caught the timer Mr. Yagi threw at him.

“Whenever you turn float off or on, hit the ‘lap’ button. That should make it so all your times are recorded.”

“Okay,” he said, turning on both Float and the timer. “Um. Mr. Yagi?”

“Yes, my boy?”

“I was wondering, do you remember your first sports festival?”

Mr. Yagi frowned. “You aren’t still worried about, erm…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Living up to my overinflated reputation, are you?”

Izuku gasped. “Your reputation isn’t overinflated!”

“Alas, everything about All Might is puffed up and full of smoke!”

Izuku forced back a giggle. “It really isn’t about that,” he said, once he was more in control of himself. “It’s… We were thinking, there’s not a rule about helping each other in the first two events, right?”

“UA wouldn’t be terribly heroic to ban something like that. I may seem to stand alone, but without my agency, I wouldn’t be able to do much hero work at all!”

Izuku nodded and started a new lap on the timer. He had maybe five, so far.

“Some of my classmates and I were thinking about working together,” said Izuku.

“That sounds wonderful.”

“It is! It’s just… I don’t want to disappoint them.”

Especially not after Kacchan had reminded him of what he used to be. Quirkless, useless, cowardly Deku who ran from fights.

He didn't want to be that person anymore.

"Hm," said Mr. Yagi. He sat down on a bench-shaped protrusion. "When I was a student, they only broadcast the third years' competition."

Izuku nodded. He knew that. He'd spent long, fruitless hours trying to find videos of All Might's time at UA. He hadn't been in the third year sports festival at all… probably because of his mentor dying, if Izuku thought about it.

"I didn't do very well in the first two competitions."

"Wh-what? No way!" He fumbled the timer. "Oops."

"Don't worry about it, just keep going. It's good practice. But, no. I didn't do well. I adapted to the strength of One for All quickly, but I still hadn't adjusted to having it." He waved a hand. "And All for One…" He clasped his hands in his lap. "I made a mistake in the second event that almost got my team disqualified."

"What happened?"

"Didn't occur to me to use my quirk when I should have."

Banjo laughed. "I remember that. The one kid couldn't believe he'd gotten a hit in. He was so shocked."

"Yeah," said En. "That's the only reason he could make up the points."

In the corner, Eighth's ghostly shadow pouted.

"How did they… your teammates, I mean, were they… upset?"

"They were," said Mr. Yagi, "some of them were even a little upset at me, for that matter, but, hm. How should I put this?"

"Toshinori," said Nana, mournfully, "you're making it worse. How are you making it worse?"

"Someone stop that man," said Hikage, completely deadpan.

"Someone needs to stop you ."

"All of us tried our hardest," said Mr. Yagi, finally. "There was no resentment. We still got along just fine, afterward."

Izuku set his feet back on the ground. "Are you still friends with any of them?"

"Well… no. But not because of the sports festival!"

Unsurprisingly, this conversation had failed to reassure Izuku.

"Regardless, you've already shown your classmates what you're made of! They won't turn away from you over a hiccup!"

Also not really what he’d been worried about, but… Now he was! So, that was fun.

“There’s only ever one victor, in any case, and only sixteen students ever advance to the final event… There’s always disappointment, I’m afraid. It would be ridiculous to blame that on you.”

“Right,” said Izuku. “Right.” He chewed on his lips, trying not to mumble, even though Mr. Yagi was certainly used to it by now. “What, um, what were the events your first year?”

“Well,” said Mr. Yagi, “it started off with a race…”

Izuku curled up in the rolling chair at his desk, a bag of ice balanced on one knee and a hand gripper in his off hand. His dominant hand was occupied with scrolling through his old digital notes on past sports festivals.

Some of them were sort of… embarrassingly bad. Maybe he shouldn’t judge a ten-year-old (even if the ten-year-old was himself) so harshly, but still!

Well, regardless, past him had gotten the event information down for the more recent sports festivals. It was too bad he couldn’t rewatch some of these, but that would take too long. The sports festival was coming up fast. He barely had time to look up older festivals, from before he started analyzing them.

Luckily, he had help.

His computer chirped, and his eyes flicked to the chat window.

Earlier, more of the class had been on, but they’d slowly logged off as it got later or research got out of their comfort zone. Kaminari was the one who got the chat and the shared file set up through their UA accounts. Ashido and Hagakure had spent a lot of time going through UA’s social media announcements about the festival.

But now it was just Izuku, Monoma, Uraraka, Iida, and Yaoyorozu.

Izuku and Monoma were collating information about what events UA had done before and trying to find patterns in that. Uraraka was watching through the last few events and marking down the different examples of cooperation between students. Iida was going over all the rules and rulings made for past festivals, to make sure what they planned to do was allowed. Yaoyorozu had started with helping Izuku and Monoma, but had branched out to follow other leads, like event popularity.

Izuku thought it was a good division of labor.

Uraraka: Ive got the last festival done sending now

Uraraka: no idea the 2 years were so funny got to watch more

Monoma: You found the part with Togata Mirio I see

Monoma: His quirk is interesting but. No.

Uraraka: That too!

Midoriya: OK so.

Midoriya: From what I can see, the first event cuts the numbers down to around forty or fifty students.

Uraraka: 42’s low and 50’s high

Midoriya: Might be a good idea to use that and get some allies from support or gen.

Like Hatsume. The Support Course and Gen Ed Course could bring support gear into the events, according to Iida’s summary of the rules, as long as it was approved by the school beforehand. Depending on what the events were, support gear could help a lot.

Also, it seemed like something Hatsume would like, considering what she’d said about her ‘babies.’

Uraraka: Thats allowed?

Iida: Yes, it seems so.

Izuku switched tabs and scanned through the spreadsheet for the first event. Obstacle course, maze, scavenger hunt, rising waters, platformer, find the flag, dodgeball, rescue race, teacher tag, villain hunt, flag tag, the gauntlet…

Midoriya: Monoma, what’s the gauntlet?

Monoma: Basically dodgeball, but you’re between two fields of throwers

Monoma: It was audience participation

Monoma: Kinda old

Midoriya: Don’t think we need to worry about that one then.

Iida: That’s quite a few events. Could we perhaps group them in some way?

Midoriya: Maybe? There’s races, finding things, musical chairs type things, battle royales between students, and going against teachers.

Uraraka: I dnt know

Uraraka: the maze ones and the obstacle course are kinda similar in terms of being a race to finish but theyre also pretty different in what you need to be good at to win

That was a good point.

Yaoyorozu : I think we can eliminate some events, based on what happened at the USJ. UA has greatly emphasized increased security since the media break-in and the USJ incident. I believe that limits the types of events they will consider for this year to ones where they can have clean lines of sight and quick access to competitors.

Uraraka: so no maze

Yaoyorozu: Probably not.

Midoriya: I think we can throw out anything that’s audience participation too.

Midoriya: Also the finding hidden stuff ones and the rescue-based ones.

Iida: Why those?

Izuku cringed and started typing. Yaoyorozu probably already realized this, from what she had written before, but she hadn’t mentioned it earlier. Although maybe she just hadn’t gotten to saying it yet.

Midoriya: Well… Hate to say it but we never really made up the USJ rescue training.

Midoriya : If UA is trying to seem stronger they won’t show our weak points. Does that make sense? Not that I think they should do that but…

Izuku pushed back from his desk slightly and chewed on his thumbnail. It did make sense, didn’t it? Maybe he shouldn’t have said that…

Yaoyorozu: I agree. I believe that we are more likely to have something like the obstacle course, one of the limited spaces games like rising waters, or one of the ones with teacher participation.

Midoriya: I think rising waters is out because Aquarius isn’t part of the staff anymore although I guess she could come back for the event? Or have some kind of substitute?

Rising waters was a ‘musical chairs’ event UA had done for the Sports Festival an average of once every four years since Aquarius joined the staff. The stage would be a bunch of pillars, with the top of each one just wide enough for a person to easily stand on. At the beginning, students would start at the lowest level and there would be more than enough room for everyone, but then Aquarius would slowly start to draw water up onto the stage, until only the highest pillars were clear.

Of course, if you touched the water you were out.

Since they started doing rising waters, they hadn’t done any of the other ‘musical chairs’ games, instead swapping it out with obstacle courses, scavenger hunts, tag and dodgeball.

Yaoyorozu: That would be a reasonable conclusion.

Monoma : Makes sense. What’s your guess for what will happen though?

Most years, lunch time was good for naps and paperwork. All the students were out of the classroom, it was quiet, and Shouta could work on whatever he wanted.

Alas. This year was proving to be an exception.

First the break in (probably caused by the League of Villains), then the nosy other classes, then Bakugo actually assaulting Midoriya (Kan either needed to get that kid to grow up or expel him), and now this. All of 1-A, with the exception of Todoroki, had decided to eat in the classroom.

(Not that he could blame them.)

He shuffled some of the papers in his sleeping bag around, mostly old school records for Midoriya and Bakugo that he’d been meaning to go over, but would probably have to wait for later. If the kids were going to be in the classroom, he’d better keep an eye on them. Or an ear.

Yeah, they were just getting an ear.

“Alright,” said Yaoyorozu. “Everyone give your orders and money to Iida, Shoji, Uraraka, and Hagakure.”

“I- I can carry things, too,” volunteered Midoriya.

Shouta had no doubt that Midoriya could carry plenty of lunches. But he'd also been a target. Keeping him out of the way was smart.

"Yes, but you need time to set up your presentation."

"Oh, right! Um." Footsteps approached. "Mr. Aizawa, is it alright if I use the projector?"

Shouta almost said 'knock yourself out,' but he luckily remembered who he was talking to. "Go for it," he groaned.

"Wow," said Ashido, "he even sounds like a mummy today."

Teenagers. Which reminded him: "No inappropriate pictures, right?"

"T-they're all from the official sports festival releases, so…"

Sports festival? Shouta resisted the urge to laugh. So, his students were turning one of Kan's favorite sports festival strategies against him and working together as a class? The rivalry was largely in Kan's head, but… Sometimes it was nice to gloat. Tastefully, of course. While reminding him that Shouta hadn't suggested it at all.

But he’d wait until the sports festival itself to actually do that. No need to tip the man off.

Back to Midoriya’s question.

With effort, Shouta pried his eyes open. "Don't tell me you found the instant nudist."

"I- um. Well, it's… yes?"

"Is everything pixelated?"

"Yeah. Um, I mean, yes. Yes, sir. It’s in-- It’s not in mine, it’s in Uraraka’s, and it’s only to illustrate a point about cooperation--"

“Did he just try to throw his friend under the bus?”

“No,” said Yoichi, “of course not!”

“Sounded a lot like it.”

“We have a direct link to his subconscious, we know that isn’t what he meant to do.”

"Great," said Shouta, closing his eyes and rolling over.

“Thank you!”

There was some shuffling and arguing about what wire went where, but by the time the four who went out to get lunch were back, Midoriya’s presentation was up and running, the projector whirring in the background.

“O-Okay!” said Midoriya. “The sports festival! I’m, um, I’m. I’m going first. To present our predictions. Monoma and Yaoyorozu really helped a lot with this, and- and then Uraraka will talk about past cooperation in sports festivals, and Iida will talk about rules. Which… You already knew that would happen even without a presentation.”

It was a good thing there was a public relations class at UA, but Shouta could admit the joke was funny despite Midoriya’s obvious nerves.

“Based on our analysis of past sports festival events, we believe that for the first event, the most likely activities are either an obstacle course race or one of two versions of teacher tag. The obstacle course is the more straightforward option and it was last done two years ago. It usually involves physical obstacles like climbing walls made by Cementoss, or robots or other things made by the support teachers. With teacher tag, on the other hand, we need to either tag or avoid being tagged by teachers. Which, um…”

Shouta got the impression everyone in the class was looking at him. The gremlins were afraid of him. Good.

But Midoriya had to work on his volume. The stuttering had eased up, but the presentation was turning into a muttering session near the end there.

“Is an obvious challenge. Both emphasize speed and combat.”

“Combat?” echoed Kaminari. “The tag I get. Well, if dodging is combat. But the race?”

“In most race events you’re allowed to use your quirk against your opponents,” said Midoriya. “The tag events are usually flag tag.”

“Oh,” said Kaminari. “Makes sense.”

“The second event is harder to pin down. Past examples are cavalry battles, dance battles, tug-of-war, capture the flag, king of the hill, and relays.”

“Dance battles? Sign me up for that one!”

Midoriya laughed nervously. “Yeah. However, if we have the obstacle race or the tag version where we’re avoiding the teachers, we probably won’t run into relays, but have something more obviously combative, like the cavalry battle. On the other hand, the version of tag where we’re chasing the teachers usually leads to a rescue or captive-delivery relay or race, with the teacher playing the dummy.”

Ah, yes. Shouta had done one of those his first year teaching. He was very glad Nezu had decided they weren’t doing it this year so the teachers could focus more on security. It was difficult enough to deal with when the students did have rescue training. With this batch…

No.

Next year, maybe.

Probably not.

Although, come to think of it, Shouta’s current injuries would have precluded him from participating regardless. He spared a moment of sadness for the loss of a perfectly good excuse.

“Either way, we’re all pretty sure that the last event will be one-on-one direct combat. Probably a single-elimination tournament.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that,” said Hagakure.

“That’s because we aren’t,” said Yaoyorozu. “But we have talked it over, and we think that it is the most likely scenario. As for why…”

“It boils down to UA needing to save face and single combat is the most popular event, even though it’s kind of…” Midoriya trailed off.

“Ooh,” said Ashido. “I hear some salt behind that. Spill it!”

“It’s- It’s dangerous,” said Midoriya, finally. “More people get seriously hurt during that event than any of the others. And- and we made our guesses for the events based on patterns from the past, what’s best for security, what we’ve actually been trained for, and what’ll serve UA’s PR, but that leaves, um. It’s combat and speed heavy. Spotlight stuff.”

“Fighting is what heroes do,” said Sato.

“I know! But there’s also underground heroes like- like Mr. Aizawa, or heroes that focus on investigation, like Sir Nighteye, or rescue heroes like the Wild Wild Pussycats. Usually, there’s at least a nod to the other types of heroics in the sports festival, so those agencies can assess interns, too.”

“Which is why Monoma and I believe the second type of teacher tag is the most likely first event,” said Yaoyorozu. “The rescue relay does represent some aspects of rescue heroics.”

“Yes,” said Midoriya, with the air of someone who had argued about the subject extensively, “but--”

The intercom crackled to life. “Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, Monoma, Iida, and Uraraka, please report to the principal’s office.”

Chapter 12 Notes:

This chapter wound up mostly dialogue, but it was fun dialogue, so I have no regrets.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The first thing that happened after the principal’s demand was surprised silence.

The second thing that happened was Mr. Aizawa jerking straight up out of his sleeping bag and shouting, “Don’t you dare try to poach my students, you rat!”

This caused Izuku to startle hard enough that the remote for the projector flew out of his hands and shattered against a nearby wall. This was nothing to Kaminari’s reaction, which was a flash of electricity that shorted out all the lights in the room.

There was silence again.

Tinny music began to play. Cat! I’m a kitty cat! And I dance, dance, da--

Mr. Aizawa answered his phone with a violent motion accompanied by the sound of a tearing plaster cast. “No!” he growled into the receiver. “So what? It isn’t as if--” He cut off, as if he’d been interrupted. “Fine. You five. Go talk to Nezu. Bring your lunch. The rest of you, go somewhere that hasn’t just had a major electrical accident. Except for you, Kaminari; let’s have a discussion about quirk control.”

Kaminari’s gulp was audible.

“I can’t believe that song is still popular,” said Yoichi. “It was ancient when I was born.”

“Clearly,” said En, “Aizawa is a connoisseur of the classics.”

Banjo stared at them. “ What are you talking about?

“I wonder what Principal Nezu is like,” said Uraraka, nervously.

“He’s an upstanding and impressive citizen, according to my brother!” said Iida, his voice pitched a little closer to the breaking point than usual. “Very-” there was a long pause, “-passionate! Dedicated to his work!”

“As a principal should be!” agreed Monoma, his nervousness much more pronounced. “He makes sure UA is the best!”

“He’s nice,” said Izuku, “but kind of scary…”

“You’ve met him?” asked Yaoyorozu.

“Yeah, just before the USJ. I, um, my quirk was really- was really acting up, because, you know.” He hunched his shoulders. “Do you think we’re in trouble?” He’d been trying to focus on Danger Sense while they walked, but it wasn’t giving him a clear signal.

It hadn’t been going off when they’d been putting the presentations together, either, come to think of it. But then, would it? He vaguely recalled some spikes of anxiety when taking the written entrance exam, but he also picked up low-level danger from improperly fastened doorknobs and things like that. Maybe getting scolded by the principal wasn’t enough of a danger to register to him past the ‘background noise.’ He had a quirk now, he had to pay more attention to things.

“Wouldn’t you be the one to know?” asked Monoma, expression one of genuine curiosity.

“Talking to the principal is a lot different from being ambushed by villains,” said Uraraka.

Izuku giggled nervously. “Y-yeah, there’s also the whole being based on how- how anxious I’m feeling, and sometimes a person just feels anxious, right?”

“Ow. Those’re sure some pitying looks.”

“We had no idea Danger Sense was such a difficult quirk,” said Nana.

The vestiges turned their own pitying look on Hikage.

The doors to Nezu’s office opened on their own, before Izuku or any of the others could knock. It was a bit startling, given that they didn’t look like automatic doors, but Izuku didn’t get why his classmates jumped.

Maybe if he hadn’t come earlier, he’d’ve jumped, too, but he’d had different concerns, then, and… Well. Anyway.

“Come in! Come in!” said Principal Nezu, who was practically vibrating behind his desk. “Am I a rabbit, a chipmunk, or a weasel? One thing’s for sure, I’m Principal Nezu! And you five have presented me with a bit of a conundrum.”

“S-sorry,” said Izuku.

“Oh, heavens! It isn’t something to apologize for. As a matter of fact, I am quite pleased with the research you did. Please, sit down, all of you.”

They gingerly pulled chairs from where they were lined up against the walls to ring Nezu’s desk.

“Excellent, excellent. Now. In normal years, I wouldn’t have called you here at all except, perhaps, to congratulate you on work well done - which, mind you, I would like to do anyway. The gathering of intelligence and drawing conclusions from data is an important skill for heroes, particularly investigative heroes, to have. Few students or groups of students have been so accurate. We generally use a degree of randomness when selecting events. This year, however, is different.”

“Because of the attacks,” said Yaoyorozu.

“Quite so. The issue, you see, is that if you can so accurately guess the events--”

“Then so could someone else,” said Izuku before slapping his hands over his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbled, mortified.

Nezu nodded grimly. “It would seem that in our desire to make the festival more secure, we may have outfoxed ourselves.”

“You’re going to change the events, aren’t you?” asked Monoma with a sort of bitter, defeated twist to his words.

“I’m afraid we must,” said Nezu, apologetically. “But that doesn’t mean I intend to send you back to your classmates empty handed.” He leaned forward, a sliver of sharp tooth exposed between furry lips. “Tell me, how would you solve the sports festival problem?”

They left with an assignment (a formal, polished report on their analysis of the sports festival and the patterns found in it), an answered question (if a support student gave someone else a piece of gear during the event, it was fair game to use), and slightly wobbly legs.

“That was weird,” said Uraraka, “and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Iida, whose wobble was more vocal than physical. “This is a tremendous opportunity!”

“Well, yeah,” said Uraraka, “but I don’t know if I deserve it. I was basically just taking notes on videos. Anyone could have done that.”

“But not anyone did,” said Monoma. “You did.” He sniffed. “Just like any class could make a plan like ours, but clearly few of them ever have.”

“Mm,” said Uraraka. “I really need to show you my presentation. I think it’s more common than we realized. But, like. I know at least Tsu and Jiro are smarter than I am. The only reason I’m getting credit like this is because I live alone so no one can enforce bedtime on me.”

“Even if that were true, you still put the effort in. You’re hardly getting credit for something you didn’t do,” said Monoma.

“Yeah,” said Izuku, nodding fiercely. “And your suggestions were really good!”

“It’s not like he’s going to use any of them, though,” she said, slumping a little. “We’ve drawn a complete blank as far as the events go.”

“That’s not entirely true,” said Yaoyorozu. “While we may no longer have any good guesses about the specific events, our conclusions about their general nature still hold true. We will have an elimination event, a teamwork event, and a one-on-one tournament, and they will all be on a relatively open field.”

“That’s true,” said Uraraka, regaining some pep in her step. “We can make plans for the second event teams and stuff.”

“Or even the first event,” mumbled Izuku. “We really do need to see your analysis of what level of cooperation is generally allowed in the first event, Uraraka. Then, depending on the event, we can organize and practice teams optimized for speed or strike capability… Obviously we want some balance rather than one powerful team…”

“Well,” said Nana, as Izuku continued to mumble, “that’s scary. Adorable, but scary.”

“Mostly adorable,” said Yoichi.

“Not really,” said Hikage.

“He sounds like your brother,” said En. “Except with morals and a strange desire to win a high school contest.”

Yoichi blinked at them. “Right. None of you guys knew Hisashi when he was in high school.”

“Oh,” said Banjo, “that sounds like a story.”

Yoichi nodded. “I don’t know all of it, but the aftermath involved a fire truck, an ice cream factory, and the North Carolina National Guard.”

“North Carolina as in--?”

“The state, yes.”

“I thought North Carolina was a country,” said En.

“It is now .”

“Did you just imply that All for One caused the balkanization of the United States?”

“They aren’t really balkanized, they’re still a union,” said Yoichi. “They still have a federal government. You know that. We were all with Eighth when he visited.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

They wobbled into Foundational Heroics, and All Might set them to basic combat drills, AKA how to punch someone without breaking your hand. An important skill for the sports festival and life as a hero in general. They were in pairs, switching between hitting a punching bag and acting as a spotter. After that, they spent an hour practicing clearing corners while infiltrating buildings, and, finally, All Might (somewhat pointedly) handed them personalized training and diet plans and set them loose on the weight training gym.

This left them with one course of action.

“Hagakure,” said Ojiro, one of many. “You have to tell us what your workout plan was.”

“Your gains are incredible,” agreed Sato.

“I want to lift Midoriya like a twig, too,” said Kaminari.

“I kind of am a twig.”

“No, no, Strawberry,” said Hagakure, managing to get past Izuku’s guard and ruffle his hair, “you’re pretty solid, just short. But it won’t be free! You guys have to tell us what Nezu wanted with you.”

“...and that’s when we were released to return,” Iida said, finishing his summation.

“Man,” said Ashido, “that’s a bummer. You guys did all that work for nothing.”

“Hm,” said Tsuyu, “did they? Kero. The basic assumptions should still hold true, so we can still strategize.”

“That’s what Midoriya said on the way back,” said Uraraka, who was taping her fingers.

“Y-yeah,” said Izuku, finishing his set and sliding off the bench. “But… there might be a problem.” A big one.

“Like what?” asked Uraraka. She took Izuku’s spot on the bench, hesitated, and then slid off again to remove some of the weights.

“Kacchan.”

“The rude boy from 1-B?” asked Tsuyu.

“When I was thinking about team match ups… Well. Anyone who works with me is going to have to deal with him, too. The thing he cares about most is winning, but if he can steamroll me in the meantime… I’m a liability for any plan we come up with.”

“Midoriya, part of the reason we’re working together is specifically to knock that guy down a peg,” said Tsuyu.

“O-oh,” said Izuku. “I guess… Yeah, it is, isn’t it? I hadn’t really…” What hadn’t he really done? Processed it? Thought about it? Realized what it meant?

What did it mean?

"It means that we're friends, silly!" said Uraraka, giving him a hearty slap on the back before settling back down on the bench.

"And that we find Bakugo's attitude to be unacceptable in someone who aspires to be a hero!" added Iida. A murmur of agreement echoed through the gym.

"Midoriya," said Tokoyami, "should Bakugo seek you out on the field of battle, we will show him true darkness."

"He means we'll beat him up if he tries to pick on you!" explained Dark Shadow.

Izuku felt himself tearing up. "You guys…"

"That's sweet," said Nana, "but it doesn't take care of the tactical issue."

"Shush," said Yoichi. "Let us enjoy the moment."

Izuku rubbed at his eyes with slightly shaking hands.

“We still need a strategy to deal with him,” said Izuku, surprised at how steady his voice was.

“We will need strategies for everything,” said Yaoyorozu, the sentence punctuated by strokes on the rowing machine she was using.

“Oi!” shouted Jiro from the racks on the other side of the room. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not going to remember a dozen different strategies for all sorts of scenarios or whatever! If we don’t know the events, we can’t make a plan to cover everything .”

(A few feet away from her, Todoroki had put on an expression that just screamed 'I'm not listening to this.')

“A conundrum indeed,” intoned Tokoyami.

“One of my martial arts instructors used to say that you can’t plan for your opponent doing anything - you just have to train yourself to act and react in the ways you can,” said Ojiro, helpfully. “Of course, then we had lessons on reading opponents, and that sort of undercut things a little bit…”

“Hey, uh…” Uraraka settled the bar back on the stand with a little oomph . “Maybe we can just… Work out how to work well together? I mean, focus on teamwork first, and then we’ll be able to adapt to, um, whatever our ‘opponent’ throws at us?”

“Ah,” said Yaoyorozu. “Very well put.”

“Ehe,” said Uraraka, scratching the back of her neck. “I try!”

“Did you just call the principal our opponent?” asked Iida, aghast.

“Well, he is, in this case, isn’t he?”

Iida was silent for a long moment. “He is,” he confirmed. Then he sat up on the leg curl machine he’d been using the whole time and buried his face in his hands. Izuku, not knowing what else to do, patted him on the back.

“Oh, hey,” said Kirishima, “did we ever make a decision about, uh… Support and gen ed?”

“Oh! Oh!” said Kaminari, waving his hand with as much energy as remained in his body after an hours-long workout. Which was to say, not much, but still more than Izuku would have thought. “I’ll get Better Purple!”

“ Was that his name?” asked Kirishima.

“Nah. I don’t think he actually said his name. Huh.” He stared into the distance. “It could be his name. I mean, we’ve got some weird names here. My name’s basically thunder electricity. Makes you wonder what my parents were thinking.”

“Probably the same thing you’re thinking when you blow out your brain,” said Jiro.

“My feelings are hurt,” said Kaminari. “Terribly hurt. Wounded. Perhaps mortally so. Who gave your tongue such fatal barbs?”

“How are you so bad at your literature homework when your vocabulary is like that?”

“Talent.”

“Um,” said Izuku, raising a timid hand. “I’ll talk to Hatsume, since I kind of know her.”

“I’ll go with you!” volunteered Uraraka. “I want to see what she’s like.”

“Oh ho,” said Hagakure, grasping Uraraka by the shoulders and making her jump. “Scoping out the competition, are we?”

“W-w-what? Haha, no way!”

“Hopefully, she won’t be competition until the last event!” said Izuku. “I really think she will join us, if we can pitch it right.”

“Yeah, Hagakure,” said Tsuyu. “If we’re talking about the last event, people in this class are competition, too.”

“Actually,” said Monoma, “if they do a standard tournament-style event for the finals, we’ll be competition in the second event, too. When they do tournaments, they only have sixteen people.” He paused. “We can all agree on trying to take Kacchan out first, though, right? And 1-B,” he added, as an afterthought.

For a moment, Izuku thought their alliance might fall apart. But then there were solemn nods.

“Let’s do a cheer!” said Monoma, leaping onto a treadmill. “For the crushing, humiliating defeat of 1-B and the eternal supremacy of class A!”

“That’s a little too far, actually,” said Yaoyorozu.

Izuku stopped, his heart in his throat, just a few feet down the hall from the support labs and grabbed Uraraka’s wrist.

Perhaps inevitably, the lab doors exploded outward. A girl with a ponytail and a headband with antennas on it jumped up, away from the warped metal, and ran back inside the lab, howling about her reaction while someone else cackled.

The cackle sounded a lot like Hatsume.

“Uh,” said Uraraka. “Is that normal?”

“It… seems so? It happened last time, too.”

Izuku cautiously peered inside. Danger Sense wasn’t going off, but that was no reason to be careless.

Yep. The cackle was definitely Hatsume.

“Uh,” said Izuku. “Hatsume?” He’d have to be louder to be heard over the machinery. “Hatsume! Hello!”

“Oh! Hey! Grappling hook!” The girl greeted, waving. “How’s it going? My baby holding up okay?”

“It was great,” said Izuku, shuffling into the lab. “Really. It saved my life. This is Uraraka, she’s in 1-A with me.”

“Nice!” Hatsume said. “So, whatcha here for? It better not be that you broke my baby.” Suddenly, the crosshairs in Hatsume’s eyes looked really menacing. “Just kidding! But you should bring it in for dedicated maintenance if you used it in battle.”

“I thought our hero costumes were brought in for maintenance automatically,” said Uraraka.

“They are, ” said Hatsume, “but that’s, like, spot checking and patching, and it’s assigned to random students. If you want to treat my babies right, you need to bring them home to mama. But I guess that’s not what you’re here for?”

“W-well, my class and I,” he gestured at Uraraka, “were wondering if, um, you’d be interested in more exposure for your- your babies. At the sports festival. We sort of have a plan.”

“Huh,” said Hatsume. Then she dragged him and Uraraka off into a small, padded side room. She tossed a box at him, and an identical one at Uraraka. Protective gear. “Put that on and you can pitch your plan to me while we test a few things.” She grinned, wickedly and hefted a… net gun? Izuku hoped it was a net gun. “Progress waits for no one, right?”

Izuku didn’t think that was how the saying went.

(The gun, unfortunately, contained glue.)

Staff meetings, even staff meetings of professional heroes, were infrequently exciting. More often, they were boring. Boring and stressful. Never a good combination. But still better than exciting and stressful. Which was what the meetings since the media break-in had been.

This meeting was not an exception.

“You want us to completely change our plans for the sports festival in under a week?” asked Kan, aghast.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” said Power Loader, who had dropped his face onto the table. “ You're not the one who has to reformat the arena and add in all this… stuff.”

“Challenges, for our students!” said Nezu, far too happily.

“You aren’t the one with the biggest job, either, Maijima,” pointed out Cementoss. In contrast to his coworker, Cementoss was sitting up straight, looking at the handout Nezu had given them. “This isn’t too bad.”

“Does Maijima even have to do anything?” asked Yagi. “This looks mostly like cement work…”

“The robots and traps.”

“Ah, forgive me,” said Yagi.

"Hey, hey," said Present Mic. "If I'm going to be on the field, now, who's going to do announcements?"

Nezu chittered. "Isn't it obvious? Shouta had already agreed to assist you in the announcement booth."

"Wait," said Shouta, reaching out of his sleeping bag for his packet that he had only scanned. " Wait . You're leaving me there? Alone?"

He was going to die.

Nemuri grinned at him. "What, you aren't scared, are you?"

"Only of the expectation that I'll have to sensationalize and exaggerate the abilities of children I barely know."

"You realize none of us are buying that act, right?"

"We are keeping the third event the same?" asked Yagi, oblivious to or uncaring of Shouta's distress. He was taking notes on a pad of paper to one side.

Nezu sighed. "Unfortunately, yes."

Recovery Girl made an angry little humph.

"As much as we dislike the issues it causes when students become too enthusiastic, it is the most popular and most requested event. Especially this year, our students need the professional connections internships can bring."

"Alright," said Yagi. "Ah, young Aizawa, I almost forgot. Did you still want to have the students pick aliases before the festival? We should do that soon, yes?” He looked up. “Kayama, are you free to help with that this week?"

"Oh, no," said Nemuri. "Shouta, you aren't after that again, are you?"

"I'm after it every year," said Shouta, still going through his packet to find a way out of announcing. Announcing was a job for loud extroverts who could put a positive and dramatic spin on anyone or anything, no matter how illogical.

“Only the hero course students need hero names,” said Nemuri. “For everyone else, they’d only use the names three times, maximum. We’d have to get hundreds of names that are only going to be used practically three times . Come on, All Might, tell him. It isn’t worth it.”

“I tend to side with young Aizawa on this, actually,” said Yagi. “I don’t see any reason to make it easier for villains to target our students, whether or not they’re in the hero class. In fact, in some ways, students who aren’t in the hero course are more at risk than those who are, because they don’t receive combat training beyond a little bit of self defense.” He tilted his head. “Despite the best efforts of heroes everywhere, quirk trafficking is still a major problem.”

“You have to admit, though,” said Kan, “Six hundred and sixty hero names - if the business courses decide to compete - is a lot to deal with. What if there are duplicate names?”

Yagi stared, face painted with a total lack of comprehension. “Well,” he said, “if you think it would be that much of a problem, we could always use class seat numbers.”

“Sorry, what?” asked Nemuri.

“Class numbers. Like, say, young Midoriya for instance. He is seat number 17 of class A, so he could be identified as student A-17.” Yagi shrugged. “Something similar is done at conventions, sometimes, to call up particular attendees.”

How was it that Yagi could say something so logical in such an annoying way?

“What about recognizability?” asked Kan. “We are trying to build up our students’ brands, too. They can do that with their real name, but a number? Not so much.”

Shouta sighed. “Then give the hero course students a chance to pick their names beforehand, and give everyone else the default.”

“Oof,” said Hizashi. “That’d cause a bit of resentment. Maybe give everyone a chance to pick names, and anyone who can’t come up with one, or who makes a duplicate name, gets the default.”

“There’s also always quirk names,” said Yagi, now rolling his pen between his palms. “But I find forcing that on people to be… distasteful, at best. And it has many of the same issues as broadcasting student names.”

Shouta remembered what Yagi had mentioned about All for One and quirk names and suppressed a shiver. Yeah. He could see why he found it distasteful.

“All excellent points!” said Nezu. “However, how we implement this is, at least partially, up to Nemuri.”

Nemuri took off her glasses and made a show of cleaning them. “I can talk to the first year heroics and general education courses, if you can make room for me to speak to them in your classes, but the other classes…” She shrugged. “I’m just not going to have the time to get them done. Assuming we’ll need at least a couple days before the festival to get all the names plugged into the system?”

“That is correct,” said Nezu. “It sounds like we have our answer, then.”

Shouta would like to argue that they hadn’t really agreed on anything, but whatever. It was always going to be up to Nezu in the end.

“The first year heroics and gen ed courses will pick their hero names with Nemuri’s help. For the other classes, whether or not they have dedicated time to pick a name will be decided by their homeroom teacher, and…” Nezu paused dramatically. “An email to that effect has just been sent to all the students.”

“You don’t have a computer with you,” said Yagi.

As if that would stop Nezu.

“Right, so,” said Mr. Aizawa as soon as homeroom started. “We’re doing something different today. A special class.”

The tension in the classroom congealed immediately.

“You’ll be coming up with your hero aliases.”

The congealed atmosphere transmuted into shrapnel as the class exploded. Despite the extensive bandaging, Mr. Aizawa’s hair still went up. Some of the bandages started to float too. That was interesting, maybe he had a split quirk of some kind? A gravity nullifier?

“Midoriya, pay attention,” said Mr. Aizawa. “The aliases you pick today are only temporary, but you should still put in the effort to pick something appropriate--”

“OR ELSE YOU’LL KNOW TRUE HELL!” Ms. Kayama, Midnight, shouted, throwing open the door. “Like this guy, who’s been stuck with what he let a friend fill in on his application for years .”

“Do none of you people know how to enter a room without making it into a production?”

“Come on, we’ve got to give the kids a show. Let ‘em live a little.”

Mr. Aizawa rolled his eyes. “Kayama will be leading a workshop with you today. Hopefully, you’ll have a name picked out by the end of the period, but if not, you have until the end of this week to submit a name. Otherwise, you’ll go into the sports festival with a default alias.” He blinked slowly. “Of course, you’d know this if you checked your email before school this morning.”

Ms. Kayama rolled her eyes. "And with those encouraging words from your teacher, I'll start with some guidelines…"

"I bet you wish you had a class like this when you picked your hero name."

"What's wrong with my hero name?" asked En.

"I wasn't talking about yours."

"What's wrong with my name?" asked Nana, crossing her arms and looming ominously over Banjo.

"I wasn't talking about you, either! I was talking about him!"

Yoichi looked away from Izuku's class and blinked. "What hero name?"

"What do you mean what- ohhh." Banjo turned his attention to Third. "That explains so much."

Yoichi squinted suspiciously at Third. "What kind of monstrosity did you saddle me with?"

Third, who had begun to exude copious amounts of imaginary sweat, broke. "At least it's a better hero name than Banjo!"

"Hold up, do you think Banjo is my hero name? Did you pay any attention during my life at all?"

"It isn't much of a given name, either!"

"It's my family name, you Karate Kid ripoff!"

Some of Izuku's classmates picked their hero names quickly and easily. Clearly, they'd already put a lot of thought into them. Others, well…

Some of them had put too much thought into it.

"No," said Ms. Kayama. "You can't have an entire English sentence as your hero name."

"But Mademoiselle Kayama, it is a sentence that describes me perfectly!" protested Aoyama with a spin.

"Maybe trim it down to 'Can't Stop Twinkling?'"

"That's still really long though," said Monoma, not looking up from where he was doodling clocks on his paper. "No one is going to shout that in battle."

"Good point," said Midnight. "But if you're giving out criticisms, you should also propose solutions."

"Uh," said Monoma.

"Oh, oh!" said Kaminari. "How about Twinkle! That would work, right?"

"Hmmmmm," said Aoyama, still standing straight up in front of the classroom with his heels pressed together. Then he waved his board over his head. "I will accept it."

"Great," said Ms. Kayama. "Make sure you fill out and submit the proper paperwork."

"Okay," said Ms. Kayama with a heavy sigh, "new ground rule. Don't name yourself after terrifying movie monsters. You're going to be heroes, not villains."

"Aw, man," said Ashido. She returned to her seat with slumped shoulders. "This sucks. Do you know how hard it is to find anything non-villainous with acid powers? It just doesn't exist!"

"You could reference your appearance instead of your power."

Izuku winced. He wasn't what he'd call an expert on discrimination, but there was some overlap between quirkless discrimination and heteromorphic discrimination. If Ashido didn't bring up her appearance in the first place…

"I know! That's what the alien part was for!" She slid down in her seat. "Alien Queen is totally a cool name…"

Or maybe Izuku was reading too far into it. It happened.

"If you want to retain the movie reference," said Iida, "you could pick the name of the heroine instead of the villain. Ripley also gained acidic blood in later installments of the franchise."

Ashido pulled herself up. " You like the Aliens movies?"

"Is it that surprising? My brother and I enjoy watching vintage horror movies. It is quite educational!"

"I'm not sure how much of an education you can get from them if you hide in the bathroom all the time, kiddo," said Ms. Kayama.

"That-" sputtered Iida. "That was only the once! I was eight!"

"That's not how Tensei tells it."

Iida had changed a very interesting color. "This is highly unprofessional! I must object!"

"It's not bad," said Midnight, appraising. "But are you sure?"

Hagakure shrugged. "I mean, I was going to go with 'Invisible Girl' originally, but then it hit me, I'm not going to be a girl forever. It might feel weird to be called a girl when I'm, like, thirty, you know? Plus, this is funny."

"Still, Invisible Gorilla is… quite an image."

It sure was. Izuku almost wished he could turn one of Kacchan's insults around like that, but… the idea made him faintly ill. As long as Kacchan was Kacchan, he'd never completely stop being useless Deku, he had accepted that. But having everyone else know about it?

No, thank you.

"I'm sure!" said Hagakure. "Anyway, I can always beat up anyone who makes fun of me."

"That would be illegal, in most cases."

" Can! Not will!"

Monoma presented his name with a flourish. "I shall be the undefeatable Phantom Thief!"

Ms. Kayama steepled her hands in front of her lips. "Just to remind everyone, you are in training to be heroes . So, no monsters, villains, or criminals in your names."

"A Phantom Thief isn't a criminal! They are an archetype of a hero that fights for justice!"

"I want you to think carefully about what you just said and come back to me on that." She paused. "With a new name."

"Todoroki, how about you? You've been awfully quiet."

"I'm not picking a name. I'll go with the default."

Despite his best efforts, Izuku couldn't hide from his own troubles picking a name forever.

"I think I need help," he mumbled, half scrunching up a piece of paper from his notebook. "All of my ideas are terrible."

Hagakure twisted in her seat. "They can't be that bad." She snagged the paper off his desk and straightened it out. Izuku cringed. "Midori," she said. "This is just All Might Junior and Small Might crossed out over and over again."

Izuku looked away, blushing and trying to escape from the weight of Hagakure's incredulity and disappointment. Unfortunately, two seats behind Izuku, past the seat that would have belonged to the expelled student, Monoma looked up from his own frantic writing.

(“Strawberry,” said someone, just loud enough for Izuku to hear it.)

"Are you serious?" he asked. "Midoriya, please tell me you aren't serious."

"I- I did say I n-needed help," said Izuku, wilting.

"Admittedly," said En, "that is pretty embarrassing."

"You're so insensitive!" Yoichi shouted at Third, pelting him with random small objects. "Did it ever occur to you that I wouldn't want to be remembered as that?"

"I thought you were dead!"

"I was dead! That doesn't make it better!"

"Somehow not as embarrassing as this, though."

"Eyup," said Banjo.

“Okay,” said Midnight, “let’s ask the class. Any ideas for Midoriya?”

Uraraka stood up, almost knocking her desk over. She caught it with one hand and it began to float. “Strawberry!” she said. “Strawberry. I think that’s a good name. For a hero.” She put the desk back down, her own blush making her as pink as the ovals on her cheeks. “Because strawberries are sweet.”

“Marimo!” said Ashido. “They float, and they’re green.”

“What about Rabbit? Kero. Because of the ears on your costume, and because you can ‘jump’ high.”

“Those are more of an homage to All Might, though,” said Izuku, flustered.

“I think you’d be the fourth green animal themed hero this year,” said Ms. Kayama. “You could make a team.”

“Fourth?”

“Yep, there are a few students in 1-B who jumped the gun and sent in their paperwork last night. Lizardy and Jack Mantis.” She tapped her chin with one finger. “And Long Weizi, if dragons count as animals.”

Huh. Izuku wondered if there might be some correlation between animal type quirks and color--

Wait. Izuku didn’t have an animal type quirk. He just had green hair.

“I have a beautiful name for you,” said Aoyama, prancing across the room. He pointed commandingly at Izuku. “The Green Rabbit of Wonderland!”

“Another incredibly long name,” said Monoma.

“It gets shortened to Rabbit again,” observed Kaminari.

“Just ‘Midori’ would be a cool name,” said Kirishima.

“I like it,” said Hagakure, “it’s cute and it fits with your costume! Or Green Rabbit!”

“It could also be shortened to Wonder,” said Todoroki.

What an unexpected contribution!

“Oh! Because he’s wonderful?” asked Iida, entirely straight-faced.

Todoroki stared at him. Then turned his gaze on Izuku, who was trying to avoid spontaneous combustion. “No,” he said finally, and looked away again.

Also, had he just been staring into space like that since he filled out his paperwork? Not even reading or drawing or anything?

Todoroki was a bit strange, wasn’t he?

Something tugged on Izuku’s pant leg and he just managed to suppress the jump that would have sent him flying across the classroom when he saw Dark Shadow under his desk.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” Izuku repeated, faintly.

“Fumi wanted me to give you this,” she said, passing him a folded square of paper before retreating to the space under Tokoyami’s desk.

Izuku, shaking, unfolded the note.

Midoriya, my companion in darkness, it began in miniscule letters, I would like to offer my thoughts regarding your choice of pseudonym. Firstly, let us consider your ability to detect ill omens, a power much maligned even in ancient myth, with those who would give warnings either ignored or blamed for misfortune--

The (actually quite insightful and interesting) note was deceptively long, and Izuku scanned through it to the end.

--therefore, taking both parts of your quirk and your position in the class, I would recommend the names Augur, Augury, or Auspex, all terms which refer to the art of prophecy via the observation of the flights of birds.

Izuku looked up from the note and gave Tokoyami a shaky thumbs up. Tokoyami returned the gesture with a grave nod.

“Anything appeal to you, Midoriya?” asked Ms. Kayama, kindly.

“Y-yeah!” said Izuku. “They’re all wonderful! It’s just, I mean, it’s so hard to choose .”

“Well,” said Ms. Kayama, “you aren’t the only one with that problem. Remember, you have until the end of the week to fill out the paperwork and get it turned in. If you miss the date, you’ll have to use the default name.”

Honestly, A-17 didn’t sound all that bad.

The school day went normally after that. As normally as any day at UA could be, anyway. They zoomed through their normal classes, got another day of sparring and conditioning in heroics, and then it was the end of the day.

For Izuku, this meant quirk counseling.

But he had a few minutes, so he went to the bathroom and checked a book on quirk analysis out of the library (he’d been trying to find this edition forever!). On the way back, he checked his phone, and apparently Kaminari had informed the group chat that ‘better purple’ had agreed to come to the ‘Saturday sports festival cram session,’ which, perhaps inevitably, led to an argument about whether or not they could even have a cram session for a sports festival, or if it would better to just refer to it as training.

He wondered if a constant state of bemusement was just something that came with having friends, or if strange arguments were part of some intricate ritual he had no foreknowledge of. It could also be both, he supposed.

“Good,” said Mr. Aizawa, “you’re here. Find a spot to sit in. I have some worksheets for you on my desk.”

Izuku picked up the worksheets and read the first one. “How does using my quirk make me feel?”

“Yeah,” said Mr. Aizawa. “It sounds silly, but we’ve got to start somewhere. And these are the basics.” He sighed. “We will be getting into the whole ‘supposed to be superstrength’ thing eventually, but for now… No matter how weird of a quirk it is, it’s still a quirk.”

“R-right,” said Izuku, planting himself in the nearest seat and whipping out a new pen. “I’ll fill these in right away!”

“You’re not going to finish them all in one si-- Slow down, Midoriya, you-- Are you sure you don’t have a speed quirk?”

Izuku paused, baffled by the question. “Yes? Unless one of the early users had a speed quirk…”

“I wish,” said Yoichi, “that would have been so cool. And so much better than some of the users we did get.” The last was directed at Third. “I bet a speed quirk user wouldn’t have lied to his successors about his friend’s name, death, and personality. Too bad we don’t have one of those.”

“I was trying to make you look cool! Let it go already!”

Behind Third, Second looked like he was covered in even more shadows than usual.

As nice of a distraction as quirk counseling was, it didn’t solve the two very large problems looming over him. The sports festival and his hero name.

(He sighed heavily and let his entire weight hang from the subway overhead handgrip. Maybe he could figure out how to do pull ups of some kind from this?)

Arguably, the sports festival was the bigger problem, but no matter how nervous he was about it, how stressed he was about failing and dragging down his friends, they did have a plan to deal with it. He was already doing everything he could.

On the other hand, his hero name was all on him, and despite his classmate’s suggestions, he felt like he was caught in a whirlpool, about to be sucked under. A bad choice here could torpedo his future. It could expose him to vicious mockery. He knew what he was talking about! He’d seen Native get ripped apart for appropriation, and X-Less… Yeah. The internet was a scary place.

He hopped off the subway and started the jog home.

Even vigilantes from the Dawn of Quirks weren’t immune! The same forums that whispered about the quirk boogeyman in reverent tones always made time to poke fun at the apocryphal vigilante who went by Dumas. Yes, his namesake was a brilliant author, yes, it was pronounced du-mah, but that didn’t stop people from writing it as, well.

Dumb ass.

Come to think of it, wasn’t Alexandre Dumas the one who wrote the Three Musketeers? That was where the saying ‘one for all and all for one’ came from, wasn’t it?

Huh.

Could it be that…?

Nah. No way.

But back to the name. Izuku could ask his mother what she thought, but as a mom she was obligated to say that she’d like anything he chose unless it was really bad, so that would have limited utility. There weren’t really other people he could ask, except…

“Mom,” he called into the apartment, “I’m home!”

“Oh, good,” she said, emerging from her office. “How was your day at school?”

“It was good! We’re supposed to pick our hero names this week and, well, I’m a little stuck.”

His mother made a sympathetic noise. “Do you have any options?”

“Yeah. My classmates helped me come up with some. It’s just… hard to pick one.”

“Mhm,” said his mother. “I can understand that, but don’t let worries about offending someone keep you from picking what you want.”

Oh, no. Izuku hadn’t even considered that aspect. He swallowed.

“Actually,” he said, “I was wondering, do you think I could call Dad tonight even though it isn’t a scheduled day?”

“Of course,” said Inko. “Your father always wants to talk to you, you know that. But remember, the time difference means that he might not be awake to answer the phone. I’ll go find the number he gave us for the hotel he’s in now.”

“Right,” said Izuku with a small nod. Then he grimaced and tried to clean his ear out with his pinky. Growing up with Kacchan meant that he sometimes had a little bit of tinnitus, and he was used to it, even if it was annoying.

It was funny, though. Today it sounded almost like a bunch of people screaming in horror in the back of his head.

Notes:

If any of you want to weigh in on Midoriya's hero name, please feel free to do so!
Edited on 7/27/23.

Chapter 13 Notes:

Thank you to everyone who suggested names! They were very helpful for this chapter. :)
Edited 7/27/23.

Chapter Text

Midoriya Hisashi lived and worked overseas, coming home to Japan only rarely. His job had bounced him to every continent, and he’d even been to Antarctic City. It was taxing work, but he enjoyed it, and, most importantly, it allowed him to provide for his beautiful wife and wonderful son, who he loved more than anyone or anything else in the entire world.

That description was true except for one desperately important point: Midoriya Hisashi did not so much have a job as a sprawling criminal empire.

But sprawling criminal empires sure were hard work!

Especially when you had your face literally punched off by your unfortunately-smarter-than-he-looked heroic nemesis. Curse All Might, his entire family line, and the family lines of anyone who happened to succeed him.

It had really been looking like Hisashi had successfully suckered him into dying without passing One for All on, but then his stupid smiles had become more genuine, and he’d started teaching at that stupid school, and well… one thing had led to another, and Hisashi could only reach the conclusion that All Might had picked a successor at the absolute least convenient time for Hisashi. That is, the same year his beloved son, Izuku, started high school at that very same stupid school.

Now, without a quirk, Izuku wasn’t going to become a hero. Society as a whole was too bigoted, a fact Hisashi was grateful for. So grateful, in fact, that he only tortured to death those bigots who directly laid a hand on his son, rather than starting at the top of the refuse heap known as the Hero Commission and working his way down.

However, despite this, Izuku was naturally brilliant enough for even the imbeciles at UA to recognize his value. Was Hisashi happy with this? Not exactly. It meant that he had to plan around his son while looking for All Might’s successor. But if Izuku hadn’t been admitted… On some level, it saddened Hisashi that he wouldn’t be able to use the plans he’d made for members of the admissions board in the case that they did reject his son.

Anyway, Hisashi could plan around Izuku being in gen ed, or management, or support, or business, or…

Hisashi was, admittedly, somewhat ashamed that he hadn’t managed to ask Izuku exactly which of the courses he’d gotten into. He’d been… not sulking. Supervillains did not sulk. He’d been… less than thrilled about Izuku’s admission, and he hadn’t wanted to ruin Izuku’s celebration, so… He just let Izuku ramble on about the hated school in that adorable and endearing way of his, without commenting.

He had not been sulking.

But, secure in the knowledge that Izuku was not in the hero course, Hisashi could simply arrange things so that any attacks on All Might, the hero course, other people at UA that annoyed him, etc., didn’t involve any of the non-hero-course first years. So, he sent his minions (Kurogiri, Tomura, others whose names he hadn’t bothered to remember) to go find a time that the hero course would be nice and far away from anyone he actually liked (Izuku).

To Hisashi’s great cheer, they’d seemingly managed to find the perfect venue for Tomura’s debut. A hero course field trip to the USJ with All Might!

But Hisashi had forgotten the incompetence of said minions.

Somehow, they’d confused the hero class with Izuku’s class.

Needless to say, Izuku had wiped the floor with Tomura. Tomura, versus Hisashi’s son? It wasn’t a contest, really.

Hisashi didn’t have details about how Izuku had managed it, Tomura had mentioned something about ‘green children,’ and that one of them had a frog quirk and the other could fly, but neither of those matched Izuku. Unlike the strained phone call from Inko and the brief conversation he’d had with an exhausted Izuku.

After those calls Hisashi had almost decided to kill Tomura, regardless of how much he'd invested in him. How in the world had they managed to mix up the courses like that? Yes, Hisashi hadn't caught the mistake, either, but then he was blind and unable to read the itinerary Tomura had stolen. It was hardly his fault!

So. Yes. Hard work. Hard, stressful work, and he couldn't even go home to complain to his wife about it, because of the aforementioned face-punching-off incident.

Tragic.

Which is why he felt no guilt whatsoever about brushing off the good doctor to answer a call from his home phone number. Not that he would have felt guilt, anyway. It, along with shame, wasn't an emotion he experienced.

… Except with regards to still not knowing exactly which course Izuku was in.

… And, possibly, never being home.

But that was it!

"Midoriya Hisashi speaking," he said, smoothly into the receiver.

"Holy crap," said Banjo. "It is him."

"Hey," said En, kicking at and missing Hikage's ankles, "why isn't Danger Sense making Nine freak out?"

"Most likely because he isn't in any danger."

"Y'know, if this is 'no danger,' I'm shocked that Danger Sense is working for him at all."

"HI, Dad!" said Izuku. "Sorry to call at a weird time. You- you aren't busy, are you?"

"Not at all," said Hisashi, ignoring the doctor in front of him and the crime against humanity, science, and reason they were supposed to be animating on the table in-between them. "Today has been unexpectedly slow."

"Oh, good. I was wondering if you could help me with something?"

"Of course," said Hisashi. For a moment, he let himself hope that his son had finally killed that explosive brat, Bakugo. He mentally cycled through quirks that he could use to cover up the deed. "What do you need?"

"It's for school. You know the sports festival is coming up soon."

"Ah, yes," said Hisashi. Some of the best quirk window shopping there was. He'd tried to get Eraserhead's after his performance, but his first attempts hadn’t gone well, and he'd been forced to abandon the project. "What do you need? Who needs to be eviscerated?"

"No, really, how is this guy not registering as evil?"

Izuku giggled. "Well, this year, they’re having everybody pick hero names beforehand."

Hisashi felt his heart stop. Using a quirk he had acquired for just such a purpose, he kicked it back on and waved off the doctor. "Everyone?" he asked, desperation expertly masked. "Including the non-hero courses?"

"Ye-yes," said Izuku. "I was wondering- I was wondering if you could help me with figuring one out. I- I mean, my friends gave me lots of good options, but, um."

"I suppose your teachers vetoed Small Might?" Hisashi teased, gently.

"Don't remind me," groaned Izuku. "I didn't even bring it up."

"He kind of did, though," said En.

Nana shrugged. "He crossed it out. It hardly counts." Then, undercutting her argument, she mumbled, "All Might is a great name."

The others nodded, some because they agreed, and some because they didn't want to wind up on the same side as All for One.

"If he tries to give Izuku a stupid villain name, I'm going to tear his throat out with my teeth."

"I thought you tried that already," said Hikage.

"Third…"

"Hey! You actually did try to do that!" Third protested from his hiding spot.

"Does it really matter?" asked Nana. "You're a ghost."

"I'll haunt him, then."

"Now, I know we've all tried that one."

"Hm," said Hisashi, "why don't you tell me what your classmates came up with, first?"

"Ah, well." There was the sound of shuffling paper. "They had Strawberry, Marimo, Rabbit, Wonder, Augur and Auspex."

Marimo was obvious enough. The others, however… "Strawberry?"

"Because of what I look like when I'm blushing, I think. I'm just glad it isn't tomato or something… Marimo's kind of the same thing. You- you know, my hair?"

"And Wonder is because you're wonderful?"

"Noooo, Dad. Todoroki didn't mean it like that. It's a play on, um. Wonderland. Like, the Rabbit of Wonderland?"

"The one who is always late? I do hope you're getting to school on time."

"Dad! I'm on time. They just think my, um. You know, the All Might antenna on my hood look like rabbit ears. And they think I'm bouncy, I guess?"

So, Izuku was still wearing those awful novelty hoodies. Not that Hisashi had expected otherwise. It was still disappointing.

"And the last two? Augur and Auspex?"

"Those are because of my quirk," said Izuku.

"Your what?"

There were only two possible avenues for a quirkless person to develop a quirk. As Hisashi had decided against repeating the mistake he'd made with his brother, that left one.

One for All.

All Might.

All for One was halfway out of the facility before Izuku answered.

"O-oh! I guess I never talked to you about it, because it manifested at the USJ. Sorry, I was just so exhausted after everything…"

"It isn't your fault, Izuku," said Hisashi. No, it was All Might's. What, was the irresponsible idiot so convinced he was about to be killed by the nomu that he passed the quirk to the closest child? If so, he was even weaker than he'd thought! "What is it like?"

"It, um, it's a stockpile quirk! We think that's why I never could activate it before. It stockpiles danger and releases it as personal levitation. The USJ just… pushed it over into critical mass."

That… wasn't One for All.

Hisashi killed a lab technician who had the misfortune of being close enough to hear part of his conversation and casually dumped them out of their chair so he could drop into it. He'd experienced the phenomenon of having his bones turned to powder before, but now they felt practically liquid.

He was still going to murder All Might, though. Just not right now.

"That might be why I'm so anxious, too- I can feel the stockpile when it gets bigger."

"Fascinating," said Hisashi. He could see how it might come about. All for One was, technically speaking, a stockpile quirk, and both personal levitation and Attract would be telekinesis type quirks… And since Hisashi was a first generation quirk user, odd quirk mutations were to be expected. “I recall your mother mentioning that her biological mother had a quirk like that. Something to do with flying.”

“Grandma’s quirk is Green Thumb, though,” said Izuku.

“Your grandmother’s, yes,” said Hisashi, shuddering at the memory of that formidable woman. The fact that he couldn’t kill her without upsetting his wife was criminal.

Well. So was he, but, really, what was the point of being a being of ultimate evil if you couldn’t be a hypocrite, too?

Not that he was a being of ultimate evil. Yet . It was a work in progress. There were some travesties he hadn’t stooped to, yet. Like taunting All Might with Shimura’s grandson. Oh, and sexual crimes, he supposed, but those didn’t seem fun at all, so he was inclined to skip them.

“But,” continued Hisashi, “your mother was adopted. She only has her biological parents’ general quirk and medical history.” Hisashi could have uncovered more, of course, but if Inko didn’t care, neither did he.

Although, with such a strange quirk manifestation from Izuku, maybe he should. Just in case.

“Oh,” said Izuku, quietly. “I didn’t know that.”

“Ah,” said Hisashi. “Perhaps… don’t mention this to your mother?”

That earned Hisashi a faint but genuine chuckle. “I won’t tell if you don’t.” Izuku paused. “Assuming she isn’t listening in on the line.”

“On one level, I’m surprised that Nine’s mom would do that,” said Nana, “on the other, she did marry this bastard, so…”

“Speaking of Mrs. Midoriya’s family,” said Hikage, “don’t you think it’s an interesting coincidence that her mother has a quirk similar to yours?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty convenient, isn’t it? I was half convinced we were screwed the minute Nine picked up the phone to dial.”

Focused as Nana was on the conversation, she did not notice Banjo wrapping Hikage in Blackwhip and dragging him away.

“You think she might do that?” asked Hisashi, nervously. He nudged the cooling body of the technician with his toe.

“I think you offered to kill people for us too many times, or something,” said Izuku. “She said she wanted to make sure you weren’t giving me the wrong idea about things.”

Hisashi remembered that conversation, come to think about it, but it was more about Hisashi’s rather… vocal distaste for heroes than killing people. Alas, that Izuku took neither talking point seriously.

“I see,” said Hisashi. “You’ve gotten a quirk counselor, I hope?” Oh, how Hisashi wished he could guide Izuku himself! Maybe take the quirk for a test drive. He’d give it back, of course, it would just be a minute…

“Mhm, my teacher has a license!”

Hisashi shook himself out of the fantasy. “Good, good. Now, you wanted help with names.” The only way he’d get through this is if he considered them to be villain names, not hero names. “In keeping with the theme of the last two, might I suggest Omen?”

“That sounds more like a villain name.”

Drat. Izuku was always too smart for games like that. “If you want something undeniably heroic, how about Skywalker?”

“Would that make you Darth Vader?” joked Izuku.

“Please, I would be far more successful!” Especially on the ‘living forever with one’s loved ones’ front, although he supposed he could take a loss in the ‘tempted one’s children to evil’ category.

“Considering Anakin Skywalker, I think it’s a bit tainted, anyway.”

“He’s not even hiding it!” complained En. “He’s basically stating that he’s evil outright!”

“This is why we didn’t want this kid as our ninth,” said Third.

“Shut up,” growled Yoichi. “You don’t get to talk, since you turned me into a folktale postmortem.”

“Maybe you should have done more actually cool things when you were alive, then!”

Yoichi gasped, offended.

“Like, seriously, what kind of moron manages to miss this kind of evil metaphorically punching them in the face? Even if it is a family member?”

Yoichi gasped, offended.

“Oh,” said Third, belatedly remembering who he was talking to. “Oops.”

“Can you guys be quiet?” snapped Nana. “This is important!”

“Ah, well,” said Hisashi. “It was worth a try. Continuing with fortune telling, Tarot?”

“Like the cards? That’s kind of far away from what my quirk can actually do.”

“Yes, but that can be a good thing. You don’t want to be too straightforward.” Even if he only wound up using it once. “Risk, then, or Clover? Both reference luck, and Clover again ties back to your appearance.”

“I kind of like Clover,” said Izuku, “and Risk sounds cool.” There was a pause as Izuku wrote something down. “It sounds like you have more?” Izuku’s voice tilted up hopefully at the end.

“A few,” said Hisashi. “Apollo, a Greek god of prophecy also associated with spaceflight.” Izuku made an interested sound. “Comet, a ball of ice and space dust that was considered an omen of ill fortune to come.” Hisashi sighed. “Then, if you prefer the rabbit theme--” something Hisashi hoped was not the case; he didn’t want his son to have even an obscure homage to All Might in his name, “--Caerbannog or Gyokuto are appropriate.”

“... Isn’t Caerbannog the man-eating rabbit from that one ancient movie with King Arthur?”

“It may be.”

“We aren’t allowed to name ourselves after movie villains.”

“What’s the fun in that?”

Izuku laughed. “You sound like Ashido,” he said. “She wanted to name herself Alien Queen.”

“She sounds like she has good taste.”

"She does," said Izuku. "You've given me a lot to think about."

"I certainly hope so," said Hisashi. "I could also help with assuring your dominance over your enemies. Bakugo Katsuki is in one of the hero courses, yes?"

"I- I'll be- I'll be okay, Dad. Plus, you never take stuff like this seriously."

While Izuku couldn't be blamed for not knowing about Hisashi's less-than-legal activities, the statement still hurt. Hisashi's offers of massacring Izuku's rivals were always serious!

"You told me I should go ahead and break Kacchan's arms to establish superiority when I was eight. Who does that?"

"Yes, Ninth," said En. "Who does that indeed?"

"He's so close but so far away," mourned Nana.

"He would have recovered."

"There you go again," said Izuku with a slight laugh. "My friends and I are working on a plan to win, don't worry!"

Ah, Izuku was collecting minions. Excellent. UA graduates were often sho-ins for positions of power and importance. Making a network early on would help him later.

"I should probably let you go if you're still at work," said Izuku, a little sadly.

"Mhm," said Hisashi, aware of the need to keep his cover as a normal businessman. "I'll call at the normal time and we can talk more, alright?"

"Okay. I love you, Dad."

"I love you, too. And Izuku?"

"Yeah?"

"You are a wonder. Never let anyone tell you otherwise."

Izuku frowned down at the spreadsheet of names and their respective pros and cons in front of him. It was very large.

He sighed. "I'm going to have to sleep on this."

Yoichi clapped his hands. "So, are we all in agreement that we cannot let Izuku pick a name my brother came up with?"

"Sure," said En, "but it's not like we can do anything about it."

"We could give him Blackwhip about it," said Banjo. "That would screw up all of his ideas."

"We're not doing that," said Yoichi, serenely. "My plan is to hope we have some influence over Izuku's subconscious and scream at him not to take any of my brother's evil names."

"All night?" asked Nana, resignation carved deep into her face.

"That's what it takes."

"Wouldn't it be better to scream a name we do like at him?" suggested Hikage. "A single, simple, message is more likely to connect."

"I like the way you think," said Yoichi.

"Oh, no," mumbled Nana, "I see what's coming."

"So, what name do we like?" continued Yoichi, oblivious to the coming disaster.

"It can't be Strawberry," said En, quickly. "Ichigo is the wrong number."

"Singularity!" shouted Banjo.

"Nine would be the right number," continued En. "But a hero can't be named suffering…"

“Naming him Nine would be counterproductive in the ‘let’s not get Ninth murdered by All for One’ department,” said Nana.

“If it helps,” said Yoichi, “I think he’s more likely to get vaulted.”

“Like a ceiling?” asked Hikage.

“Troubleshoot!” yelled Banjo. “Danger Fist! Harbinger!”

“A ceiling?”

“A vaulted ceiling.”

“Reflex! Nemesis!”

“Dude,” said En. “Nemesis isn’t a very heroic name.”

“What,” said Yoichi, “do you think vaulted ceilings have to do with this?”

“I don’t know,” said Hikage. “You brought them up. I thought maybe he had a quirk for them.”

“For vaulted ceilings?”

“Yes.”

“Black Cat! Magpie! Nexus! Versatile!”

“You do remember that the name has to make sense with One for All as it currently is, right?” asked Nana.

“How about Sixth Sense?” said En.

“You just want your number to come up again,” accused Banjo.

“My number came up almost as long ago as yours, old man.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“Okay, so, when I say vaulting I mean bank vaults. Imprisonment. Isolation.”

“I see,” said Hikage.

Yoichi nodded, then sighed as he realized the other ghosts had dissolved into chaos. “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?”

“Hi, Mr. Yagi! How are you today?” asked Izuku, having run into his mentor outside the teacher’s lounge.

Mr. Yagi took a long, slow sip of coffee. “I had a very strange dream about people yelling at me to change my hero name.”

“Huh,” said Izuku. “What did they want you to change it to?”

“Either Troubleshoot or Troubleshot. It was… strange.” He shook himself. “But what brings you here so early in the morning, my boy?”

“I was hoping to talk to Ms. Kayama,” said Izuku. “I think I’ve got my hero name pinned down, but I’d like to talk to her about it, first!” He held up the paperwork for submitting his hero name.

“Oh! That’s wonderful,” said Mr. Yagi. “May I see?”

“Sure!” said Izuku, turning the paper around so Mr. Yagi could see it.

He fluffed Izuku’s hair. “I think that suits you very well, young Midoriya! I’ll go see if Ms. Kayama is here, alright?”

Unfortunately, the past users of One for All were not listening to the conversation. This was less because they had worn themselves out from shouting, and more because Izuku’s choice of name had shown that all their efforts to communicate were useless and they were wallowing in self-pity. It was a whole thing.

Kurogiri’s wounds had healed acceptably, with the doctor none the wiser. So, as usual when he wasn’t rescuing Tomura from trouble, helping the doctor in the lab, engaging in miscellaneous criminal activities, or giving random small-time villains alcohol poisoning, he was doing housework, tidying up the hideout.

It quickly became apparent that Kurogiri wasn’t very good at tidying. Cleaning in general, really.

It was equally obvious that Kurogiri was also the only one that even tried to clean the hideout.

(In the back of his mind, Kurogiri thought it… odd… that these two thoughts felt so newly discovered. He and Tomura had been here for years. He should have already known this.)

Yes, he couldn’t expect his master to clean, that was ridiculous, and the doctor was rarely here. But Tomura… No, no, not Tomura. But Kurogiri wasn’t the only minion to ever inhabit this place. Most of the others were dead now, but even when Kurogiri had been alive he’d helped with classroom cleaning and kept the apartment clean.

Wait, what?

Regardless, this was no place to raise a child. Not that Tomura was a child anymore, nor was Kurogiri, which…

Kurogiri had never been a child.

In the context of sanitation, the hideout was wretched. That was the point of this.

Dispirited, Kurogiri wrung out the mop, nearly black water drizzling into the small plastic bucket he’d scrounged up. Maybe he’d be better at cleaning if he had better supplies. It was like they wanted Tomura to grow up in soul-crushing squalor.

They who?

It would be better for Tomura to have grown up somewhere else, somewhere safe, away from them.

Kurogiri pressed a hand to his head, and then his neck. No.

It wasn’t too late--

Kurogiri slammed his hand against the corner of the hall, where two off the walls came together. There was a satisfying, agonizing click in his wrist and some of the paint on the wall flaked off, revealing a metal bracket. Kurogiri breathed shallowly, listening. The only sound in the hideout was the faint music from one of Tomura’s games.

It was Kurogiri’s job to protect and nurture Tomura, to help him carry out his goals. Yes. And to do that…

Kurogiri leaned the mop against the wall. Tomura couldn’t carry out his goals alone. His goals which were… His goals. Defeating All Might. That was at least a goal.

Tomura would need allies.

Kurogiri teleported himself up to the bar. Allies. He would need-- The nomu were right there, weren’t they?

They weren’t enough, though, they weren’t right. Had Tomura ever had friends? He must have. Even if they were just online friends. He mustn't have. Sensei would never allow it.

It troubled Kurogiri that he couldn’t remember.

He’d get some friends for Tomura.

Chapter 14 Notes:

Hey, it's been a bit! Since I started this fic, some additional portions of backstory for Yoichi and other characters have been revealed. I'm not going to go back and change things I've already written, so I'm going to stick with and refer to what I have. Please keep that in mind before going off on any canon inaccuracies.
Just as a note, a good portion of the wait for this chapter was caused, at least in part, by rude commenters sapping my energy for anything to do with BNHA, the most egregious of which was someone who went on a completely different fic for a completely different fandom that I had co-written with several other people and demanded to know when I was updating. So. Don't do stuff like that.

Chapter Text

"So, Midoriya," said Ms. Kayama, "putting together anything special for the Athlete's Oath?"

Izuku looked up from what was shaping up to be a fairly in-depth analysis of the second event of a sports festival that had occurred about a dozen years ago, a sense of dread pooling in his gut. "What?"

Ms. Kayama smiled, brows pinching together just a smidge. "The Athlete's Oath. You were the top scorer on the entrance exam, weren't you? I didn't get you confused with someone else, did I?"

"Oh, no," said Izuku, as he finally managed to put Ms. Kayama's question together with facts he'd known for years. "I forgot the Athlete's Oath."

"Athlete's Oath?" repeated Yoichi. "What's the Athlete's Oath? Was it something Eighth had to do? Nana, do you know?"

Nana raised an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that all of you were here when Toshinori went here."

"Yeah," said En, "but that was about a hundred years ago."

"It was not," said Hikage.

"It was just as long ago for me."

"Sure, but he was your kid," said Yoichi. “Everyone remembers their kid better."

Nana made a face. She… couldn't actually dispute that. All these years later, she could still remember things like Kotaro's first day of school with blinding clarity.

… and Toshinori's first day at UA, for that matter.

"It's just a little… not a speech. A recitation. Just a few lines about playing fair and trying your best. Used to be the top student of the third years would do it, but I guess they must have the top students for the first and second years do it as well, now that they're televised as well."

"Is Izuku the top student, then?" asked Yoichi.

"The only test they've had is the entrance exam," said En with a shrug. "Ninth got top in that, so…"

"And so, Eighth's bribery has led to Ninth's downfall," said Banjo in a falsely serious tone.

"He didn't bribe anyone!"

"Izuku got in on his own merits!"

"Jeez, you guys can't take a joke."

Nana huffed. "I just don't understand why they're so excited about it. It's just a tiny thing. You can read it from a little card."

As always, Izuku’s first resort was research. He searched HeroTube for compilations of the most recent UA Athlete’s Oaths, and hit play.

He watched the videos, chewing his lip. There was just so much to do, so much to say– How could he capture the spirit of Plus Ultra competition, his will to win and everyone else’s, the honor of competing, the honor of speaking for his entire year, all in only a few minutes? In only a couple days, too.

And without stuttering.

He was going to die.

No, no. That was the wrong mindset entirely for a UA student with a shiny new hero name, much less All Might’s successor! He could do this! He would do this!

He’d just… break down into tears a few times first.

Nana felt eyes boring into the back of his head.

“Just a thing you can read from the back of a card?” asked Yoichi. “This guy’s been talking for ten full minutes, and I don’t think he’s going to stop anytime soon!”

“I can feel you all judging me,” said Nana, “but I’ve been dead for decades. It’s changed. That happens.”

“You don’t have to feel me judging you, I’m doing it out loud.”

Izuku stared down at the pages and pages of repeatedly crossed out lines.

“I don’t know why I thought I could do this,” he whispered. “I couldn’t even come up with a hero name on my own.”

“This really isn’t a big deal.”

“It’s a huge deal! Do you know how dangerous public speaking is?”

Nana turned to squint at Yoichi. “When did you ever do public speaking?”

“Probably about the same time he went to school,” said En.

“I did go to school! Why will you not let that go?”

“Bizarre petty grudges and jokes are pretty much the only thing we can hold onto,” said En. “That and the quirk.”

“Seriously, though, this isn’t going to kill him.”

“It isn’t? What happens when my brother sees him on TV? Speaking for the hero class? ”

“Oh, yeah,” said Banjo. “That’s a thing.”

Yoichi threw up his hands. “How did you guys forget?”

“ I didn’t forget,” said Hikage.

“Maybe I should ask Dad,” said Izuku. “He probably talks to lots of people for his work…”

“No!” screamed all of the ghosts.

“That's different than public speaking, though, isn't it?” He let his head drop onto his open notebook, heedless of the ink and graphite getting on his face. “At least it's only the first year speech.”

He sat up with renewed energy.

“And there's no way it’ll be worse than Endeavor's!”

“That's the spirit!” cheered Nana.

“I thought we were the spirits,” said Hikage.

“It's just an expression.”

“Are we spirits, though?” asked En.

Banjo groaned. “Please, kid, don't start on that again.”

Kaminari waved furiously from across the field as the purple-haired boy next to him did his best to hunch into his uniform and disappear. Far behind them, Snipe sat reading a paperback novel. “Hey! Welcome to our awesome training montage!”

“You can't have a montage in real life,” said Jiro.

“Watch me!”

Once everyone arrived, Iida started chivying them all into a loose circle. Well, Izuku reflected, Iida obviously wanted them in an exact circle but… even Izuku could see that was never going to happen. Then Iida cleared his throat portentously and Yaoyorozu stepped into the center.

“Thank you for coming, everyone,” she said. “Especially those of you who aren't in 1-A, we understand this is a leap of faith, and what we're doing here is a little radical. For today, our goals are for everyone to get to know each other and to start working out strategic teams. So, let's start by just introducing ourselves. I'll go first…”

The purple-haired boy was named Shinsou Hitoshi, and he had thus far been very reticent about his quirk. About talking at all, really, which was interesting, given his attempt at a declaration of war earlier.

Interesting, not strange. In a similar position of not-quite-enmity, Izuku would probably be on the lookout for potential weaknesses, too. As long as Shinsou waited until the third event, though, that was fine. It wasn't as if everyone in class 1-A didn't know each others’ quirks already.

That was all a very uncharitable way of thinking about Shinsou, though, and Izuku felt a little guilty thinking about things like that. He wanted to become a hero, too.

“Alright,” said Yaoyorozu, “now, remember, the first event is the elimination event. Our researchers say we'll probably be racing, competing for some limited resource, or trying to avoid being tagged out in some way. Even with the teachers trying to be unpredictable, the number of students does limit them. All of the events we've been able to brainstorm favor mobility, so you want to be in a group that you can move well with. Defense is important, too. Bakugou, at minimum, is a problem, and we have to assume the other classes will target us.”

“Bakugou's the crazy guy who chased Midoriya down at lunch the other day,” said Kaminari to Shinsou at a volume that was obviously meant to be a whisper, but fell far short of the mark.

“He's not crazy,” protested Izuku. “He's just. Passionate.”

Everyone regarded him dubiously.

Predictably, the groups initially split along lines of friendship, acquaintance, and obligation. Yaoyorozu and Iida walked around for a while, trying to keep the groups more or less equal in size before settling into their own class leadership group, along with Monoma.

“A waltz of darkness and chaos,” muttered Tokoyami, barely getting out of the way of Satou, as his group, consisting of himself, Ojirou, Sero, and Hagakure, trundled towards a shadier spot.

Hatsume laughed. “If you think this is chaotic, wait until the sports festival!”

“She's right,” said Uraraka. “So, Midoriya, what do you think we should do?”

“Eh? Me?”

“Your battle trial plan was quite impressive,” said Tokoyami. “Your strategic acuity will cast a long shadow in the sports festival as well.”

“I don't know about that,” said Izuku. But then he glanced at Monoma. They probably only had about ten minutes left. “I guess- I guess the most obvious thing is for us to be a rocket.”

“Ow,” said Uraraka, rubbing her head.

“I think,” said Iida, also nursing several bruises, “we should have come up with a better way to steer before we tried that. And brake.”

“Yeah… We did go fast, though.”

“But, Hatsume, your, um, your ba- your inventions–”

“Call ‘em my babies with your whole chest, grappling hook.”

“I think your babies would help any team, but that you'd do really well with Yaoyorozu. And Uraraka and I should probably be on different teams, since we both have flight-capable quirks. Even if we both have time-limit issues…”

“Aww,” said Uraraka, “you're probably right. I was looking forward to working with you, though.”

“What about Fumi and me? We can be on your team, right?” asked Dark Shadow.

Tokoyami ducked his head and tried to push Dark Shadow down. “Don't ask questions like that.”

“I don't know if that'd be a good idea, since Bakugou's explosions can make a lot of light.”

“That just means we're destined to be arch-nemeses!”

Izuku sat down next to Hagakure, Aoyama, and Ashido.

“Okay, Midori!” said Ashido. “Come up with a super move for us!”

“I’m sure you will come up with something that sparkles,” said Aoyama.

“Uh, um,” said Izuku, flustered. “How about, um, Aoyama, is your laser just light? Maybe it could go through Hagakure - if lasers going through you doesn’t hurt.”

“No, that’s one of the first things my quirk counselor tested,” said Hagakure. “My parents wanted to make sure that all the light going through me wasn’t going to give me turbo cancer or something. The real problem for me is that for me to do anything with my quirk, I’m going to have to be naked. We have to wear our PE uniforms for the festival.”

“Oh, non,” said Aoyama. “I’ve been given an allowance for my belt, surely they would give you one for your suit. Anything else would be quite unfair.”

“Or you could ask Hatsume, see if she can make something for you that would work temporarily,” suggested Izuku. “She’s really eager to work with everyone. Or even just plastic clothing, from Yaoyorozu.” They'd all have to be careful not to overtax Yaoyorozu, though. Anything else would be unfair. She had to save something for the final event.

“Okay, okay, okay, but what about super moves?” asked Ashido.

“Or some things we can do during the event, anyway,” said Hagakure.

“Well, if you're with Aoyama, like I said, and his laser can go through you, that could be a really good way to get in a kind of sneak attack. No one expects a person to be in the same area an attack just went through.”

“Lowest setting first, mademoiselle?”

“Just hit me already, Twinkles! I can take it!” shouted Hagakure from the other side of the field.

“Are- are you okay, Aoyama?” asked Izuku, after they'd tested Aoyama's laser on a number of settings.

“Oh, oui, my quirk just upsets my stomach somewhat, you see. And it seems as if Hagakure is, how should I say this, my natural enemy.”

(In truth, Aoyama was feeling ill, but not because of his quirk. Rather, the problem was his quirk’s origin. The man had demanded that Aoyama keep an eye on Midoriya - and, if possible, make him win the sports festival. A minor thing, really!)

(If only Aoyama had the courage to defy the man.)

(He hoped Midoriya would be able to survive whatever All for One had planned for him.)

All for One sighed. He wondered if he could find a good enough disguise quirk to take Izuku out for ice cream after he won the sports festival. Or after he lost and was properly filled with hatred for hero society.

“Sensei?” said Ujiko. “Are you alright?”

“No. You're being incredibly boring.”

“Ashido, how acidic does your acid have to be? And is it always the same substance, just at different concentrations, or can you make different substances, as long as they're acidic?”

“Um,” said Ashido.

“I think that's it for me, today,” said Ashido, sitting down. “I'm going to have to drink, like, a dozen liters of Gatorade or something. You're brutal for someone so cute, did you know that, Midori?”

“He'd have to be, to get through the entrance exam without using a physical quirk,” said Hagakure, dragging Ashido back up. “Come on, we still have the gym for fifteen, and I want feedback.”

“You're both brutal.”

“Um,” said Izuku, sidling up to Shinsou, notebook in hand. “Your quirk is a mind control type, right?”

Shinsou, scowled down at Izuku. “It's Brainwashing,” he said, rather gruffly.

“Oh, wow, that's great. Mind control quirks are actually perfect for hero work, but the stigma means hardly any heroes have one. Like, you could stop a fight before it even started, or get villains to surrender right away, or help civilians who are too panicked to move properly, or heroes who are compromised, or who would otherwise have trouble cooperating with each other, for whatever reason. It’s really too bad that the entrance exam is all robots.”

Shinsou stared at him.

“Any- anyway, I've heard that some- some quirks can interact unexpectedly with mental quirks, and I've noticed you're not- You don't seem to be using it, much, even though we have permission here, and… Um. Just saying, you can practice on me, if you'd like.”

“Oh! Or me!” said Kaminari, popping up seemingly out of nowhere. “We should test and see if you can get me when I'm in wheyyy mode, or Satou when he's powered up!”

“What does that even mean?” demanded Shinsou. He allowed Kaminari to drag him on, however.

“Oooooooh,” said Izuku, his plan to test out the ‘hallucination’ thing Mr. Yagi had explained all but forgotten. “That's a great idea! I'll take notes!”

“I know it's a little disappointing that we didn't get a chance to appear to Ninth,” said Nana, “but don't you think you're overdoing this a little?”

Yoichi rolled over so that he was face up in his Bog of Despair. “No,” he said, before rolling back over.

“Forget that,” said Third. “Am I the only one at all disturbed by how he's picking apart all the other kids’ quirks?”

“Yes,” chorused the other ghosts.

Izuku stood at the classroom door for several blank minutes. Where was everyone? Did he… Get the date wrong? No, there was enough security outside to defeat a small army. Which was probably the point, come to think of it. Was he late? Had he missed the sports festival? When he was the one giving the opening speech for the first years?

Forget public humiliation, he was going to be expelled. As soon as Mr. Aizawa saw him, he would–

“Midoriya, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you in the prep room?”

Izuku squeaked. Then he registered what Mr. Aizawa had said. “Prep room?” he repeated. “Oh, yeah! The prep room! Thank you, Mr. Aizawa!”

Shouta sighed as his number one problem child scurried away. How illogical… But there would be time to work on his memory and situational awareness in the future, and it would be downright hypocritical to scold him about it now.

He shuffled into the classroom, careful about his bandages, because he had just been scolded by Recovery Girl. The lights buzzed when he turned them on, more obvious without the students there… although they did have competition from the roar of the crowds in the festival stadium.

He walked over to his desk and knelt to retrieve his stash of jelly pouches, especially the coffee ones. Which he also wasn’t supposed to have, but what Recovery Girl didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Or cause her to hurt him, which was the more pertinent issue from his perspective. If he was going to survive announcing the first year’s festival by himself, he was going to need them.

Now weighted down, he started hobbling back to the stadium and the announcer’s box. Jelly was heavy, as it turned out.

Recovery Girl really would kill him if she found out. He sped up. Not a lot. Just a little. Just in case. He certainly wasn’t moving as fast as Midoriya had.

He made his way through staff passages, avoiding most of the crowds and pleasantly nodding to heroes who had been asked to come serve as security. Finally, and in good time, too, because his stupid injured body was starting to get winded, he reached the announcer’s box and opened the door.

“Yagi,” said Shouta, “what are you doing here?” He shook off the sense of deja vu.

“Oh,” said Yagi, brightly. “Young Aizawa! I was getting worried that something had happened to you. Principal Nezu thought that you could use some assistance here, with young Yamada being otherwise occupied.”

And so he’d replaced one loud blond with another. He couldn’t even be that mad about it.

“You have any training for this?” he asked instead.

“Well, not for announcing sports events in particular,” said Yagi. “But I have a lot of media and commercial experience and I’ve been practicing cheering on my students!”

“Right,” said Shouta, who was feeling as if he’d somehow asked a stupid question. “Just don’t show too much favoritism.”

“Oh, I’d never! After all,” and here he grew much more grim, “you know as well as I do, the risks of putting too much attention on young Midoriya. Besides, young Yamada gave us a ‘cheat sheet!’”

Izuku, dressed in his PE uniform, stumbled into 1-A’s prep room.

“Hey!” said Kaminari. “It’s Midoriya! We were getting worried about you, man!”

“Ah, y-yeah,” said Izuku. “I wound up going to the classroom instead.”

“Huh,” said Jiro, “you’d think your quirk would have warned you against that.”

“Um, yeah,” said Izuku, “but I guess it wasn’t really dangerous to go to the wrong spot at first? Especially since I got here okay, eventually, right?”

There was a murmur of agreement, but with a slight uneasy undercurrent.

“There’s not any real danger in the sports festival, either, though, is there?” asked Yaoyorozu.

“I- I mean, there’s the danger of getting beaten up?” And he’d been able to feel danger from wrong answers on a test before, so… This should be the same kind of thing, right?

Yaoyorozu nodded. “Right. There is that.”

“Don’t worry, Midoriya,” said Uraraka, “I’m sure you’ll be fine. We did so much studying for this, after all.” She held up a fist. “I’m feeling confident! That’s for sure!”

“Yes!” said Monoma, who twirled over with Aoyama. “I, too, am confident that we will defeat those philistines in class 1-B, not to mention everyone else!”

“ Oui,” said Aoyama, “our performance will be tres magnifique!”

“Don’t forget we have allies in other classes, you two,” said Yaoyorozu, slightly exasperated.

“Yes,” said Monoma, “but neither of them are in 1-B. We have the excellent Mock and the ingenious Brigid to support us.”

Ashido sighed heavily. “Speaking of support, I sure wish I could’ve used my costume.”

“It’s to keep things fair,” said Ojiro with a shrug.

Iida power-walked into the room. “IS EVERYONE GOOD AND READY?” he shouted, clearly as nervous as Izuku, but trying to cover it up with sheer volume. “THE EVENT’S ABOUT TO START! Ahem. Where is Todoroki?”

“Oh, jeez,” said Ashido, raising a hand to her lips. “He never came to any of our practices, so I just sort of forgot he should be here…”

Honestly, so had Izuku. Todoroki had quite the presence, but he could also fade into the background with surprising ease. Maybe it was just because he hardly talked? More importantly, what had happened to him? Was he sick? Did he get lost like Izuku did? Did he get kidnapped by people trying to get at his father? Endeavor might not have the social and political weight that All Might could bring to bear, but Number Two Hero wasn’t an empty title at all. Maybe he–

Izuku’s thoughts ground to a confused halt when Todoroki casually walked into the room.

Oh. He was just late.

Todoroki stood up in front of the room, clearly intending to make some sort of address.

“Er,” said Izuku, “Todoroki, what is it?”

“Objectively speaking,” said Todoroki, “I’m stronger than all of you. Even if you’re all working together… even if All Might has his eyes on you, Midoriya, no matter the reason… I will beat you.”

"Did he just… declare a rivalry with… all of us?" asked Sero, quietly. In the hush that followed Todoroki’s words, he might as well have shouted.

"Can you do that?" asked Kaminari. "Is that allowed?"

“He's got a point,” said Banjo. “A rival is like a nemesis, or a girlfriend, you can only have one at a time.”

“That's not true,” said Yoichi. “You can have more than one girlfriend at a time.”

En squinted at him. “Again, aren’t you gay?”

“Multitudes, En, multitudes.”

“Aw, come on, man,” said Kirishima, “do you really have to pick a fight with all of us, now? We’re about to go on and fight anyway. Make your statement on the field!”

“I don’t care. I’m not here to make friends.” He shouldered past Kirishima and left the room.

“Uh,” said Midoriya, “that… was something.”

“Yeah,” said Jiro. “Does he intend to just wait in the hall or something? We’re all going to the same place.”

Tokoyami shook his head, Dark Shadow mirroring him. “What a mad banquet of darkness.”

“Wow,” said Yoichi, chuckling. “Sometimes I forget how needlessly dramatic teenagers can be.”

All the ghosts, except Second, turned to stare at him.

“How needlessly dramatic teenagers are?” repeated Nana.

“Yes?”

“Have you not been sharing the same afterlife as the rest of us, or what?”

The class waited in the tunnel, fidgeting, bouncing, flexing, whispering. Any minute, now, they’d be called in, to take their place on the field in front of the cameras.

Any minute, now.

“Is it just me,” whispered Uraraka, “or is this taking a really long time?”

“I am sure our eagerness is only making time appear to be passing more slowly than it really is!” said Iida.

“No,” said Monoma, frowning, “they really are starting late. I wonder if it’s a problem with the cameras, or if something else happened. Midoriya, have you noticed anything?”

Izuku shook his head. “I d-don’t think so? Just, um, just nervous for the event! I think. I hope nothing’s– nothing’s gone wrong.”

Shouta and Yagi bent their heads over Hizashi’s so-called cheat sheet.

“I’m not reading this,” said Shouta.

“This is… I thought we were supposed to avoid favoritism in these things,” said Yagi, sounding incredibly confused. “What– What’s this about a ruthless grand battle? That doesn’t really… sound heroic…”

“Yeah, this is just typical Hizashi. Trash it and come up with one of those inspiring speeches you like so much.”

The intercom speakers crackled into life overhead.

“Welcome to the UA Sports Festival!”

“Is that…?”

“All Might!” squeaked a Gen Ed student several rows back.

“The once-a-year event where our new students show how they can go PLUS ULTRA!”

The crowd outside, in the stadium, cheered wildly.

“First, put your hands together for a class that has already faced some of the worst the world of villains has to offer and PERSEVERED! Class 1-A!”

Somehow, they managed to turn their initial rushed stumble into a confident march before they emerged from the mouth of the tunnel. Izuku squinted against the light at first, but recovered quickly and attempted to mimic Iida’s wave.

“And next up, we have an equally worthy group of young heroes, who have been polishing their skills until they shine like the stars they are! Class 1-B!”

As the classes emerged, Mr. Yagi continued to read out names and short accolades, and Izuku started to feel like he was about to throw up. Oh, there were a lot of people here, and once all the classes came out, he would be speaking in front of them.

“Well, this is it, guys,” said Yoichi. “The last minutes of Hisashi not knowing Izuku is in the hero course.”

“I'm still not sure why you think he doesn't know already,” said Nana, crossing her arms. “You were listening to the conversation they had about hero names, right?”

“Are you kidding? That's how I know he has no idea. That was classic Hisashi, existing in his own world, having a completely different conversation than the other person. That's why he got my lab partner deported when I was an undergrad. He heard the word partner, and he immediately assumed our relationship was romantic.” Yoichi shook his head sadly.

“New question,” said Banjo. “Did All for One ever go to school?”

“When in reality, Chan and I had only just started discussing the possibility of a QPR…”

“No, seriously, what is that guy's level of education?”

“They had to go back to China… It was tragic. Almost as tragic as Izuku inheriting that particular personality quirk.”

“Ew, don't talk about Ninth inheriting quirks from him,” said En.

“I agree,” said Hikage.

“Thank you,” said En.

“That was indeed a tragic turn of events, Yoichi.”

“Is no one else interested in whether or not All for One graduated high school?”

“Furthermore, I believe that the danger involved in a non-ceiling vaulting and the preceeding kidnapping would trigger far more anxiety that Ninth is currently experiencing.”

“Er, thanks, Hikage, but you don't have to say ‘non-ceiling.’”

“Hey!” snapped Nana. “Ninth's speech is starting, and I, at least, want to hear it.”

“Now!” said Ms. Kayama, brightly, snapping her whip to get the attention of people close to the stage. “The athlete’s oath! Your student representative, from class 1-A, is Wonder!”

Izuku pasted on his best smile and climbed the stairs.

Chapter 15 Notes:

Thank you for all the positive thoughts re:comments. It helps! And PSA for anyone who missed it last time: don't leave comments on fics that are just asking about updates for completely different fics. No one did that since I posted the last chapter, but it's happened often enough that I live in fear!
Anyway, this chapter is slightly longer than average, so enjoy!

Chapter Text

“Hm,” said Hikage.

“His anxiety has certainly gone up,” said Nana.

“But it isn’t super anxiety.”

“Uh, why do you sound disappointed about that?” asked En.

“Maybe All for One isn’t watching?” asked Nana, not really believing it even as she said it. After all, when Toshinori had participated, she’d been his biggest fan. Not to mention Kotaro’s soccer games…

“Not a chance,” said Yoichi. “I bet he’s just convinced himself of something stupid. Like UA changing the rules so that it’s the top entrance exam scorer in the whole school who gets to do the oath, rather than the top scorer in the hero entrance exam.”

Ah, thought Hisashi as he slowly sipped a quirk from a failed nomu, UA must have been so impressed by his Izuku’s natural talents that they had changed their rules about who gave the insipid welcoming speech. Of course, if they were going to change them for anyone, they would change them for Izuku. And Izuku’s speech was much superior to anyone else’s.

The nomu husk flopped to the floor and expired. Ah, what he wouldn’t give to be able to drink wine again. It was much less messy.

“I mean, is that really that stupid?” asked Nana. “It probably would be good to celebrate the other tracks as well, even if UA is hero-focused.”

Yoichi shrugged. “If my brother thinks it, then it’s stupid.”

“Fair.”

“All of us,” said Izuku, gripping the microphone stand, “are here, in this competition, for the same reason. To win.” There were a few cheers and a distinct growl from Kacchan. “But winning– winning looks different to everyone. Some-someone from gen ed might want to join the hero course. A person from support will want to advertise their inventions. The business students want to polish their skills, win contracts, build– and build their brands. And in the hero course–” Izuku took a deep breath. “I-in the hero course, we want to show you, all of you, and- and ourselves, too, what kinds of heroes we can be.” He raised his fist. This was All Might’s pose, but he didn’t think Mr. Yagi would mind. “I believe we can all win! Plus Ultra! Go beyond!

“PLUS ULTRA!” the other students screamed back at him.

“Huh,” said Third, scratching his ear. “That was actually pretty good.”

“Hahahaha,” chortled Yoichi, reaching out as if to embrace him, “you’re coming around to the Izuku side.”

Third leaned away from Yoichi. “What– What was that sound you just made?”

“My avuncular laugh! I’m working on a new one, since you said my other one sounded like my brother’s.”

En cleared his throat.

“Yes?” said Yoichi, turning towards him. “What is it?”

“I think I speak for all of us when I say, never make that sound again.”

“I’d honestly prefer your All for One sound-alike laugh,” said Banjo, looking rather ill.

Yoichi dropped his arms and curled his lip. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” chorused the other ghosts.

“Well, see if I share my popcorn with you guys, then.”

“We can imagine our own.”

Izuku hurried back down the stairs. He wasn’t running away, but it felt a little bit like it. He took his place between Monoma and Hagakure and breathed deeply.

“So, Wonder?” asked Hagakure, leaning towards him.

“It just felt like something that everyone helped me with,” said Izuku, “and I’m always wondering what my quirk even is, so it fits there, too…”

“Surely,” said Monoma, “you have a better idea of what it is after my generous guidance.”

“Y-yeah, it really helped.”

“Shhhh,” hissed Iida from further up the line. “Ms. Kayama is about to explain the rules of the first event!”

“What a wonderful speech from our student representative!” The crowd clapped politely again, and the big screens all over the stadium lit. “Now, without any further delay, let’s get the first event started. These are the qualifiers! It’s in this stage that so many are sent home crying every year! And the fateful first event this year is… STAR SEEKER!”

“I don't know that one,” whispered Hagakure.

“Neither do I,” said Yoichi, worriedly. “What is it? Is it new? Nana, Nana, do you know?”

“Hey, it's not like I participated in all that many of these myself! If it wasn't in the kids’ presentation, I don't know about it!”

“I'm starting to wonder if anyone here went to school,” grumbled Banjo.

Ms. Kayama gestured expansively behind herself, and the ground rumbled as concrete slabs pulled back and something else rose up from below.

“In this game, students must find - and keep! - the Special Stars hidden on this Stellar Stage! Speaking of which please give a round of applause to the heroes who put this stage together for us. Kamui Woods, Pixie Bob, Aquarius, Cementoss, Power Loader, and their agencies!”

Yes, Izuku could see the expertise of all those heroes at work. Cementoss for the underlying structures, Pixie Bob for the seemingly natural hills, Aquarius for the water features, Kamui Woods for the plant life and fantastic, if widely-set, trees, and Power Loader for the traps and robots that were doubtlessly hidden all throughout the ‘stage.’

“But students will have to do more than seek and find in this game of combat keep-away! There's more than a handful of hidden hazards scattered around, and, what's more, stars can be stolen! Students will need to keep their stars until the end if they want to move on to the next event!”

There were cheers all around the stadium as Ms. Kayama paused, letting the microphone rest by her thigh. She brought it back up again, grinning. “What's that? You want to make it harder? Well, never fear, here at UA we're always ready to go Plus Ultra!” She waited again, this time for the choral response to die down. “Our terrific teachers are going to get in on the fun. They won't be using their quirks, but that doesn't mean they'll be going easy on anyone!”

This time, the cheer was more of a deafening roar than anything else.

“My,” said Yagi, “it does seem as if the ideas Nezu got from his discussion with the students bore fruit.”

Shouta grunted. “Most of the teachers here are pretty popular,” he admitted, grudgingly, “but at least some of that is probably idiots thinking you're going to go out there.”

“I can't imagine how they think I can commentate on the event and participate in it at the same time.”

“In my experience, logic like that doesn't factor into it.”

Yagi sighed. “You're probably right, but at least the two of us can give them a good show from up here.”

“It is pretty cool how we have both Toshinori and Izuku's viewpoints,” said Nana, starting to settle more into the fake cinema she and the other ghosts had collaborated on.

“Yep,” said Yoichi, unfurling a VICTORY IZUKU banner, “two whole ways to watch Izuku being awesome.”

“It's almost like having cable again,” said Nana.

“Cable would have more channels,” said Hikage.

“Well, sure, it's not literally cable. But after just having one channel since I died, unless I want to watch your reruns, it's a big increase.”

“Oh, UA is certainly a superior institution,” said Monoma, shaking slightly, “to take our disparate thoughts and turn them into something like this… Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, you can never let them know this was our fault–”

“You know,” said Hagakure, “I'm invisible, not deaf.”

“We're so dead,” muttered Monoma. There may have been a swear word or two in there as well.

“It-it's not that bad,” said Izuku, uncertainly. Sure, in junior high people had ganged up on him for ‘not pulling his weight’ in group projects… even if he was the only one who had done anything…

“I'm reiterating my desire to kill Izuku's junior high teachers,” said Yoichi.

“You know,” said En, thoughtfully, “if you could get him to mention any of that to his father–”

“You could get him to reveal his hideous lack of a high school diploma!” said Banjo, loudly, while Nana and Third dragged En off to one side of the mindscape.

Yoichi sighed. “Hisashi has a high school diploma.”

“But did he earn it?”

But UA was different! He had friends, now.

Still, he could see some of the things they had mentioned to Nezu reflected in Star Seeker. The need for something new, teachers on hand and close to competitors in case of an emergency, a dynamic activity that would pit students against each other…

“It isn't too different from a scavenger hunt,” said Izuku. And at least it wasn't like they had to deliver the stars and remove themselves from the game to pass on to the next event. That meant they could support each other the whole time. It also meant that they were at risk of having their stars stolen the whole time…

“And one more thing!” said Ms. Kayama. “Don’t forget to stay in bounds! If you leave the stage, that’s it for your search and your stars!” A red line around the raised area of the stage pulsed with red light. “Now, everyone, step on up to the starting line! When it goes green, that’s your signal to go!”

The orderly rows of students immediately dissolved into chaos, and Izuku had Danger Sense and Hagakure to thank for his untrampled state.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s find a good place to start from.”

“R-right,” said Izuku.

“Everyone seems fired up after that introduction, don’t you think so, Eraserhead?” There was a quiet grunt that might have been Mr. Aizawa agreeing with Mr. Yagi. “I wonder if any of the stars have already been spotted.”

“If none of them have, then our students need a remedial lesson on assessing their environment. Not to mention all the pros here,” said Mr. Aizawa, very dryly.

Izuku took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Right. Focus on the task at hand. Not much point in learning all those anti-anxiety techniques during quitk counseling if he didn’t use them.

“I think I see two of those stars already,” said Yoichi. “Do you think Izuku will go after them?”

“Hmm,” said Nana, “maybe if he was working on his own. He could get one or the other, then use float to stay out of reach of most of the other students. But getting a star too early is almost a liability. Unless you have a really good defense or stealth quirk, you'll get worn down by sheer numbers.”

“Or if you've figured out a good defensive strategy with other students,” said En.

“Eh,” said Banjo, “I think not knowing what the event was kept them away from the main pitfalls in planning, but you know what happens to plans when they're put into practice.”

“Against large but disorganized numbers, even simple cooperation can make a sizable difference,” said Hikage.

“What are you talking about?” asked Banjo. “When did you cooperate with anyone?”

“I have dedicated my life to cooperation,” said Hikage.

“He kind of did,” said En. “With the whole, you know, living as a hermit thing.”

“He would have done that anyway,” said Banjo, waving his hand.

“That is true.”

A large, green, fifteen minute timer appeared on the screens scattered around the stadium. Written in large, bold letters over it was the word ‘READY?’

Izuku wasn’t sure if the tingling, electric feeling all over his skin was anticipation, Danger Sense, or Kaminari, a few meters away, unconsciously charging the air in his excitement.

The word above the timer changed to ‘SET.’

The air itself seemed to shift as hundreds of students tensed.

‘GO!’

Izuku activated Float as he lunged forward and pushed off the ground, then signaled his classmates towards the two stars he'd already seen– And there! A third!

“Oh, and that's A15, creating an entire ice palace in the northern grove, right off the bat.”

“A decisive defensive move,” acknowledged Mr. Aizawa. “Made more impressive by how he avoided trapping any of the other competitors.”

“Indeed! It shows a great deal of care and dedication. Speaking of which, check out those springboard traps flinging students out of the arena! Power Loader really outdid himself this time!”

As Izuku rose up over the trees and the spikes of Todoroki's instant glacier, he saw Hatsume bounce up with her jetpack and Sero get launched by a combination of his and Uraraka's quirks. They weren't the only ones, however. A small group of people seemed to be climbing the air like it was stairs, and dear All Might, was that half of someone's head?

“Wow, quirks are sure amazing,” said Yoichi.

“We're ghosts living in the back of a teenager's subconscious,” said Nana, “I think that at some point we have to give up on the idea of things being weird.”

“I didn’t say weird, I said amazing.”

“It seems as if some of our students have taken to the skies to find their stars,” said All Might. “We have B12 taking up Rule and Comicman, Cellophane rising with the help of Uravity, Brigid, of the support course, using a jetpack, and Wonder, C5, Jetplane, and Lizardy flying with their quirks. What do you think of this strategy, Eraserhead?”

“Getting a big-picture view of a situation is frequently helpful, but it exposes you to attacks from below.”

Even as Mr. Aizawa spoke, thorny green vines shot out of one of the more wooded areas and seized one of the general education students. A bright yellow star shape fell out of the student's grip, and was followed shortly thereafter by the student themself.

Danger Sense screamed at Izuku, and he dropped just in time to avoid a pair of long, spear-like objects. No– horns?

Izuku realized what was happening all at once. The students on the ground had assumed that, because he'd removed himself from the chaos below, he'd already gotten a star.

He dodged upward to avoid the next projectile, and saw Hatsume's jetpack take a shot. The metal body was tough enough to endure it, but apparently whatever B12 was using wasn’t. He and the two other class 1-B students fell, but one of them summoned… A giant pillow made of the word POOMF!

Okay, sure, why not?

“Quirks really are amazing,” said Yoichi.

“You know what would actually be amazing?” asked Banjo.

“Giving Izuku your quirk?” asked Nana, sounding quite exhausted.

“Well, yeah,” said Banjo. “Are you going to let me do it?”

“In the middle of a competition? Are you serious?”

In the grand scheme of things, there actually weren’t a whole lot of quirks that could be used effectively at long distances without support gear. That’s what made Lady Nagant so effective when she was a hero, and so devastating when she turned villain.

However, in UA where most of the students had wanted to be heroes at some point in their lives, the ratio was much higher. Adding those to the support students’ gadgets and weaponry made for a lot of attacks going up.

Sero had to stick his tape to a clump of rocks and reel himself down. Hatsume took several hits, and they were only mostly deflected by her own inventions.

But as the students on the ground clashed with each other, they had to turn their attention to defending themselves. After less than half a minute, few attacks were launched Izuku's way.

Then, almost on cue, the roar of Explosion drowned out everything else in the stadium. Izuku flipped himself over midair to look and grinned.

He'd been right! Kacchan really was awesome! He'd known Kacchan had wanted to fly since his quirk first came in. Well, since Izuku had compared his quirk to a rocket, but that was the same thing, really. And after Uraraka had shown him what her quirk could do, there was just no way he'd tolerate being upstaged. Then, seeing Izuku up here–

Honestly, thirty seconds was a bit long. Izuku couldn't imagine that it had taken Kacchan that long to get the star tucked into his half unzipped gym uniform top. He must not have realized that it was Izuku floating up here.

“Another student in the air! This one is, I believe, B17. That's quite a bit of explosive power on display!”

“Foolishly. He already has a star, and he won't be able to sustain that flight. What is he thinking?”

He let Kacchan get a little closer, and then dropped. The ground approached rapidly, and Izuku only barely caught himself before hitting the ground. Then, he was wrenched sideways, under the shade of one of the sparse groves of trees.

“Hi,” Izuku said to Dark Shadow, a little confused. She and Tokoyami weren't supposed to be involved in the take-down-Kacchan plan. The last iteration had them providing cover to Jirou and Shouji, so they could use their sharp hearing to their advantage. The alternate grouping had been with Kouda, who was still a bit tentative when it came to physical combat.

“Hi!” she chirped back. “Fumi and I got separated from everyone else.” Behind her, Tokoyami shrugged, seemingly resigned.

Danger Sense pulsed sickeningly, giving Izuku time to dodge before Kacchan descended in a cloud of smoke and fire. Dark Shadow squealed as she flinched away from the light.

“Deku,” he growled, before a tumbleweed-like tangle of brawling students rolled in-between them.

“Ha!” shouted a boy with a blue and white bandana, emerging on top and holding up a star. “Hell yeah! Tell them that Weld–”

“Out of the way, extra!”

“Hey!”

Izuku was in the air again, waving at Kacchan. Dark Shadow slid up behind Kacchan, but he pushed her off easily with more explosions. Or maybe not so easily. As she withdrew, she grabbed the zipper of his uniform, and the star he'd tucked in there fell out. He cursed and fumbled for it, forced to extinguish his hands and fall in the process.

So, Kacchan still prioritized winning over beating up Izuku. Good. Izuku would've been disappointed in him, otherwise.

The boy with the blue and white bandana got to the star first and somehow fused it to the ground. A glance at the still-prone group of similarly fused students, and the way the boy's star was stuck to his own arm told Izuku that must be his quirk. Izuku had known someone in 1-B had a welding quirk - his class had researched more than the festival rules - but he hadn't realized it worked on organics, too. Wow, Izuku definitely had to put that in his notebook!

After the event.

“Take that, Lord Murder Explosion!” said the boy, dancing out of Kacchan's reach and into Kaminari's.

“Don't bother,” said Izuku, still rising, and deliberately not looking at Kacchan. “He's got it fused to himself somehow!”

“Gotcha!” said Kaminari. “So, how're we gonna deal with Blasty, boss?”

Izuku cringed internally at the title. He was no one's boss! But this was part of the plan they'd come up with, so–

Kacchan screamed and exploded his star out of the ground. Then, he turned his baleful glare back up, towards Izuku, and took off again.

Izuku watched, terrified, fascinated, and more than a little thrilled. Right now, all he was doing was running away, but he was still putting that look on Kacchan's face.

He had to laugh a little, despite his nerves. This was so different from middle school.

“What are you laughing at, you goddamned nerd?” roared Kacchan. “Your pink-cheeked girlfriend won't be able to save you forever!”

Oh , Izuku thought, blankly, Kacchan doesn't realize I'm floating under my own power.

He could probably use that, somehow. Beings underestimated gave all sorts of advantages. But it also made Izuku mad. Kacchan hadn't even tried to research Izuku before this, had he? He just assumed he already knew everything. It was insulting.

But it was true that Izuku couldn't stay airborne forever. Or even the whole length of the event. Even if he could keep Float going for that long (which was by no means guaranteed), he still had to get a star.

And, for the next part of the plan to work, he had to get back to ground level and break Kacchan's line of sight while he was still raging.

Kacchan would be ready for Izuku to drop suddenly, this time. There was no way around that. Kacchan was smart, smarter than Izuku, and Izuku would be expecting it, if their positions were reversed.

“Boo, no, Izuku, he's not smarter than you. He just got better grades because your teachers sucked. ”

“That scene down there is missing something, though, isn't it?” said Nana. “Where are the teachers?”

“And the robots,” added En. “I was hoping for some robot battles, they're always fun.”

“The teachers are there,” said Hikage.

“Where?” asked En, leaning forward.

“Ohh, I see,” said Nana. “And the robots are there, En. Look at that, there, and there.”

“Huh, that's going to be interesting.”

Izuku reoriented himself and got ready to drop. Neither he nor Kacchan had experience in aerial combat, but Izuku knew Explosion, and Kacchan didn't know Float or Danger Sense.

… It sort of felt like cheating, but Kacchan could have come to watch any of the class 1-A practices, just like Hagakure and Hatsume had gone to see the class 1-B practices. So, there.

He fell, feet first, towards Kacchan’s face. Kacchan raised a hand to blast at Izuku, but wasn’t able to keep his flight path steady with only one hand. He fell sideways, and they both missed. Kacchan quickly recovered, diving at Izuku with starling speed. Izuku arrested his descent and shot back up, and it was Kacchan’s turn to miss.

“--that turned against villains! And there’s an impressive dogfight shaping up over the south,” All might was saying. “Aerial battles like this always remind me of my time working with the Angels in America. They’re currently known for their Special-Class Villain Response work with Star and Stripe, but it’s less well known that many of them are quirkless!”

“Wait, really?” None of the publications he’d read had ever mentioned that! He was sure he’d remember it! The Angels weren’t exactly heroes, they worked for the American army, but they weren’t not heroes, either, and Izuku had read about them when he was researching All Might’s early career, and when he was reading about Star and Stripe. In both Japanese and English, too!

Not, like, nearly as much as he’d read about All Might himself, but still!

“Eyes on me, Deku!”

Izuku hadn’t really taken his eyes off Kacchan, but it was nice of him to remind Izuku! Very sportsmanship-like!

“Does Ninth know what sportsmanship is?” asked Banjo. “Because that’s not it.”

Yoichi sighed. “The next thing you’ll be saying is that Izuku never went to school.”

“You know, considering what his junior high was like–”

Banjo was cut off by numerous groans.

“I still don’t believe either of you two went to school.”

“I already told you about the fire truck incident. Why would he be so invested in winning a high school contest if he wasn’t in high school?”

“First off, you didn’t tell us anything, secondly, shoulding you call that the North Carolina National Guard incident? And thirdly the bastard isn’t in government, and he still wants to win that, doesn’t he?”

All of the older ghosts, even second, cringed with their whole bodies. “Wow, that is sure an optimistic view of the government you have there, Banjo,” said Yoichi.

“Oh, come on, there’s no way he could act normally enough to become president of a home owners’ association, much less– Oh, come on,” he said, noticing the tiniest shift in Hikage’s expression.

“I was a building inspector.”

“What does that even mean in this context? Give me a clue, man.”

Kacchan tried to ram Izuku, next, and wrap his legs around him, but Izuku had no desire to engage with Kacchan that closely, and managed to push off. Kacchan swung around for another attempt, but Izuku thought he had enough distance to get him back on the ground, and near Kaminari.

If things had gone according to plan there, Shinsou would be nearby. Hopefully, Kacchan was distracted enough for Shinsou's Brainwashing to work. Shinsou hadn't wanted to reveal exactly how his quirk worked, which was fair enough. There had to be some easy way to avoid or break free of the quirk's effects, or else he wouldn’t be so reticent. Right now, Izuku suspected a vocal trigger of some sort, but eye contact, emotional states, and attention were still possibilities.

Danger Sense spiked, and Izuku narrowly managed to avoid a volley of thorny vines. But he had dodged down, not up, and he wasn't able to avoid the vines falling on him and wrapping him up that way. Thorns dug into his skin, and he was yanked sideways and down. Branches and leaves smacked into him as he was pulled through trees.

When he was finally still again, he was hanging upside down and a girl with vines with hair was frowning down at him. Two stars hung in her hair like oversized ornaments. Kacchan was in a similar predicament.

“Only angels should fly so high,” she said, menacingly.

This was bad. Izuku on his own didn't have anything like an effective counter for Shiozaki Ibara. Even class B's recommendation students would have been easier to deal with.

“And another two victims fall to Vine's web!” announced All Might.

“Stop making me sound like a spider,” said Shiozaki, aggrieved. “I'm a holy warrior.”

Luckily, Izuku wasn’t actually alone. “Hey, Kacchan, are you really going to let this girl get in the way of our fight?” Ugh, he felt kind of gross just saying something like that.

Kacchan, predictably, exploded.

“That kid needs anger management,” said Nana.

“Yeah,” said Banjo. “That's too much rage, even for me.”

All the vines near him were shredded, along with Izuku’s ears. Angry Kaccan was loud.

But Shiozaki thought the attack was more against her than against Izuku - those were her vines he was blowing up - and responded in kind. They battled

Izuku, torn free of the vine keeping him hung up, rolled over, trying to think how he was going to cut himself free of the rest of the vines. Or, did he need to cut them? He gripped one of the inner ones with both hands and pulled as hard as he could, digging his fingernails into the skin of the vine. It was thin and flexible, not woody. Green, and soft, if fibrous, like new blackberry or rose vines.

With the right force in the right place, they tore.

Izuku had to assume that the relative weakness of the vines directly wrapping around him was at least partially purposeful, to prevent injury. Tougher thorns and more mature, rougher vines, would hurt.

Then again, Shiozaki's hair was green, too, and it had taken multiple strands of vines to hang Izuku's weight from the branches overhead. Maybe he could ask her about it. After he apologized.

He snapped three more vines, one after another, and the rest loosened enough that he could worm his way out. He ran from the increasingly loud and vicious fight between Kacchan and Shiozaki. It wasn't what they'd planned, but he wasn't anywhere near Shinsou anymore.

He looked up at Hatsume. Her role, at the moment, was basically control tower. Unfortunately, she was pointing at him at the moment, so–

Wait.

He'd only barely completed the thought when Iida zoomed up to him, Uraraka on his back. Both of them had stars, and looked like they'd mostly avoided battle, although Uraraka was vaguely green.

“Should we join that battle?” asked Iida.

Izuku shook his head, then hesitated. Shiozaki had two stars. “Do you think you're fast enough to get the stars from her hair?”

Iida nodded decisively. “If one of you grab them.”

“Hop on!” said Uraraka, holding out her hand. Izuku took it, and she used her quirk on him.

Izuku still couldn't get over how different Zero-G felt from Float.

He gripped tight to Uraraka and Iida both as Iida accelerated. First, Iida ran away from the fight between Shiozaki and Kacchan, but he turned, making a wide arc and gaining speed all the while. They intersected several other fights. The first time, Izuku was too distracted by their speed to do anything, but Uraraka made a grab for the star under contention. She missed, but Izuku got the idea in time to keep her from falling off. They almost fell into a pit trap, next, saved from uncertain doom only by the combined application of Zero-G and Float.

And then they were racing back to Kacchan and Shiozaki. Fast, faster, fastest–

And then Iida slowed, enough that Izuku and Uraraka could try grabbing the stars without breaking their hands. He must have learned that from his family, because Izuku didn't remember talking about that at all in practice–

But Shiozaki must have sensed their approach somehow, because she pulled herself up off the ground, not entirely unlike Sero, using one of the few branches left intact by Kacchan's attempts to escape. Izuku kicked off, reaching. His outstretched fingers brushed against the stars.

He curled away from a blisteringly hot blast on instinct, more than anything. Kacchan must be working up a real sweat!

But Izuku should probably focus more on how the force of that blast meant he was rapidly approaching the out-of-bounds area.

Uraraka, apparently seeing the same problem, disengaged her quirk, and Izuku caught himself with Float inches above the ground and sort of skipped himself to a gradual stop.

“ Did you ever figure out how to move horizontally without using the stockpile?” asked En.

“I'm starting to wonder if any of you paid any attention when you were with me.”

“Sure we did!” said Banjo. “But it was a long time ago. And also kind of short.”

“It was longer than yours, though,” said Hikage.

On the ground, Izuku patted out several smouldering patches on his PE uniform and had a brief tussle with a swirly-eyed support student with… taser nunchucks. Carrying something like that around when you didn't have any electrical resistance yourself was a remarkably bad idea.

But he'd done it! He'd gotten a star! Only one, as opposed to the two he was going for, but still! It was bigger than it looked from a distance, and reminded Izuku of a prop from a video game, all rounded, and fat around the middle.

A faint twinge from Danger Sense kept him from being completely blindsided by Mr. Yamada, but he wasn't able to keep his grip on the awkwardly-shaped star, and it was snatched from his grasp. He turned, ready to fight, but couldn't help but stare blankly, for a moment, at the sight of Mr. Yamada - Present Mic - in the UA PE uniform.

This– this felt like some kind of special event, for a hero fan like Izuku, but he was in the middle of a fight, how was he supposed to react…?

“And it looks like Wonder, after his meteoric path across the event stage, has been ambushed by none other than Present Mic! What a twist!”

“Since they aren’t able to use their quirks, our teachers won't be using their usual tactics, and students would be wise to remember that.”

Like usual, Kurogiri watched the UA Sports Festival with his charge.

So why… Why did it feel so unusual?

Why did all of this feel wrong?

Shigaraki Tomura's debut as a leader of villains was only a few weeks ago. Perhaps… No, it must be that, and the change in perspective such an event caused. These child-heroes had already clashed with Shigaraki Tomura, and proved themselves to be a credible threat. Therefore, it was natural that this sports festival, as opposed to others, would engender a sense of urgency. Especially as Kurogiri had yet to make much progress in his goal of finding suitable companions for Shigaraki Tomura.

However… The feeling Kurogiri experienced as he listened to the announcers and watched the event unfold wasn't urgency, but nostalgia.

The feeling intensified as the main camera panned over to where Present Mic was confronting the green-haired boy, the one both Shigaraki Tomura and Sensei were interested in. The more negative of the two announcers was saying something, but Kurogiri couldn't hear it past the sudden thunder in his ears. The side screens showed Midnight - presumably as fanservice, she wasn't doing anything at the moment - and a crowd of heroes in the stands that included Ingenium as an audience reaction.

That, that, there, was what Shigaraki Tomura needed. A forceful blond, a depressive with lapsed hygiene, someone flashy, with a degree of showmanship, and someone friendly and easygoing who was nonetheless fierce and powerful in battle.

Yes. A set of personalities like that could form a bond that might transcend death itself.

Kurogiri closed his eyes, briefly. That was foolish thinking. But now that he knew what he wanted for Shigaraki Tomura, he could communicate his requirements to Giran.

And… now that he had some idea of what he wanted for himself… Unlike Shigaraki Tomura, Kurogiri wasn't supposed to have desires of his own, much less act on them, but as his half-lidded eyes roved across the screens, he couldn’t help but wonder… What was a villain made for, if not transgression?

Chapter 16 Chapter Text

Izuku could try to get the star back, but even without his quirk, Mr. Yamada was good at close combat. He had to be, to break up the Bandomeer trafficking ring without any harm to the victims, who were being used as hostages!

“Come on, listener, the middle of a battle is no place for woolgathering!”

Izuku felt himself blush. He hadn’t been woolgathering, he'd been assessing the situation.

“You've got to learn to do that on the move, I'm afraid, Ninth,” said Nana.

“He was doing just fine with that until he saw who it was attacking him this time,” said Banjo. “Is it because he's a teacher?”

“I'm afraid it's because Izuku is a nerd,” said Yoichi, with mock grimness.

“I bet you're just saying that because you've never had a teacher.”

“No, no,” said En, “he's got a point with this one.”

Izuku took a deep breath, then yelled as loud as he could. “HEY, EVERYONE, THERE'S A STAR OVER HERE, PRESENT MIC'S GOT A STAR, EVERYONE COME AND GET IT!”

“Oh, man, listener, that’s just cruel .”

“You can't tell me that isn't at least a little devious,” said Third.

“I don't want to hear that from a guy who lied to everyone about my entire life.”

“An interesting strategy there.”

“And a valid one. Students who already have a star, or who are already engaged in a battle for one, won't risk a fight with a teacher, unlike those who don't. Wonder can tell who has a star by seeing who is moving within earshot.”

“Indeed he can. But let's not miss out on the rest of the battles taking place. Froppy and Earphone Jack are having quite the showdown with Jack Mantis and Dragon Shroud–”

Izuku scanned his surroundings as he jogged away. There were knots of battle, mainly class B fighting either each other or Izuku’s classmates, or hero students keeping packs of gen ed and support kids at bay, with varying levels of success.

But there was the strange silver Kirishima, all by himself, and with a star in his hand. Izuku was pretty sure he could take him. Or at least steal the star from him. They were almost halfway through the event, and at least Hatsume and Izuku still needed stars.

The explosions Izuku had been hearing in the distance abruptly grew closer, and Izuku didn’t even need Danger Sense to know he had to dodge.

“DEKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!”

The explosions cut off as Kacchan pulled back his right fist and barred his teeth in a kind of snarl.

“Now that’s what I’d call telegraphing,” said Banjo.

“Hm,” said En. “If he’s really as smart as Ninth thinks, it might not be telegraphing.”

“Even smart people make stupid mistakes,” said Yoichi. “We wouldn’t be here if they didn’t.”

“I object to your characterization of your brother,” said Hikage.

Right hook, as always– Or was it? He’d been getting the same lessons as Izuku. At this point, shouldn’t he know not to–

Danger Sense decided for Izuku, the spike of real pain driving him to dodge the blow. His next move was just as automatic, but driven by practice. He grabbed Kacchan’s arm and used it to flip Kacchan over his head. It worked, sort of, but Kacchan reacted fast enough to negate the flip with a blast of his quirk, and transformed the motion into a straight-down punch at the top of the arc. Izuku ducked out of the way and rolled.

He bounced back up, tapping Float just a little, to put a little extra spring in his step. If Kacchan still didn’t know Izuku could Float, then he could use that to surprise him, if Kacchan got close again.

He still needed a star.

He licked his lips and looked over his shoulder. Kacchan was just running, now, not using explosion to propel him. As Izuku had half expected, he was reaching Explosion’s short-term limit.

Then, he skidded to a stop, the ground in front of him abruptly more threatening than Kacchan behind him. Was it one of the traps?

No. No, it wasn’t, but what it was wasn’t much better. Class B’s first recommendation student, Honenuki, who had made the area into a kind of swamp. It seemed to be defensive in nature rather than offensive, but that didn’t make it less of an impediment.

He turned around.

“No one’s around to save you, Deku.” Kacchan stepped forward menacingly. “Whatever dirty tricks you used to get here, it’s over.”

Izuku swallowed and sidled sideways, trying to get into a better position.

“You ignoring me?”

“He’s not ignoring you,” said Yoichi, clearly tense but trying not to show it.

“Yeah!” said En. “It’s just that he doesn’t think that what you’re saying is all that important.”

“No, I just don’t think that what you’re saying is very important,” said Izuku, before feeling all the blood drain out of his face.

Where had that come from?

“OOOOHHHHHHHHH!” said the ghosts.

“Did you hear that?” said Yoichi, clutching En.

“Did you hear that?” asked Nana, not speaking to the others, but Izuku. “Did you hear us?”

Well, wherever it had come from, it certainly had the effect of making Kacchan madder than mad, which was, well, it was kind of the point.

“YOUUUUU!” screamed Kacchan. “DON’T YOU MOCK ME, DEKUUUUUUUUUU!”

“I’M NOT MOCKING YOU, I WANT TO BEAT YOU!” Izuku screamed back, which was really the wrong thing to say, but what was he going to do? What was he going to say?

Kacchan came at him again. Right hook? Izuku could flip him over into Honenuki’s swamp– No. This one was a feint, and without Danger Sense, he never would have seen it coming. There was– Kacchan was just really great at this kind of thing. He had fighting instinct that Izuku couldn’t match.

“That’s because you didn’t spend all of middle school getting into fights,” said Yoichi.

“I think he did, though,” said En. “Just… all with this kid.”

“Getting beaten up by this kid is what it sounds like,” said Banjo.

“Okay, okay, whatever, help me think up a cool thing for Izuku to say to this jerk. He might hear us again!”

Izuku danced along the edge of Honenuki’s swamp, barely staying out of reach of Kacchan’s blasts. It was a matter of centimeters, in some cases, and the familiar scent of singed hair and clothing was getting pretty strong.

And then, when he was considering floating away, even if he couldn’t use Kacchan’s surprise effectively in this situation, he tripped backwards over a bush. On the plus side, Kacchan hadn’t been expecting the bush, either, and when Izuku rolled away, he spotted the tell-tale flare of Aoyama and Hagakure seriously messing someone up. He bounced to his feet and ran towards them.

And then, the ground opened up.

“AND THE HALFWAY MARK ON THE CLOCK KICKS OFF OUR ROBO INFERNO!” said Ms. Kayama, to raucous cheering.

“Wow, modern people sure like their blood sports,” said Yoichi.

“I remember super snuff ball was popular in the underground,” said Third. “This is really nothing to write home about.”

“Yeah, but that was in the underground.”

Nana sighed. “I hesitate to ask, but… super snuff ball? Are you guys making things up?”

“When have I ever lied to you guys?” asked Yoichi.

“I would have said never, but then there’s the whole thing with Ninth’s… father. And Third is just downright untrustworthy at this point.”

“Hey!”

“I think you have to take the L on this one, actually,” said En.

Yoichi sighed. “You have a point there, but Hikage will back me up. Won’t you, Hikage?”

“Super snuff ball was the bane of all building inspectors in Japan. Those poor basement supports…”

Izuku caught the yellow gleam of a star affixed to the head of one of the larger robots, and a grin - incredulous and wobbly, but still a grin - spread over his face. All that time he'd spent obsessing over what he could have done differently in the entrance exam had been worthwhile after all!

He could do this!

“Okay, I’m still– I don’t understand how the whole thing was supposed to work. ”

“It wasn’t,” said Yoichi. “It was just a bunch of people even more delusional than my brother acting out their death game fantasies while society broke down around them.”

“And destroying load-bearing walls,” said Hikage.

“That, too.”

The first thing Izuku did was jump down into the hole the robots had been hiding in. Being down there was such a disadvantage in terms of maneuverability and elevation that Kacchan would be taken aback by the choice.

“DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BE A HERO WHILE HIDING LIKE A MOUSE, YOU FREAK?”

Or not. Kacchan really had dropped down right after Izuku.

Izuku dodged away, between the legs and treads of the emerging robot horde.

“So, it wasn’t actually called super snuff ball by the people doing it?”

“You can’t even get a bunch of normal people to agree on terminology, you think a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers is going to be any better?”

A glance up at sounds of battle and falling metal debris showed a group of 1-B students - almost the same group as the one that had been knocked out of the air, earlier - attacking one of the star-wearing robots.

“As we go on, we're starting to see more alliances between students!”

“Hm.”

As Izuku watched for larger falling scrap, he saw Hatsume swoop down and pluck the star from the other student’s grasp with an extendable claw.

Well, good. That was one less thing to worry about, going forward.

The boy with the comic speech bubble head made a loud noise, and his head turned into an enormous censor bar that unbalanced and broke not only the platform he and his classmates were standing on, but several nearby robots as well.

As the robots tumbled into one another, they knocked loose metal paneling that rained down on Izuku and Kacchan. Of course, the robots Kacchan didn't blast away restabilized themselves quickly and went back to shooting lasers and grabbing hapless students to carry them out of the stage.

“That’s it! No more questions about super snuff ball! Learn to enjoy the crazy blood sports you have in the here and now!”

Izuku grabbed a broad, shield-like piece of scrap and twisted, catching Kacchan's explosion with the metal. He let it lift him, using just enough of Float to get him up above the robots’ heads before dropping again.

“WHAT THE HELL!” shouted Kacchan from below. “WHAT THE HELL?”

Kacchan had amazing lung capacity.

Meanwhile, Izuku skidded across a robot's shoulder then jumped to another that was moving to the side of the hole. He rode along with it for a bit, avoiding its cameras until it started to take aim at Shinsou and Kaminari, at which point Izuku distracted it and slammed his piece of scrap metal into a vital joint and–

Shinsou and Kaminari!

Izuku hopped off the disoriented robot onto grassy ground and ran to meet them. He had to fight a couple more robots to get to them, but Kaminari was zapping any robots that got too close to him or Shinsou.

As Izuku got closer, Shinsou faltered, doubling over to rest his hands on his knees. “That guy,” he said, between sharp breaths, “just keeps going.”

“So did you, if you got this far.”

“Should we jump in?” asked Kaminari, gesturing vaguely towards the scrum of robots with the star he was holding In his left hand.

“No, let Kacchan take care of it.”

Shinsou raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure he's gonna be–?”

A larger than usual explosion cut him off, and Kacchan marched out of the flaming remnants. “Again?” he snarled, sounding distinctly out of breath. “When will you extras get a clue and realize this Deku's just gonna drag you down?”

Shinsou sneered. “Why don't you get a clue and mind your own business, Kacchan?”

“You f–”

Kacchan's face went disturbingly blank and slack.

“Give me your star and walk out of this arena,” ordered Shinsou.

Kacchan, moving like a sleepwalker, did just that. Izuku watched in amazement. “Is he really going to just… do that?”

“Probably not,” admitted Shinsou, wiping sweat from his face. “Maybe- Maybe if we were closer to the edge, but he'll probably snap out of it before then.”

“Hey, do you need any help finding a star?” asked Kaminari. “There's not much time.”

Izuku shook his head, already floating up. “I'll get one from the robots. You guys should find somewhere to hide. Probably no one will look under the robots.”

“Ooh, good idea!”

“What the hell, they're still on fire!”

“Not all of them!”

Izuku looked around. Hatsume had snatched the nearest star, but he'd seen others - there were too many people directly fighting robots, anyway, for that to be the only one.

There. He let himself down again, and started running over, acquiring a few pieces of metal pipe and sheeting on the way. He needed some way to fight.

He reached the robots and went up, bobbing a few times to avoid being hit by the robot's lasers. He landed, and narrowly avoided a fight between Ectoplasm (who was also in the PE uniform! Wow!) and a class B student who was doing a credible job of hiding in Ectoplasm's shadow, but a less good job of retrieving the star Ectoplasm was keeping from him, even as the robot tried to flick them off its back.

Izuku gritted his teeth, dropped to the robot's treads, and slammed his pipe into the most delicate-looking bit of machinery he could. The robot didn't stop, but it stuttered, and Izuku shot back up in time to yank the star from Ectoplasm's hand and then kept going, out of Ectoplasm’s reach.

Only a minute left. He couldn't relax. Not yet. He flicked his eyes over the ground. It looked like most people in the hero course had stars at this point, and they were all separating out, moving away from one another of their own accord in favor of keeping away the remaining students from other classes or avoiding teachers and robots.

It seemed oddly peaceful up here. Other than a bunch of gen ed students trying to snipe him again. Speaking of Snipe, there he was with some kind of… improvised lasso? Was it made out of Shiozaki's vines? It was hard to see from up here.

He spotted the shadow kid again, this time teaming up with one of classmates, the girl with the mushrooms, to attack Tokoyami and Dark Shadow.

It was not a good combination.

“Hatsume! Do you have a spotlight?” He was really just hoping for a really big flashlight, but anything would do.

Hatsume didn't waste time responding. Instead, she pulled a lever and a spotlight - a full-sized stage spotlight - popped out of her backpack. Just in time, too. Dark Shadow dissolved with a startled cry that Izuku would definitely feel guilty about later, but the class B boy fell out of the vanishing shadows, too, letting Tokoyami shield his star.

A horn sounded over the stadium. The robots abruptly shut down, and all the fighting petered off.

“Now, that was a wonderful display of talent!”

“Training is more important.”

“And what about passion?” Ms. Kayama interjected to the laughter of the crowd. “Everyone with a star, please come up to the front stage. Everyone else, please head to the medical area to be checked out! If you're stuck, one of the teachers will be with you shortly.”

Izuku and Hatsume descended together. “What d'you think the next event will be, Grappling Hook?”

“No idea,” said Izuku. “It could also be something completely new. Some kind of race? Not capture the flag or anything based on resource gathering after this one… It's usually at least based on an actual sport of some kind… Hope they'llat least let us pick our own teams…”

“You think they won't?”

“Oh!” said Izuku, startled from his muttering. “I mean, I hope they will? They have in the past. But there's no real guarrantee…”

They reached the stage, and Izuku was glad to see that everyone in 1-A had made it, along with Shinsou. Well, Todoroki wasn't there yet, but that seemed to be more because escaping from his ice castle took time, rather than because he hadn’t passed.

The rest of the students present seemed to be from class B. The shadow boy hadn’t made it.

Kacchan had.

Izuku swallowed, and tried to keep as many people between himself and Kacchan as he could while navigating towards Tokoyami and Dark Shadow. On the way there, he was greated with so many congratulations that people started calling him ‘Strawberry’ again.

“Sorry for the light,” he said, bowing.

“Sometime light is the only available method of controling the darkness which besets us,” said Tokoyami, gravely.

“Yeah! Otherwise that guy would have crawled all over me! It was gross.”

“Still,” said Izuku, “I wish I could have done more. And now, whatever group I'm on is going to have to deal with Kacchan in the next event! Things didn't go according to plan at all… And I wasn't really able to help anyone…”

“Perhaps,” said Tokoyami, “but without your efforts, there would have been no plan at all.”

“He's right, Midoriya!” said Iida, energetically. “Without your insights, our cooperation would have been lacking.”

“But everyone worked on the plan. And Monoma is the one who came up with the idea of cooperating in the first place.”

Monoma slung an arm around Izuku's shoulders, nearly making him jump out of his skin. “While I am pleased to accept your acknowledgement of my contributions, you were called up to the principal's office, too. We must all share the blame.”

“What blame?” asked Uraraka. “That was really fun, wasn't it?”

Todoroki finally climbed the stage, to scattered applause, and Ms. Kayama called them to order.

“First, I'd like to say congratulations to all forty of you on making it this far!” She paused, letting the audience cheer. “But there are two more to go before we find the real winner! Take a look at the stars you fought so hard for.”

The star in Izuku's hands made a small clicking noise. He looked down to see that the seam around the outside edge had widened.

“That's right, open them up and find your prize inside!”

Carefully, Izuku pried the two halves of the star apart. Inside was a lot of shaped packing foam, a two thousand yen gift card to a local café, and… a badge? He tucked the other half of the star under his elbow and pulled out the badge to inspect it more closely. It was star-shaped, with a metallic edge and back, and a purple enamel front.

There were words on it: UA SF 2XXX FIVE-LEGGED RACE TEAM 7.

“Sweet!” said Dark Shadow, yanking an identical pin out of Tokoyami's hand. “We're on the same team, Strawberry!”

“His hero name is Wonder, Dark Shadow,” said Tokoyami, swiping the badge back. “But yes, it does appear as if we are to be compatriots in darkness. What team are you on, Uraraka?”

“Team? Oh!” said Uraraka, tearing her eyes away from the gift card. “Right. I’m on Team Nine. Black.”

“So am I,” said Monoma with a sort of evil grin.

“Go ahead and put on your badges,” said Ms. Kayama. “And no swapping! Our next event is a Five-Legged Race. It's just like a three-legged race, but with four people! We're going to have a one hour break for everyone to get patched up and make plans with their groups, and to prepare the arena for the event. Make sure you take advantage of it! Only the first four groups to get their whole team across the finish line will move on.” Ms. Kayama put down the microphone. “Seriously, go get checked out in the medical tent. There’s always someone who has a worse injury than they think. Come on.”

“-should I say? Whoops. Ahem. Please enjoy viewing our recreational games, and select clips from the first event.”

“So, what do you think of the teams?” asked En, reading off the screen Izuku was looking at while waiting for his turn getting checked up.

The list looked like this:

TEAM 1: RED - PLAMO, TWINKLE, DRAGON SHROUD, SHEMAGE

TEAM 2: ORANGE - B17, FROPPY, CELERITY, TENTACOLE

TEAM 3: YELLOW - TAILMAN, RED RIOT, MINES, RULE

TEAM 4: GREEN - A15, BATTLE FIST, MOCK, GEVAUDAN

TEAM 5: CYAN - ROCKETTI, CHARGEBOLT, ANIMA, MUDMAN

TEAM 6: BLUE - INVISIBLE GORILLA, SUGARMAN, CELLOPHANE, EMILY

TEAM 7: PURPLE - LIZARDY, B12, WONDER, TSUKUYOMI

TEAM 8: MAGENTA - SPIRAL, WELDER, RIPLEY, COMICMAN

TEAM 9: BLACK - URAVITY, MR. MIRROR, BRIGID, EARPHONE JACK

TEAM 10: WHITE - CREATI, JACK MANTIS, VINE, REAL STEEL

“Team Nine is going to blow everyone else out of the water,” said Banjo. “They won’t even have to run. They’ll just do the rocket thing, and boom, that’s it.”

“For being random, the other groups aren’t bad, either,” said Nana. “I can see that some groups will have more trouble being fast than others, but that’s not the only aspect of this race. You have to be able to work with others. Ability to attack or impede other groups also matters.” She paused for a long moment. “Of course, Team Nine will still win–”

Izuku adjusted the spare PE uniform he'd been given. He hadn’t really needed it, his original hadn't been that singed, but the upperclassman assisting Recovery Girl had given him a look and said, “No costume malfunctions this year.” Which Izuku really couldn't argue about. So.

“You Midoriya?” asked a tall, thin girl with green hair.

“Uh, yes, yes, that's me. You're Tokage?” Tokage, if Izuku remembered correctly, was class B's other recommendation student, and probably the owner of the half a head he'd seen at the beginning of the first event.

“Got it in one. Betcha you're wishing you were on the green team too?” she asked, tugging her own hair.

“Um, not really?” If anything, he would rather be on Team Nine.

She laughed. “Come on, I already met your spooky friend, but Tsuburaba fell out of the sky so many times they're checking him out real carefully.” She half turned, motioning him to follow.

“R-right! He's the one who can make invisible platforms?”

“More than platforms,” said Tokage, “but he can explain better than I can.”

“Ah! Midoriya!” called Iida, power walking towards them. Tsuyu and Shouji were caught in his wake. “Wait a moment, please!” He stopped a few feet away, and bowed deeply to Tokage. “I apologize for my rudeness, this will only take a minute. Midoriya, I– That is to say, we–”

“We're not going to stand down just because we're grouped with Bakugou, kero,” said Tsuyu.

“But we apologize in advance for anything–”

“No, no,” said Izuku. “S-sorry! But he's always been that way, I wouldn't hold it against you, no matter how he acts.”

“That's why we must apologize!” said Iida.

“Oh. Um. I accept your apology?”

“Is it bad of me that I was hoping they'd say they were going to throw the match?” asked Yoichi.

“Yes,” said Hikage.

Tokage led Izuku a few more steps away, to where Tokoyami was sitting on a bench, feeding apple slices to Dark Shadow.

“Can she eat those?” Izuku asked, fascinated.

“Not really, but she likes the texture,” said Tokoyami, wiping his hands off on his legs. “I see you have found our present compatriot.”

“Yes!” said Izuku.

“So,” said Tokage, “I was thinking this'd be a good time to share our quirks and make a plan.”

Izuku nodded and pulled out his notebook. “Great! I have a few questions I wanted to ask you about how you levitate your pieces and whether one piece is considered the ‘main’ piece and how much force you can apply and–”

“When did he even get the chance to pick up that notebook?” asked Nana.

“I think it was in the waiting room, when he passed through to go to the bathroom,” said En. “But since we're between events, I have just one more question about super snuff ball.”

“Ugh,” said Yoichi. “Fine.”

“What happened to it? Like, there are still underground fighting rings or whatever, but not actual murder games.”

“Well, it turns out that if you steal all of the money from the guys making book for those places, the whole setup sort of falls apart.”

En blinked, then turned to Third. “Why didn't you tell that story instead of the Dumas ones?”

Chapter 17 Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Around the edge of the arena was a broad, lined track. Izuku, distracted by the hilly, forested stage at the center, hadn't thought much of it before. He'd thought it was just a kind of spacer, to help protect the audience. It was, after all, much wider than any track he'd seen in middle school. It had to be, to accommodate forty kids side by side.

“Remember,” said Tokage, “we don't need to stay in this lane once we start. We want to move towards the inner lane, if at all possible.”

“That still seems risky,” said Tsuburaba, rubbing the back of his head. “Everyone else is going to do that, too, aren't they?”

Tokage waved him off. “As long as we're faster than them by enough, it doesn't matter.”

Dark Shadow jostled Izuku significantly. “Uh, um,” he said. “It kind of does? I mean, Aoyama especially is going to be dangerous to anyone in front of him, no matter how far in front of him they are, and we don't have a good counter for him.”

“I can get everyone else, though!” said Dark Shadow, waving enthusiastically. “Well, not that Honenuki guy, or the fireworks guy, or Aoyama, but everyone else.”

“We will, at least, do our best to deflect any attacks coming our way,” said Tokoyami.

“Sure,” said Tokage, shrugging. “But being in front is still important. Only the top four teams move on.” She stretched. “And I'm really looking forward to racing Todoroki again. He was fast at the recommendation exam. Not as fast as that wond kid, but still.”

“Uh huh,” said Izuku, once again letting his attention stray to the other groups. The first few teams had already gotten their leg binders and were putting them on.

Team Two had decided to order themselves as Kacchan-Shouji-Iida-Tsuyu. Izuku toyed briefly with the idea of Shouji using the webbing between his arms as some kind of wing, but there was no way to practice that in only one hour. More likely, the arrangement was to shield the more delicate members of the group from Kacchan's explosions. But that would be really painful for poor Shouji… Even if he could grow back his extra arms at will…

Izuku watched as one of Shouji's arms produced a lower leg and foot that he attached to Kacchan with visible reluctance. Huh. Izuku hadn’t even thought of that. Cool.

Todoroki and Shinsou's team, meanwhile, looked like they were having some trouble deciding who should stand where. Izuku could understand. A person on the outside could potentially be carried by the next person in, and had the greatest freedom of movement, but they were also the most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the people on the inside had to have the greatest coordination.

“Anyone else getting the impression that this thing is going to be less of a sprint and more of a slow, sad, shuffle?” asked Banjo, pretending to eat some of Yoichi's popcorn.

“Hey, get your own fake popcorn!”

“You get the crunch better than I do.”

Nana sighed. “I think groups with better cooperation will do better, which is probably what this is meant to advertise to potential mentors.”

“And Izuku is the best cooperater,” said Yoichi.

“Oh, gross, get those hearts out of your eyes,” said En. “How are you even doing that? Nana, did you know we could do that?”

“Uh, no. No I did not.”

“Kids these days,” said Banjo. “They get shocked by all sorts of things. Can you believe this, Hikage?”

“Yes.”

Izuku soon found himself wedged between Tokage and Tokoyami, examining the leg binder. He still wasn't entirely sure about the arrangement. Tsuburaba was on the other side of Tokage, and Izuku was a bit worried that they'd lose him. On the other hand, he and Tokoyami being able to essentially run a three-legged race was going to increase their overall speed a lot, and Tokage and Tsuburaba liked it this way.

“There's actually a pretty good amount of freedom of movement with this,” said Izuku. “You could probably flip it all the way around and have someone hug the person next to them. Or hang off their back.”

“Huh, yeah,” said Tokage. “We should look out for that, with outer people. I'm kind of used to these kinds of races being done with tape. And no quirks.”

The next three groups received their binders without issue, but standing up and getting into the ‘ready’ position was a bit of a production. Team Five, with Kaminari and Kouda, especially had trouble.

But then they were all ready and waiting. Danger Sense hummed, low-grade but present. Mobility quirks would be targeted first, in this event, and even if Izuku still couldn't move horizontally with Float, it was a mobility quirk. And added to Tokage's quirk…

Izuku thought they had a pretty good chance.

Ms. Kayama snapped her whip and the starting horns blared.

Team Nine went off like a rocket, and Izuku and Tokage yanked their neighbors off the ground to avoid Honenuki's opening move of liquifying the track. This was quickly counteracted by Todoroki's opening move, which was to freeze the track.

The Kirishima lookalike (Izuku still wasn't sure what his name was - it couldn't be Testutetsu Tetsutetsu, that had to be a nickname) on the white team had sunk up to his waist before Todoroki froze the ground, and had dragged his team in with him. They weren't the only ones with that problem, although theirs was the worst.

Team Nine, Todoroki's green team, Honenuki's cyan team, and Izuku's own team were the only ones that had managed to avoid getting stuck at all.

Watching Tokage come apart was very cool but kind of disturbing. She pushed Tsuburaba into Izuku, then pulled them across the liquid part of the track onto solid land. It wasn't fast, but they were moving.

Predictably, attacks started flying. An invisible force - the girl with telekinesis from 1-B? It wasn't Hagakure - pulled them back, and Sero tried to snag them with his tape, but Dark Shadow blocked him. Vine tried the same thing, but she'd tried to grab Uraraka and fallen short.

Kacchan had exploded his team out of the ice, somehow without maiming anyone, but Tsuyu didn't look great. Still she managed to cling on to Iida and even made an attempt at tripping up Kendo with her tongue as Team Four ran ahead.

Team Three, with Ojirou, Kirishima, Shoda, and Kodai got out with a fascinating application of the latter two's quirks, but had trouble coordinating once they did.

Being able to run more normally was a greater boon than Izuku had expected, and they were soon outdistancing most of the other groups based on that alone.

Bursts of laser fire - Aoyama - erupted from behind them, along with a splattering sound from either Ashido or the glue quirked student from 1-B. Aoyama probably wasn't helping in the speed department, but one of his shots hit Kaminari, who tumbled head over heels, taking out the rest of the cyan team. Honenuki managed to liquify the track again, but it was too late to get Bakugou's team, much less anyone else ahead of them, and in the meantime, the rest of his team didn't have any advantage moving through the mud.

Abruptly, a massive shoe pushed the yellow team to second place. Izuku was jostled as they passed, and that jostle suddenly became a painful, full-body shove. That was - what was his name? Mines? Nirengeki?

Either way, Tokoyami pulled him back up, just in time for a second huge shoe to bar the way.

“Going up?” asked Izuku, because that or Tsuburaba making air stairs were the only ways Izuku could think to get over the shoe. But it turned out they didn't have to, because Kacchan savaged it. And then, Tokage grabbed onto both of Kacchan's ankles with her disembodied hands and yanked.

This had the expected effect, and Izuku's group ran on past him. Tsuburaba paused and blew out a thin barrier across the track behind them, at clothesline height. Kacchan blasted through it, of course, but it did slow him down a little.

“You still good?” asked Dark Shadow.

Tsuburaba, out of breath, gave her a weak thumbs up.

Far ahead, Uraraka's team was already rounding the end of the track and starting the journey back. Not too far away, Todoroki's team was half riding on the back of the boy with the beast transformation - Gevaudan was his hero name, Izuku couldn't remember his real one - half skating and sliding. Ojirou's team was still pushing ahead, but Nirengeki and Kirishima were both obviously flagging, and they were running out of shoes to sacrifice to the enlargement quirk.

Behind them, meanwhile, Kacchan was closing fast. Ashido's magenta team wasn't too far behind, either. The boy with the welding quirk had apparently welded a bunch of the words from the speech bubble boy's quirk onto the boy with rotating limbs, and they were using him as a propeller as they slid along on Ashido's acid.

They rounded the corner themselves, and started to fend off attacks from the other side.

The main danger from that area still looked like Aoyama, surprisingly enough, although they were still second to last, with Yaoyorozu's team still wading through the mun near the starting line. Aoyama kept shooting off lasers, even though it was obviously causing him pain at this point.

“Is that kid even trying to hit Izuku's team?” asked Nana.

“No,” said Hikage.

“I was afraid you'd say that…”

“New game,” said Yoichi. “It’s called ‘Crush or Spy.’ It’s where we agonize over whether or not a kid’s weird behavior is because they have a crush, or because they’re secretly working for my brother.”

“I don’t think I like this game,” said Hikage.

“There will be a prize,” said Yoichi in his best ‘tempting’ voice.

“Will it be food?” asked En. “With flavor?”

“If I’d figured that out, do you think I’d be keeping it secret?”

“Then I’m not interested.”

“Are you sure?” asked Yoichi.

En sighed. “Maybe it’s both.”

“Crush,” said Nana. “It’s a crush. They’re all crushes.”

“They can’t all be crushes,” said Third. “Ninth isn’t nearly attractive enough for that.”

“They’re not necessarily all on Nin–” started Nana.

Yoichi gasped loudly. “I did not just hear that.”

As if to prove Izuku wrong, a barrage of horns erupted from Tsunotori. Izuku and Dark Shadow managed to dodge, but one of them caught in Tsuburaba's jacket, and he went down, hard. Meanwhile, four horns pinned Kacchan down and another knocked Kirishima over. Kendo, on Todoroki's team, managed to knock away all of the horns that came for their group.

Once they got Tsuburaba up, Honenuki's team was drawing even with Kacchan's team. Then, the ground liquified again. Izuku got them up off the ground just in time to avoid being mired, but now Tokage had to drag them back out to solid ground, and meanwhile Honenuki’s team could run past them, with him making a path.

But Izuku and Tokoyami had a bigger problem. Kacchan had caught up.

“Don't pick a fight!” scolded Iida, as Kacchan tried to get closer. “This is a race, not a brawl!”

“Screw you, four-eyes!”

Dark Shadow squealed and retreated from Kacchan's blasts, pulling them off course.

“Wait, Dark Shadow, go forward, go forward!”

Neck-in-neck, Izuku's team and Kacchan's passed Kirishima's dazed and slightly singed team. Apparently, Kaminari had shocked them. But how was the rest of Kaminari's team - Honenuki's team - faring after that discharge?

Tsunotori wobbled and fell over.

Oh. So… they weren't. Okay.

“That kid needs some serious help,” said Yoichi. “Something to help him not hit his teammates, at least.”

“They did have something for that, that they thought up for him to use with Yaoyorozu, didn’t they?” said Nana. “An insulating blanket, a sort of shock prod–”

“Right,” said Banjo, “but he still needs to be able to touch civilians and fight villains at the same time. Like, Blackwhip would’ve been a lot less effective if I couldn’t both crush skulls and cradle babies with it.”

“And maybe something that keeps him from frying his brain, because that's just…” Yoichi trailed off.

“Oh, what now?” asked Nana.

“New game,” said Yoichi.

“No,” said Third.

“Yes,” said Yoichi. “This one is legit quirk drawback versus damage from the quirk being forcibly implanted their body!”

The ghosts groaned.

The rest of the team hoisted Tsunotori up, but it was too late, they were falling behind again.

“Shield!” shouted Izuku, just in time for Tsuburaba to put up a thin defense against Kacchan. The air wall deflected enough of the blast that Tsuburaba wasn't blown off course.

“Ow!” shouted Tokage, faltering.

“Yeah, I know you still feel pain, jigsaw chick! Wonder if they'll still count you as having crossed the finish line if some of you is pounded into the mud out here?”

“I can grow it back before the finish line,” Tokage hissed in Izuku's ear. “Keep going!”

Izuku hooked his fingers around Tsuburaba's collar and hoisted them all higher into the air, away from Kacchan's blasts.

“COME BACK HERE, JIGSAW B–”

“Wow,” said Nana, crossing her arms, “way to keep the internationally broadcast competition rated PG.”

“Didn't you teach Eighth to swear in English?” asked En.

“No comment.”

“Doesn't he literally swear all the time?”

“No comment.”

“Forget that,” said Banjo. “Does the exploding brat still not realize it's Ninth that's lifting them? Does he think it's just the Tokage girl? Carrying three other people? Is he in denial or something?”

“I hate to be the one to say this, but should you really be calling a kid you don't know a brat?” asked En.

“Are you saying he's not one?”

“... No.”

Luckily, linked to the rest of his team, Kacchan really couldn't follow them that far up. And they were quite a ways up, now. Far enough that…

“H-hey, Tsuburaba, I was thinking– Could you make a slide?”

“Huh,” said Tsuburaba.

Tsuburaba wasn't able to make a slide that went all the way too the corner - and that would have been dangerous, anyway, when they needed to turn - but sliding was a lot faster than Tokage towing them, and easier on her, too. Since there was no one nearby who could break Tsuburaba's constructs, it was fairly secure, too.

Rather, there was no one nearby who could break the constructs until they got closer to Todoroki. Todoroki barely even glanced back as he cast shards of ice at their air slide, breaking it.

It was fine, really. With Float, all landings were soft landings and they were almost to the broad curve at the end, and from there, it was only a short distance to the finish line.

They were going to make it!

If Kacchan didn't catch up and kill them.

They rounded the corner, and started back. Again, they had to dodge attacks from the other side of the track, but it was fine. Danger Sense gave Izuku enough of an edge to even avoid the rubber grapeshot from Yaoyorozu’s canon.

“She’s got to have something better than the canon, too,” said Nana. “I know it’s simple, so it’s easy to remember, but it’s still way too big.”

“She probably just panicked,” said En. “It’s something she’s used to, and her group is losing badly. It isn’t that bad of a choice.”

“Still, if she’s going to make something that big, she could have made a scooter or roller skates or something.”

“To go through mud?”

“Eh.”

En shook his head. “You guys with mobility quirks, ignoring what the ground is like, as if it isn’t important. Tsk tsk.”

“Hey, I pay attention to the ground,” said Banjo.

“Do you, though?”

Nust ahead of them, Todoroki said something to Shinsou. Shinsou looked back, a strange expression on his face.

“Sorry about this, Midoriya!” he shouted, still only barely loud enough to be heard over the general bedlam.

Izuku frowned. “Sorry about–?”

“Oh,” said Nana.

“Yeah, that makes what happened with the electric kid make a lot more sense,” said Banjo.

“No! Izuku! Wake up!” said Yoichi, his popcorn and beanbag constructs vanishing as he stopped paying attention to them. “Noooooo! You have to wake up, or your team will lose!”

“Wow, this hallucination is a lot more detailed and vivid than Mr. Yagi described! Should I be worried about that?”

Tokoyami and Dark Shadow shook Izuku back and forth vigorously, and he he dropped out of the trance Shinsou's quirk had put him in– and almost dropped out of the sky. They were high up. Very high.

“Sorry,” said Tokoyami. “We didn’t know what else to do to wake you up.”

“Right,” said Izuku, feeling a little breathless. He surveyed the ground beneath them, trying to reorient himself

“He was here!” said Yoichi, more hysterical than before. Unlike before, however, the rest of the ghosts were reacting the same way.

Except for Second, but no one cared about him, anyway.

“He was here here,” said Nana.

“He was here and he saw us and we didn't even tell him about his evil murderous father,” said En.

“I didn't get to introduce myself to my nephew!”

Not only were they far above the track, not only had they left Tsuburaba far below them, but they weren’t in third place anymore. They weren't even in fourth.

“Tokage–”

“I can't tow you that fast,” said Tokage's otherwise disembodied head.

Izuku was afraid of that. And Izuku would still have to lower them– this wasn't a height he would dare drop from all at once. If he screwed up his timing, they'd die.

Yagi flicked the switch on the microphone. “Young Aizawa, we do have some kind of… fall prevention mechanism, over the track, yes?”

“Hng,” said Shouta, who was not white-knuckling the arms of his chair.

“Tokoyami, Dark Shadow, you'll have to do it.”

“But–”

“Please, you pull Tokoyami around,” said Izuku. He watched Todoroki's team slide across the finish line.

“He's right,” said Tokoyami. “Dark Shadow, we must do this.”

“I'll help,” said Tokage, “I’m pulling now and helping Tsuburaba down there, too, but I'm just not fast enough when carrying things.”

“Ohh,” said Dark Shadow.

“You can do it! You can do it! Go Dark Shadow! Fight!” said Izuku. That was how people cheered each other on, right? He'd never really cheered anyone on, except for heroes and Kacchan.

Dark Shadow trembled, then seemed to explode, and they were moving at speed.

Ahead of them, Kacchan's team crossed the finish line. Ashido's group would be next, taking the last spot, unless they could reach them.

“Faster, Dark Shadow, faster!” urged Tokoyami. “We must be as swift as the darkness itself!”

Dark Shadow let out an extremely eerie scream, and then the comic-headed boy… tripped. A detached foot floated away from him and then back towards a huffing and puffing Tsuburaba.

And Dark Shadow pulled them forward and down, to meet Tsuburaba. Tokage pulled herself back together - and, wow that was cool to see - and then the four of them were stumbling across the finish line as a team.

They stumbled off the track and sat down.

“Did we… make it?” asked Izuku.

Tokage pointed up at the nearest big screen. Their names were there, next to the number four.

“Oh,” said Izuku. “Good.” Then, he let himself fall back onto the ground.

“And that's it for the race!” said All Might, as the last group - Aoyama's - crossed the finish line. “Please give a warm round of applause to all the future heroes who participated! Regardless of what place they earned or whether they're moving on to the next event, they went PLUS ULTRA today!” He paused to let the noise die down. “In a few minutes, the third and final event will be announced, and then we will have an extended break for lunch and recreational games - and don't ignore those just because they aren't part of the main three events! They showcase a surprising number of heroic skills!”

“I wonder if they're putting rescue stuff in those,” said Izuku. “We didn't really talk about it when we were making predictions.”

“You guys made predictions?” asked Tokage, who had escaped from the leg binders via the expedient of temporarily removing her feet. Izuku and Tokoyami were too tired to figure out how to remove theirs. Dark Shadow, for her part, was two-dimensional on the ground.

“Yeah,” said Izuku. “They were wrong, though.”

“What do you think it'll be for this one?” asked Tsuburaba, fiddling with his own leg binder.

“One-on-one combat,” said Izuku. “Single elimination tournament.”

“Huh,” said Tokage. “That should be fun. Wonder how they'll sort it. Seeds? Random chance?”

“It seems to vary,” said Izuku. “At least once they had a panel of independent heroes picking seeds, but other times it’s clearly random."

“I do not recall you mentioning that in your powerpoint.” Tokoyami slicked back a few of his feathers that had been ruffled during the race.

“It wasn’t like it was anything we could do anything about, anyway. I think it might have been mentioned in Iida's research.”

“Ah, and thereby obscured by darkness, I see.”

“Was it in Iida’s research?” asked En.

“No idea,” said Yoichi. “Too many rules, lost interest.”

When they were announced, the matches looked like this:

GROUP ONE

A15 vs. Earphone Jack

Brigid vs. Celerity

Lizardy vs. Mock

Gevaudan vs. Wonder

GROUP TWO

Uravity vs. Battle Fist

Tsukuyomi vs. Froppy

Mr. Mirror vs. Tentacole

B17 vs. B12

“I think,” said Izuku, trying to puzzle out the reasoning behind the matches, “I think they must have done a little bit of seeding, but also tried to make it so that there’s no one from the same team fighting each other in the first round.”

“Yeah,” said Tokage. “Wonder why they did that.”

“Maybe to make it more fair if you had to reveal a big weakness to your team so you didn’t lose in the second round?” proposed Izuku. “Or so that you’re not going straight from cooperating with someone to fighting with them.”

“That seems a bit nice for our teachers, though, doesn’t it?” asked Tokage.

“I mean, they’re trying to, you know, show us off, so… It makes sense that they wouldn’t want us to just…” He waved his hand vaguely. “You know.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Tokage. She stood up and stretched. “Guess I’ll be fighting you in round two, if you beat Shishida. I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me how that purple-haired kid’s quirk works? Since you seem to know him, and all.”

“Only if you don’t mind telling me how Shishida’s quirk works,” said Izuku, somewhat surprised by his own daring.

Tokage laughed. “I like you, Midoriya! But, no. Guess we'll have to rely on our own wits.”

“Yeah,” said Izuku, offering her a smile. Should he say ‘good luck?’ Shinsou was… sort of a friend, now, and he'd just met Tokage, really, so would that be dishonest? Disloyal?

He still wasn't quite sure of the– the logistics involved in so many people being friendly to him.

“Um,” he said, throwing up a shaky pair of thumbs. “Do your best?”

“It's too bad we can't give the kid a quirk for social skills,” said Banjo.

“Aw, it's not that bad,” said Nana. “It's kind of cute, actually.”

“I'm- I'm going to go clean up a bit and get lunch,” said Izuku to Tokoyami after the 1-B students had left. “Do you…?”

“It's too early for lunch,” said Tokoyami, who was now lying down next to Dark Shadow, although he couldn't match her flatness.

“Mm,” said Izuku. It wasn't quite eleven yet, but he'd probably make up the time just walking to the bathroom, because he intended to walk slowly.

Honestly, part of him was surprised it was already this late. Where had all the time gone?

He'd gotten to the prep room at about eight thirty, then they'd gone down to the entrance tunnel and marched out a little after nine… Even though it hadn't felt like it, everyone marching around the stadium and getting into their assigned rows in front of the stage had taken a while. Then he'd given his speech. The Star Seeker event had only been fifteen minutes, but the instructions and getting all of the winners to the stage had probably brought them to almost ten. Preparing for the race had been… He didn't remember. The race itself had probably only been like five or ten minutes. Then, they'd all decided to collapse here for a while.

Yes, that seemed to account for the time.

“O-okay,” said Izuku. “Good luck with your matches if I don't see you?”

“And you, as well,” said Tokoyami.

Izuku got up and walked over to the passage to the competitor's area. As soon as he went under the overhang, he was ambushed. He flailed. Shouldn't Danger Sense have warned him about this?

“We both got in!” said Uraraka, picking him up and twirling him.

Oh. Not that kind of ambush.

“Yeah, you guys are going to have to represent class 1-A,” said Hagakure, who was apparently also there. Actually, a pretty large chunk of the class was there.

“Yes,” agreed Yaoyorozu. “The way we were divided was unfortunate, and I am disappointed in my own failure to move on, but I am confident that one of you will prove victorious.”

“I- I mean, 1-B is pretty good, too,” said Izuku. “And Hatsume is just dangerous. Where's Iida, anyway?”

“He went to eat lunch with his brother, kero,” said Tsuyu.

“Speaking of which,” said Uraraka, “I should probably call my parents.”

There was a smattering of agreement, and the group dissolved, most of them taking out their cell phones and finding quiet corners. Izuku, for his part, had decided not to call his mother until after all the events were done. Otherwise, he just knew he'd start crying, too, and he didn't want to try to take on the third event while dehydrated.

… He got a little teary, just thinking about what she'd say.

He continued his journey to the bathroom. Why were they so far back?

He stopped. The hall was much more dangerous than it had been a minute ago.

What- Had a villain-?

Oh. No. It was Kacchan, down the hall, staring at him. Just… bad timing.

“Hikage, is this anything like a normal reaction to…” Nana trailed off. “I'm not sure how to classify this relationship, actually.”

“I don't know,” said Hikage.

“What do you mean, you don't know?” demanded Banjo. “You had that quirk your whole life.”

“I never had a relationship like this.”

“You know what, fair.”

Izuku could leave. The prep area was close, and he didn't think Kacchan would chase him down, this time, not after all the trouble he'd gotten in before. But the bathrooms were right there, and… and Izuku was tired of running away from Kacchan.

He was a hero student, too.

And who knew? Maybe they'd wind up fighting each other in the final match.

He squared his shoulders and walked forward.

Notes:

Fun facts from the past couple of chapters! I actually randomized the team composition for the five-legged race. The only substitution I made was switching Iida into Bakugou's team. Initially, I was also going to do the bracket for the third event randomly, but then I decided that I liked some of the canon match-ups too much, and I actually did go through and make a seed list based on visible contributions to the team that I more or less followed, with minimum fudging to keep things interesting. What do you think?

Chapter 18 Notes:

Ha! I bet you thought I wasn't working on this, huh? That I'd forgotten about my poll? Well! I didn't! It's just really hard to be funny on demand for some reason. Enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

As his feet carried him closer and closer to Kacchan, Izuku became less and less certain of his decision and more and more nervous.

Izuku wasn’t really intending to– to confront Kacchan. That– Well, he’d been working on it. Confronting Kacchan. Standing up to him. Sort of. But confronting him during a competition where he had backup and everyone was watching and he had backup and it was part of the plan was a lot different from confronting him in a random hallway.

And Izuku really did have to go to the bathroom. Which was behind Kacchan.

So, his plan right now was just to, sort of, walk past. Like they were normal people. Which they were! Both he and Kacchan were very normal people.

“That is an impressive amount of delusion, right there,” said En.

“Almost makes you see the family resemblance,” said Banjo.

(In his secret lair in Kamino Ward, All for One sneezed, causing a minor medical emergency as snot and phlegm got into his oxygen tubes.)

(Usually, such an event would have caused him no end of annoyance, but he was feeling so positive regarding his Izuku's victory over the hero brats that he even rewarded the minion who came to help him with an extra quirk.)

Normal people who were just– Who didn’t like each other very much, they passed each other in hallways all the time, didn’t they? Without getting into fights. Who knew? Maybe Kacchan was just here to use the bathroom, too, even if he was facing the wrong way.

Kacchan grabbed Izuku by the shoulder.

Izuku felt the hope wither in his chest.

“What the hell are you playing at, Deku?” he hissed through barred teeth. Izuku felt a little bit of spit hit his cheek and leaned away.

“I’m not playing at anything!” Izuku said, hands up. “I’m just trying to go to the bathroom! Normally! Like a normal person!”

Kacchan shook him. “Do you think I can’t tell what you’re trying to do, you freak?”

“Apparently not,” said Hikage.

“He did just say what he was trying to do,” agreed En.

“If this brat keeps putting his hands on my nephew, I’m going to tear them off when I come back to life.”

The ghosts turned to stare at Yoichi.

“When you come back to life?” asked Nana, delicately.

“That’s the part you’re worried about?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” continued Kacchan. “Did you think I’m so goddamn blind that I can’t tell the difference between round face’s quirk and whatever the hell you were doing when you were flying around up there? After your little nerd girlfriend used it on me?”

“N-no,” said Izuku, despite knowing that there was no right answer to this kind of question. He had the scars to prove it. “Kacchan is awesome, I could never–”

Kacchan pushed him against the wall. “How long have you been hiding that quirk from me?”

Well.

Okay.

He had sort of been hiding his quirk from Kacchan, but, really, it had only been for the day, and he’d just been taking advantage of Kacchan not knowing, rather than purposefully hiding it. There was a difference!

Apparently, Izuku had taken too long scrambling for an answer, because Kacchan jostled him roughly.

“It’d be easy. Just the way to take away his precious quirk and knock him down a peg.”

“Yoichi, please, listen to yourself,” said Nana. “Think about what you’re saying.”

“And how much you sound like your brother,” added En.

“That’s what I was talking about,” said Nana, confused.

“Oh, I thought you were still on about the resurrection bit.”

“With quirks,” said Yoichi, fervently, “anything is possible.”

“Talk, nerd!”

“K-Kacchan, we’re– Please, anyone could walk by.”

Kacchan pushed his face up close to Izuku’s. “I bet you’d like that, huh? Someone coming along to save you, not knowing how worthless you are.” He dragged Izuku away from the wall and into the bathroom, Izuku stumbling in his wake.

Danger Sense spiked, sending an awl of pain through Izuku’s head.

Oh, Izuku really shouldn’t have said that.

“Shouldn’t it have warned him before, if saying it was the trigger?” asked Banjo. “I mean, here I am, thinking I was getting a hang of this quirk, thinking it was actually pretty good… Not like Blackwhip, of course, but pretty handy–”

“Yes,” said Hikage.

“Yes what?” asked Banjo.

“Danger Sense should have warned him before… if that was the trigger.”

Banjo put his hands on his hips. “You don’t think it was?”

“I have no idea.”

“Right, right, you had no relationships.”

“I had relationships.”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

“You.”

“Okay,” said Banjo, “that's on me. I set that bar way too low.”

Kacchan threw Izuku into the corner of the stalls, and Izuku hissed, feeling himself bruising.

“Well, Deku? What was the plan? Or are you just as brainless as the quirkless wonder you pretended to be?”

Izuku stilled. Did Kacchan– Had he done that on purpose? Kacchan was smart, and he paid attention, he probably knew that was Izuku’s hero name. But did he mean to use it like that?

“This Bakugo does seem pretty… unstable,” said Third to Hikage, before glancing at the other group of ghosts.

“... I’m going to make him regret ever looking at Izuku,” muttered Yoichi. “I’ll send him boxes of spiders. I’ll spray him with a fire extinguisher.”

“He might have done this anyway,” continued Third, cringing, “no matter what Ninth said.”

“Hey, hey, he’s not actually going to do any of those things, right?” asked Banjo, turning away from his conversation with Hikage. “Not even if he, you know…”

“Comes back to life?” asked Hikage, tone somehow even dryer and flatter than usual.

“Hey, his brother did it.”

It didn’t matter.

Izuku ignored the feeling of threat vibrating through his entire body. He wasn’t in middle school anymore. Like he’d told Kacchan weeks ago, he was going to be here, no matter what. He was going to be a hero.

He stood up straight.

In the meantime, Kacchan had continued.

“What was it, huh? Were you sitting back there at Aldera and laughing at me the whole time? Thinking it’s so funny that you got one up on me, even though you had a weak nothing quirk? Just waiting to trip me up when you shouldn’t be anything but a pebble in my path? Huh?”

“It wasn’t about you,” said Izuku. Because it wasn’t. It never was. It was about Izuku and Mr. Yagi and the legacy of One for All. And someday, someday, he and Kacchan wouldn’t be in the same school anymore. Izuku would be able to do things without worrying about what Kacchan thought or how Kacchan would react.

“Ehh?” said Kacchan.

“It wasn’t. About. You,” said Izuku, voice trembling. He swallowed, trying to hold back tears. Despite saying it, part of him wanted to tell Kacchan everything. Like they were five years old again, and best friends. Or, at least, give him some kind of explanation, like the cover story, or something about being a late bloomer, or–

But those would be lies.

He didn’t want to lie.

“Yeah right,” said Kacchan, his lips curling. “You’ve been a creepy stalker since we were kids, and you’re a creepy stalker now, following me all the way here. You don’t have anything else going on in your sad, pathetic life other than dragging me down.”

“Y-You’re the one who dragged me here, Kacchan. I was just trying to walk b–”

Kacchan slammed his hand into the side of the stall. “Stop dodging the question, Deku!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say!” Izuku shouted back. “I don’t know what you want me to do!” He’d never understood what Kacchan wanted. He'd tried to help him. He'd tried to praise him. He'd tried to avoid him. Nothing worked.

Kacchan stood, looming over Izuku, eerily silent. “Drop out,” he said.

Izuku gaped. “I’m n-not doing that.” He didn’t even know if Kacchan was talking about UA or the Sports Festival.

“Drop out, or I’ll beat you up so bad, everything I’ve done to you so far will look like a love tap. You know, they’ve got Recovery Girl here? So, I’ll hold back just enough that they won’t call the match. I'll let it go on until you're screaming for that exhibitionist weirdo teacher to stop the match - except I'll put out all your teeth first, so no one can tell what you’re saying. Not that anyone could I'll your muttering, anyway.”

“Okay,” said Banjo. “I, personally, no longer consider Yoichi's threats to be over the top.”

“Don't encourage him,” said Nana.

Izuku had to wonder if Kacchan had read the brackets. They were in different groups. They wouldn’t fight each other unless they both got to the finals. It was kind of flattering that Kacchan apparently though he could get there, but–

“No,” said Izuku. “If– If you want me to drop out, you’d have to– have to beat me up th-that bad right here, right now.”

He saw Kacchan thinking about it. There was a time, in middle school, when he would have done it. Izuku couldn’t even count the times Kacchan had beaten him up, although he thought that most of those times were in elementary school.

Danger Sense, making his stomach roil, told him Kacchan was thinking about it.

“Tch.” Kacchan pulled back. “You’re going to regret this, Deku.”

He stalked out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut with a bang.

Izuku leaned against the wall of the stall, breathing heavily, deeply, trying not to throw up. He swallowed and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. His thoughts were so tangled up that he couldn’t figure out where Danger Sense started and his own anxiety began… Not that he was able to do that anyway.

He still had to go to the bathroom.

He pushed off the wall and walked into the stall. He didn’t come out until he could breathe normally.

“Hey,” said Banjo, “you know what would be really funny?”

“We're not giving Ninth your incredibly distinctive quirk in the middle of a televised event All for One is definitely watching.”

(All for One sneezed again, and such were the heights of beneficence that Izuku inspired him to, that he didn't even kill the minion who had obviously failed to clean his oxygen equipment properly.)

Todoroki Shouto was cold. He’d been cold for a long time. Physically, emotionally, spiritually… All of it. He embraced the cold. It was his power. It was his sanctuary.

So, maybe, that was why he had frozen, listening, when Bakugo and Midoriya burst into the restroom.

Well, that, and the fact that he’d been going and still had to go by the time both of them had left. He wasn’t shy, it was just that he was used to more privacy when using the restroom, that was all.

So, Bakugo and Midoriya… He’d known there was something going on with the two of them, in a distant sort of way. Bakugo had chased Midoriya down in the middle of lunch that one time, and he’d made note of Bakugo as someone he’d have to be careful of during the Festival. Bakugo was a possibility for his last match during the one-on-one fights, too, although Shouto personally thought Uraraka, Shouji, and Monoma were more likely. Well, maybe not Monoma…

Maybe Shouto should have been watching Midoriya more carefully. To think, he had a person like that in his past. A person like… him.

If he had, his declaration to the class might have been more focused.

Shouto clenched his fists. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Midoriya wouldn’t fight Bakugo. Maybe it was cruel of Shouto to take that away from him. Maybe it was unkind. Maybe it would save Midoriya pain. But Midoriya wouldn’t fight Bakugo, because if he got as far as Shouto, Shouto would beat him, because Shouto had to go on. Shouto had to win. He had to show him, show everyone that he could win without his power. That he could win without fire.

However…

However, seeing what Midoriya was dealing with… Maybe he should…

Shouto didn’t like feeling indecisive, but here he was, shifting his weight back and forth in the middle of the hallway.

He turned and stalked away from the quiet waiting rooms, to the student cafeteria area. It couldn’t possibly take that long to find Midoriya.

“Ah, and that’s our lunch break as well, isn’t it?” asked Toshinori.

“Yeah,” said Aizawa, already wedging himself underneath the announcers’ console. His sleeping bag was down there, Toshinori noted with some amusement. He hadn’t noticed Aizawa bring it in. That was quite a skill.

Or he’d had it in the bottom of that box of jelly packets. That was certainly an option.

“I’m taking a nap. This whole thing is far too noisy.”

“You won’t mind if I step out for a while?” He thought he’d go see how young Midoriya was doing. Many students would be eating with family, but Toshinori knew that Midoriya Inko hadn’t planned on coming, and young Midoriya had seemed so nervous, when he was making plans with his classmates. He would probably appreciate a little pep talk.

“Considering his track record with this festival,” said Nana, “normally, I’d say not to, but…”

“But after that Bakugo brat, yeah,” said Banjo. “He’ll probably say the wrong thing, but it’s doing the right thing that matters.”

At the same time, Toshinori didn’t want to interrupt young Midoriya’s bonding time with his friends. They were all doing so well together, it was inspiring. He could imagine some of them forming a hero agency together in, oh, five or ten years.

Well, if young Midoriya was with friends, he wouldn’t say anything.

“Do what you want,” said Aizawa, zipping up the sleeping bag all the way.

“Do you want me to bring anything back for you, or…?”

Aizawa groaned. “I’ve got my jellies. Deal with your own stuff.”

“Thank you,” said Toshinori. He unfolded himself from the chair and stretched. Should he puff up? No, no, he’d draw too much attention as All Might. He only needed young Midoriya to recognize him, not the press and public!

He retrieved the wrapped bento boxes he’d prepared that morning and set out in the direction of the cafeteria. He’d find young Midoriya before too long.

Izuku blinked at the light and sound when he reached the end of the tunnel up to the Festival proper. There were games, food stands, club stands, booths representing various hero organizations…

He wanted to eat lunch. Or, he had wanted to eat lunch before running into Kacchan, but now he just felt sort of queasy.

Logically, he should still eat lunch. He needed the energy. It would probably make him feel better. He was still on a meal plan, even though Mr. Yagi kept trying to get him to use his ‘cheat days.’ He had a meal voucher attached to his student ID that he could use anywhere in the festival.

He could go into the student cafeteria area and eat something healthy, but Kacchan might be there, and he really didn’t want to see Kacchan again.

Well, maybe he could find something that wasn’t too greasy…

“Oh, hey, Midori!”

He turned to see Ashido, Aoyama, and Hagakure. “H-Hi,” he said, waving.

“What’re you doing up here?” asked Ashido. “I would’ve thought you’d eat in the cafeteria and stay healthy and all, since you’re in the next round.”

“Mm,” said Izuku. “I- I probably should. But I, um…” He trailed off, pulling at his fingers.

“Midoriya, are you alright?” asked Hagakure, and she was suddenly so close that Izuku startled.

“Yes! Yes, I’m fine. I just…” These were his friends. They’d helped him when Kacchan had cornered him at lunch that time, and they’d let him help them train their quirks. “I don’t want to see Kacchan.”

“Oh,” said Hagakure, and Izuku saw her shoulders start to drop.

“If that is so,” said Aoyama, dropping forward into a lunge and sparkling, “then let us show you the wonders of French cuisine, mon ami!”

Ashido snorted. “He’s been saying that for the last half an hour,” she said, leaning forward to stage whisper at Izuku, “but we haven’t found any French food. Or any food he considers French, anyway.”

“Alas, it is so, et je suis triste! But we shall persevere!”

“I’m just going to find the greasiest, sugariest dessert I can,” said Ashido, still in exaggerated tones of confidence. “Just absolutely the least healthy thing I can.”

“There was the American stall, a ways back,” said Hagakure, “with deep fried butter.”

“Look, in order for something to be dessert, it has to be food first.”

“What about you, Midori?” asked Hagakure. “You want to wreck your digestive system with a giant ball of fat and grease?”

Izuku couldn’t help but laugh. “I… don’t think that would agree with me all that well, actually.” He couldn’t even imagine what that would taste like.

“Bad,” said Hikage.

“Definitely,” agreed En. “But I’d eat even that, if it meant I could taste something.”

“Same,” said all of the ghosts, except Second, who was still facing the wall.

“Bummer,” said Hagakure, cheerfully. “But would you like to come with us? I’m sure we’ll find something you can stand eating.”

“I–”

“Midoriya.”

The group as a whole turned to see… Todoroki?

He looked… Somehow… Izuku hadn’t seen it before, but there was something painful in his eyes. Something that had nothing to do with his scar.

Something that cried out for help.

“Um, yes?” said Izuku.

“I need to talk to you. Privately.”

“So,” said Yoichi, cheerfully, as if he hasn't been planning Bakugo's maining minutes ago, “let’s play Crush or–”

“Let’s not,” said Hikage.

“Crush,” said Nana, quickly.

“Definitely a crush,” agreed Banjo, “but one of those ones where it gets weird and angry and they beat each other up fifty times before they finally admit they have feelings.”

“You do know that there are other options for weird behavior, right?” asked Third.

“Still not playing without food,” said En.

“None of you are any fun,” complained Yoichi.

“I don’t need to take this from someone who just spent ten minutes fantasizing about breaking a kid’s fingers.”

“Hey! It’s out of my system, now, so I can be normal about it.”

Izuku looked back at Ashido, Hagakure, and Aoyama. “Rain check on lunch?” He had a feeling this would take a while, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to find them later. The festival grounds were huge, as was the rule for UA. Plus Ultra, after all!

Ashido shrugged, but she looked… worried? Concerned? “Sure. It’s no problem. We’ll see each other just next week, you know.”

Well, yes, but even Izuku knew that eating from the cafeteria at lunch time was different from eating together at a festival.

But with the way Todoroki was looking, Izuku didn’t think he could relax until he found out what he wanted.

“Thank you, sorry.”

Aoyama caught Izuku’s upper arm as he started forward. “Midoriya… are you sure this is a good idea? After his ‘declaration’ to the class…”

Izuku was touched. But there wasn’t anything for Aoyama to worry about. “My quirk isn’t reacting at all,” he explained. “It’ll be fine. He…” He wasn’t sure how to describe the expression he saw in Todoroki’s eyes, or even if he should. “I… I’m just going to go see what he needs help with.”

Aoyama looked Izuku in the eye, then nodded and stepped back.

(Internally, Yuga hoped that Midoriya was right. Both for Midoriya’s sake, and for his own.)

(All for One had been… graphic… when describing the price of failure.)

(He hoped that whatever All for One had planned for Midoriya was something he could get out of.)

Izuku waved goodbye to Aoyama, Hagakure, and Ashido, then followed Todoroki. Todoroki led him back into the tunnels under the stands and to a deserted hallway.

Izuku… was starting to get a bad feeling about this, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the bad feeling about Kacchan, so, probably this wouldn’t get physical. Probably.

… He hoped he hadn’t just lied to Aoyama. He’d feel terrible about that.

And also about getting beaten up or threatened or whatever, but honestly he was used to that kind of thing.

“Priorities, Izuku,” said Yoichi, mournfully. “Priorities.”

“I need to apologize to you, Midoriya,” said Todoroki, turning to face him.

“Uh,” said Izuku. “What for?”

Todoroki looked away. “I thought that you were like all the others, leading a carefree life…” He frowned and looked back up at Izuku. “I was wrong. You have someone like him in your life, too… Someone you're trying to defy.”

“Someone like him?” asked Izuku, confused.

“Bakugo.”

Izuku’s brain crashed.

“Oh, that’s why your weird quirk was acting weird,” said Banjo. “The kid was spying!”

“Hey, you hear that? The kid was spying,” said Yoichi. “If only Third was around to hear it.”

“... This means nothing.”

“Is it still spying if he wasn’t doing it for someone?” asked En.

“Freelance spying is still spying,” opined Hikage. “And my quirk is quite normal by the standards of modern quirks.”

“I, uh, I– What?” said Izuku, intelligently.

“I overheard you and Bakugo in the bathroom. I…” He looked at his hand. “I still have a way to go, don’t I? If I was just listening.” He clenched his hand into a fist.

“Um,” said Izuku, taking a couple of tiny steps forward. He didn’t want to get into Todoroki’s personal space, but he was getting worried. Todoroki was acting strange. “You said… Too? Were you… also bullied?”

Izuku couldn’t really see it happening. Todoroki had a great quirk, he was good looking, and Endeavor, while not the most popular hero, was still a hero. But then again, hadn’t he been thinking, just this morning, that Todoroki faded into the background? That he was easy to forget?

Maybe… Maybe there was a reason for that. Maybe Izuku was putting too much weight on powerful quirks and all the other stuff. From the outside, Izuku probably looked privileged, too, with a multifaceted quirk, a place in the world’s best hero school, and All Might himself as a mentor.

He was privileged, he was lucky.

But he’d still been isolated and bullied in Aldera.

He shouldn’t make assumptions about Todoroki’s past.

Todoroki met Izuku’s eyes again, gaze intense. “Have you ever heard of quirk marriages before?”

“What?” shrieked Nana and En.

“Yikes,” said Banjo, wincing.

“He’s a baby!” said Nana.

“That is a teenager,” disagreed Hikage.

“A baby!” repeated Nana. “How could anyone do that to a baby!

“What’s a quirk marriage?” asked Yoichi.

Izuku felt all the blood rush out of his face. “Someone is forcing you into a quirk marriage?!” he whisper-shouted. Why was he whispering? Why was he shouting? “We have to tell someone!”

Todoroki’s mouth dropped open. “What? No. I– I don’t… think so…?” An expression of confused horror spread across his face. “ Would he do that…?”

“Wh– What? Would who– Todoroki, that’s really bad!” Anything less bad, and he wouldn’t have suggested going to a teacher about it.

“I am aware,” said Todoroki, shaking himself. “But this isn’t… It’s my mother, not me. My mother…” He trailed off, then glared at the floor. “In every memory I have of my mother, she’s crying.”

Todoroki didn’t continue immediately. Izuku was frozen, like Todoroki had used his quirk on him. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do.

“My mother… Quirk marriages… My mother has a powerful ice quirk. That man… Endeavor… Even then, he was a man of means, of merit.” His lip twisted. “He easily ingratiated himself to my mother’s family, and took possession of her quirk. All to fulfil his dream. He–” His volume had been progressively increasing, but he only now seemed to realize it, and lowered his voice. “All he wanted was to create something that could beat All Might when he couldn’t. He threw away my siblings when they didn’t match his expectations, and my mother… She…” He pressed his still-clenched fist against his scar. “She told me that my left side was ugly, and she dumped boiling water on me.”

“Well, that’s a plot twist,” said Banjo. “After that beginning, I thought Endeavor had done it!”

“Burns due to boiling water are substantially different from burns due to open flames,” said Hikage.

“Come on,” said En, tone incredibly forced. “You thought it was a Zuko situation, too.”

“A… what situation?” asked Nana.

“He’ll explain later,” said Yoichi, waving his hand at her. “I get a feeling this'll be important, somehow.”

“W–” This was too much information about too many different things. Izuku didn’t know what to do with it. He felt like his brain way cooking.

“I’ll win without using that bastard’s quirk… I’ll become number one without needing it at all. That is my defiance of his will. You and Bakugo… You’re trying to defy him, too, and whoever it was that put him in that position over you. That’s why I’m apologizing, because despite your goal, in order to fulfill mine, I’ll be climbing over you.”

Izuku… had no idea how to respond to that.

“With telling your teachers, hopefully,” said Nana. “Please, at least tell Toshinori.”

“Maybe,” said En, “we should do a chant next time he sees Eighth. Maybe he'll be able to hear us.”

“Ooh, yes, we can add some things in, too, like ‘Izuku is the greatest, cutest nephew,’” said Yoichi.

“I've changed my mind.”

“It’s fine if you can’t say anything,” said Todoroki, turning away. “But I thought that you, at least, should know why I'm doing this.”

“I– Wait, Todoroki.”

Todoroki paused, glaring over his shoulder.

Izuku refused to falter. “I– I can’t say that what I’m doing has nothing to do with wanting to prove Bakugo and– and everyone else who called me a useless Deku wrong, but…”

Izuku breathed in deeply and thought about All Might, about his mother, about Uraraka, about everything he wanted to do, everything he wanted to be, about the bullied kids he’d helped in elementary school, even about the look in Kacchan’s eyes, and now Todoroki’s.

“But that’s not the reason I’m here.”

He thought about his mom, playing heroes with him, even after his diagnosis, about All Might, saving him under the bridge and Mr. Yagi saving him every day after that for months and months, even up until now. He thought about Mr. Aizawa, at the USJ. About how he and everyone else in the class had worked together on the Sports Festival. How he’d been saved, how he’d saved others.

“If you were listening, you know, it's not about Kacchan. I’m here, because I’ve been helped, because someone’s always saved me, and… I want to do that too! I want to become more like All Might. I want to pay back all the people who’ve helped me so far. And– And– That might not be a very grand motivation, but– I’ll say the same thing to you, that I said in the Athlete’s Oath: We’re all here to win. And that includes me. So, I'm going to return your declaration.”

Izuku took a deep breath and clenched a fist in front of him.

“I’m going to beat you, too!”

“I, for one,” said Yoichi, “am glad to see that all that practice with speeches paid off for Izuku. That was pretty good, for something off the cuff!”

“Hey, what's going on with Eighth, anyway?” asked Banjo. “Wasn’t he coming this way? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

The ghosts reoriented their attention on the wispy golden figure of All Might… And what he was seeing. And what he remembered from the last five minutes.

“Oh,” said Nana, “that’s just great .”

Notes:

Be glad! I was planing to end this on a much worse cliffhanger, but it was taking too many words to get there.
On the upside, I have 800 words of chapter 19 written, so hopefully it won't be so long before the next chapter comes out.

Chapter 19 Notes:

Remember how last chapter I said that I'd been trying to hit an even nastier cliffhanger? Well... :3
Also, this chapter got much longer than I expected. Those Todorokis always bring in so much *drama.*

Chapter Text

There was fire in the hallway.

Toshinori’s first thought was to look for a fire alarm and try to put it out– But, luckily, before he transformed and tried to punch the fire away (he had a technique for it!), he realized it was just Endeavor.

He considered hiding around the corner and transforming, then having a conversation with him, hero to hero. It had been a long time since they’d spoken, and their conversations were always so short, interrupted by various family emergencies and Endeavor needing the bathroom, among other things.

Toshinori hoped that Endeavor had gotten that looked at, actually. Needing to use the bathroom that often couldn’t have been healthy, or convenient for hero work. Although, if Toshinori was to complain about that, he’d be a hypocrite, and if there was one thing a hero shouldn’t be, it was a hypocrite.

“Toshinori, please, just realize that he hates you because he’s a massive–”

“No swearing,” said Hikage.

Nana lifted her face from her hands to stare at Hikage. “What?”

“No swearing. Ninth might hear us.”

“Hikage, I’m going to bet that Ninth knows every swear word Toshinori ever used and then some. He can probably quote each and every one and say when and where he was when he said them.”

“Yes. We should set a better example.”

“Hikage,” said En. “I’ve already given up tasting food and also my entire life and body to be here. I’m not going to give up swearing.”

Hikage frowned slightly. “You don’t swear.”

En shrugged. “It’s more about the principle of the thing.”

But, time was running out of the lunch break, and if young Midoriya wasn’t already with friends, he would certainly want to be with them to watch the first matches! Any of the winners could be his opponent in short order, after all, and knowledge was power!

In light of that, and his ever-present awareness of just how much time he had left for hero work every day, Toshinori didn’t transform. Instead, he raised a handkerchief to his mouth (smoke was very bad for his single, lonely lung, and although Endeavor’s flames were remarkably clean-burning, they were still fire) and hurried down the hallway.

“Wait,” said Endeavor.

Surprised, Toshinori stopped.

“You,” said Endeavor, his voice low, almost a growl, “I know you. I’ve seen you before.”

“I, er,” said Toshinori. “Yes, I suppose you have. I work for–”

“All Might,” growled Endeavor. “Yes, I’ve seen you trailing after that annoyance. Doing the work he’s too high and mighty to deal with.”

That was a little harsh, considering that Toshinori was All Might, but he supposed Endeavor couldn’t know that.

“Well, that’s my job,” said Toshinori. “Secretary, you know…”

“And now you’re here,” said Endeavor. “Still following him while he wastes time making those frivolous announcements.”

“Well, that’s part of his job, now,” said Toshinori. “He teaches here, after all.”

Endeavor, snorted, flames leaping from his moustache.

Not for the first time, Toshinori wondered if there was actually hair under there. If so, how did he keep it from burning off? Even the natural heat resistance of fire quirk users had its limits.

“He teaches.” The word was dripping with… something. “Well, tell your master that my creation will surpass him and anything he makes.”

“Uh,” said Toshinori, feeling slow. “You mean… your agency…?” Somehow, he didn’t think that was what Endeavor meant.

“Shouto,” said Endeavor, shortly.

“Oh, ah,” said Toshinori, he was on slightly steadier ground, here. “I’ve heard that he’s a very conscientious young man–” especially since the battle trial, “--incredible quirk control, although–”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No,” said Toshinori. He would have held his hands up, except that they were full with the bentos. “No, not at all. I was just– All Might had just commented on his abilities, and that must be thanks to your influence. You’ve trained so many successful sidekicks, after all! So many of them go on to found their own agencies–”

To Toshinori’s surprise, Endeavor snarled. “What,” he said, gritting out the word, “are you getting at?”

“Nothing! Only that you’re, ah, probably a good teacher…?”

Endeavor turned away, stomping to the nearby set of stairs. “That easy breezy personality… You’re the same as All Might. How perfectly annoying.” He went down the stairs as Toshinori watched.

What a strange conversation. Strange, and troubling. Part of him wanted to go, follow Endeavor, maybe as himself, maybe as All Might, demand answers, but what he’d heard wasn’t really enough to justify that. Was it? Endeavor hadn’t really said anything wrong, and a rivalry between heroes, even over something like student progress wasn’t anything out of the ordinary - Vlad King’s rather one-sided one against young Aizawa was proof of that.

But even so, referring to young Todoroki as a creation in that tone of voice rubbed Toshinori the wrong way.

The bentos weighed heavily in Toshinori’s hands.

Yes. Young Midoriya. Lunch. And then, perhaps Toshinori could ask young Aizawa or Nezu if his conversation with Endeavor was at all typical for parents. Or a school environment in general, come to that.

“Don’t start,” said Yoichi.

“Start what?” asked En, far too innocent to be believable.

“We were with Eighth when he went to school. He went to school here.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up,” said En, “but UA isn’t exactly what I’d call a typical school environment.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Yoichi.

“Okay, actually,” said Banjo, “how many of us really had had a normal school experience. Like, I know Hikagi didn’t.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hikage.

“Well, Yoichi is… like that. Second and Third grew up during the dawn of quirks, when everything was broken.”

“There were still schools,” said Third.

“But did you go to them?” asked Banjo.

“Yeah,” said Third.

“How long?” asked En.

“Well,” said Third. “Look. That’s not important.”

“Hey,” said Nana. “Let’s tune back into the present before we get into another pointless fight over schools.”

“Young Midoriya?”

Izuku almost jumped out of his skin. “Mr. Yagi! I– I was just talking to Todoroki,” said Izuku. “I…” He trailed off. He wasn’t sure how much he should say. He wasn’t sure what to say. Had– Had Mr. Yagi overheard anything?

“What a strange coincidence,” said Mr. Yagi. “I was just talking to Endeavor! Although, that conversation… Well, maybe it only seemed odd to me because I was in this form.”

“It seemed odd?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Yagi, frowning. He shook his head. “However, that is not why I am here! I am here… With lunch!” He held up a pair of bentos wrapped in rabbit-patterned cloth. “Assuming you haven’t already eaten, that is.”

“I haven’t,” said Izuku, coming closer. “Things keep happening, somehow.”

“Your conversation with Todoroki was one of those things?” asked Mr. Yagi. He deposited the bento in Izuku’s hands and made a motion for Izuku to follow him.

“Yeah…” said Izuku.

“Tell him! Tell him! Tell him!” chanted the ghosts, who, unsurprisingly, hadn’t come up with a better plan.

Yet.

“Lie,” said Hikage.

The other ghosts turned on him, incredulous.

“Toshinori is the adult here,” said Hikage.

Mr. Yagi nodded, brows knitting together slightly. “I overheard the very end of your conversation, I think.”

Izuku wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He wanted to tell someone about what Todoroki said about the quirk marriage, because that was… There were some laws against it, although they were hard to enforce, because there was no good way to check if someone really was in a quirk marriage or not. Sometimes, people with compatible quirks were able to live together or meet each other more easily. Two people with polar bear mutations would be more likely to meet one another than a person with a polar bear mutation and a person with a quirk that let them photosynthesize, and were more likely to find the same places habitable, too.

But a quirk marriage… and his mother pouring boiling water on him… and the fact that he was angrier with Endeavor over that than his mother…

He was sure that Todoroki wouldn’t want him to just start telling people. He didn’t want to tell people about Kacchan, after all. The fact that Todoroki had overheard all of that in the bathroom made him feel vaguely nauseous.

“Oh, great, what disaster is he predicting now?”

“Actually,” said Hikage, “that is just regular anxiety. But back to what we should say–”

If Mr. Yagi had overheard, though, then he wouldn’t have to tell him about… all that.

Izuku’s heart made a funny motion. “O-oh? You heard?”

“I know, eavesdropping doesn’t sound very heroic, but a hero is someone who involves themselves in others’ problems!” He coughed, slightly, then licked his lips. “Don’t, ah, don’t make a habit of it, though! There are various legal problems, of course, you want to make sure you aren’t breaking any privacy laws, but public property is usually your best bet… Not that I should really encourage… or discourage, for that matter… However, I’m not sure I understood everything you were saying.”

Izuku stopped, shoulders inching up to his ears.

Mr. Yagi walked a few more feet - just one and a half steps, considering his long stride - and then stopped, looking back. “Young Midoriya?”

“What did you hear?” asked Izuku. His voice sounded far away, hollow. Was he panicking? Was this panic? It felt different than his usual panic.

“No, I think you’re dissociating,” said En, breaking off from the new chant.

“Yeah,” agreed Yoichi. “That seems about right.”

They returned to chanting.

“I… didn’t hear much,” said Mr. Yagi. His hand moved in an aborted gesture towards Izuku, then came up to rub the back of his neck.

“You didn’t?” asked Izuku, not sure if that should relieve him or not.

“No,” said Mr. Yagi. “Only…”

“Bakugo!” shouted the ghosts. “Bakugo! Bakugo!”

“Ew,” said Yoichi, “I hate saying his name.”

“Hush,” said Nana. “Keep chanting.”

“You and Bakugo… He’s the one you saved, the day we met–”

The vestiges cheered.

“Now, the next one!” cried Yoichi.

“Bullying! Bullying! Bullying!”

“You saved him,” said Izuku, quickly.

Mr. Yagi waved this off. “Physically, perhaps, but it was your actions that spurred me forward. But I know Bakugo also was the one to chase you in the cafeteria. Young Midoriya, I may be on entirely the wrong track, but,” he hesitated, visibly, “are you being bullied? By Bakugo?”

Izuku’s whole body quivered. He– That– Well, yes, Bakugo did bully him. He knew that. But he also knew that Bakugo would be an amazing hero someday. He was so powerful and so smart– Even with all of 1-A, plus Shinsou and Hatsume, working against him, he’d still gotten past the first round. And even if Bakugo had gotten detention that one time– Nothing had ever happened before. It was a fluke. It had to be.

His mouth fell open. If he didn’t say something, he would throw up over the wonderful bento Mr. Yagi had made for him.

(Even if it tasted like asphalt, it would still be wonderful. All Might had made it.)

That couldn’t happen.

He had to stay something.

“I think Endeavor is trying to force Todoroki into a quirk marriage!”

Blood sprayed from Mr. Yagi’s mouth in a fountain over a foot long, splattering the near-white floor of the hallway, the collar and front of his loose-fitting suit, and the bento he still held. “What?”

“Wow, smooth,” said En.

“Hey, it worked.”

Shouta heard the door to the announcer’s booth opening and, unhappily, opened his eyes to stare at the underside of the announcers’ console. That hadn’t seemed nearly long enough. Maybe Shuzenji was right about not being recovered enough to go on patrol.

“There we go,” said Yagi, “sit down here, young Midoriya.”

“O-oh, that’s your chair, I couldn’t!”

Why was Midoriya in here? There wasn’t any rule about it, but Shouta thought that Yagi had meant to eat with Midoriya somewhere else. Otherwise, he very much would have minded.

He wriggled out from under the console, mindful of his injuries.

“Look, there’s a stool here–”

“I’ll take it–”

“No, no, I’ll take the stool, you ought to–”

“I can’t–”

“Midoriya,” croaked Shouta. “Just take the chair.”

Midoriya collapsed like his legs had been cut off, and the overlarge announcer’s chair sort of… Enveloped him. The bright yellow wrapper of the bento box gave the scene a hint of the absurd. Otherwise, he looked… like he had right before the USJ trip, actually.

“Do I need to call Nezu and get him to cancel the Festival?”

“Huh? What?” asked Midoriya. “Why would you do that?”

“Are you not here because your quirk is acting up?”

“I… No, I don’t… think so.”

Shouta flared his quirk. Midoriya’s overall state and demeanor didn’t change.

“Oh, crap,” said Yoichi. “We fumbled that one.”

“Does it matter?” asked Banjo, “this is all his normal, anxiety, right?” He elbowed Hikage.

Hikage’s eyes narrowed. “I’m… not sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Okay.

Slowly, Shouta’s heart rate dropped. He hadn’t even realized he was having that kind of reaction. How annoying. He’d have to see a therapist about that, most likely.

“Then why are you two here?” he asked, just a little irritable.

Yagi looked back and forth between Shouta and Midoriya, apparently more than a little nervous himself. Finally, he folded himself down onto the stool.

“First,” said Yagi, “I must apologize to you, young Midoriya. I did not hear much of your conversation with Todoroki at all, only the last few things you said about beating one another.”

Midoriya gave Yagi a look of betrayal that would have been funny in– Well, it was funny now, honestly. It’s just that it would have been funnier if Midoriya didn’t already have trust issues.

“I don’t know what came over me, to mislead you like that. I should have corrected the misunderstanding at once, or spoken more clearly. It’s only that I had just come from that strange conversation with Endeavor, and when you mentioned Todoroki… Then, for some reason, young Bakugo crossed my mind… In many ways, he’s similar to Endeavor.”

“Not you, too,” said Midoriya.

“Me too, what?” asked Yagi.

Midoriya shook his head. “It’s not your fault. You told me you didn’t hear much, and I– It’s just– I assumed, when you said Kacchan’s name that you’d heard from earlier and– and–” He stuttered to a halt, blushing to the roots of his hair.

He really did look like a strawberry like that.

“Yagi’s logical ruses aside,” said Shouta, “I would appreciate an answer.”

Yagi nodded. “Young Izuku, can you please tell young Aizawa what you told me?”

Midoriya played with the tie on the bento box, meeting neither his eyes nor Yagi’s. “I think Endeavor is trying to force Todoroki into a quirk marriage.”

Shouta wasn’t a slow person, even right after waking up. Grogginess was irrational - and, more importantly, a liability on the job. Besides, he’d been up for long enough that it shouldn’t matter. Still, it took him five irrational seconds to process what Midoriya had said.

Five seconds where Izuku’s pale, clammy skin began to flush.

“I believe that you think that, and that you wouldn’t think that without reason,” said Shouta, carefully, “but can you tell me those reasons?”

Midoriya took a deep breath.

“Then, combined with what Endeavor said to me,” said Yagi, after Midoriya had finished, “I feel like a rather nasty picture is painted.”

Shouta sighed. “Midoriya, eat your lunch or you won’t have time to digest before your match.”

Midoriya flinched, then hurriedly started untying his bento.

“Outside,” said Shouta.

Midoriya looked up at him, sharply.

“I’m sure you want to stay,” said Shouta, “I know you want to help. But there are rules about what information we can share about students. Even with other students.”

Midoriya looked down, shoulders slumped. “Oh. Okay.”

“If there’s anything we can do, we will do it,” said Shouta, knowing that this platitude would mean little to Midoriya and that, hero students being hero students, he would have to be carefully watched to make sure he didn’t take things into his own hands.

Midoriya nodded and stood up, shuffling reluctantly towards the door.

“I will come out to join you when we are done,” said Yagi, “but please don’t wait for me to eat. You need your strength for your match! Plus ultra!”

“Plus ultra,” said Midoriya, weakly, before opening the door and walking out.

“What did Endeavor say to you?” asked Shouta.

“I was in this form at the time, so he may not have usually said this to me, but he told me to go tell my ‘master’ that his ‘creation’ would ‘surpass,’ well, me. And anything I - All Might - made.”

Shouta resisted the urge to rub his eyes. It never helped.

“That does sound… Bad. Unfortunately, except for the bit about Mrs. Todoroki pouring boiling water on Todoroki, nothing is actionable.”

“But–” said Yagi.

Aizawa raised his hand. “You know that as well as I do, Yagi. Neither Todoroki nor Endeavor actually said that Endeavor was abusing him in any way. Calling your child your creation is distasteful, but technically correct. And Mrs. Todoroki isn’t on any of Todoroki’s emergency contact forms, so it’s likely that she isn’t involved in Todoroki’s everyday lives. That being said.” He glared Yagi into submission. “We can still investigate. Ask Todoroki about what he said. See if there are any other signs of abuse. We just have to investigate as teachers, not heroes. We can’t burst into Endeavor’s house and start treating him like a villain.”

“See, this is why vigilanteism is better,” said Third.

Yagi’s mouth closed into a flat line. “I have been a hero for decades, young Aizawa. I know the procedures. I know what it takes to get a search warrant, let alone one for arrest.”

Shouta was not the type to blush. If he was, he’d be as red as Midoriya when his friends called him ‘strawberry.’

“I know young Midoriya’s testimony, being hearsay, wouldn’t be enough to get a warrant even if Endeavor wasn’t the number two hero. I know it’s possible that both Midoriya or I misunderstood. Heavens know that I’ve never been able to understand Endeavor.”

He unfolded himself from the stool and collapsed in the chair, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I was hoping you would have more insight on how to proceed. As teachers, you say?”

Shouta nodded. “Yeah. And most of that’ll have to wait until after the festival. Nezu’s better at that sort of thing than either of us. But… How did you get from talking about Bakugo to Todoroki?”

Izuku made his way out to the stands rather shakily. The bento had been delicious, as expected, but he couldn’t help but feel as if he didn’t deserve it. Mr. Yagi had apologized for his misdirection, as minor and unintentional as it was, but Izuku’s misdirection was much more intentional, and he’d gotten away with it completely, as far as he could tell.

“Not so much,” said Banjo. Half the ghosts were watching their Eighth stumble through explaining his conversation with their Ninth to Aizawa. “Sorry, kid.”

He wasn’t even sure why he’d done it. He knew Kacchan bullied him! He knew it!

He’d just… never admitted it out loud before.

Was that why? Was that really all it was?

No. No, it couldn’t– It wasn’t. It was just… Kacchan was… He was going to be amazing. Someday. An incredible hero. One who could save so many people.

That’s… That’s what everyone said.

Didn’t they?

He hadn’t actually heard anyone say that since he’d come to UA. Except for himself.

“Yes,” said Yoichi. “Yes. Realize that he sucks, then mail him a box of spiders.”

“I’d say something, but at least it isn’t as bad as breaking his fingers,” said Nana, exasperated.

“Why spiders, anyway?” asked En.

“No,” muttered Izuku to himself. “Don’t send him a box of spiders. You already decided that was unheroic. All those poor spiders…” He’d written about things like breaking Kacchan’s fingers and sending him spiders extensively in some of his earlier journals, but while it was certainly doable - there were all sorts of specialty stores on the internet - it ultimately wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Kacchan would know it was him.

“Because he blames you for everything,” said Yoichi.

“Hey, is the spider thing another family trait?” asked Banjo. “Because I’m starting to feel like I dodged a massive, spider-shaped bullet when I fought King Bastard.”

(All for One sneezed again, and was forced to put aside the reports he’d gotten from the doctor to while the time away until the third event started. On audio, of course.)

(It really was too bad that most human bodies couldn’t support eight limbs, but the doctor was making progress, and All for One was soon to have another classical element of a Demon King’s army: demonic spiders.)

(Even Tomura approved. He said they were in a lot of video games. All for One was looking forward to seeing what he did with them.)

(After he… reprimanded whoever had gotten so much dust into his breathing equipment.)

“Don’t call him king anything,” said Yoichi, pulling a face. “He’ll be way too smug if he ever finds out.”

“Okay, but the spiders,” pressed Banjo.

“They’re an effective tool,” said Yoichi.

“He’s not wrong,” said Third.

“Wait,” said En. “Wait. Banjo, are you afraid of spiders?”

“... No.”

“What about spiders?”

Izuku jumped away from Dark Shadow, heart hammering. He needed to pay more attention to stuff going on around him when he was muttering. Even if he had Danger Sense, that couldn’t protect him from everything.

“Hi,” he breathed. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

“Midoriya! Over here!”

Izuku looked up to see Uraraka waving him over. She was sitting with most of the rest of the class. Only Jiro, Todoroki, and Iida were missing. Even Shinsou was there, although he was sitting somewhat to the side and chewing at his lower lip.

“Are you okay?” asked Uraraka as he came closer. “You’re looking a little pale.”

“Yeah, were you able to get lunch, after everything?” asked Ashido. “Todoroki pulling you aside, and all.”

“I’m fine, it was just sort of heavy,” said Izuku, holding up his hands and putting a smile on his face.

“Oh, Todoroki gave you another declaration?” asked Kirishima. “That’s manly! You must’ve really impressed him or something.”

“Or something,” echoed Izuku, weakly.

“Well,” said Uraraka, “come sit down! Jiro and Todoroki will be on any minute!”

Izuku dropped himself on the bench next to Uraraka. His knees were still a little wobbly.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” she said, leaning forward and raising a fist. “I know I’m on the other side of the bracket, but I could still wind up fighting one of these guys!”

“I’m hoping it’ll be Jiro,” said Sero, “since she’s the one who’s been hanging out with us at all.”

“Hearing a ‘but’ there, dude?” said Kirishima.

“Because Todoroki is most likely to win, kero. I doubt he’s gotten weaker since the battle trials.”

“But his quirk did lose them twice,” said Ashido.

“And you shouldn’t judge someone just by their quirk, you know?” said Monoma. “I’m the one who lost against Midoriya, not Todoroki. Although, today, I will certainly prove superior to both of you.”

“Plus, he didn’t actually lose against me and Tokoyami, kero.”

“And me!” said Dark Shadow.

“A mark of eternal shadow on my soul,” said Tokoyami. “A shame I will rectify today.”

“He gets more dramatic when he’s nervous,” said Dark Shadow.

“I dunno, guys, I think you’re all counting Jiro out way too fast,” said Kaminari. “She can be brutal.”

“What do you think, Midoriya?”

Izuku blinked. Listening to his classmates analyze the matchup had been soothing, and he was taken off guard being addressed directly.

“Oh! Um. I think that Todoroki will win, ultimately, but… even if he gets the first strike and immobilizes her with his ice, it won’t be… immediate?”

“What do you mean? If you can’t move, you’ve lost, right?” asked Kirishima.

“Well, that’s only if you can’t move,” said Izuku.

Shouto paced back and forth in the ready room. He couldn’t calm down. Ever since talking to Midoriya…

What if Midoriya was right?

What if Shouto succeeded, what if he became a hero without fire, and instead of admitting defeat, his father did… that?

He could do it. Shouto had no doubt. Once upon a time, before the Dawn of Quirks, the lowest age for marriage in Japan was eighteen. But the same laws that allowed teenagers to act as heroes and law enforcement officers had lowered the age of marriage.

Even if it hadn’t, Shouto knew very well what kinds of pressure Endeavor could bring to bear against his children. Shouto might be isolated from his siblings, but he knew that Natsuo’s major wasn’t his first choice, and that the school Fuyumi worked at had been the third one she’d tried to apply to, and the only one that was high enough quality to satisfy Endeavor.

Speaking of Fuyumi, father always only talked about Shouto’s superiority to his brothers, did that mean anything? And Fuyumi was old enough now to get married normally. Had she been forced into any omiais?

He’d have to do it quietly. But it would be possible. Endeavor had kept Touya’s death and Rei’s commitment quiet, too.

What if–

The door banged open.

“Shouto.”

Shouto, surprised, met his father’s gaze for a split second before looking away.

“Your behavior in this competition has been truly disgraceful.”

As if the bastard knew anything about disgrace. Shouto kept his head down.

“If you had used your left side, you would have easily swept away your competition. No one would have even come close to you in that ridiculous scavenger hunt. You would have easily pulled your whole team to victory in the race if you could have propelled yourself instead of merely sliding, winning a complete victory without having to rely on a Gen Ed student.”

Endeavor stepped all the way into the room, his flames making the shadows dance strangely.

“It is time for you to stop this meaningless resistance. You are no longer a child. See to your duty, to your destiny. Surpass All Might! Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

With thoughts of quirk marriages still running through his mind, Shouto did.

“Do you understand yet?” snarled Endeavor. “You are my great masterpiece! Act like it!”

“I’m not your anything,” Shouto snarled back. “I’ll earn my victories using only Mom’s power.”

Endeavor scoffed. “Even if that works for you now, in high school, you’ll reach your limit, eventually, and–”

The buzzer in the room that signaled the time for competitors to go out to the stage. Shouto tore his gaze away from his father and shouldered past him, uncaring of the singes he picked up on his PE uniform. It’d get worse damage before the end of the competition, especially if he had to fight that boy from 1-B who was always chasing after Midoriya.

But before he looked forward at that… there was this match.

“I understand your reasoning,” said Yaoyorozu, “but the force to break ice–”

“And that brings us to the end of our intermission and recreational games. Now, what you’ve all been waiting for! The third round!”

Izuku looked up at the announcer’s booth. He wondered again what Mr. Yagi and Mr. Aizawa had talked about, after he’d left. If they knew enough, together, to help Todoroki. If Mr. Yagi had noticed how Izuku had distracted him from any discussion of Kacchan.

“Our qualifying competitors are about to battle one another in an intense single-elimination tournament! Who will win? Who will lose? Who will exemplify the Plus Ultra spirit of UA? Those are the questions! The answers depend on the students and their spirit! And, of course, the rules! Midnight will explain!”

“Thanks, All Might!” said Midnight. There was a cheer from the crowd. “Today, our wonderful first-years will be fighting one another in a series of one-on-one battles on a simple stage!” She gestured behind herself at the raised platform and the marked off rectangle on it. “The rules are simple. Victory is achieved when your opponent is unable to move, your opponent says ‘I give up,’ or by ‘ringing out’ your opponent! We have Recovery Girl on standby, so wounding is allowed– But no murder or maiming! Remember, you’re hero students, after all. The wonderful Cementoss is here to stop anything like that, and to keep the action from spilling over into the audience.” She waved at Cementoss, who looked very grim in his thronelike chair. “Which leaves just one more question– Are– You– READY?!”

The crowd cheered and Midnight motioned for Jiro and Todoroki to come forward and step into the ring and position themselves on the marked spots. Mr. Yagi and Mr. Aizawa gave them both an abbreviated introduction, consisting of their class and hero names. Jiro looked nervous. Todoroki looked… furious. Had Izuku’s conversation with him affected him that much?

“BATTLE START!”

Jiro charged forward immediately, ear-jacks oriented forward, ready to strike. Todoroki… shifted.

The appearance of the glacier was as abrupt as it was inevitable. It covered half the field, starting just a few paces in front of Jiro and ending well outside of the limits of the rectangular ring.

“Woah!” said Kaminari. “That’s– That’s way overkill, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” said Izuku. That… That couldn’t be healthy for Todoroki, either. Quirks had physical limits, and Todoroki was… shivering…?

Izuku had mostly been focused on the quirk marriage part of his conversation with Todoroki, because that was the most alarming part. But what else had he said?

I’ll win without using that bastard’s quirk…

That couldn’t be good.

On the stage, Jiro slammed her ear-jacks into the ice coating her shoulders. Without the amps attached to her costume, the sound of her heartbeat couldn’t be heard over the distance and the crowd, but the ice holding her arms immobile shattered, and she started tearing at the rest of the ice covering her body.

Todoroki threw another, smaller layer of ice at her. Jiro tried to break it again, but apparently, either the ice was stronger this time, or the cold had sapped too much of her strength. She said something to a shivering Midnight, and the hero raised a flag signalling Todoroki’s victory.

“Another point to your analysis, then, Midoriya,” said Yaoyorozu, sounding just the slightest bit miffed.

“Oh, no, I think you had more right than I did,” protested Izuku. “I thought she’d be able to get all the way out, at least once.”

“Even so,” said Yaoyorozu. She sighed. “Who do you think will win the next match?”

“Between Iida and Hatsume?” asked Izuku, watching Cementoss clearing off the remainder of the ice after Jiro was freed. “Uhm. Iida. I don’t think Hatsume is really interested in winning. Or fighting… that.”

“Yeah,” agreed Uraraka, “she’s really more concerned with advertising. When she left after the race, she said something about trying to find Iida before the match, for an ‘advertising deal,’ but I don’t know if she found him.”

“She probably did,” said Monoma. “The arena isn’t that big, and her quirk is good for that sort of thing. I tested it.”

“Sure, but Iida wasn’t eating on-campus, kero.”

“That’s right,” said Shouji through one of his hands. “Ingenium picked him up. Something about wanting to show him a special cafe, known only to UA students?”

“Perhaps,” said Tokoyami, “he will share his dark secret with us upon his return.”

“That sounds like a great idea!” said Hagakure. “We can all hang out there together! We’re all UA students, too, after all!”

“For our next match, we have Brigid, the Support Course member whose inventions rocketed her team to first in the second round, and Celerity, whose speed carried his team to a respectable third place finish! Brigid and Celerity, please come take your places on the stage!”

Izuku frowned and leaned forward, trying to see into the tunnels that led up into the arena. There was Hatsume, decked out in her equipment, but he didn’t see Iida.

He was getting a bad feeling about this.

“So am I,” said Nana. “Hikage… Didn't you say your quirk would go off if someone close to Ninth was targeted, too?”

“Yes,” said Hikage.

“Then why-?” started Banjo.

“It did. That reaction was too strong to just be caused by Bakugo.”

“But that means…” said En.

“That whatever happened, it's already over.”

“Maybe he lost track of time with his brother?” suggested Uraraka.

“No offense to my brother, or to Ingenium,” said Ojiro, “but this is the UA Sports Festival. There’s no way.”

“Celerity, please come to the stage.” There was a tapping sound, as if Mr. Yagi was trying to test his microphone. “Hero Student Celerity, please come to your stage for your match.”

“Celerity,” said Mr. Aizawa, sharply. “Come to the stage within the next five minutes or forfeit your match.”

The next five minutes were some of the most excruciating Izuku had ever experienced, and that included the time Kacchan and the others at Aldera had– well, it wasn’t relevant. As painful as the minutes were, they passed.

Iida never arrived.

Works inspired by this one:

seeping through by ashenice
Danger Close by vitiatenitrate

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charizard91 on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:39PM UTC

I really like this already. Good job!

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XavierIII on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:43PM UTC

This made me giggle on it own, and has a ton of interesting ideas to think about. Thank you so much for writing!

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Othalla on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:54PM UTC

!!!!!! I AM EXCITE

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RedRock12 on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:55PM UTC

This seems like a much better plan.

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ObsessiveOddball on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:57PM UTC

Oh my goodness, this is a really fun concept and I love how eager Banjo was to give Izuku Blackwhip to wreak havoc with. Also Izuku somehow still managing to break bones even without the bone powdering quirk is lovely and very very Izuku. I’m excited to see how this story proceeds, especially with regards to the USJ and Izuku eventually realizing that he’s got a quirk now and it isn’t just hyperactive anxiety. Or maybe Izuku just won’t realize he’s got a quirk now and worry that he isn’t good enough for One For All to work properly, RIP.
Oh man, I wonder how the mall meeting with Shigeraki would go down when Izuku has this quirk. Shiggy expects to sneak up, but NOPE, Izuku practically jumps out of his skin upon entering the mall.

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Ilovebhna (Guest) on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:02PM UTC

I absolutely love this fic💗💗💗💗💗

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Lady_of_Moon_Over_Silver_Seas on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:05PM UTC

I'm very concerned about Yoichi's level of amusement/engagement

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dannythebookwyrm on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:11PM UTC

This looks interesting. Super anxiety to the rescue!

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SagaDuWyrm on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:55PM UTC

God, I love the way you write the vestiges.

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EnergeticEccentricism on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 12:00AM UTC

Aahhh Mars you've done it again. This is fantastic and hilarious and I'm looking forward to the rest. First you are not subtle lol

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SimplyKaren on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 12:32AM UTC

The real question is if they'll even realize that Izuku has Danger Sense. xD Maybe once the first day happens and Aizawa uses Erasure, Izuku will notice the sudden dropoff in anxiety? Hm...

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MunAmuser on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:21AM UTC

I’d find it amusing if Izuku and All Might don’t figure out that Izuku has a Quirk that ain’t the stock pilling quirk.

Last Edited Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:21AM UTC

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PyroKuro on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:26AM UTC

Congrats guys you gave izuku Super Anxiety
Man izukus gonna be at the ball throw and get his quirk erased and be like “huh, why do I feel so much better?”

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BloomingMiracle (Luna264) on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:27AM UTC

oh the vibes....... now izuku can sense the vibes..................

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LunarCatNinja on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 03:47AM UTC

This story is already making me want to cackle in glee. I love it and the changes!

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Jade (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 04:35AM UTC

Oh god. XD The first three knowing exactly who Izuku is but not outright telling anyone.
I have my own headcanons as to why Toshi had no problem using OFA but I'm curious as to how you are going to explain it, now that you mentioned it.
Izuku failing to keep his bones intact without the overloaded quirk, against the best effort of the vestiges.
Toshi bribing Izuku's way in is going to be a running gag and I'm here for it.
Izuku got the highest score? Congrats!
Good luck with dealing with Sparky Sparky Boom boy and the sports festival speech.

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the_crownless_queen on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 05:55AM UTC

😂 😂 😂 😂 Omg this is amazing! The ghosts shenanigans I can't they're hilarious, but just poor izuku, getting super anxiety first Pffft I can't 😂
I wonder how long it's gonna take him to realize that 😂
(also I can't believe he still broke/sprained something 😂)

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llewellyne on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 08:32AM UTC

I read this prompt on Tumblr and man, I was so excited when I saw an email and recognizing the prompt! After I've read it I'm even more excited! Aaaaaaah!!!
[The boy blinked once, with faint surprise, then launched into a lecture about not distracting others.
Some distraction.]
~lol, Iida, you're being the distracting one now :')
I absolutely love the conversations of the vestiges. Their bickering is hilarious to read!
Also, First laughing because he knows is quite funny. Poor bamboozled Vestiges who don't know

Last Edited Thu 08 Jul 2021 08:34AM UTC

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neokid93 on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 10:38AM UTC

This sparks joy.

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MRU911 on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 10:56AM UTC

Hehehehe yes great wonderful chapter

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Danger First

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charizard91 on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:39PM UTC

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RedRock12 on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 10:55PM UTC

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Ilovebhna (Guest) on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:02PM UTC

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Lady_of_Moon_Over_Silver_Seas on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:05PM UTC

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dannythebookwyrm on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:11PM UTC

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SagaDuWyrm on Chapter 1 Wed 07 Jul 2021 11:55PM UTC

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EnergeticEccentricism on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 12:00AM UTC

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SimplyKaren on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 12:32AM UTC

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MunAmuser on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:21AM UTC

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PyroKuro on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:26AM UTC

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BloomingMiracle (Luna264) on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 01:27AM UTC

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Jade (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 08 Jul 2021 04:35AM UTC