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“Don’t talk to him,” a girl whispered to her friend, “I heard that if you answer a question he can brainwash you to do anything he wants.”
Izuku leveled a glare at the paving stones under his shoes as Shinsou slumped beside him.
“They’re always like this?” Izuku asked, semi-rhetorically. He already knew the answer.
Shinsou nodded, and Izuku bumped up against his shoulder in a way he hoped was reassuring.
The two girls who’d been walking ahead of them stopped abruptly, and both Izuku and Shinsou were forced to pull up short. Shinsou wasn’t quite fast enough to stop himself in time and bumped into one of the girls, sending her toppling to the ground.
“Oh, I’m sorry, are you okay?”
The girl looked up at him with terrified wide eyes and pressed her lips together.
Izuku grimaced in sympathy with Shinsou. And then, he got an idea .
He forced a laugh, a practiced enough sound that it comes out natural. Offering out his hand, he helped the girl to her feet and delivered his line.
“I overheard you earlier. His quirk isn’t really activated by questions, you know. It’s eye contact!”
The girl still looked a little terrified, but nodded bewilderedly and stumbled away with her friend.
Izuku turned to see Shinsou staring at him.
“But it is vocal activation? I told the whole class this morning, you were there,” Shinsou said, clearly confused.
Izuku smiled, an expression that would look reassuring if you weren’t used to reading undertones.
“Maybe it is vocal activation, but it’s not like anyone needs to know that,” he sharpened his grin a bit more, “Why shouldn’t she believe it’s based on eye contact?”
–
Izuku was proud of himself for making an actual friend for once. Sure, neither of them were really normal, and they were both still social outcasts in class 1-C, but that only added to their connection with each other.
One of the things Izuku had been doing was studying Shinsou’s quirk. He knew the other boy had been uncomfortable with it at first, but Izuku couldn’t help it! It seemed the more he learned the more fascinating the other boy’s quirk became.
Shinsou’s quirk was called Brainwashing, but it strayed pretty far from the traditional meaning of the word. On the most base level, it was a kind of enforced hypnosis, compelling anyone under Shinsou’s control to do as he said. But there were questions to build on top of that, especially because no one had studied Shinsou’s quirk since he’d gotten it in preschool.
The contradictory name was something Izuku wanted to look into.
“By all rights, your quirk shouldn’t be called Brainwashing,” Izuku told him one day. They were sitting on one of the small benches on UA’s campus, enjoying the relative peace from outside discrimination that their uniforms and ID cards granted them. “From what you’ve told me, it’s more like hypnosis.”
Shinsou nodded, having learned over the course of the week that the other probably had more to say.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing your original quirk counselor must have had an identification type quirk. It’s more common for ‘dangerous’ quirks, since they generally try to avoid demonstrations.”
Izuku caught Shinsou’s nod again in confirmation and continued on.
“From that we can reasonably conclude that there’s more to your quirk that you simply haven’t been able to put to use. I was thinking we could test out more traditional effects of brainwashing to see if your quirk can affect someone even after you drop your control.”
Shinsou blinks at him, his response coming off a little lethargic in contrast to Izuku’s energy.
“Test it? How exactly would we do that?” Shinsou asks.
Izuku doesn’t hesitate to answer, which he knows throws the other boy for a loop each time.
“On me!” He exclaims, “How about this, I’ll come up with a list of traditional hypnosis versus brainwashing methods and results, and we’ll test them tomorrow. I think the best thing to try is forgetfulness and beliefs,” he dissolved into mumbling then, “ both can traditionally be brainwashed into changing, but are also associated with hypnosis. Perhaps the difference is their longevity? After all, hypnosis is often used in a performance setting. Although there’s also therapy based on it. So perhaps some research on that? And also brainwashing methods. My search history is going to be fu…”
–
Gym class for the general course may not have had the same intensity as hero physical training, but Izuku took them very seriously anyway. After all, his second chance would come at the sports festival, and there was almost always some sort of race.
They were also a decent time for Shinsou to practice his quirk. The fact that it was UA meant the gyms were technically legal for quirk usage, even if it technically wasn’t a rule made for them. On top of this technical legality, the two also benefitted from the semi-negligence the general course students were afforded most of the time. They simply weren’t as important, but for Izuku and Shinsou, it meant that if Izuku asked Shinsou to direct him through an obstacle course while under Brainwashing to find out if the execution skill better reflected his own or the Brainwasher’s… well, it’s not like anyone was looking closely enough to notice.
Izuku was honestly a little surprised that the other boy had humored so many of his frantically brainstormed trials.
They couldn’t go unnoticed every day, though. It was UA after all. And while the bar wasn’t high, they were better than the boys'middle schools had been.
“Shinsou!” Their teacher’s voice filtered in through the fog Izuku’s brain was becoming increasingly used to coexisting with.
Izuku felt his body balance, and then his control return.
“You should join your classmates. This is gym class, after all, you should get some exercise.”
Izuku climbed and flipped his way through the obstacle course backwards, making his way back to his friend.
Shinsou’s face was dripping with sweat, and he panted ever so slightly with the effort it had taken out of him to control Izuku’s actions for so long without specific commands.
“They’re playing a game of tag,” the teacher continued as Izuku drew up alongside the boy.
“As though they’d want me to join them,” Shinsou said with a practiced scoff of nonchalance.
Izuku took the situation as an opportunity.
“Our classmates are scared of his quirk, sensei,” technically not a lie , “I’m sure you remember the activation requirements? It’s touch activated, so of course they’d avoid a game of tag.”
Izuku smiled brightly, his confidence making his teacher waver.
“Oh, I thought your quirk was—?” Their teacher cut himself off as Izuku and Shinsou started giving him confused looks.
He shook his head.
“I guess if it’s quirk-related, you’re excused from class activities then, Shinsou.”
Their teacher turned to walk away, and Shinsou grimaced.
“He didn’t even mention you.”
“I know,” Izuku laughed, a chiming broken sound, “It doesn’t matter what I do.”
They stared after their teacher for a couple of seconds, before Shinsou held out a hand between them.
“Are you ready to run the course again?” he asked.
Izuku reached out to grasp his hand; it’s a touch-based quirk after all!
“Yep!”
–
“I want to test what constitutes a verbal response,” Izuku said.
The two boys were laid out on the sand of a playground near Izuku’s house.
“Okay,” Shinsou agreed easily, and Izuku pulled out his list, about thirty types of responses he could think of that relied on different things. Some were dismissive, others based on humor, some full words. The use of vowel versus consonant sounds…
Izuku held his notebook up above his face, blocking some of the sun so he could read.
“Ask away!”
…
“Tch,” Izuku answered, a phrase he desperately wanted to work. When no feeling of fogginess ensued, he marked the twentieth answer option with an X.
“Another point for vocal cords,” he noted, “Next.”
“Will you call me Hitoshi?” Shinsou asked. It was said in the same cadence as all his other questions had been, so Izuku let out a whistle in response before he realized what had been said.
“Ah! Oh, sorry, yes!” Izuku sat up abruptly, arms flailing.
Shins- Hitoshi laughed, not in a mean way, but with genuine humor that had Izuku smiling with him in seconds. Izuku felt the other boy pull him back down by the arm.
He settled back onto the grass.
“Hitoshi,” he tested out, and felt his smile grow, “Call me Izuku then, please!”
–
“Look, kid, that’s really not going to work on me. I know what Shinsou’s quirk is. He’s trained with me. I’m not going to fall for your mind games,” Aizawa, the underground pro-hero Eraserhead and 1-A teacher, said.
“They’re not mind games though!” Izuku lied earnestly, “It really does work that way! Hitoshi’s quirk can only be activated when he knows a persons exact location. The verbal response is just helpful because it supplements his visual depth perception!”
Aizawa gave him a skeptical but faltering stare.
“Honest!”