Loaded God Complex

by Ehentalix

Summary:

The Age of Gods is long past, an era of Quirks with power beyond human comprehension. But not every Quirk of years gone by has faded from the gene pool, diluted into a thousand more.

In this modern era, remnants of the Quirks that once elevated their wielders to Divine positions are cropping up again, and atop them all sit a matched pair in a balanced dance of mutual destruction.

The child who comes into possession of one such Quirk slowly comes to understand it, and with it understand themselves.

And maybe develop a bit of a complex about it.

Notes:

This fic is tagged Trans Female Midoriya Izuku despite starting off with Midoriya still identifying as male. This is on purpose, so that people who want to see that sort of story as it plays out can find it while it's still in the early stages.

Chapter 1

“Can even a Quirkless person become a Hero some day?!”

The muscle-bound giant standing before Midoriya Izuku is stock still, not even seeming to breathe as he thinks the question over. Or at least, that’s what Izuku hopes he’s doing. Meeting the legendary Pro Hero, the Symbol of Peace that is All Might, let alone being personally saved by him, wasn’t something the greenet had been planning on happening today, but asking this question is something he’s been planning for the last decade of his young life - ever since he’d found out he was Quirkless. So he really, really hopes that the living myth he’s finally come face-to-face with is actually taking the time to think of his answer.

And so he gets the second major shock of the day when he gets it.

“Could someone without a Quirk become a Hero? That is a difficult question to answer.” All Might sighs, shaking his head. “I will not say it is impossible, for nothing in this world really is - I know that better than most - but I will say it is not advisable. Heroics is a vast, dangerous, and unforgiving field, and that is without the additional discrimination you would face for being Quirkless. Much as it pains me to say it, at this point in my life I am loath to encourage anyone to become a Pro Hero. You should, I think, consider a different line of work - after all, one does not need to be a Hero to be heroic.”

That’s… That’s…

“All Might. Is something wrong?”

“Why, whatever could make you ask such a thing, young man?!” Oh no. There’s nervousness in his voice. In All Might’s voice. “I’ve given you my honest and truest answer, after all!”

“You have, but.” Izuku shudders, looking up at his idol with tears in his eyes. “But what you said is just so unlike you that it made me wonder. Not that I think you were lying or anything! And I don’t mean to question you of course you are the All Might, the Symbol of Peace, number one Hero in all of Japan and a global legend and all that but for someone of your standing to just come right out and say you don’t recommend that anyone at all join you in the ranks of being a Pro Hero not even just because I’m Quirkless but like as a general thing is just so far out of left field that it made me worry and I know I don’t really have the right to question you but you know there is so so so very much adrenaline in my system right now between being saved fromthatvillainandthentheflightupherethatIcan’treallyhelpmyself and OH HOLY SHIT!”

Izuku isn’t normally one to swear, but watching the greatest Hero since the Age of Gods deflate into a funhouse caricature in a puff of smoke and splattering of blood seems like a great reason to pick up the habit. Quickly stringing events together, he wipes the tears from his eyes and waits patiently for All Might to explain what’s going on.

“Well. Fuck. I was hoping you would not have to see me like this, young man, but I suppose an explanation is in order. You will, of course, keep everything you see and hear strictly confidential.” He waits for Izuku to nod, then lifts his shirt, showing a horrendous puckered scar. “As you can see, I sustained a rather grievous injury in a fight against a high-class villain. I won’t divulge all the details, but it was a fierce fight, one I was lucky to walk away from with my life. But I did not walk away with my stomach, or large portions of my lungs. It has taken a collection of intensive surgeries to stitch me back together, enough that I can still act as the Symbol of Peace for the time being, but I am limited to a mere handful of hours per day of my inflated form, and that time grows ever shorter. Soon enough I will be forced to retire completely.”

Stunned, the young greenet can only muster a singular, sharp, scathing response: “Bullshit!”

“I. Beg your pardon?” All Might is clearly taken aback, letting Izuku step forward with his fists clenched and finish formulating his thoughts.

“You got hurt? So what! Heroes get hurt every day, or even die! You’re going to use that as an excuse to say that you don’t want anyone following in your footsteps? That’s bullshit! This is the time to encourage more Heroes, not less! If you’ll be gone, the world is going to need a new Symbol of Peace, and then another after that, and more after that! Why the fuck would you want to keep the new generation of future Pros from ever becoming Heroes at all?!” He knows he’s shouting by the end of it, and there’s a tiny voice in the back of his mind losing its shit that he’s yelling at All Might, but he presses it down along with his anxiety and glares at the man he thinks of as the most important inspiration in his life.

All Might, for his part, regains his cool and lets out the kind of heavy sigh that only someone with decades of heroics and all the pain that goes along with it can muster. “The world will have to learn to cope without its Symbol of Peace. I will do my best to uphold the mantle while I can, but I have no intention of passing it on once I am at the end of my career. Sorry kid, but you’re going to need to find a new dream to strive for; reality is what it is.”

Izuku watches as his personal hero, the man who only this morning stood on the highest possible pedestal, steps down from his lofty perch and walks out the door from the roof down to the ground. As that door shuts, Izuku swears a new vow to himself: he will not only make his dream a reality, he will wake All Might from the nightmare that seems to have consumed him after his injury. And as an explosion rings out in the distance, that resolve settles itself on the young boy’s shoulders as he follows in All Might’s footsteps in a far more literal sense, moving from the roof to the street to hopefully find the train back to his house still running.

It’s going to be a long day.

Notes:

Here we go, the main fic begins!! Loaded God Complex is my first non-Homestuck series in around five or so years, and I am very excited to dive back into other fandoms.

Chapter 2

Summary:

In which Yagi Toshinori should have put a lot more time into learning to negotiate.

Notes:

If you haven't already read the prelude, Number One With a Bullet, go read that now because it's only going to be more and more relevant as the fic progresses!!

It was not, in fact, a long day at all. Even considering everything that happened, the day was rather short. Because once again, Midoriya Izuku finds All Might in front of him, albeit not face to face this time. The man is in dogeza, face pressed to the asphalt that makes up the road outside the entrance to his home. It’s... A little sad, actually. After that second run-in with the sludge villain, trying to save Kacchan, and getting chewed out by a bunch of Pros, he had hoped to return home to rest and recuperate before making a brand-new notebook to hold all his plans to surpass his own limitations and join the ranks of the Pro Heros, even without a Quirk, and even in the face of All Might’s misanthropic statements. Instead, he was being offered the opportunity of a lifetime, to become the next holder of All Might’s Quirk (a Quirk that can be passed down from one user to the next! Oh man, it’s a good thing he can’t tell the Collective because they’d never believe it!), and take a step towards his dream.

“All Might-”

“Please, young Midoriya! Call me Yagi!”

“Oh.” Mere hours ago, he would have been over the moon having permission to use his idol’s name, but now it just rings hollow. “Yagi-san. You haven't really changed your mind, have you? You still believe that being a Pro Hero is a fool’s errand, but that I’m fool enough to do it with or without your help.”

A pause instead of an immediate denial, even a fake one. That gives Izuku an answer, even before Yagi gives his. “I apologize, young Midoriya. I should have known you would see right through me. You are not entirely wrong, nor are you entirely right. I meant what I said about you having the spirit of a true hero, that you inspired me to truly take on a successor. Until today, I had fully intended to allow my Quirk to burn out, to merely go through the motions of looking for a new bearer; and it wasn’t speaking to you that changed my mind - it never would have. A speech full of pretty words is meaningless in the face of inaction; an unwillingness to back those words with actions, like I see in so many of those who would call themselves my colleagues, is sickening.”

Yagi sits up, hands on his knees, and sighs. “But you, my boy, showed that you will forge ahead regardless of the obstacles in your path, and that leads me to make you this offer. I would be true scum to allow you to pursue Professional Heroics as you are today. I believe that with my Quirk, you will be able to make your dream come true, even if I still think that dream is one that drifts farther and farther from sanity every day. I can at least do my part to keep you alive.”

Disheartened, depressed, but resolute, Izuku finally nods. “I will take your Quirk, Yagi-san,” he holds up a hand as the wisp of a man opens his mouth, “but not because I think I need it. I will take your Quirk because I want to prove to you that it’s still worth being a Hero. I already vowed to myself, on that rooftop, that I will devote my whole life to opening your eyes again - I think you closed them when you went under for that first surgery after you got hurt, and tricked yourself into thinking they were open ever since. And now I will make that vow to you: Yagi Toshinori, All Might, Symbol of Peace and saviour of the world, I will become your successor. You were right about one thing, that the world doesn’t need a new Symbol of Peace, but you were wrong that it needed to move on completely. So instead, I’m going to strive to be something new. I’m going to give you back your hope, and when the day comes that you step down for good, I’m going to give that to the rest of the world too.”

Expecting some sort of pushback, Izuku is surprised when Yagi laughs. It’s a wretched, hacking, wheezing thing, one turns into spitting up blood and grumbling curses, but it’s a far more genuine laugh than any shows he puts on for the camera. “What conviction, my boy! What cheek! I will admit, I did not take you for the type to have, as the Americans say, the balls of steel it would take to say such a thing to me. But.” He stands, shivering and wiping his mouth, “that is precisely the sort of attitude that makes me wonder if you really will surprise me, get me to change my stance. It will not be simple, though, young Midoriya. You have the soul to inherit One for All, but your body is lacking.

“If you are amenable, I have a training regime I can help you through, one made to take you to the brink of collapse each and every waking moment, that will fast-track you to being ready to accept my Quirk in just ten months, right in time for the entrance exam to U.A.! What do you say, kid?”

It’s an offer he knows he’ll never get again, one that will finally, finally give him that edge he knows he needs to make it all the way to U.A. High School’s Heroics course, yet still Izuku hesitates. Yagi Toshinori is a lot different from the All Might he thought he knew, and he’s not entirely sure if allowing this man, this stranger, to dictate his life for the next ten months is the best idea. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything, and I’m not saying no, but can I impose some conditions of my own?”

“Conditions? Well, I’ll need to rework the plan, but yes I suppose that wouldn’t be too much trouble. I have a good bit of down time these days, after all.”

Good; being willing to adapt is a fantastic step in the direction of earning Izuku’s trust. “Thank you, Yagi-san. My conditions aren’t strenuous. First and foremost, we need to tell my mother. Not everything, but at least some things; she has an anxiety disorder, and if I start making major changes in my schedule without letting her know she’s likely to worry herself sick. Second, my schedule right now involves doing informal patrols around Musutafu and helping people out where and when they need it - nothing that meets the standards of vigilantism! Not that it would anyways because I’m Quirkless and legally anything to do with vigilante work requires unauthorized usage of a Quirk but still I’m not really getting into fights or anythinglikethatjustsomebasicthings!” He snaps himself out of his muttering and takes a few deep breaths.

“I need you to find someone willing to step up and take an extra nighttime route, a Pro Hero who can cover me while we train. Someone low-key like Takeshita maybe. Knowing that you’re in the area will stop a lot of villain problems, but interpersonal stuff and petty crime, stuff that doesn’t take place in broad daylight? Not so much. Third, I really don’t want to get jacked. I want to focus on muscle strength, not definition. I know there’s specialized dietary supplements that can help me maintain the body type I prefer - sorry if that sounds weird, it’s just something that bugs me; the idea that people will think I’m copying you rather than training with you. And finally…” This one is the big ask.

“Finally, I want you to fund my charity program. I’m not going to be able to do my work for ten months - no, it doesn’t violate labour laws, yes I will discuss what it is but later - so I need to offset that somehow. Even cheap prepaid phones are kind of expensive, and with the new hospitality tax increase hotels and hostels have gone up a little bit too.

“If you’re able to agree to those, then I will go through with your plan. If not, then I’m afraid that even if it would make me ineligible to take your Quirk after all, I will have to respectfully decline; it’s just too important to me that the people I help every day are taken care of, and that includes myself and my mom.”

The look on Yagi’s face is one of mild surprise and calm calculation, which is a good sign in Izuku’s eyes. He knows he’s asking for a lot, but the reality is that he needs each and every thing - even just one being left out would cause way too much trouble in his very busy life, especially the charity program. Helping people who are down on their luck, usually kids, connect with support is something he’s been doing for the last four years, much to his mother’s consternation. Still, it’s been worth every trial and tribulation, even for those few he’s helped who have disappeared overnight without making that phone call. His mind wanders back to the strangest of them all - that girl with the hemovore-type Quirk, Toga Himiko; he’d been so sure of her! But not everyone wants the kind of help that Izuku offers, and that’s okay, if a little bit sad. Especially when it’s her. He really hopes she’s doing okay, wherever she ended up.

“You drive a hard bargain, young Midoriya my lad!” Yagi’s voice snaps him out of his memory with a bit of a jump. “Your cheekiness just gets more and more obvious! Very well, I will accept each and every one of your terms. Get ready, kid, because once we settle things with your mother and go to the bank, your ten months of absolute hell will begin!”

Izuku’s smile is bright, strong, and sharp. It catches Yagi off guard, so similar is it to a smile he’s seen before, on the great David Shield. “I’m more than ready for it, Yagi-san. My whole life I’ve been going through hell, so why stop now? I’ll cross the other side into Purgatory and go beyond! Plus Ultra!”

Plus Ultra indeed.

Chapter 3

Summary:

Midoriya Inko is going to need something a lot stronger than tea after this.

Notes:

If you haven't read the prelude, Number One With a Bullet, take the time to do so now!! It's important!!

Sitting in his living room with Yagi Toshinori is liable to give Izuku a heart attack he swears. He may be just a touch disillusioned with the Pro Hero, but now that things have calmed down a bit from the shock of actually talking to the man and being offered his Quirk, more than a decade of being his number two fanboy (he knows he doesn’t hold a candle to the legendary king of the hero forums FutureDiary, but second place against the oldest fan not named David Shield is something okay?) comes roaring back to clobber him over the head with the fact that this is All Might and he is currently sitting in your kitchen drinking your Mighty Afternoon Tea please don’t let him recognize the brand that would be so embarrassing-

“This tea is delightful my boy; I’m glad I took that sponsorship opportunity with the company! Did you know that my own proceeds from the licensing deal go to the Tokyo branch of the SickKids hospital?”

Ah shit, of course he would. “I actually did! It was your first corporate sponsorship in two years at the time and I remember reading the interview where you mentioned turning down the offer to name one of the new hospital wings after yourself which was super humble and also really cool to do!” Izuku says this with full confidence, as if it’s a meaningful statement at all — as if he’s talking to his fellow Hero otakus — and realizes far too late how completely insane it sounds to boast to Yagi about his own accomplishments. Nothing for it except to sip his own tea and wish it was deep enough to drown in.

The ticking of their analogue wall clock rings through the apartment in a steady, dull thud as the two occupants sit in awkward silence, wordlessly agreeing that further conversation would be so much more awkward. On the bright side, Izuku has no reason to let Yagi into his own room, thereby avoiding the absolute mortification that would come along with his seeing the massive collection of All Might merchandise on display. Especially his limited edition Summer Calendar Collection featuring photos of the man in a very muscular rendition of Midnight’s hero outfit that had been taken as part of a shockingly raunchy charity benefit.

No, Yagi will be staying very, very far away from the knowledge of exactly what kind of fan Izuku is, thank you very much.

The silence is interrupted by a comically loud slurping sound as Yagi takes another sip of tea from a teacup that looks like a child’s toy in the massive hands of his inflated form, then ever so delicately places it back down on the saucer. Not before, however, Izuku spots the Toyroyal logo on the bottom and realizes that the cup in question actually was a child’s toy - specifically, the one from his fourth birthday party. Well, it’s marginally less mortifying to have accidentally served tea in a toy cup than to have his collection seen, so there’s that. At least it was a heat-resistant plastic; the idea of having the cup melt through and spill tea all over his idol was enough to make Izuku light-headed, and he takes the emptying of his own teacup to excuse himself to the kitchen and calm down.

It’s a modestly appointed kitchen, as is most of the apartment as a whole, though not cheap or chintzy by any means, nor - contrary to popular belief online - stocked entirely with Pro Hero merch. Yes, the dishwasher is one that had been personally endorsed by Wash, and the oven by Blazin’, and maybe the dish towels were Present Mic’s favourite, but being sponsored by Pro Heros does not make them merch! Izuku always takes the moderate stance that in order to be considered merchandise, the item in question has to heavily feature at least the colour scheme of a given Pro, unless directly sold by their own firm (like in the case of the nail trimmers in the bathroom, purchased from the Wild Wild Pussycats’ website). Plus, Izuku only ever recommends purchases to his mom if he knows that the endorsement comes from someone meaningful, rather than a low-charter looking to make a few extra bucks by shilling repackaged Don Quijote junk. Not that he has any problem with Don Quijote itself — he shops there all the time — just the practice of framing it as anything but what it is; bargain bin goods.

Filling the kettle with more water and splashing a little on his face to cool off, Izuku braces himself against the counter and lets out a long, quiet sigh. It’ll be tough to make all the changes coming in his life, but change has to happen if he’s to have any chance at actually becoming a Pro. Washing out of the entrance exams for UA was always a likelihood, not just a possibility, and he had resigned himself to the idea of being pushed into General Studies until he was able to prove himself — but now, given the opportunity to not only succeed in the exams, but excel? He has to double or even triple down on his commitment. Besides, it’s not like it’ll be forever - ten months, ace the exams, get in, and he can go back to work after school every day, just like always.

After drying his face on a towel, he pours fresh tea into his own cup — as well as a larger one for Yagi (this one being an actual teacup and not a kids toy, he double checked) — and brings them into the living room, only to find that the man has already deflated into his scrawnier form. Well, so much for that idea. Still, he nods in return to the murmured thanks, sits, and sips. Before he can relax, a new sound rings out — keys jingling in the lock and the door swinging slowly open. He turns with a smile, setting his tea down and rushing over to help the rather tired-looking greenette that is his mother with the bags of groceries and sundries she had picked up on the way home. For her part, Inko Midoriya takes the appearance of a complete stranger in her home in easy stride, offering a small smile and a bow as she enters the sitting room, collects the empty cup and saucer from the table, and bustles off to the kitchen without a word, returning moments later with small tray of snacks she lays out before disappearing again, this time down the hall.

Yagi raises an eyebrow, to which Izuku can only respond with a small laugh. “Sorry, she’ll be back in a moment.”

Sure enough, the woman reappears not long after, pausing to kiss the top of her son’s curls before settling into the armchair next to him, smiling beatifically across the table and looking much fresher. “Hello, you must be one of Izuku’s friends. I’m Midoriya Inko, his mother. He texted me earlier to say that someone would be stopping by; I suppose you’re in need of some help?”

“Does, ah,” Yagi stammers out, appearing rather flustered, “does your son bring home many strangers in need of help, then?”

Inko nods, tittering softly. “Well, more often than not he’s able to help people while he’s out and about, but every so often he brings someone by the apartment - I think he gets nervous that they’ll take off on him, like that poor Toga girl. I raised such a wonderful child, always helping others! Though sometimes I do wish he would do it at a bit less of his own expense. No, Izuku, don’t give me that look, you know I’m right.”

Yagi dabs delicately at his lips with a black handkerchief, hiding a dribble of blood behind a bit of tea, and smiles broadly. “Well, he is certainly something special! However, in this case it’s actually myself who is here to offer assistance, my good woman. In particular, I aim to help your boy with his dreams of becoming a Pro Hero. For behold! I am here!”

With the booming sound of his catchphrase, the man reinflates to the massive proportions of All Might, drawing a startled yelp from Inko. “Apologies; there’s really no good way to warn people about that! Miss Midoriya, I assume you have the good sense to keep what you see and hear this evening to yourself, so allow me to explain! I have been looking for a successor to my legacy as the Symbol of Peace, searching long and hard for someone who could inspire not only others, but myself as well, with the spirit of a true hero worthy of taking up the mantle! And today, I saw that spirit in your son; he rushed into certain danger to help the victim of a villain attack as several professionals stood by and watched, even knowing that without a Quirk, there was little he could do except to buy time! But buy time he did, at great personal peril, and I believe that it was by his actions alone I was able to effectuate the rescue of that other boy!

“And so it was by these merits I judged your son worthy of the offer to train under me in preparation to join UA High School’s Heroics track, and not only has he accepted, but he has humbly requested that in return, I aid him in his endeavours to help the less fortunate, a request I will gladly grant as it proves even further that he is worthy of the title of All Might’s personal apprentice! So, I come before you today to make a humble request of my own: please, allow me to teach your son!”

All Might’s seated bow is deep enough to knock his head against the table, flipping one end up and sending the tray of snacks and teacups flying. Without looking up, Yagi’s arm shoots out, and he grabs the tray mid-air at a blinding Quirk-enhanced speed, setting it, the snacks, the saucers, and the unspilled teacups back down gently. “My apologies for that! If anything has been broken, I shall of course pay to have it replaced or repaired!”

The ticking of the clock is once again the only sound in the room as Inko picks a small stick of dango from the tray and nibbles at it nervously. Izuku leans over and lays a gentle hand on her arm, giving her an encouraging smile, and she nods back in return. “I have one condition of my own. I want you to make me a promise: keep my boy safe. Professional Heroics is a dangerous job, I know, and it worries me; I want my son to be happy, but I need to think of my own happiness too, and I can’t be happy unless I know that the boy I put my whole life into raising all on my own is safe. So if you can promise me that, then yes, I will give you my blessing.”

“Miss Midoriya, I will do everything in my power to keep your boy as safe as possible. Being a Pro Hero may be a dangerous job, but there are at least three years of school after my training program where he will merely be a Heroics student, and that comes with far less risk. But even when he graduates, I plan to have young Izuku inherit Might Tower, my personal agency, and all the security and support that comes with it. As well, I will be teaching at UA this year myself, so I will be around to guide him through his journey to becoming a Pro.”

Inko sets the skewer from her dango aside as she stands, brushes herself off, and sticks out her hand for Yagi to shake. “Then we have a deal. Please, look after my boy. I leave him in your capable hands as a teacher.”

Notes:

Chapter 4 is likely to take a good deal longer than these first three have, but I hope you all look forward to it!!

Chapter 4

Summary:

Work on Takoba Beach is slow going, and an old friend stops by to say hello.

Notes:

Read the prelude, Number One With a Bullet. You have been warned.

Three months into the New American Dream Plan, modified slightly to fit Izuku’s requests regarding a focus on muscle tone and strength rather than mass, the Takoba Municipal Beach Park still looks like a colossal shithole. Sure, there’s a large pocket of clear space and a pathway leading from the parking lot to the shore line now, but overall it remains a great big garbage dump. It’ll be a few months yet before it starts being properly usable by the public, but progress is progress as far as both Izuku and Toshinori are concerned. Grabbing a minifridge, Izuku tilts it onto its side, slides a homemade rope harness underneath it, and pulls it into his back, starting the long, arduous trek back to where Yagi-san’s truck is parked. Seriously, who the hell hauls a broken minifridge to a beach to toss it? What’s with like half the incredibly random crap here? The fishing equipment, old beach sports stuff, and random coolers all make sense, but Izuku is at least seventy-five percent sure there’s an animatronic gorilla about fifty feet down from the far edge of the pocket! And a whole-ass micro car!

What’s one hundred percent sure, however, is that this fridge is fully loaded, and that there’s a really pretty girl slowly approaching down the path, dressed in attire that’s super unsuited for the beach. That kimono is at least ninety thousand yen, probably stitched with real thread-of-gold, and her okobo are clearly tricky to walk on sand with. The parasol is a nice touch at least, and she’s not in her full oshiroi makeup which probably helps with the heat; she’d likely sweat it off anyways. Traipsing through the sand, the girl gives Izuku a small smile and a wave, and when he nods in return, she turns to walk slowly alongside him. Shironeko, as she goes by, with her low-grade mutation-type Nekomimi Quirk giving her fluffy white ears and a tail tucked tastefully into her obi to keep it off the ground, sighs in a wistful, teasing manner at him, mirth dancing in her eyes.

“So this is where you've been, Zuzuzu! Mama Nya is really put out with you, y’know? Half the girls have sworn off the streets ever since they heard you weren't going to be doing your rounds for a while, and the other half will only work in pairs.” Another dramatic sigh and a hand flung over the girl’s forehead in a fainting motion accompanies a bubble of laughter, and Izuku can’t help but grin in response, even if he does think the nickname she picked for him is a bit too silly. “Ten months, right? I don’t know if we can make it that long without you, Zuzuzu! Why, that’s almost half as long as we’ve known each other! But I have to say, I was happy to hear you’d be getting a real shot at UA with this new teacher of yours, and unlocking your Quirk like that.” She holds up a hand. “I know, I know, you were fine with thinking you were Quirkless, and I can admit it is a little sad that you’re losing that part of your identity, but being a Pro Hero has been your dream since you were a baby! So! We’re all rooting for you - even Tamahagane, that frigid cunt.”

That would be Shironeko’s ex and also co-worker; Izuku isn’t privy to the exact details of their most recent breakup, but he’d be willing to bet on them being back together again by the time he’s able to start patrolling again, were he a betting man. Not that it’s a bet any of the bookies in the Painted District were liable to take. Puffing air slowly, Izuku graces the girl with a warm grin, which she returns with an even brighter smile of her own, and as he trudges down the beach, she peels off with a wave.

“Right! I can see you’re busy, so I’ll go drop off that thing I owe you with Miss Inko. Wasn’t easy to get, believe you me, but you know I always come through. Buh-boodles~!”

Ah yes, buh-bye and toodles all mixed together, Shironeko’s favourite English slang. Chuckling quietly to himself, Izuku finally makes it all the way over to the truck and hauls the minifridge into the bed, crunching a bunch of other junk beneath it. As has become routine once a full load has been picked up, Toshinori tosses his protege a water bottle from the driver’s seat and instructs him to go sit and rest before puttering off to the actual municipal garbage dump. It’s about a twenty minute round trip, so Izuku has enough time for a solid break before the man comes back and he returns to cleaning, and it’s time he tends to spend in quiet contemplation when not making the trip himself. He flops down on the steps to the road and pours a little water over his head and the rest into his mouth, green locks drooping against his brow with sweat.

As it so often does these days, his mind turns to that night in the alleyway, the night he met the mysterious hemovore-type Quirk holder Toga Himiko. Though he only knew her briefly, their short time together left a lasting impact on him, and even now he’s completely unable to get her out of his head. From her messy buns to her striking eyes to her tragic story, everything about her captivates him - and he doesn’t miss that it’s a genuine first for such a fascinating Quirk to not be the thing that occupies his thoughts. More than anything, he wishes he could figure out what happened to her that night, and why she hadn’t called the next morning. He had been so sure that she would turn into a success story, absolutely certain based on their shared interest and his knowledge about her Quirk type, his reassurance that she wasn’t some sort of freak, that the two of them could become friends, but she’d taken the phone and the cash and seemingly vanished into thin air.

He’d contacted the short-stay hotel the phone had directions to and been told - slightly illegally but so is a lot of what Izuku does - that she was a no-show, and he’d asked around the usual places such a girl would end up, only to come back empty handed. It’s not like he could go to the police with anything other than maybe a missing persons report, but even that would stretch credulity because it wasn’t like he actually knew her, and it would make for a pretty obvious lie (not that he’s above lying to the cops if need be). No, Toga Himiko is well and truly gone, nothing more than a memory and a sense of something missing from his life. He almost regrets not putting some sort of tracking app on the phones he hands out, but that seems like way too much of an intrusion into the lives of the people they’re destined for, even if he could justify it as a safety measure given the nature of the usual recipients. Still, it’s not often he loses one, and even less so that it’s someone he had hoped would end up a larger part of his life moving forward.

Maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to use the resources afforded by being a UA student and Hero-in-training to widen the net in his search for answers, but he would first have to ingratiate himself to the staff and come up with a rock-solid alibi to ask the favour in the first place. He’s able to, certainly, but it will take a lot of planning, perhaps even more planning than being accepted for admittance to the school in the first place. Is he really willing to go that far just to find one girl? Even a girl as special as Toga?

Well, yes. That’s what a good Hero, a good hero, would do. Or so he tells himself. Maybe he’s just unwilling to admit there’s something more to it. Some feelings there that he’s shying away from. Only one way to find out.

Notes:

Okay so I lied about this taking longer. I also lied about cancelling the fic. Turns out emotional feedback from the cranky six-year-old who lives in your head is not a good basis for decision-making, go figure.

I am once again asking everyone to read Number One With a Bullet; it is very important to the story and will only get more important as the fic continues.

Chapter 5

Summary:

Midoriya Izuku wakes up after the final exams and nearly dies all over again. Luckily, Uraraka Ochako thinks this is endearing.

Notes:

I am going to keep reminding people to read the prelude, Number One With a Bullet, every single chapter. Sorry not sorry.

“-keep saying, you're all patched up, so shoo!”

The voice that rings through the fog in Izuku’s brain is ornery, but not unkind so much as it is affectionately irritated. The one that answers is a lot more impassioned.

“And I’m gonna tell ya again, I gotta stick here until ███ wakes up! ████████ well saved my life! Y’ain’t gonna get █████t afore then unle██ ya pick me up and chuck me!”

That accent… Kansai? Mie? Whatever it is, it’s endearing, and also enough for Izuku to grab onto and pull himself out of the fog. He definitely missed a few words here and there, but he’s got the gist of what’s being argued, and manages to croak out an intervention. “I’m awake, Recovery Girl-sensei, it’s okay.”

“Wait, boku?” The girl standing there blinks owlishly at him and shakes her head vigorously, slightly dislodging the bandage on her cheek. “No, never mind that! Sorry if I woke you, but I just had to say: thank you so much for saving me back there like you did! I’ve already spoken to the proctors and the principal - I offered to give you some of my points for the exam, since you didn’t get any villain kills that counted!”

Oh. Right, the exam. Specifically the practical portion of the UA entrance exam; that’s what he had been doing today, and that’s what landed him in the office of the Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl - the former Pro turned school nurse. He could remember doing the written portion, the struggles he’d faced trying to take down villain bots without overloading his body with One for All, but it’s not until he locks eyes with the pretty girl in her determined stance that he remembers that desperate Smash he’d pulled off in an attempt to rescue her from getting pancaked by the Zero Pointer. The greenet heaves a sigh of relief that she’s okay, then recalls where else he’d seen her before and quips cheekily, “hey, consider it paying you back for this morning! You saved me from eating pavement and making an even bigger idiot out of myself, so we’re even now.”

The giggle-snorting laughter that follows the joke causes Izuku’s ears to flush slightly and his heart to jump, struck by the sheer adorableness. He muses to himself about the possibility of getting her to slip back into that charming rural accent again, then hides his blush behind a small cough when he realizes what he’s saying in his own head. Yep, he’s got it bad.

“Well, alright then!” The girl hands him a slip of paper with a broad smile, highlighting the pink spots on her cheeks with dimples. “I’m Uraraka, by the way, Uraraka Ochako. Give me a call when you’re feeling a bit better, maybe after the acceptance letters go out, and we’ll celebrate.”

Oh. Oh, that’s her phone number. That’s a very pretty girl, with a very pretty accent, and a very pretty laugh, and she gave him her phone number. “Midoriya, Midoriya Izuku! And uh, not for nothing, but what if we don’t get accepted? I mean, I don’t know if your plan to give me some of your points will work and even if it does I don’t know if it’ll be enough and I’m kinda worried that if you give me your points thenmaybeyou’llnothaveenoughyourselftogetinandIwouldfeeljustawful!”

Uraraka blinks owlishly again as he stops to heave a breath, and just shrugs. “Well, still call! We’ll commiserate instead of celebrating; nothing wrong with that. Now, I should get going - I have a train to catch, and Recovery Girl-sensei looks like she might take me up on that offer to chuck me out the door in a minute. Bye-bye, hope I see you later!”

When the door slides shut behind her with a quiet click, Recovery Girl spins in her chair to face Izuku, causing his spine to stiffen. “Well! I’m glad you made a friend, boy, but I’m also glad Toshinori was easier to get rid of than she was. He’s waiting for you in the hall like a sane person. Now then, dearie, I’ve gone ahead and patched your arm up, but do note that it was just your arm; you’ve got all sorts of scars I’m not going to ask questions about, since prospective students aren’t my business even if they are Toshinori’s proteges. I hope you’re doing better now, and I’ll leave it at that. Take a couple of gummies to tide you over on the trip home, eat a big meal once you get there, and try not to end up in my office again too soon if you get that acceptance letter - for your own sake.”

Izuku feels like he narrowly dodged a bullet there, glad that Recovery Girl had shown some decent bedside manner by not digging too deep into his scars. Sure, some were nicks and cuts from his training, mostly tiny things that would fade in a few more months, but the deeper ones… He bears a patchwork of burns on his back and shoulders from childhood that will never go away, and some on his inner elbows and upper thighs from his darker moments. Being born Quirkless in modern society was no walk in the park, even with the support he’s gotten over the years from the Collective. Stuffing a handful of gummies into his mouth to avoid needing to vocalize a response, he offers Recovery Girl a polite bow and slips out the door, nearly walking face-first into a pacing All Might. The tall, stick-thin man smiles down at Izuku, drawing the greenet into a gentle hug that feels not unlike being pressed into a coat rack, for all it’s still comforting. “Glad you’re alright, young Midoriya. I had prepared a lecture about over-exerting yourself in the face of One for All’s destructive potential, but instead I want to tell you how proud I am that you risked yourself to save that girl. Let’s get you home to your mother, shall we? I texted to let her know what was going on, and she’s preparing a large bowl of katsudon for you.”

Izuku nods, staying wrapped in his mentor’s embrace for a moment and thinking about how close the two had grown over the ten months of the hellish training course, and how fulfilling it had been to celebrate the cleaning of Takoba Municipal Beach Park with a small private barbecue and a swim. He takes a step back and puts on a determined grin, tapping his fist against Toshinori’s arm. “Thanks. For everything. Even if I don’t get in, I’m happy you gave me the chance to make it this far.”

“Of course, my boy. I wouldn’t rather have had anyone else at my side these last months. I have high hopes for you in the future.”

Notes:

Wasn't expecting to have this one out yet but hey, writing happens when it happens.

Also I am going with Ochako instead of Ochaco because I just like it better; I feel the k fits the flow of the name more than the c.

Chapter 6

Summary:

Malls are a great place to hang out with your friends and meet new people. Play games, find school supplies, eat nice food, go on a date... Wait, a date?

Notes:

Go read Number One With a Bullet, the prelude to this fic!! Please.

Midoriya Izuku has been brought to a stalemate. His bosses? Gone. His backups? Removed. His board clears? Mostly wasted on keeping himself alive. The whole thing has turned into a topdecking match - neither he nor Uraraka is in a position to win outright, but neither also are they in a position to lose. He draws his card for the turn, grimaces at it, and sets it face-down before passing play over to the girl across from him. It’s just an armament, nothing useful with nothing to equip it onto. Uraraka, meanwhile, smiles brilliantly at her own draw, scanning the text of the card before confidently slamming it down. A large hologram of the boss monster for her deck rises up from the electronic table, and moments later reduces him to ash and rubble. That marks the end of their battle, and a final victory to end their best-of-three.

Hard-won, too, with neither prior game being particularly decisive on either side! Sure they were just basic rental decks from the arcade, but Uraraka had shown herself to be no slouch at Izuku’s favourite trading card game, despite her proclamation that she rarely got to play due to the costs involved. Understandably so since, despite decks themselves generally being relatively cheap, recurring expenses like travel and tournament entry could add up pretty quickly, especially for a girl from rural Kansai. He hopes she’ll get more opportunities to play now that she’s going to be staying in the Musutafu area, and plans to gift her a deck as a housewarming present - not that he’s going to mention anything of the sort, since she strikes him as the type to be too proud to accept what she sees as charity.

As he sorts both decks back into their proper order to bring them up to the clerk, he spots them taking down a banned customer sign with a creepy-looking purple-haired kid on it. Right, Uraraka had told him about the pervert who had gotten arrested just outside the school on serial harassment charges when he’d shown up to take the entrance exams. She’d slapped him for making a really gross comment about the little nubs on her finger pads from her Quirk, and when he’d made a scene out of it, campus security had recognized him from a warrant broadcast and brought the police in to deal with the situation. Thank goodness he hadn’t been allowed into the exam halls; it’s often a bit of a worry that UA might use its rather large influence as the premier Professional Heroics school to keep problems about its students quiet (so long as they don’t do anything worth getting themselves expelled).

Once the decks are returned, along with Izuku’s deposit, he and Uraraka wander off from their shopping break back to supply hunting. They’ve gotten a good portion of their preparation lists, meticulously curated for low-price options like paper file folders instead of proper ringed subject binders. And if Izuku slips a few higher-quality things into Uraraka’s shopping bags while she’s not looking, well, it’ll be too late for her to argue by the time she notices, and she’ll have some actually decent supplies for school. All in a day’s work, really! Next up is uniform accessories, so the pair meander into the clothing store section of the large mall, browsing through the clearance racks and bargain bins as they go. It’s not until a sharp whistle rings out across the hallway that Izuku notices where the pair had ended up, and he unthinkingly grabs Uraraka’s hand to pull her along to one of the shops at the end of the row, not noticing the blush that covers her face.

“Kevin, you’re back!”

“Gysahl! I knew I recognized those leaves of yours; how the hell have you been kid?” The proprietor of the dimly-lit clothing store clasps Izuku’s hand and slaps him on the shoulder, letting out a laugh. “Damn, boy, you’ve leveled up! I can feel those muscles, Gysahl, you getting sexy on me or something? And who’s the bird, nerd?”

Glancing over to his companion, Izuku notices the absolutely bewildered look on Uraraka’s face, and offers her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, sorry, I should’ve asked if you knew English! Kevin, this is Uraraka-san; she’s one of my year-mates for school. Uraraka-san, this is Kevin - he owns this shop. He and I go way back; I’ve been coming here with my mom since I was a little kid, since this is one of the best places to buy the kind of clothes I like.” He gestures to his t-shirt, which reads ‘tracksuit’ in katakana.

“Pleased to meet you,” Uraraka returns with a short bow to the proprietor, who bows back politely. “I managed to catch ‘Gysahl’ but the rest of it went over my head. I’ve taken a double-English elective for my first year, though, so I hope I can catch up! My family owns a construction company, and having someone who understands English would be good for getting more contracts, you see. Gysahl is that food they feed to chocobos, right? From that one video game series?”

Kevin nods, leading the two further into the store and ducking behind the counter to rummage around for something. “Good catch! Not a lot of people know about Final Fantasy these days. I give all my best customers nicknames, makes ‘em feel appreciated, and Gysahl here has a pretty obvious one. I mean, just look at those curls! Anyways, kid, I brought you something back from America. But, I could only get it in one size, and that size is not ‘Japanese extra small’.”

“Hey!” Izuku pouts, glowering playfully at the man, “I will have you know that I am a medium, thank you very much!”

“A children’s medium?”

“... Yeah, a children’s medium.” Izuku’s own blush does not go unnoticed as Uraraka gigglesnorts at his side, and Kevin’s shit-eating grin grows even wider. “Shut your heck and show me the thing, Kevin.”

“I managed to snag just one bundle of these in an adult large on my trip; I’ve been saving them just for you to make sure you get one ahead of the usual crowd. Feast your eyes, Gysahl!”

It is simply the most beautiful shirt Izuku has ever seen in his life. It features a heavily-artifacted image of the Flame Hero: Endeavour, complete with a poorly-cropped PNG border, framed on the top and bottom by English text in a sans-serif font reading ‘Second best? More like second rate!’, making for quite possibly the greatest insult Izuku could pay to the Pro he hates the most. “Kevin. Kevin I love you. I need this shirt more than I need to breathe right now. How much? I don’t actually care I am going to give you my money but I need to post about it on my blog and people always ask the price so what’s it going to run me?”

“Oh no you don’t, you slippery little bastard! I’m not letting you con me into paying for a shirt again; I still owe you. Take it, go get changed, and I’ll keep Uraraka-san company for a minute. Go on, get!” The soft cotton of the shirt makes a light thwap as it hits Izuku in the face, and he laughs his way to the dressing room, slipping out of his ‘tracksuit’ shirt and into the new gift. It drapes super loosely on his frame, but the image and text are both very clearly visible even when he puts his bag back on, and he can’t help but keep smiling like an idiot as he admires himself in the mirror. His body is toned, sleek, and not at all jacked, just the way he’d been hoping to keep it throughout his hell training.

When he returns to the storefront, the first thing he notices is Uraraka looking flustered, and Kevin looking incredibly smug. The second is the large bag with the store’s logo clutched in the girl’s hands. Aha, mystery solved.

“And with that, we’re even, Gysahl! One meme shirt, two accessory kits, no substitutions exchanges or refunds!” Oh. Oh Izuku sees how it is, Kevin resorting to the worst of tricks: giving the free stuff to his friend so he can’t give it back without looking super rude, and then quoting Disney at him, in English? That’s just dirty pool. But, he knows when he’s been had, so Izuku simply offers his thanks and to pass on Kevin’s regards to Inko before heading off to a handful of other shops.

Soon enough, their lists are all crossed off, and he and Uraraka make a line for the food court, grabbing an empty table near the outer perimeter to avoid the busy interior and placing orders with one of the many roving robot vendors: gyuudon and his favourite Pocari Sweat for Izuku, isobe maki and a tall melon soda for Uraraka. She grumbles as he takes out his wallet to pay faster than she can, crossing her arms with a huff. “Alright, fine, you can pay for one thing on our date. Only because it’s traditional though!”

Wait. This is a date?

“Wait. This is a date?”

Uraraka freezes, blinking that owlish blink as her entire face turns a bright, steaming red to the tips of her ears. Letting out a loud groan, she slams her face on the table and wraps her arms over the back of her head. “Midoriya-kun. Midoriya-kun ya hafta kill me. I can’t believe I forgot. I was gonna ask ya out formally but I got so caught up in gettin’ the acceptance letter that it slipped ma mind. Ya hafta kill me right now, this is so embarrassin’!”

Swoon. Double swoon. Quintuple swoon, even. Oh that accent is just the most adorable thing Izuku has ever heard, he loves it so much! He knows it’s mean to think about getting the girl flustered more in the future to hear her slip out of her ‘proper’ speech but he can’t help himself. “Uraraka-san, it’s okay! I think we both dropped the ball on this one a little; it really should’ve occurred to me that this was going to be a real actual date, since you gave me your phone number and all, but it just didn’t cross my mind that maybe you would feel that way about me because well I think I’ve mentioned a little bit about what my life has been like butalsoyesI wouldbehappytoformallydateyouandmakethisaproperdatemaybeI’llgetyouadessertorsomethingletmeknowwhatyou-”

Wow, the little pads on the tips of Uraraka’s fingers are soft. They feel like the pads on a kitten’s toes as they press Izuku’s lips shut and halt his rambling, and his brain short-circuits a little bit because holy shit that’s so cute. Uraraka Ochako has beans. It takes all his willpower to not start doing a Quirk analysis on her as she’s looking up at him, face still slightly flushed, but he’s definitely filing away the tactile sensation for later. “Midoriya-kun, you can stop now,” she smiles, gigglesnorting a little. Aww, no more accent. “I’d be happy to formally date you too; and yes, you can buy dessert after we finish eating. I like mochi, as you may have guessed! We have a traditional sweets shop back home that I loved as a kid, and the owner always let me have samples whenever he wanted to try new flavours. That little bit of casual kindness meant a whole lot to me, and I saw it in you, too. So. Let’s go out together? I guess we already are, but you know what I mean.”

Izuku gently moves the girl’s finger from his lips and smiles back at her, nodding. “I noticed it in you too; when you first caught me when I tripped outside the school, that was. Well, it was something I normally do for others, not one others do for me. Uraraka-s… Uraraka-chan,” they both blush at that, but Izuku presses on, “I humbly accept, and I’ll do my best to do right by you.” The pair lapse into comfortable silence then, sharing in one another’s presence as they eat before making some more smalltalk as they wait for one of the robots to circle back around so Izuku can buy dessert - two warabi mochi sets, another melon soda for Uraraka-chan, and this time a C.C. Lemon for himself that makes him feel a bit wistful. Just as the duo are about to dig in, they’re interrupted by someone clearing their throat lightly, and they turn in unison towards the sound.

The sight that greets them is about as out of place as it gets: a boy around their own age in a clean-pressed suit that is definitely too fancy for a midtown mall, clutching a plastic shopping bag from the nearby watch store. What’s nearly as striking is his hair, a perfect split of white and red parted down the middle, and the nasty burn scar it partially covers up on one side. When he speaks, it’s directed at Izuku, and his voice is soft and calm. “I apologize for interrupting your date. I noticed your shirt while I was walking past. I was wondering if you made it yourself, perhaps? I like it a lot.”

Izuku offers a small smile to the boy, shaking his head. “No, actually, this was a gift! I could tell you where I got it if you want? Oh, but you’ll need an invitation; the store owner only sells specialty items like this to people with introductions.” The boy looks crestfallen, and Izuku waves a hand to keep him from walking away. “Don’t worry! I’ll send him a text and tell him you’re coming - it’s a place called Risen, down that way, it’ll be the only clothing shop with a sign in English. If I can get your name, I’ll make sure Kevin knows you’re good to buy!”

The boy hesitates. Weird. “It’s. My name is Shoto.” Okay, nothing weird about that. “Todoroki Shoto.”

Uh. Todoroki, Todoroki, why’s that name ring a bell… Wait. Enji.

That. Well. That explains a few things. And very hopefully absolutely does not explain at least one other thing. “Right! Got it, one specialty Fuck Endeavour Club shirt for Todoroki Shoto.” Tapping away at his phone, Izuku sends the text off, then, somewhat on a whim and somewhat out of instinct, pulls a different phone from his bag and stands from his seat, quietly slipping it into the other boy’s shopping. “And this is a special gift from me,” he murmurs quietly, “in case you ever need it. Untrackable, untraceable, fully encrypted, and it has some numbers pre-programmed - including mine. Set the password and nobody will ever be able to open it but you. If you need someone to talk to, day or night, it’s got text and call both. And if there’s an emergency, it has a function for that too - instructions are in the notes app.”

Leaving the incredibly befuddled looking boy standing there, Izuku returns to his seat, his smile only growing wider when a look of understanding dawns on Todoroki’s face. The bichromic boy’s spine stiffens, and he drops into a deep bow before turning and walking away, seemingly both incredibly nervous and with a much lighter step than he’d had before.

“Midoriya-kun, what was that all about? What did you do?” Uraraka’s cheeks are stuffed with mochi, which is a sight to absolutely die for, causing Izuku to burst into a fit of laughter.

“Just helping someone out, Uraraka-chan! Like any good Hero would, you know?” Picking up a piece of his own mochi, he settles into his chair and prepares to explain the significance of the Todoroki name, his own shirt, and his absolute enmity for the so-called Number Two Hero.

Notes:

Whew, feels good to get back into it after being gone on a trip to the 2025 Yugioh NAWCQ!! Hope you all enjoy this one lots!!

(Also, click the link if you want to see the shirt!!)

Chapter 7

Summary:

The first day at UA High School is shaping up to be an interesting one. One might even say a good day!! As long as this "battle trial" exercise goes well, at least.

Notes:

Whoops I lied about this taking a while. Go read Number One With a Bullet, the prelude to this fic.

It’s official: Quirk Apprehension Tests suck ass. Back at Aldera they had only been done annually, and Izuku had been exempt from them all anyway, but they had been at best super basic demonstrations of one’s Quirk to prove that dumbass junior high students could be trusted not to hurt anyone. Even apart from the intensely embarrassing moment of Aizawa-sensei erasing his Quirk right as he’d been about to use it the first time, trying to do actual real sports stuff with it was something that managed to get left out of the New American Dream Plan somehow. Despite Toshinori being a long-time alum of UA himself. Izuku is going to be having words with the man. Words like ‘why’ and ‘what the hell’ and ‘is there anything else you forgot to mention about UA, perhaps?’

They’re done, though, and Izuku had even managed to keep his bones intact this time! It strikes him that he absolutely should not be celebrating something as simple as not shattering every bone in his arm during a basic fitness exam, but this is his life now. And also his life now is a special type of hell that sucks even more ass: regularly using changing rooms. Not that he has a particularly strong sense of modesty given the type of company he’s kept for several years, but being partially nude with a group of rowdy teenage boys has rarely, if ever, gone well for him. Admittedly, he hasn’t run into any problems thus far, but the kind of nerves that come along with years of verbal and physical harassment don’t just go away overnight, especially when one of your childhood bullies has managed to end up in the same class as you yet again. But, Kacchan had finished putting on his new Hero outfit and left already, so Izuku should be in the clear.

Or so he thinks, because apparently he’s forgotten about the scars on his shoulders and upper back.

“Yo, Midobro, those look mad gnarly! You okay?”

“A-a-ah, yeah, Kirishima-san, they’re j-j-ust some old injuries; nothing to worry about!” He hastily pulls his jumpsuit up over his shoulders and offers the other boy a smile that’s as wide as it is fake.

The muscular redhead’s own smile is even wider, and much more genuine. “Sure thing Midobro! And like I said, you can just call me Kirishima; all that -san stuff makes me feel old! Figure it’s a fair middle ground from calling me Eijiro. Meet you out there!”

“Right, got it! See you in a few, Kirishima!” Izuku watches the other boy bound off towards the exit and shakes his head at his seemingly-boundless enthusiasm. He’s like a particularly large puppy, which Izuku finds both incredibly endearing and probably easier to deal with in small doses until he gets acclimated. “Okay, I can do this. Just go out there, avoid Kacchan, get the grade, go home and work on the patrol route. Simple.”

With that self-pep-talk done, Izuku dons the last piece of his costume, the filter mask, and moves towards the exit as well, barely sparing a glance for the final few of his classmates to still be getting into their own gear before he’s heading down the hall and into Grounds Beta where Toshinori - in his fully inflated All Might form - and Aizawa-sensei are waiting to explain the assignment for the class, which they do as soon as the final stragglers arrive. A two-on-two battle trial doesn’t seem so bad, so long as he manages to avoid the unfortunate fate of getting paired up on a team against-

“And here are the teams from the random generation! Uraraka Ochako and Midoriya Izuku versus Iida Tenya and Bakugo Katsuki!”

Of course. Of goddamn course the kami hate him enough to not only make him not the one person sitting out for this trial with the odd number in the class, they really would make it fate for him to be facing down Kacchan on his literal first day of class. He can hear the other boy’s teeth gritting and Quirk crackling from here, and silently begins praying that it will at least be a swift knockout. He may have One for All now, but he’s nowhere near mastering its potential, and going up against someone who has spent a decade not only using his Quirk almost exclusively for combat, but said combat being quite often with Izuku himself? He’s cooked. Literally cooked!

“All Might-sensei, Aizawa-sensei, I want to make a complaint about these pairings.”

Wait, what?

Aizawa-sensei turns his tired, cranky glare upon the student who had dared to speak out, causing the rest of the class to follow his line of sight. “Pardon?”

Todoroki Shoto - who Izuku was quite surprised to see in his class that morning - maintains a bored, disinterested look in the face of his teacher’s gaze, seeming thoroughly unimpressed in a way that only the son of a rich and powerful Pro could pull off. “Or, two complaints, really. The first is them being random. I can see the basic idea of wanting to throw us into completely unknown teams as a way to show us how Pro Heroics often works, but doing that on the first day seems poorly thought-out. At this stage we’d be better off with pairings inspired by our Quirks so that we can learn cooperation instead. And my second complaint is that you managed to sit me out when I’m the one who probably needs the most experience, since I didn’t even participate in the group battle of the entry exams.”

Groaning and pinching the bridge of his nose, Aizawa-sensei freezes suddenly for a moment when he notices Todoroki’s hand move by his side in a weird way, a gesture that almost looks like JSL, then slowly brings his own hands together, asking silently, “is there something else going on here?”

“There is. I don’t want the rest of the class to overhear.”

With a cautious nod, Aizawa-sensei slouches over to where Todoroki is standing and engages him in a flurry of sign, which Izuku politely looks away from, not wanting to make it obvious to the two that he knows the language, nor to eavesdrop inadvertently. After a brief exchange, Aizawa-sensei straightens, turns, and gestures to All Might. “Right. I’ve got a backup; let the kids know their new pairings based on the list on the back of the lesson plan. I’m going to escort Midoriya here to the surveillance room myself - he’s our new odd man out, and I don’t want him getting lost. Go over the details carefully, Yagi. Midoriya, with me; you’ll be doing a battle analysis report instead.”

Letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, Izuku darts over to where Aizawa is waiting (and almost missing Todoroki’s swiftly-signed “sorry”), tensing a little as the man rests a hand on his shoulder to guide him out of the main grounds and into a side room with a wall full of televisions, camera feeds from the building the battle trials are going to take place in from the look of things. Aizawa-sensei gestures for Izuku to sit in one of the chairs near the front, sinking into the one next to it himself. “Midoriya. I’m going to ask you a question. Do not answer me right away; I don’t want a snap response, I want you to put that big brain of yours to work. Do you want me to expel Bakugo Katsuki?”

What? What? What the hell? What? “Aizawa-sensei, I-”

“Nope,” the Pro Hero holds up a hand to interrupt, “don’t say anything yet. I know it’s a lot to take in at once, but I also know you got a perfect score on the written portion of the entrance exams five full minutes before the expected minimum time. You’re a smart kid. And luckily for you, you also have some smart friends. So. Take your time. And keep in mind that no matter what your answer is, you are not going to be punished. Nothing you tell me will go on your record. You won’t even have to talk to Hound Dog about it. This is all your decision, and I will respect whatever it is you do or do not decide to disclose.”

Izuku has never been so confused in his entire life, but before he can try to ask for clarification, more of the class filters in to watch the coming fight on the large section of screens, and he falls silent. Both his girlfriend and his new friend are finishing up their preparations, Todoroki being paired with Uraraka in his place and their roles being switched to defending, but another girl slides easily into the chair next to him, scooting it a bit closer.

“You must be Midoriya, kero. Ochako-chan told me all about you; I’m Asui Tsuyu, but you can call me Tsuyu. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself this morning, I was busy catching up, kero. Well, that and getting used to a uniform with a skirt - it feels great, but it’s still pretty new.”

Right, Uraraka-chan had mentioned an old friend of hers was going to be joining them at UA, and also that said friend was known for being blunt and straightforward in pretty much every interaction. The only thing she had failed to mention was how cute she was! He doesn’t know if those little ribbits are reflexive because of her Quirk, or just a habit she developed, but they’re very nearly on par with Uraraka-chan’s accent. Wait, no, down boy, you’ve got a girlfriend now. “Great to meet you, Tsuyu-san! I look forward to getting to know you as one of Uraraka-chan’s friends; maybe we can all hang out after class!”

The pair turn their attention to the screens when Aizawa-sensei clears his throat, and Izuku digs a small notepad out of the utility belt at his waist, scrawling a couple of shorthand sentences as soon as the skirmishing starts, to be transferred to his full-sized notebook later. “Todoroki-san made those ice walls pretty thick, but clearly not thick enough to keep out Kacchan. But those shards are going to make good ammo for Uraraka-chan’s Quirk if she can get to enough of them, and also assuming she can actually manage to hit either Iida-san or Kacchan himself. Hm, Todoroki-san seems to be avoiding making a large glacier to try and ice them out; I wonder if he’s worried about collateral damage to the building? He’s not using the other half of his Quirk either, is it because of the close quarters? No, that doesn’t seem right, there’s no way he wouldn’t have the kind of control necessary to make that a non-issue; is he just worried about how flame-retardant Iida-san’s outfit is? Seems a bit overly cautious for someone as calculating as him, maybe there’s something else going on here, I wonder if he has some sort of problem with using his flames…”

“Wow, Ochako-chan wasn’t kidding, kero, your muttering is adorable. You really can’t help yourself when it comes to Quirks, can you?”

Despite the frog girl’s expression being just as neutral as before, Izuku can’t help but feel Tsuyu is wearing a shit-eating grin on the inside as she stares at his flushed face. “H-hey! I resent that entirely factual and completely accurate assessment of my character! Though I will say that adorable is a bit much; I will accept ‘cute’ or ‘amusing’, maybe. Take it or leave it.”

Tsuyu’s only response is a croaking laugh as her attention returns to the battle trial, right in time to see Iida Tenya go flying out a window at Mach Fuck, having been on the wrong side of Uraraka’s Quirk while running at full speed. Kacchan is nowhere to be seen amongst all the smoke and rubble, but the buzzer going off signifies the end of the fight. All Might, who caught the flying Iida, commends them all and directs Todoroki, Uraraka, and Iida to the surveillance room, sending medivac bots to escort Kacchan to the nurse’s office. At Aizawa-sensei’s direction, Tsuyu heads out along with Tokoyami, Sero, and Hagakure. Certainly an interesting lineup, and one that has Izuku scrawling on his notepad again as Uraraka takes the seat Tsuyu had vacated. Before he can say anything to her, however, Todoroki gets his attention with a gentle tap on his shoulder, gesturing for him to follow. Ever-curious, Izuku murmurs assurances to his girlfriend before walking over to the back of the room with his newest friend.

“I wanted to apologize,” the bichromic boy signs, “for interfering like that. But you helped me a lot when we first met, and I felt the need to return the favour.”

“What exactly did you tell Aizawa-sensei?” Izuku signs back, glad he picked up JSL at a young age. “He asked me if I wanted Bakugo expelled!”

Sighing rather morosely, Todoroki makes his confession simple. “I told him I saw the scars on your back. The burn scars on your back. And I told him that the nickname ‘Kacchan’, the one you still use for the boy who treated you like my father does me for so many years, lends itself very well to the name ‘Katsuki’; the name of the student in our class with an explosive Quirk. We both put two and two together, and he agreed to change the pairings for the class to a predetermined list instead of the random one that All Might planned for. I wasn’t planning to say anything without asking, but when you got paired up against him, I panicked. I understand if you’re upset with me.”

Izuku’s own sigh is much less morose, but still a little defeated. “I’m not upset with you, Todoroki-san, just a little frustrated in general. Being put in the same class as Kacchan was unexpected, and being paired against him in the battle trial freaked me out, so I am thankful to you for stopping that. Can I have a hug, please?”

Todoroki nods slightly, and the pair exchange a quick embrace before returning to their seats. Uraraka-chan smiles patiently, willing to wait for him to talk about things when he’s ready, which he appreciates. The rest of the trials go smoothly, Izuku making a plethora of notes and only lapsing into a mutter storm three more times (a record low for him), and soon enough the class is filing out of the surveillance room to get changed back into their regular uniforms. Aizawa-sensei trails behind, looking pointedly at Izuku, who nods.

“I’ve thought about it, like you asked, and my answer is no, Aizawa-sensei. Kacch-. Bakugo-san may be a bully and a jerk, but I think he’s misguided, not inherently a terrible person. I don’t want the black mark of an expulsion on his record, and I don’t want him to lose his dream of attending UA because of the things he did to me. That is, however, dependent on how things go in the future - on if he’s willing to change. If he keeps being the kind of person he was when we were younger, by all means, expel him. But give him a chance to do better.”

Aizawa-sensei’s expression doesn’t change, but he does blink, slowly and carefully. “Right. That is a very mature response; good for you, kid. With your endorsement, I’ll recommend he be placed into our probation program rather than expelled outright; this’ll give him that chance to be less of a little bastard. But if he’s not willing to put in the effort? I’ll make sure he doesn’t find out it was you who got him on the probation track in the first place when he’s gone. Sound good?”

Izuku nods, falling into step with his teacher as they head back towards the change rooms. “Thank you, Aizawa-sensei; for the opportunity to say something, and for listening. I haven’t gotten a whole lot of that in the past, especially when it comes to Bakugo-san.”

“Don’t mention it, kid. Seriously, don’t; I have a reputation to maintain as a hardass. Go get dressed and meet your friends, do whatever it is kids do these days. Me, I’m going to grade some paperwork and take a nap. And your assessment report is due first thing tomorrow, so don’t be late.” With a pat on the shoulder that’s almost affectionate, Aizawa-sensei slumps off in the direction of the staff room, leaving Izuku to smile after him. Hardass indeed.

This year at UA is going to be Izuku’s first in a school that actually cares about him, and as much as he enjoys going home every night, for once he’s actually looking forward to coming back in the morning.

Notes:

Me publishing Ch 6 the other day: okay so I don't really have 7 planned yet, I'm going to give myself a bit longer than normal just to get the ball rolling.

Me now: Okay so Ch 7 is done, so is Ch 8, and Ch 9 is drafted.

Chapter 8

Summary:

In which we learn why a Midoriya has so many cellphones

Notes:

I was actually expecting to finish this tomorrow. Oops.

As usual, Number One With a Bullet is an important read!!

Quirk suppression cuffs are itchy. Not in the way that a chafing handcuff is expected to be itchy, but a full-body, scalp-to-toes, absolutely goddamn maddening itch. What was supposed to have been a simple in-and-out job, ten minutes max charged at the regular rate, had turned into a slugfest with no fewer than six different Pro Heroes, right up until motherfucking All Might himself had shown up. The man wasn’t even supposed to be in Japan right now! How’d he shown up in exactly the worst possible place at the worst possible time? And speaking of places that suck ass, where the hell is this anyways? The customer hadn’t said anything, and it had been impossible to tell while being frog-marched in through an underground entrance. All that’s visible now is a steel table, two chairs on the other side, a small CCTV camera, and the door which is opening to reveal fucking Eraserhead to top everything else off on this absolute shitshow of a day.

The lanky, exhausted-looking man places a recorder on the table, drags out one of the chairs, and sits down in it backwards. “Right. Let’s get this over with.” He clicks the recorder on and clears his throat. “Stating for the record, interview with a prisoner in custody of UA High School under authority of Pro Hero Eraserhead. Registered Quirk, Magnetism. Known alias, ‘Big Sis’ Magne. Legal name…” Erasershead looks up at her from the paperwork in his hands, lifts one eyebrow, and scribbles something out with a pen. “Legal name unknown.” Well, isn't that downright kind of him. This also tells her she’s at UA High School, which is. What the actual fuck. “Keeping to the schedule, but Detective Tsukauchi is-”

“Right here, Eraserhead,” A man in an incredibly tacky trenchcoat enters the room, setting his even tackier hat on the table as he pulls up the other chair. “Tsukauchi Naomasa, detective with the First Precinct, on the record; reflect that I will be using my Quirk to assist in this interview. Anything you’d like to say before we begin, Magne?”

She’s been through this song and dance enough times to know when to keep her mouth shut, but she’s also not a complete moron: not talking here isn’t going to work, not when she’s dealing with both a Pro Hero and UA itself. “Let the record show that I, Magne, was not made aware prior to arrival that the target of the attack perpetrated by those who hired me was UA High School.” It’s not much, but maybe it’ll get her a bit of leniency.

The detective makes a mark on the file with his own pen, then passes it back to the Hero. “So noted. Eraserhead?”

Drumming his fingers against the steel of the table, Eraserhead grunts in acknowledgement. “You’re currently being charged with illegal Quirk usage, resisting arrest, trespassing, assault and battery, destruction of property over fifty thousand yen, conspiracy to commit Quirk-assisted crime, and… Naomasa, is this right?”

“It is.”

Another world-weary sigh. “And terrorism.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck fuck. Of course. Of fucking course assaulting UA would get her slapped with a fucking terrorism charge. Shit!

“However.” However is good, Magne likes the sound of however. “I am authorized to refile charges as I see fit, if you prove cooperative.” Okay, less good. Rat the rest of them out to maybe dodge the terrorism charge if she’s lucky, and be labelled a snitch when she goes back in? That’s a hard fucking sell. Terrorism carries a minimum five years in Tartarus, but maybe she’ll get lucky and beat it! She opens her mouth to tell Eraserhead exactly where he can shove his buddy’s tacky hat, but gets interrupted by the sound of a phone going off. Rude as fuck much? This asshole is about to ruin her life and he can’t even be assed to put his phone on silent first!

“Little bit busy. Yeah. Uh huh. Right, I’ll handle that part of it, you do the draft letters. Of course you do. No, put Yagi on it. Right. Okay, bye.”

When he carelessly tosses the phone down on the table, Magne gets a good look at it and feels an incandescent rage boil up inside of her. Because she knows it. Of course she knows it. “What the hell is a Pro Hero doing with a phone like that?”

“Huh?” He has the gall to look confused, picking up the phone and turning it around in his hands. “You recognize it? Can’t say I’ve seen another.”

“Yeah, I recognize it,” she snaps, lip curing into a sneer, “that’s an Asru Auto. You can’t just grab one off the shelf in a retail store, they’re special. So how did you end up with one, huh? Steal it off some poor villain you got locked up?”

“What kind of a moron-?” Eraserhead grumbles, flipping his chair around to sit in it properly. “No, a kid in my class gave me this when I broke mine. Says he carries them around, gives ‘em out to people who need one. I'll give it back if it’s that special.”

Hold on. Hold the fuck on. “Midoriya is a student at UA?”

As soon as the shocked words leave her lips, every single nerve in Magne’s body starts screeching that she’s in danger. She is also suddenly very aware that there’s a combat knife tucked into Eraserhead’s toolbelt, which she can just barely see past the face that’s suddenly inches from her own. She can smell his lunch as he growls, the kind of animalistic sound that comes out of a very protective mother bear. “How the fuck do you know that name?”

“Eraser.”

The detective’s short intercession breaks the spell, if not the tension, and Eraser slams back into his seat with a dull thud, waiting. Magne swallows hard. “There is exactly one person who can buy the Asru Auto in bulk, and is known to carry them around to hand out to people. The Saviour of Musutafu. Every whore, low-life, and bum in the whole of Shizuoka knows the name Midoriya Izuku.”

She can tell by his expression, the way his rage dies out, that he recognizes the title. “He helped out a real good friend of mine not too long gone. He’s helped a lot of people just like her. Just like me.” She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it’s tinged with sadness rather than anger. “Did all the same shit I tried to do for years; they don’t call me ‘Big Sis’ for nothing. Only he’s good at it, unlike me. Best there’s ever been.”

If the Saviour of Musutafu got into UA somehow, if he’s being taught by a Pro Hero - even a lesser-known one like Eraserhead - that changes the math completely. Magne sighs her own world-weary sigh, sitting up straight and pushing her shoulders back as much as she can with her wrists cuffed to the table. “I was hired on a temporary basis by a group without a standing name. New kids on the block, not a lot going for them except for the fact that they had clean money somehow - the friend who recommended the job ran samples of it himself. It was a pretty simple gig, and I needed the cash to help land on my feet after getting out of detention. All I had to do was go through their guy’s Quirk portal, lead the media vultures on a merry little chase around the block, come back around after they’d wrecked the big door, then hop back through the portal and grab the other half of my cash. Only, those assholes left me there when the alarms started going off. And, you know the rest.”

The detective finishes scribbling down the information she’s offered in shorthand, nodding to Eraserhead when he looks over. “I just have one question then, Magne: why the sudden desire to cooperate? You sounded like you were ready to bite Eraser’s face off a minute ago.”

The broad-shouldered woman snorts, shaking her head. “You probably wouldn’t get it, mister silk socks. I’ll eat a snitch’s death any day of the week if it means giving back to that kid. Any one of us would. Big Sis Magne will go down with a smile on her lips knowing she did it to help Midoriya, not that he wouldn’t try to stop me if he knew. That’s just the kind of person I am.”

Eraser clicks off the recorder with a grunt, signing the paperwork and sliding it over to the detective who takes it and leaves, tacky hat firmly on his head. The Pro stuffs his things back into various pockets before standing himself. “Someone will be by soon to get you. If I’m lucky, it won’t be me. The detective and I will discuss the charges, as well as which, if any, will be dropped in light of your cooperation.”

“Eraserhead!”

The man glances over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised again.

“Midoriya’s a good kid. A damned good kid. You look after him, okay?”

The man’s reply will haunt her dreams for weeks. “I plan to. But you should know: because of what those thugs who hired you did, a direct attack on UA leaving behind a known villain in front of a whole kettle of media vultures? The much-vaunted Saviour of Musutafu won’t be able to go home to his mother every day after class anymore.”

Notes:

How about that ending, huh? I'm sure nothing bad will come of that :^)

Ch 9 could be ready as early as tomorrow!! There's a draft outlined but it may end up taking two or three more days to get there just because I'm considering stitching two plot threads together; depending how long the first one ends up being it could also remain as separate chapters. We'll have to wait and see.

Chapter 9

Summary:

Heights Alliance is a dumb name for a dumb place that Izuku really doesn't want to live. But he'll have to make the most of it, mostly with the people who are there with him.

Aizawa Shouta doesn't trust All Might to be good at explaining things to parents, even if he can understand why the meathead was dispatched to talk to Midoriya Inko in particular. What he wasn't aware of at the time was the woman's maiden name. Nemuri is going to kill him.

Notes:

You know the drill by now. Number One With a Bullet. Read it.

Ten months. That’s how long Midoriya Izuku was supposed to have his life disrupted. Train with All Might for ten hellish months, become the new holder of One for All, get accepted to UA, then go back to almost completely normal - just a slightly longer commute to and from school. He was supposed to be able to jump feet-first back into his nightly patrols, get the lives of those around him back into gear, and return to helping all the disparate people he helps in Musutafu. But instead, here he is, moving in to a new home: the Heights Alliance 1-A dormitory towers. His whole life has gone from disrupted to upended, he’ll need to work out an entirely different patrol route even assuming he can figure out how to get off-campus at night without being caught, and to top it all off, there’s a frog-girl in a blanket all up on his woman!

“Tsuyu-san! What gives?”

“Oh, there you are Midoriya. Sorry, I’m stealing your girlfriend for a little bit, kero. I need a cuddle buddy.” Uraraka-chan smiles over the blanket-wrapped Tsuyu, her dimples highlighting the pink spots on her cheeks.

“No fair!” Izuku hits the duo with his trademark pout, hands on his hips and brow furrowed. “I want cuddles too!”

“Aw, babe,” Uraraka-chan giggles, “don’t worry, I promise we can cuddle after!”

“Who said I meant with you?” Izuku retorts with a smirk, “I’m talking prime froggy snuggles!”

Uraraka-chan’s mock gasp of outrage is drowned out by Tsuyu’s croaking laughter, and Izuku can’t help but join in. “Well, I don’t feel sorry for you at all then, so there! Anyways, the temperature was set way too low when we got here this morning, so we’re just getting Tsuyu-chan warmed up before we start moving her in.”

“Skirts are great for gender euphoria but bad for keeping me warm, kero. Where’s all your stuff, Midoriya?”

“Mom’s gonna be bringing it all over later when she gets off work - she insisted on helping me get moved in, but she couldn’t really call out today.”

Slowly, the rest of the class begins to filter in, wandering around the massive entryway and through the kitchen and dining area, waiting on instructions for where to begin taking their things. Eventually, Aizawa-sensei appears in their midst, calling everyone together into the main area by the doors. “Right, hellions, pay attention because I really don’t want to repeat myself here today. Down that way are the boy’s dorms, this way here are the girl’s. You can draw lots to decide who goes where, or you can pick and choose off the map, whatever you decide on just as long as nobody starts throwing hands over it. Information such as visiting hours, your new campus maps, emergency evacuation procedures, and all that fun stuff is in the information packets you’ll find in each room. If you find yourself missing anything that you couldn’t bring from home, make it Yagi-sensei’s problem and not mine please. Any questions? Yes, Tokoyami.”

“Sensei, has there been nothing planned for those students who are by nature neither masculine nor feminine in the truest depths of their soul of souls?”

It takes Aizawa-sensei a few moments of utter bafflement - not that his face shows much - to understand the question. “Oh, nonbinary students. Well, I brought the question up during the staff meeting when we designed the place, but I never actually got a direct answer.”

“Allow me to elucidate upon the matter then, dear Eraserhead!” The squeaky voice that comes from one of the air vents causes several students to jump, as does the appearance of the creature that clambers out of it. “Am I a mouse? Am I a bear? More importantly, I’m the principal! You see, students, we are mandated by the government of Japan to have dormitories for underage students be separated into boys and girls sides, with minimal crossover except in common areas. However, I find this approach to be reductive in the extreme! So, it was decided that UA would follow the letter of the law, while thumbing its collective nose at the spirit! Thus, for any students who identify anywhere outside the binary, we have built additional student rooms in the third tower that also houses the staff rooms and the rooms for visiting Heroes, family members, and any emergency residents!”

Of this brilliant plan, Izuku hears exactly nothing. His ears are filled with static, and his body with lead. Every one of his muscles has seized up, and he can barely breathe. It feels like he’s drowning, floating away to the bottom of a cold, dark river. He can’t even register the terror gripping his heart, so overwhelmed is he by the feeling. And then, like a miracle, something breaks through.

“-dobro? Midobro? Hey, ba██ up, give ███ som█ sp█ce. Mi██ro, can you ███e?”

“-shima…”

“████ it’s me, it’s Kir██hima. Han█ ██.”

Vaguely, distantly, Izuku can feel himself being picked up. His lungs clench, his heart freezes, and then he’s set down again, against something soft. It’s cold. He’s cold.

“C███? Sh█t, righ█. Wh█ can I ██t?”

“Ra… ka…” Speaking is pain, the tightness in his throat and the ringing in his ears.

“███rak█, I ca█ do ████.”

He can feel another body pressed against him, hands wrapped around his. Soft, tiny spots of pressure on his inner wrist, like the toe pads of a cat.

“██st keep doi██ what yo█’██ d███g. Denki, I ██ll slap ███ fuck ou█ ██ you if you say anyt█ng right now, I █wear to ██ry kami. Back. Off.”

All at once, reality comes rushing back in, and Izuku chokes on it a little. He’s sitting in one of the oversized beanbag chairs in the TV room, Uraraka-chan cuddled up against him on one side and Tsuyu sitting on the opposite. Kirishima is glaring daggers at Kaminari, before turning and crouching down in front of him. He offers a small, wan, shaky smile, and it’s returned by an unusually subdued one by the redhead. “Hey, Midobro. You back with us?”

“Y-yeah. S-s-s-orry.”

“Nah, bro, don’t even worry about it!” The larger boy reaches out a hand to grab one of Izuku’s own, interlacing their fingers and squeezing firmly. “Wanna tell me what triggered it, or nah? Your call man.”

He nods hesitantly, pressing closer against his girlfriend and squeezing Kirishima’s hand back. “Doesn’t happen often, but sometimes someone suddenly appearing, like Principal Nedzu, can set me off. Just. A panic response.”

Kirishima nods solemnly and claps him on the shoulder. “Damn glad I took that child psychology course over the break to boost up my grades! A truly manly Hero can help in more than just a fight, you know!”

“Are you,” Izuku manages a weak laugh, “calling me a child, Kirishima?”

“You sure are sized like one, Midobro! But jeez you’re heavy for someone who barely cracks five foot! What gives?”

This garners an even stronger laugh, along with a gigglesnort from Uraraka-chan. “I keep telling people, I’m not small, I’m compact! My muscles are dense; of course I weigh a lot for my size!”

Kirishima’s eyes light up, and his sharp-toothed smile is contagious. “Midobro, I’ve got it! Tiny puppy, dense as hell, you’re a pitbull!”

Both girls on either side of him double over with laughter, Uraraka-chan snorting hard and Tsuyu croaking up a storm as Izuku blushes. “Hey! I resemble that remark, you meanie. Okay, okay, laugh it up. And thank you, Kirishima, you were a big help. Really. Did you need to threaten Kaminari like that though?”

“‘Course, Midobro, it’s the manly thing to do! Gotta defend my buddy’s honour, even against my other friends.”

That is unexpectedly touching, and Izuku opens his arms for a hug, which Kirishima gladly gives before brushing himself off. “Okay! I’m gonna go pick out my room; gimme a shout if you need anything bro! Ladies!”

Taking a few more minutes to relax into Uraraka-chan, Izuku eventually leverages himself to his feet and kisses her on the cheek before heading off to the boy’s tower to select a room of his own. Surprisingly, nobody seems to have chosen the one nearest to the elevator on the ground floor, so he quickly scribbles his name on the map and grabs the key off its hook. The one across from it appears to be Todoroki’s, and he stops by to exchange pleasantries and hugs, with the icy-hot boy expressing his apologies for not being able to help much. A few reassurances, two more hugs, and a promise to hang out soon ends their impromptu get-together, and he moves off to the shared kitchens to see what’s going on there. And what’s going on appears to be Bakugo slamming all the cupboards open while grabbing a plethora of spice bottles from a box with his own neat, meticulous handwriting on it while Ashido and Kaminari watch on.

“No-good goddamn shitty school can’t even get some real seasonings in,” the blond mutters loudly, slamming down a huge spice rack on the counter. “What the fuck are they thinking? Lunch Rush-sensei must be getting fucked in the ass on the budget or some shit if all they can give us is fucking black pepper, salt, and goddamn gochugaru. Who the shit put sugar in with the spices? Morons! Oi, shitty nerd! Fucking help me out here, you know your shit unlike these two extras.”

Izuku rolls his eyes but steps into the kitchen anyways, moving expertly around the boy he used to call his oldest friend as they shift spices, herbs - dried and fresh - and assorted flavourants from boxes to cupboards, racks, and shelves. Soon enough, the work is done and the pair can step back to take stock of what else is there. Thankfully the selection of produce greatly outpaces the initial selection of seasonings, with plenty of fresh vegetables, meats, and three varieties of rice available. This gives Izuku an idea, and he drags the practically-industrial rice cooker over to get it rinsed out and plugged in, before scooping up a couple of the freshly-sorted spices. The movements catch Bakugo’s attention, and he grins. “Fuck me, are you making Auntie Inko’s veggie curry? Alright, you bunch of half-wits, everyone get the fuck out of the kitchen! Izuku is cooking lunch, and I don’t want you morons fucking it up for everyone! If you don’t know the Midoriya family recipe off by heart, fuck the fuck off!”

Waving his arms menacingly, Bakugo herds the onlooking students out of the preparation space, returning to wash his hands at the double sink alongside Izuku. “I’ll do the peeling and shit. For this many you’re gonna need the help, and I remember everything.”

And why wouldn’t he? When it comes to food, the Bakugo family are second to almost none. Izuku just nods and gets to work, falling into the comfortable routine of cooking preparations. With the two of them working in well-rehearsed unison, it doesn’t take long for everything to come together, and soon enough the pair are dishing out plates of rice drizzled with heaping servings of the delectable-smelling curry, which people hurriedly rush to the dining table to begin digging into.

“Right! If you gaggle of smooth-brains want to fuck up the flavour any other day that Izuku makes curry, you can slap on any toppings you want, but you’re having a bare fucking minimum of one plate today exactly as it’s served! Tape fuck, put that ketchup down or I’m gonna kick your ass into next year! Fucking ingrates.”

The meal itself is surprisingly quiet for such a sizable group of teenagers, with nearly everyone focused hard on eating amid occasional exclamations of how good it tastes and the sounds of people going back for seconds (or fourths, in Kirishima’s case). Luckily Izuku had thought to make enough to feed the class several times over, so there’s plenty to go around even if he himself sticks to just one plate. As he’s telling his girlfriend all about how the recipe came to be passed down from his maternal grandmother, he feels his phone go off, and pulls it from his pocket to check. “Oh! My mom’s here a bit early. Aizawa-sensei, you said you wanted to come out and talk to her, right? I’ll let her know we’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

Before he can grab his plate to take to the sink, Bakugo snatches it out from under him and glowers. “Don’t you keep Auntie Inko waiting, dumbass; I’ll make sure all these shitty wannabes chip in to clean up since we made the food. Get your ass outside already.”

Aizawa-sensei slouches over to hand off his own plate, hiking a thumb over his shoulder. “Right, let’s get this over with. Yagi said he went to talk to your mother about the move to the dorms, but I barely trust that man to explain his own haircut to a barber so I wanted to make sure she understood everything going on. Especially given that the villain causing this whole mess knows you by name, problem child.”

“Look, Aizawa-sensei, I said I’m sorry! How was I supposed to know that I was going to become so famous just by helping people in need?”

The two continue to bicker lightly back and forth as they head out of the dorms and towards the guest entrance for the school, Izuku’s heart swelling with joy that he has a teacher he feels like he can actually be friends with, after a lifetime of hoping that they won’t be his enemy at best. As they approach the gates, he spots a familiar green ponytail and calls out to the plump woman, who turns with a bright smile on her lips, then nearly drops the box she’s holding with a small gasp.

“Shouta?! Kurogane Shouta-kun, oh my goodness is that you?!”

The man’s brow furrows deeply as he stares at the greenette, before his eyes widen and he actually takes a step back in surprise. “Akatani-senpai?! Holy shit it’s really you. Wow, how long has it been? Ah, and it’s Aizawa now; took my mom’s maiden name after all, like you told me.”

“Wait, wait, you two know each other? Mom, what the heck! You never told me you knew a Pro Hero!”

Midoriya Inko lets out a girlish giggle, handing her son the box she’d already carried out and using her Quirk to float over a few more from the curb. “Oh, he wasn’t a Pro yet when I knew him, but I’d recognize that hairstyle anywhere! I was his upperclassman in junior high; he went off to UA, I went off to nursing school and met your father… We fell out of touch. Is Hizashi-kun still well? Don’t tell me he’s a teacher here too! I should come in and catch up over some tea, if you’ve got the time!”

Aizawa-sensei grabs a few boxes himself, still looking a little shell-shocked to see his old senpai, and also to learn that she’s the mother of his most notorious student. “Yeah. Yeah, uh, Zashi’s good, and also a teacher. Started up his radio show like he always talked about. But uh, tea. Tea might not be the best idea. Not because I’m busy or anything, Aka- no, it would be Midoriya-senpai now, wouldn’t it? Um. Not a whole lot of easy ways to say this but. Nemuri’s a teacher here too.”

“Oh.”

That single syllable says a whole lot, but far be it from Izuku to not dig even deeper. “Mom, seriously, what the hell? You know Yamada-sensei and Kayama-sensei too?! I mean I know you don’t really listen to Put Your Hands Up Radio, but you’ve seen Midnight on TV a ton of times, how come you never said anything!”

The last time Izuku heard his mother sigh like that was as she dropped the divorce papers off in the mail room, when she had finalized things with his father. “Izuku, honey, Nemuri and I… We had a falling out. I never really brought it up because it involved your father.”

“I’ll say,” Aizawa-sensei grumbles, shifting his weight to grab his pass for the door. “I still don’t think she ever forgave you; she stopped crying every time we went out for drinks after a couple years, though.”

Oh. Well, that’s. Izuku doesn’t really know what to think about that, so he keeps quiet for the time it takes them to go through the guest wing and down the hall to the boy’s dorms, electing to bypass the main common area and the rest of the class. As he digs the key from his pocket, he hears his mom sigh again, and pauses to listen.

“I guess it’s not that easy to get over a broken heart, huh? Kami above, I wish I had known; we could have sat down and talked about it a long time ago. Shouta-kun, will you. Look, I know she probably doesn’t want to see me after all this time but could you give her something for me?”

Inko sets her single box down next to the piles carried in by Aizawa-sensei and Izuku, then pulls her lanyard out from where she’d tucked it into her jacket. She unclips something Izuku has seen her put on every new set of keys she’s gotten for as long as he can remember: a My Sweet Piano charm. It’s old and faded, and there’s scuff marks from where it was rubbing up against a matching My Melody for more than a decade and a half. She holds it out to Aizawa-sensei, who takes it with an air of reverence that’s practically alien to the man.

“You. Kept it.”

Inko nods, her smile small and sad. “I kept it. Even after everything that happened between the two of us, I could never bring myself to throw it away. Can you believe that Hii-san actually brought it up in the divorce proceedings? Jerk.”

Izuku has never heard Aizawa-sensei laugh before. It’s a quiet sound, but rich, and it brings a bit of a tear to his eye. The man gently pats Inko on the shoulder before turning to leave with a small bow. “I’ll make sure she gets it, senpai, but next time you get a day off, you owe me a drink for how hard she’s gonna punch me when she finds out we talked. Don’t be a stranger, yeah?”

“I won’t be, Shouta-kun. After all, my boy is in your care now.”

Notes:

Managed to get this one out today after all, fancy that. I did end up splitting the plot threads I mentioned before, but also one of the D-plots got away from me at the end there. Nobody saw this one coming, least of all the author!!

Also, if you're wondering about my spelling choices for some names, it's just down to personal preference really.

Chapter 10

Summary:

Iida is very concerned that Tsuyu is experiencing a microaggression. Or would this be a macroagression? It's aggressive in any case - and so is how hard he blushes, apparently.

Notes:

Content warning for discussions of frog sex.

#1WaB remains important.

Midoriya Izuku cannot get over the feeling of his girlfriend’s finger pads against his skin. The adorable little beans have such a unique texture, and as she slides them carefully and quietly under his shirt and along his stomach, he is compelled to bury his face in the crook of her neck and plant tiny kisses around her collar bone. It’s late, late enough that most of the rest of the class has gone to bed, and late enough that he himself has snuck back in from his evening patrol around Musutafu. Getting through the dorm’s security is almost insultingly easy, and he can’t help but think it’s being loosened around this same time every day on purpose. Or well, he would think so, if he weren’t so distracted by the second set of fingers kneading the tension out of his shoulders. Tsuyu is unfairly good at massages, and he has never been so glad of an unusual skill not related to Quirks in his life. He lets out a tiny whine of satisfaction as the frog-girl works out a particularly stubborn knot, practically melting into Uraraka-chan’s arms.

Combining his regular class schedule, his extra Quirk training electives, and his return to patrols has left his body a mess of aches, bruises, and tiredness, but getting to spend so much more time with all his friends more than makes up for it. Sure, he’s needed to go right back on the supplements that keep his form lithe and smooth, and maybe he needs to make use of Todoroki as an alternating heating and cooling pad after particularly strenuous days, but it delights him to no end that for once in his life, he has someone he feels close enough to to cuddle up against them. Several someones, even! What exactly is it about Tsuyu’s Quirked biology that makes her so nice to cuddle? Frogs aren’t exactly blubbery, he doesn’t think they’re really that soft either but he’s also never actually tried to cuddle a real frog before especially given how small the ones around his neighbourhood usually are and it’s not like he can go to the zoo to see the giant ones from Africa and ask to hug them or anything that would be frankly nonsensical and-

“Izuku, you’re muttering again, kero.”

“Mrflglbrgh,” the greenet replies helpfully, yawning and resuming his boyfriendly neck-kissing duties.

“Wow, Izu-kun, that was almost coherent!” Uraraka-chan tickles the very bottom of his ribs, causing him to giggle tiredly. “We should get you upstairs soon, babe.”

“I would say that would have been a good idea quite some minutes ago, Uraraka-san!” The voice that cuts in is so incredibly prim and proper that it can only belong to one person, and Izuku gives Iida a half-hearted glare as he looks up at the hall monitor jerk standing over him and making a chopping motion with his hand. “Public displays of affection such as this are highly inappropriate, you three! I am ashamed of each of you! You especially, Tsuyu-san!”

“Wait, kero, why me? I’m not in this relationship; Izuku and Ochako-chan are the lovebirds here, kero. You’re definitely making a mistake, Iida-san.”

“Yeah,” Todoroki pipes up from where he’d been hiding under a blanket nestled up against one of the large beanbag chairs. “It’s not like it’s springtime, Iida; you can’t expect Tsuyu to be hopping into a relationship any time soon.”

Oh wow. Watching Iida’s brain break in real time is actually really funny. His arm freezes mid-chop, and Izuku swears he hears a cartoonish creaking noise as he turns to face Todoroki. “I. Beg your pardon, Todoroki-san? What did you say just now?”

Ever unphased, Todoroki returns Iida’s incredulous stare with one of his own signature flat ones. “You know. Spring. Because she’s a frog. Also, what are you even doing up so late, class president?”

“I will have you know I was doing isometric exercises before bed! Wait, no, that’s not what’s important here at all!” Iida’s voice climbs into the quiet shout that he gets when he’s trying to lecture someone late at night without disturbing the rest of the class, and his arm chops start flying faster than his engines. “Todoroki-san, I am surprised at you! Such careless comments towards those with mutation-type Quirks is unbecoming of you, even given your upbringing! You cannot imply things like that about your classmates; you need to put more thought into what you say! One of these days that could land you in serious trouble! I am sure that Tsuyu-san is more than capable of defending herself against such blatant disregard for her humanity, but I would be remiss as class president to let such things slide! Futhermore-”

Deciding she’s let this go on long enough, Tsuyu finally chimes in, interrupting the boy’s ranting. “Iida-san. I go through heats in the spring, kero.”

“You… You what?”

Croaking out a chuckle, she sits up and fixes him with a flat, blank stare. “My Quirk gives me a really strong froglike biology, kero; and that includes having a breeding cycle. I was telling Shoto about it the other day when he was helping me warm up after a swim. I appreciate you defending my honour though, kero, that was very sweet of you.”

Yikes, the shade of red Iida is turning can not be healthy. Izuku is too sleepy to really worry, though, and simply returns to his kissing, now going ignored by the class president. He’ll get over it eventually.

“I see! Thank you for clarifying that for me, Tsuyu-san! Well, nothing to see here then I suppose that means I should get going I am feeling rather light-headed and would like to go take a very long very cold shower so I bid you all good evening!” Wobbling unsteadily, Iida takes a few steps towards the boy’s dormitories, managing to stumble twice in only four steps before Uraraka-kun leaps into action (proverbially; her hands are still tangled under Izuku’s shirt after all).

“Not so fast, you dehydrated criminal! Tsu, Todoroki, emergency cooldown procedures, go!”

Applying the plan the group had originally developed to help the stubborn Izuku wind down after a workout, Tsuyu flicks out her long prehensile tongue and wraps it around a surprised Iida’s waist, casually lifting him and tossing him towards the now-standing Todoroki, who catches him in the blanket and uses the falling weight of his own body to trap the larger boy in a hug against the beanbag chair, exuding a calming chill from the frosty half of his Quirk. Ignoring the class president’s stammered protests, the bichromic boy shifts around beneath him so he has one leg wrapped around Iida’s waist, an arm up under his chest, and his chin resting on the bespectacled boy’s shoulder, bumping his glasses askew.

“Mission accomplished, Commander Uraraka.”

As the three on the couch begin to laugh, Iida can’t help but join in with them, the sheer silliness of the situation overcoming his usually serious mien. “Alright, alright, I appreciate it. And again, I apologize for my assumptions, Todoroki-san, Tsuyu-san! Oh, Gatorade, don’t mind if I do.”

Tsuyu watches as Iida gratefully guzzles the Western sports drink plucked from the extras in Izuku’s bag, croaking contentedly. “We should do this more often, Iida-san. You need to learn to let loose just a bit, kero; it’s good for your health.”

“I shall make note of this in my schedule, Tsuyu-san; I am sure I can pencil in a bit of silliness over the weekends!”

Izuku can’t tell if he’s serious or not; with Iida, it could go either way after all. Catching himself in a large yawn, he reluctantly pushes himself to his feet, gives Uraraka-chan a proper kiss on the lips, and claims his hugs from Tsuyu, Todoroki, and even Iida before making his way towards his rooms, leaving the others to get themselves to bed when they’re finally ready. Living at Heights Alliance has been a massive change, and thrown him for a loop harder than anything else has before, but it’s moments like this that make it all worth it. He hopes that after tonight, he can well and truly count Iida Tenya as one of his new friends, someone else to look out for, and who will look out for him in return.

Notes:

A silly little slice of life chapter today!! I am forcing myself to take a break before I get started on the next installment because it is going to be the introduction to the USJ Incident and there is a lot that needs to be planned out, so a break is in order to keep myself from burning out!! Please look forward to it!!

Chapter 11

Summary:

Izuku is tired, his girlfriend and best friend are worried about him, and he's clearly taking on too many things at once. But this excursion to a special facility will be a nice chance to get his head in order and make plans to fix things up.

Unless, of course, it's not.

Notes:

Number One With a Bullet plug goes here.

If there’s one good thing about living on school grounds, Izuku muses, it’s being able to get to class while totally exhausted without running the risk of falling asleep on the train and missing your stop. He knows he’s racking up way too much sleep debt, but there’s really not a single thing he can stop doing to add more rest to his packed schedule. This is much to the consternation of his girlfriend, who is currently cross enough to have cancelled their trip to the mall over the weekend and changed their date night to, as she put it, ‘a lap pillow cuddle session’. Not that he’s averse to the idea of spending hours laying his head on the girl’s plush, cushiony thighs, but he’d also kind of been looking forward to hitting up the arcade with Ochako-chan again now that she has her own deck to play on the Illusion Field they’d battled on on their first date. Plus, Kevin’s got a new shipment of fun shirts in, and he wants to get Todoroki something! He slams back the last of the energy drink he’d pilfered from Kaminari’s stash (well, not really pilfered; he’s not about to steal food) and sticks the can in the recycling bin by the door to the classroom before heading in.

Iida is, of course, already there, and much to his surprise is holding a vibrant conversation with the perennially-late Ashido Mina. This likely has something to do with the fact that each student’s desk has the briefcase holding their Hero outfit on it, and he pulls out his phone to check the class schedule as he slides into his seat, having forgotten to do so before leaving the dorms that morning. Good thing they weren’t in a different room this morning or he’d be really embarrassed. But no, it’s just the out-of-class excursion that Aizawa-sensei had mentioned a few days ago. The exact details haven’t been given out yet, but it’s taking up their Foundational Heroics schedule space so it was likely to be some new form of training. Logically, if they weren’t meeting in the usual training grounds, that would mean they were going somewhere new, with Toshinori starting up the next part of the curriculum. Which, if Izuku recalls correctly, is Rescue Heroics. Not really his strong suit, so he’s looking forward to being able to practice.

With some time to kill and no desire for conversation, Izuku pulls one of his many notebooks from his bag and flips to the most recent page of a personal project he’d started to kill time: theoretical Quirk analysis. As much fun as fictional Quirk analysis is, he’s not had enough time to keep up with books and shows as he would like, so he’s switched gears to inventing his own Quirks and then performing analysis on those - plus if any of his teachers ask, he can wave it off as practice. Right now, he’s working from physical mutations (in this case a stag’s horns), then building out a possible Quirk that would produce the mutations, and extrapolating its uses both inside and outside of Professional Heroics. It’s a fun and easy way to keep himself occupied, and he’s gone through a couple dozen this week while waiting for various people in various places on his patrols. Sitting in the vicinity of delivery health girls until their clients show up is a pretty common favour he offers, as is waiting with vulnerable youths between trains. It’s not much, but it’s what he can do, and he’s happy to do it.

His eyes habitually flick up to the door each time it slides open to reveal the next of his classmates to arrive, and eventually he spots Ochako-chan and Tsuyu entering together, smiling and laughing at something. His own expression lights up as his girlfriend dances over to the seat next to him, sneaking in a quick kiss, with his other friend pausing to ruffle his hair on her way past. “Hey girls!”

“Hello Izuku, kero; sorry we missed out on our usual morning jog - perky here kept me up half the night worrying about you - not that I’m not also starting to worry - and she had to drag me out of bed this morning, kero.”

“Tsu! Ya weren’t supposed to just go an’ tell him that!” Ochako-chan’s cheeks puff out in an adorable pout, and just a hint of her accent sneaks through. “But! I am a little bit worried, Izu-kun. I know you want to keep up with all the help you give people, but you’re gonna run yourself ragged! You won’t be of any help to anyone, least of all yourself, if you burn out.”

Izuku’s attempts to assuage his girlfriend and best friend’s fears are stymied by his body’s immediate betrayal as he lets out a massive yawn, which causes Tsuyu to croak humorously. “Alright, alright, you got me. Luckily for you two I talked to Mama Nya the other day about cutting my nights short for a while, and she also yelled at me about getting more sleep! She and a few of the other places in town were already thinking about scaling back street services a little anyway, and a lot of my end of the evening stuff was for them, so as of this weekend I’ll be getting back to the dorms a whole hour earlier than usual.”

“I’ll take it,” Ochako replies with a smile, leaning over for one more quick kiss before the clock ticks over and Aizawa-sensei’s stopwatch goes off, causing him to slowly rise from his place on the floor behind his desk while stripping off his sleeping bag. Maybe the Pro should think about capping off his own patrols too. Iida’s voice rings out with the usual instructions to stand, bow, and offer greetings, a routine executed cleanly enough to cause their teacher to raise a brow. “You little hellions have gotten good at that. Makes me worry that you want something from me. No, Iida, I’m not asking for an explanation, put your hand down. Right, anyway. Today we’re going to be heading over to one of the-”

“I am coming through the door like a normal person,” All Might booms out while throwing the door open wide, interrupting whatever Aizawa-sensei had been about to say and causing the other Pro to bury his face in his hand.

“Yagi, if you have to clarify that every time, you are not being normal, you-! Fuck it, I don’t care anymore. As I was saying. Today we’re going to be heading over to one of the specialty facilities on the other side of campus, along with All Might. We’ll be meeting up with a Rescue Heroics expert when we get there. If you have any questions, please discuss them among yourselves and send a representative to see me during office hours.”

“I was not aware you had office hours, Aizawa! Or even an office for that matter!”

“I don’t. Alright, hellions, grab your costume cases and get changed, then meet back here; once everyone is ready, we’ll be getting on a shuttle and heading out. Try and make it quick, it’s a ten minute drive and if we’re late getting there you’re all doing five laps of the gym tomorrow. Quirkless.”

Nothing makes a gaggle of teenagers move quite so quickly as the thought of collective suffering, so within a few minutes everyone is changed, back, and ready to file onto the shuttle bus. Izuku, Tsuyu, Ochako, and Todoroki all claim the row of seats at the very back, with Kirishima looking torn between sitting with them and the rest of the so-called ‘Bakusquad’ before Izuku waves him off with a smile, signing that he can join them on the way back. The ride isn’t long, but it’s just enough for Izuku to relax properly, tension easing out of his muscles as Todoroki uses careful control of his icy Quirk to apply a chilling touch to the back of his slightly bruised right calf. “Midoriya, what in the world were you doing on your last patrol?”

Even knowing the question isn’t judgmental at all, he can’t help but blush slightly. “I may have had to deal with a problematic customer of Shironeko-san’s. Who kicked me in the leg when I wasn’t looking.”

“Did you hit him back?”

“Only a little! It was self defence, and he definitely didn’t have the guts to bring cops into Mama Nya’s place so it was fine.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about that. I think you should have used your Quirk on him, personally. You let some of these sleazeballs off too easy.”

“Todoroki!”

The purr of the bus’s engine is drowned out by the chatter of the students, several different conversations happening at once, and it’s nearly enough to have Izuku falling asleep. Out of reflex, he catches the energy drink that Kaminari chucks at his head, frowning at the other boy who gives him a double thumbs up. This one is downed like the other, the can placed in the trash bag by the doors as the class files off the bus to look up in awe at the massive building before them, their shock only growing as they’re escorted inside. Everyone knows UA has the highest operating budget out of any private school in all of Japan - which had been made all the more evident when they had offered to buy out the lease of all the students who were renting at the time of the switch to the dorm systems, a godsend to Ochako-chan - but this place was absolutely over the top, especially with that massive glass dome ceiling.

There’s a large map nearby, and standing next to it is the Rescue Heroics expert Aizawa-sensei had mentioned, the Space Hero: Thirteen, who has Izuku fanboying just a little. She raises a hand in greeting as the class approaches, flanked by Aizawa-sensei and All Might, her slightly tinny voice coming out from her suit. “Hello, children, and welcome to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint! As you can see by this map beside me, this special facility has all sorts of different locales built in, and today I am going to help lead you through a series of exercises that will assess your skills in different rescue scenarios, and help you hone them with simulations of real-world disasters. From a stranded climber in the Mountain Zone, to a boat lost at sea in the Flood Zone, you’ll be tasked with using your Quirks in innovative ways to help those in need! Being a Pro Hero isn’t just about combat, after all. Yes, you, Bakugo isn’t it? You’ve got a question?”

The blond shrugs a little, seeming much less arrogant than usual. “Yeah, sensei, what are we meant to do if our Quirks are shit at rescue? I can’t exactly bomb the mountain to get some jackass stuck at the top, now can I?”

“Oho, you’re that boy with the Explosion Quirk, aren’t you? Well, Bakugo, can you tell me what my Quirk is?”

“Huh? It’s Black Hole, ain’t it? You use high-power suction to get rid of rubble and shit from landslides and building collapses. The hell does that have to do with anything, sensei?” Okay, maybe slightly less arrogant.

“Absolutely everything! Why, if you were to come work with me, your Explosion Quirk would be a huge help! You could break down rocks, concrete, rebar, probably even reinforced steel into smaller pieces that my Quirk could more easily manage. That’s the kind of thinking I aim to help each of you develop starting today: how to look at your Quirk as a tool to help people, and not just a weapon to fight them.”

Izuku takes the time bought by this exchange to make a quick sketch of the map, roughly labelling each sector for study, before turning to Thirteen-sensei with a couple questions of his own. They all die on his tongue as he feels something pulse.

Down in the central plaza, a black fog drifts through the air, seemingly from nowhere, and seconds later it splits open into a hole in reality, through which pours a flood of people. The last through are a small man, not much older than the students themselves, covered in what appears to be severed hands, and a tall figure dressed in a simple suit vest, slacks, and shoes, with that same dark mist pouring out the ends of his cuffs and a metal bracer where his neck should be. The hands-wearing man scratches at his neck absently as he looks around, gaze eventually settling on the class. His dry, cracked lips split into a massive grin when he spots them, and his voice is equally raspy.

“Well well, Kurogiri, looks like our intel was spot on! All Might is here, just like the schedule said. Oh, I can’t wait to see the look on that fucker’s face when we start killing all his precious little Hero students! It’ll be such a great expression for his corpse to wear.”

Notes:

Phew, this took WAY longer than anticipated, sorry about that!! Unfortunately the USJ Incident Arc is going to be slow going overall, just because I'm planning some major changes to canon here, and writing all of those in a satisfying way will take lots of work. Please look forward to it!!

Chapter 12

Summary:

Bakugo Katsuki has been less of an asshole than usual. Why?

Notes:

Not going to stop plugging Number One With a Bullet for a long time. Please read it.

Bakugo Katsuki runs like his life depends on it. Not away, never away, fuck that! He’s running towards. Towards the danger, towards the villains, towards the unknown threat this mob of shitty fucking half-witted extras represents, palms sparking and teeth bared, roaring for all he’s worth, Bakugo screams towards the enemy. But, maybe for the first time in his life, his reasons aren’t purely selfish. Yes, he’s doing this to prove himself, but not only to himself. ‘You’re pathetic, Katsuki.’

As he charges, one of those stupid portals starts to open up in front of him, but it’s way too slow. He pivots mid-air, hand towards the floor, and propels himself over it with a short, sharp blast, executing a flawless aileron roll into a group of slack-jawed dimwits, promptly taking out at least half a dozen with a larger blast. Not giving these assholes time to recover, he launches into a flurry of spin-kicks to clear enough space to get himself into a wide stance, then yanks the pin from his right gauntlet with his teeth, unleashing a point-blank Claymore Gutbuster into the body of an invader and sending him flying through several others. “EAT SHIT AND DIE!”

The sounds of his own explosions, the pained screams of his victims, and the muddled shouting of the opponents all around him ring in his ears, and he clenches his teeth as someone gets a good hit in from the side before being met with a boot to the groin. There’s no holding back, no fighting clean. Not when his class is in danger, and not when he needs to prove himself worthy of being a hero. ‘You’re pathetic, Katsuki.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You wanna fucking run that one by me again?”

The tired-eyed man sitting behind the desk seems entirely unfazed by Bakugo’s snarl, nor the implicit threat in his voice. This is the first time a teacher hasn’t been cowed into submission by the crackling of his Quirk, but obviously a Pro is going to have more balls than all the inbreds running Aldera put together. Still, talking shit directly to his fucking face is a step too goddamn far.

“I said you’re pathetic, Katsuki. I meant it, too. Five complaints in two days, including one from another of your teachers. That’s the stupidest record we’ve ever had.”

How fucking dare this toilet paper wearing greasy haired son of a bitch?! “I don’t gotta sit here and take this shit! Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?! I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I ain’t fucking Deku; I’m the strongest goddamn student here, I’m gonna be top of the fucking charts, don’t you forget it.”

Aizawa just ignores him and continues scrawling his signature on whatever shitass forms he’s working on. Could this piece of shit teacher be any more goddamn rude? Bakugo slams his hand down on the desk, leaning in, and suddenly feels the emptiness that comes along with Erasure taking away his Quirk as the Pro glares right back. “First of all, if you ever say that name again, I’m gonna expel you on the spot. Slurs will not be tolerated in my classroom, nor anywhere else in this school. Second, sit the fuck down.” Bakugo can’t really do anything else here, so he sits. “That’s better. You wanna be number one? Top of the charts? Don't make me laugh. You’re nothing more than a bully and a coward. No, shut your goddamn mouth, I am still talking.”

Aizawa finally puts his pen down, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin on top of them. “It was brought to my attention that Aldera Junior High might have fudged your disciplinary record, so I did a little digging myself, and would you care to guess what I found? A long string of assaults, a history of bullying that stretches back to elementary school, and two write-ups from truancy officers who caught you in the vicinity of graffiti containing hate speech. They could never prove you held the paint can, but you were definitely palling around with whoever wrote that shit. And the mouldy cherry on this shit sundae was learning that the biggest target of your garbage behaviour? Your former best friend, a little Quirkless kid who both couldn’t and wouldn’t fight back. Only Midoriya isn’t so Quirkless anymore, is he? I bet that just fucking galls you.”

“Is that what this shit is all about?!” He’s goddamn right it fucking galls him. “What the fuck is up with that anyways?! The shitty little nerd wakes up his stupid fucking Quirk ten years late and suddenly everyone’s on his dick like he’s the second coming! What’s so fucking special about him, huh?!”

“... You really don’t know.” Aizawa rubs his tired eyes, leaning back in his chair with a groaning sigh. “Of course I have to be the one to do this. Fucking. Fine. Fine! Here; it’s public record as of last night anyway, you might as well give it a listen.” He pulls a recording device from one of the pockets on his tool belt, and sets it on the desk. “This is from the interview with that villain we caught, the one that attacked the school.”

Bakugo listens begrudgingly. “There is exactly one person who can buy the Asru Auto in bulk, and is known to carry them around to hand out to people. The Saviour of Musutafu. Every whore, low-life, and bum in the whole of Shizuoka knows the name Midoriya Izuku.”

What the fuck? What the actual fucking fuck?! Aizawa holds up a hand to cut him off, and lets the recording play until the end. “You probably wouldn’t get it, mister silk socks. I’ll eat a snitch’s death any day of the week if it means giving back to that kid. Any one of us would. Big Sis Magne will go down with a smile on her lips knowing she did it to help Midoriya, not that he wouldn’t try to stop me if he knew. That’s just the kind of person I am.”

There’s a sharp click as the recording ends, and Bakugo Katsuki can’t bring himself to break the silence that follows it. Midoriya Izuku, shitty little Quirkless nerd, the most pathetic student at Aldera Junior High, is the Saviour of Musutafu. He knows the title, of course he does - it had been circulating on the Hero forums for years, passing mentions all over of some guy who went around helping people across the city. He even owes the Saviour personally; not directly, but when a third or fourth cousin, still a member of the Bakugo family tree for all their distance, had been getting beat on by his husband, it was the Saviour of Musutafu who had gotten him placed in one of the only male domestic violence shelters in the whole prefecture. His own father had hauled him and his mom all the way to Shizuoka Sengen Jinja to ask the kami there to bless the Saviour with fortune and grace. To think they’d gone all that way to pray for someone who was right there at home.

To think there were people out there who would die for Midoriya Izuku. And that Bakugo had nearly killed the kid himself.

Aizawa finally breaks the spell, picking up the recorder and returning it to its pouch. “There. Now you know just what it is you’re being measured against. If you think you've got what it takes to be a hero - not a Pro, a real hero, then get your shit together and prove it instead of acting like a selfish brat! Do something worthy of being the next number one. So you’re aware, you’re officially on probation. If you can’t get your shit together, then you’re going to be expelled, and you can kiss your dream of being a Pro goodbye. Dismissed.”

It’s not until he’s already home and sitting on his bed that Bakugo Katsuki even realizes he’d left. The whole trip home had been made in a fugue state as the weight of his sins crashed down on his head. It was enough to kill a lesser man - but not him. No, he was going to take this shame, this fear, this disgust with himself, and use it as a point to start fresh. Bakugo Katsuki was going to be better, going to prove to everyone he was worthy. Especially to Aizawa and Midoriya.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Panting and heaving, Quirk only growing stronger as the sweat pours down his body, Bakugo raises his hands again to blow away even more of the dime store losers surrounding him. He’ll never falter here, never fall here; he’ll clean up this fucking mess all on his own if he has to! He’s going to be the next number one, and he’s going to haul Midoriya’s nerd ass up with him if he has to drag the scrawny dork along kicking and screaming!

“Alright, that’s enough of that. Nomu.”

Out of nowhere, Bakugo can taste blood and concrete. Pain blossoms across his body, and he can barely breathe. Something is pinning him down, something massive, stepping on his back and holding his right wrist in a vice-like grip. He hears the raspy cackle of Fuckhands McMike or whoever the shit the crusty villain was, spitting out a growl in return. “Wow, wow, wow! I didn’t think we’d find such a strong Quirk here today. Isn’t he cool, Kurogiri? I want him. But he’s too fighty, we’ll have to fix that if we’re gonna bring him to the Doc. Nomu? Hurt him, but leave him in one piece.”

Agony unlike anything he’s ever felt in his life roars through his body, and Bakugo lets out a blood-curdling scream as he feels his right shoulder being twisted from its socket, hyper-extending in a spiral as his bones screech and give way. He feels several of his ribs pop under the heel of whatever the fuck is on top of him, his vocal cords nearly giving out as he continues his cries of endless agony. He can’t focus enough to spark his Quirk, and it’s an unknown eternity later that the weight lifts from his body. As his vision fades to black, he can hear someone shouting out a Carolina Smash. It sounds like Izuku.

Notes:

Okay I didn't lie this time, the USJ Incident is still going to take a while to write, I just forgot I was going to write this interstitial chapter until I was organizing my notes lmao

Anyway don't worry about Bakugo he's probably fine; how many ribs do you even need? :^)

Chapter 13

Summary:

Todoroki Shoto is finally starting to get used to this "having friends" thing, and even the idea of "caring about other people's thoughts and feelings".

Notes:

Number One With a Bullet plug goes here too. Read it pls.

There is simply no way that these villains did even a cursory amount of research into the members of Class 1-A. If they had, Todoroki Shoto would not have been sent through one of the black mist portals to the Downpour Zone of all places. Really the only worse part of the USJ to have sent him would be the Flood Zone, because facing off against a high-powered ice Quirk in a water-laden environment is just asking for trouble. On the bright side, he’s now aware that he can turn rain into hail, which is probably going to come in useful somewhere down the line. He thinks this new bit of Quirk knowledge should definitely count as one of those small, every-day victories Izuku is always talking about. Separate, of course, from the overwhelming victory of using his Quirk to freeze at least twenty annoying criminals in a gigantic iceberg. They’ll probably be fine; he just has to release them after they pass out from a lack of oxygen but before they succumb to hypothermia. Because killing them would probably make Izuku cry. He’s sensitive like that.

And yes, maybe outsourcing his moral compass to a boy he’s only known for a few months isn’t the best idea, but really who else is he supposed to take that sort of advice from, Endeavour? He’s heard enough of the old bastard’s screeds on punitive justice and the death penalty - and Izuku’s on positive role models - to know that’s a much worse idea. Perhaps on another day, it may have even crossed Shoto’s mind to come to these conclusions on his own, but today he’s too busy using the complex mathematical formula he studied for precisely counting seconds to know when the bodies trapped in the glacier can be safely released and also trying not to think about how it took him so long to learn that that’s not a normal thing for someone to know. Or at least, not according to Ochako - apparently Izuku is a bad source for what counts as normal knowledge to possess, go figure. Relying on just one person to tell him how the world is supposed to work is something all three of his new friends agree on being a bad thing, which he’s still not entirely certain he believes, but he’s willing to at least take it under consideration. Especially since, unlike Endeavour or any of his private tutors, Izuku, Ochako, and Tsuyu have made it extremely clear that he is allowed to take things under consideration rather than simply following what they tell him. And more than that, he’s allowed to not reach any sort of conclusion at all! What a fascinating and unusual concept.

Lifting his left hand, Shoto prepares to start de-icing the first of the villains, calculating that he’s got more than enough time to reach the very last before they’re at risk of more than a bit of nasty frost bite, but a strange sound causes him to pause. It’s the sound of footsteps crunching through ice. Which means he missed one. That’s unlike him. Listening while simultaneously looking like he’s continuing about his business, he waits for the footsteps to come in range, then sends out another wave of ice, breathing a little heavily as his core temperature drops. He really needs to keep on top of that. Spinning on the ball of his foot to see who had managed to escape, he’s met with a shocking sight: a damp, grinning figure with stark white hair, surrounded by a puddle of water. That’s impossible. Making a snap judgment, he sends out another blast of frost and finds his suspicions confirmed when this new enemy reaches out a hand and touches the ice, turning it into a cloud of water.

“Ohhhh, I was so hoping I would get to be the one to find you! Hello little Todoroki boy,” the man calls out in a sing-song voice, dragging a hand along Shoto’s glacier and melting it as he slowly stalks forward, “you’ve really made my whole day! Himura Juro, at your service, son of Enji!”

Himura. A name Shoto hasn’t heard in a long, long time. A family he hates nearly as much as the Todorokis he’s descended from, for allowing one of their daughters to enter into a Quirk Marriage union with his father. And for what? Money. Despicable. Disgusting. “Hey. If you interrupt me right now, some of your comrades are going to freeze to death.”

The man freezes in his mocking bow, a quizzical expression on his face. “Um. What?”

Shoto helpfully hikes a thumb over his shoulder at the villain he’d been about to release from the ice. “These guys. I mean, I assume you’re with them, or maybe they’re with you, but if I don’t get them out of the ice soon they’re not going to make it.” He really doesn’t want Izuku to cry, but he’s sure the greenet will understand if he explains it wasn’t his fault that the invaders had been killed.

“That’s your big concern?! I come in here, undo your Quirk to your face, tell you that I’m going to get my revenge on your father for putting my cousin in a mental hospital by killing you, and you’re worried that a bunch of no-good low-life scum like these guys might die?!”

Shoto nods slowly. “Well, yeah. It’ll make my friend sad. Also, you didn’t say that last part. I mean, I kind of figured it was something to do with my mother the way you emphasized your family name like that. But you didn’t actually tell me you’re going to kill me.”

Oh wow that’s a big gun.

“Shut the fuck up, kid,” Juro shrieks, pointing the gigantic revolver directly at Shoto’s head, “I’m not interested in your fucking back talk! Now be a good boy and beg for your pathetic life! If you do, maybe I’ll settle for blowing out your kneecaps instead of your brain; crippling you for life would still be a pretty sweet deal as far as making Enji miserable goes; his perfect little soldier, reduced to an invalid, just like he did to Rei. And don’t think you can block my bullets with your stupid little ice Quirk either; I’m the true prodigy of the Himura family, I can take our clan’s famous Quirk and turn it upside down even at a distance! See, I read up on you, little Todoroki boy, and I know you - you can’t use the half of your Quirk that comes from your filthy fucking father at all!”

… Huh. Shoto supposes it must look like a lack of ability to an outsider. It’s true, after all, that he’s never been publicly seen to use the hot half of his Quirk before, even during the separate entrance exams for recommended students. At the time, it had been a great way to piss his father off, and he’d also been wrapped up in the idea that he should become a Pro Hero without it, since he did see it as the legacy of his father the same way Juro does. But that was before he’d met Izuku, before their late night chats together as he wound down from training sessions with his father, before he’d come to trust the other boy more than he’d ever trusted anyone - himself included. Because there was another lesson Izuku had imparted to him, Shoto recalls as he lets the flames lick their way up the left side of his body, allowing himself a sense of smug satisfaction as they roast his distant relative where he stands: this is his Quirk, not his father’s.

‘Look, I get where you’re coming from, Shoto-san, but hear me out. If you keep seeing it like that, you’re really just letting him win again. It’s not healthy to hold yourself back just to spite your shitty, abusive sperm donor! You should embrace it. Own it. Make it a part of who you are, rather than a memory of who he wanted you to be. And then, when you use it to become a better Hero, a better person than he ever was? It’ll feel all the nicer.’

He still hasn’t got very good control over his flames, so it’s hard to judge exactly when he should stop using them, but once Juro collapses to the ground and quits screaming seems like as good a time as any. This time he’s sure Izuku won’t cry, at least not once Shoto explains that the man had not only pointed a gun at him, but had also tried to stop him from saving the lives of the other villains. Why, he might even get praised for his quick thinking! It feels nice when Izuku tells him he’s done a good job. Ochako can tease him for it all she likes, he knows by the way she lights up at her boyfriend’s smiles that she feels the same as he does. Though he’ll definitely let her keep the kisses for herself, thank you very much. Headpats and hugs are more than enough for Shoto, no need to get weird about it. With the tiniest bit of a spring in his step at the thought of Izuku’s fingers ruffling his hair, he turns his back on the fallen body of Himura Juro to resume melting his glacier, working extra quickly to make sure nobody dies. They’ll be able to survive a little bit of scalding.

This is, of course, precisely when everything goes to shit.

Todoroki Shoto is a lot more familiar with the sound of gunshots than anyone his age has any right to be. Which is how he knows exactly what’s happened when his blood splatters from his lower abdomen all across the ice in front of him. He staggers, trying to turn, and feels the ripping pain of a second bullet lance through his body before he can complete a full revolution. Clearly, leniency was a mistake, and he’s going to have to make Izuku cry after all. Mustering up the last of his strength, he turns a focused blast of fire on his squirming enemy, the pulse thrumming in his own ears drowning out the man’s weakened screams. Staggering, Shoto coughs, spits, and vomits noisily, feeling himself slam into the ground. Shit. He’s been hit somewhere vital, his head shouldn’t be swimming this much. He can’t cauterize the wound, assuming he can even find it just by blindly running his hands over his body, he hasn’t got that kind of control with his flames yet. Freezing it is going to suck, but the alternative is bleeding to death, and he can’t do that. Not anymore. He feels his finger snag on the jagged edge of one of the bullet holes, and vomits again, staying conscious through sheer force of will mixed with Endeavour’s training. Shoto ices the spot as carefully as he can, then repeats the action a second time when he finds the other wound. Shit.

He realizes he’d blacked out only when he comes to, feeling himself pressed against someone’s back, arms dangling over their shoulders and steady, solid hands under his legs. His vision slowly swims back to enough clarity to see a whole mess of red spikes. “Kirishima?”

“Brodoroki! Hang on, man, don’t talk! You lost a lot of blood, dude, I’m gonna get you to the medics!” Brodoroki. Such a ridiculous nickname, yet all the more endearing for it. It certainly doesn’t hurt that it mangles Endeavour’s proud family name, either.

“Why… Aren’t you with Izuku? You promised.”

“Psh, what, you think I bailed on my bro?” He can hear the usual smile in the other boy’s voice, but it’s strained. “Nah, he’s the one who sent me to find you! I told you, Brodoroki, I’d look after Midobro even if you hadn’t asked me to promise. He’s a great guy, and a good friend. He was worried about you - about everyone, really, but about you, Tsu, and Ochako especially.”

Oh. Good. Yes, right, of course Kirishima wouldn’t be here if Izuku was unsafe; he had promised, after all, and even that promise was just an extension of the boy’s own desires. It had taken Shoto a lot to work up the nerve to ask the resident gym rat to keep an eye on his best friend, after how unexpectedly well he’d handled the greenet’s panic attack on that first day in the dorms, but it had been met with an incredibly jovial slap on the back and a promise that he hadn’t even needed to ask. “Kirishima. I think my wounds opened up again.”

“Huh? Oh, no, you’re good! That’s my blood, not yours.”

Oh. Not good. “You should put me down. I’ll be alright. You shouldn’t be carrying me if you’re injured too.”

“Aw, that’s super manly of you to worry about me! I can handle it though! It’s all flesh wounds.”

“Well, yes. Flesh tends to be the thing that gets wounded when you’re bleeding.”

This gets a loud barking laugh. “Good one, Brodoroki! I mean it’s my skin; it cracked a bit, that’s all! Took some pretty heavy hits, but nothing that could keep me down! Now, hush up and rest, you hear? Or else I’ll tell Izuku you were being uncooperative, and he’ll probably use that tone he gets, the one he picked up from Ochako!”

Ugh. The very thought of it is enough to make him shudder worse than his own cold. With a sigh, Shoto resigns himself to being carried, but manages to croak out one last comment before falling silent. “Thank you, Kirishima. You’re a good friend, too.”

Notes:

Well, this one is a complete 180 from the planning document lmao. Originally, Shoto was supposed to have a big knock-down drag-out fight and be forced to internalize what Midoriya said about his Quirk, but as I was writing the opening it occurred to me that that was. Kind of shitty? Like, forcing him to accept something like that in the face of death didn't feel right, and neither did having him come to the conclusion all on his own. So instead I thought "what if he already HAD the moment of acceptance? That trust in Midoriya that lets him embrace his Quirk entirely as his own?"

This was followed by "what if he just fucking ganks the guy instead of fighting him?" and thus the new Chapter 13 was born XD

Chapter 14

Summary:

Ochako and Tsuyu get some combat training in

Notes:

Three.

The very first thing that Uraraka Ochako is doing when this nightmare of a villain attack ends is marching right down to the 1-H building, grabbing whatever Support Course student is close by, and demanding that they help her figure out how to make her gear waterproof. Her bracers? Useless. Her boots? Full of lake water. Her helmet? Well, her helmet may actually be just fine if she could figure out where it is! She had lost it somewhere in between falling out of the hole in the sky and clambering to the shore of the artificial lake that makes up most of the Flood Zone. It really is such bullshit that this hadn’t been planned out by anyone! Granted, yes, she had been the one to design the outfit initially, but surely the support students are capable of recognizing that water may be a problem and taking preventative action. But enough grumbling and moaning, there’s work to be done! She starts by taking stock of her surroundings, trying to figure out which side of the lake she’d ended up on - her only real thought at the time had been to get to shore, since she isn’t the strongest swimmer.

She spots the slope of a mountain off to one side, and can hear the water from the giant slide behind her. That would put her on the shore nearest the Conflagration Zone, which is also the farthest from the entrance and plaza. Great. It’s going to be one hell of a schlep back, and that’s not even counting whatever assortment of criminals, delinquents, and ne'er-do-wells are standing between her and her reunion with the rest of the class. She really wishes she could fly properly with her Quirk, but barfing mid-air is not a great way to sneak around, nor is passing out from the vertigo. Right as she’s about to get started, three things happen all at once: she feels a hand grab her ankle, which causes her to fall flat on her face, and she hears the rather distinctive sound of someone having a hard object collide with the back of their head. Ochako flips onto her back and pushes herself up to see her best friend shoving the unconscious body of a fish-headed villain into the water with one hand, the other holding her own missing helmet. Tsuyu clambers up onto the shore, offering her a small smile.

“Let’s not tell Izuku about that one, kero, he might cry.”

That gets a good laugh out of Ochako, and she takes a moment to give Tsuyu a quick hug. “I’m guessin’ I got you t’ thank for not seein’ anyone on my swim?”

Tsuyu nods. “Accent, kero.”

“Dang it!” Ochako feels her face flush, and she stomps her foot lightly. “Don’t tell Izu-kun that either! I swear, that boy gets me worked up on purpose just to make me forget my speech training.”

“He does,” Tsuyu confirms in a smug tone, “and I can’t say I blame him, kero. You know I’ve always had a soft spot for your Iga-ben, kero, though I’ll always be happy your parents sent you across to Aichi for your language lessons. Can’t regret meeting my best friend.”

Ochako is too used to Tsuyu’s teasing to let herself blush at that, so instead she plops her surprisingly dry helmet on her head and turns towards the small wooded area near the border with the Conflagration Zone, with the intent of moving along the tree line towards the plaza using it as cover. With a bit of help from her Quirk, she may even be able to climb one of the taller trees and do a bit of scouting; she’d love to be able to avoid villain encounters as much as possible. If it’s possible at all. Ochako will fight if she needs to, and she knows that Tsuyu will as well, neither of them are slouches, but she’d really prefer to avoid getting hurt if she can. Rescue Heroics has always been more her bag than combat, despite how well she’d done in the Battle Trial - that was mostly just a fluke! She may be able to repeat the same trick again if she’s lucky, but counting on it would be a big mistake. She’s happy to make it all the way to the woods and up through one of the trees, Tsuyu by her side, with no incidents or villain encounters.

This is, of course, precisely when everything goes to shit.

The tree the duo are in shakes dangerously, nearly dislodging them, and a bestial roar can be heard from below. “Come out down, kiddies, lemme see what your guts look like!”

Ochako grabs hold of Tsuyu’s wrist and glances down to see a muscular woman with three small horns, two on her head and one on her nose, rear back and slam herself into the tree again. A triceratops Quirk is probably the last thing Ochako wanted to see, right up there with chainsaws or a macaque. Thinking fast, she touches all five fingers to Tsuyu’s wrist and then to her own, activating her Quirk with its telltale flash of purple light. Tsuyu, being used to it by now, reacts immediately by shooting her tongue out towards a shorter tree a small distance away and giving a mighty tug, launching the two of them from the branches and hopefully out of danger. That hope is dashed as soon as the pair land, though, as a blurred form whips past them at a high speed, blowing them both over. Except for Ochako’s reflexive releasing of her Quirk, she and Tsuyu would have gone flying. As it is, both are knocked to the ground, and attempting to climb to their feet only results in the blur slamming into them a second time. Tsuyu tries to lash out with her tongue, but it’s deflected when the person making up the blur comes to a stop in front of them and bats it away.

Ochako recognizes the man’s colouration, wide feet, and ridiculous hairstyle right away: this is Kamose Kamizu, alias Mandarin, one of the most wanted men in her home prefecture of Mie. “Tsu, be careful! This guy’s Quirk, Slyde, makes him frictionless; he’s going to be hard to hit, and harder to get away from.”

The man laughs in a sleazy manner, running his hand along his slicked-back tricolour hair and clicking his pointed beak. “Aw, ya recognize lil ole me, girly? I gotta say I’m flattered! ‘Fraid t’ say you ain’t my type though, cheeks. Your friend there? Well, I’ll be havin’ some fun with that once I beat the snot outta ya.”

Urk. Ochako thinks she’s gonna hurl, and not because of her Quirk for once. She knew Mandarin was a creep, what with all the counts of sexual harassment tacked on to his theft and burglary charges, but the blatant transphobia in referring to Tsuyu as ‘that’ is an unexpected step over the line into genuine piece of shit territory. Much as she’d love nothing more than to slug this loser in the nuts, she knows it wouldn’t do her any good given his Quirk. Beating him is going to take some thinking given that she’s not carrying any sort of suppression devices, but just how is she going to buy herself enough time to come up with a plan under the circumstances? They can’t outrun him, so escaping back into the woods where his Quirk is harder to use is out of the question, and they obviously can’t beat him in hand to hand combat either. Damn it, if only Izuku were here with his insane Quirk knowledge and his adorable muttering! Her boyfriend would probably be able to take one look at Mandarin and come up with three ways to kick his ass on the spot! She and Tsuyu just haven’t had enough time to learn more than the absolute basics from him, and that’s not going to be enough here. She refuses to go down without a fight, though, and drops into her best stance, wobbly though it may be. She sees Tsuyu do the same from the corner of her eye, and can’t help but hope that the frog girl had picked up more of Izuku’s smarts than she had.

Just like that, the answer presents itself in the form of a screaming, raging triceratops thundering out of the woods, plowing through the smaller tree and several bushes where the face-off is happening and causing Mandarin to slide away quickly. “You disgusting motherfucker! These are high school students!”

“You’re one to talk!” Mandarin squawks, reversing his momentum and coming to a halt several yards away. “You’re tryin’ to kill ‘em!”

“Wanting to rip their guts out is a hell of a lot more honourable than molesting them! Why the fuck did I have to get stuck with a pedo, huh?”

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, the two girls split and run in opposite directions, Ochako touching as many things as possible with her Quirk while sprinting for the treeline, and Tsuyu making a mad dash for the lake. It’s lucky that escape was never their plan, because it takes all of a few moments for the pair of villains to catch up once they finish their bickering. No, this had been the plan from the beginning, whispered hurriedly between the two, and the first step has gone perfectly: split the villains up, with Mandarin sliding after Tsuyu and the triceratops lady after Ochako. She really hopes Tsuyu can keep her dodging game up long enough for Ochako to come and help her, but she doesn’t have much time to worry about it because she’s got a raging dinosaur directly behind her. So close behind her, in fact, that the dumbass villain doesn’t even realize they’re heading directly towards the larger tree they’d escaped from! Right when she can feel the tickle of thrusted horns against her back, Ochako activates her Quirk on herself and shoots up into the air, squeezing her eyes shut to keep from losing her breakfast, and is rewarded with the extremely satisfying sound of a loud thud and a shriek. Cracking one eye, she can see the second part of plan has worked just as flawlessly as the first: the woman’s horns are lodged deep into the soft wood of the pine, leaving her vulnerable to an attack from above, which Ochako executes immediately, dropping hard and fast right onto the back of her neck. She pointedly does not think about the snapping noise underneath her, choosing to believe it’s the woman’s horns breaking off parts of the tree. In any case, that’s the easier target down and out.

Tsuyu, it would seem, has had an alright time of playing leapfrog with Mandarin, bouncing and flipping out of his path and taking advantage of the flat terrain that prevents him from taking to the air with his Quirk. Still, he’s definitely gotten a few lucky hits in, and the other girl is starting to flag a bit as Ochako rushes over, pulling a handful of stones dug up from the dinosaur woman’s charge along with her and whipping them towards the duck-like villain. Just by herself, she can’t get them moving fast enough to do any damage, though, and she growls in frustration as they glance off his back. She hadn’t really expected it to be enough to stop him all on its own, but she’d been hoping to at least do some damage! Still, it gets the bastard’s attention away from Tsuyu long enough to give her a breather, and that’s the more important point, even if it ends up getting Ochako knocked on her ass again. She’s really glad she’s got a helmet on, even more so when a kick to the head comes on Mandarin’s skate back. That’s absolutely going to leave a mark.

“Well I gotta thank ya, I guess, cheeks; ya got rid o’ that obnoxious dino-turd for me. Mighty kind of ya!”

Ugh. Gross, gross gross gross. Hearing an accent so close to her own come out from such a scumbag’s mouth sends a shiver down her spine, and she resolves to definitely not tell Izuku about this one. The kick she aims at his crotch is about as effective as she’d anticipated, which is to say not in the slightest, but it gets him to back off long enough to regain her feet. She doesn’t manage to make it far before another drive-by shot hits her, then another, and soon enough she’s being battered from all sides, barely managing to stay standing, but somehow still walking back step by step until she reaches her target. “Tsu! Now!”

Leaping into action, quite literally, Tsuyu bounds over her and Mandarin, wraps her tongue around the large rock Ochako had touched with her Quirk earlier, and whips it at the villain. Right before it’s about to hit, two things happen: Ochako releases her Quirk for a split moment, and Mandarin glides effortlessly out of the way. He’s just too fast. One final blow catches Ochako in the stomach, hard, and she hits the ground for what she’s sure will be the last time in the fight, rolling to a stop on her back. Mandarin, slicking his hair again, clicks his beak with a sigh. “Ya almost had me, cheeks, but ya just ain’t up to snuff. Don’t worry too much, though, I ain’t like that lizard weirdo; I’ll just knock ya out a little afore I take what I’m after from your pretty friend. Say g’night!”

“Wait,” Ochako pants, “there’s somethin’ ya gotta know first. ‘Bout mah Quirk.”

Blinking stupidly, Mandarin takes a cautious step back. Bingo. “What’s that, cheeks?”

Ochako smiles beneath her cracked visor, gesturing with her steepled fingers. “I don’t gotta release everything all at once.”

“What? What the fuck does that even mea-?”

Mandarin’s confusion is cut off along with just about everything else when the small tree that had up until a moment ago been floating somewhere near the top of the USJ’s glass dome makes a sudden, jarring return to the ground, directly on top of him. The villain doesn’t even have time to scream before he’s crushed, and Ochako is glad for that; she’s already got one sound to haunt her nightmares for the foreseeable future, thank you very much. She heaves once, twice, and manages to roll over onto her side and tear her helmet off before she vomits messily. Ugh. She feels Tsuyu’s hands under her arms, and leans into the other girl’s grasp, thankful that she doesn’t seem to be any more in the mood to talk than Ochako herself. With a bit of a balancing act, the two begin to hobble back towards the plaza, hoping even harder this time that they won’t run into another gang of mooks. If they do, they’ll have to hope that they’re less interested in killing than the dinosaur woman had been. And also less interested in rape. Because they really aren’t in any shape to go through another fight like that, and it becomes clear in their minds that for all they’re students at the prestigious UA High School, they’re still students, years away yet from being close to the Pros.

But their hopes pay off, with the rest of the trek being uneventful, at least until they reach the plaza itself, wending their way through torn up paving stones and cracks in the ground. Much to her surprise, Ochako stumbles and falls, losing her friend’s support. Looking up at her from the ground, her questioning is cut off before it can start by the look of abject horror on Tsuyu’s face, and the sound the other girl makes drowns out the snap echoing in her ears.

“IZUKU!”

Notes:

Whew, this was a tough one!! Couple hints for future plot threads dropped, couple girls beat up, couple villains... Well, don't worry about them, they're probably fine :^)

Chapter 15

Summary:

Kirishima understands now why Aizawa-sensei is so cranky all the time. This is exhausting.

Notes:

Two.

“Those are real villains! Everyone scatter; Iida, run for the exit and go get help!”

“But sensei-!”

“No time; GO!”

Kirishima Eijiro wasn’t the one instructed to run, but he finds himself moving anyway. He knows he’s not the smartest of the Class 1-A students, or even the strongest, and his Quirk sure ain’t flashy, but he’s got one thing going for him: tactical awareness. There’s a single choke point between the plaza and the exit, right at the top of the steps. Anyone coming after Iida has to do it in a straight line, and that means he himself has one job and one job only: get in the way of that straight line. He hears Engine rev, but doesn’t move his eyes from his goal, calling up his own Quirk in a fraction of a second and planting himself firmly, arms crossed and legs braced. And it’s not a moment too soon, because right as he opens his mouth for a manly taunt towards his enemies, there’s one right in front of him. It’s massive, all he can see is dark black muscles, and then he feels a weight like a speeding cargo train slam into his abs. It’s the biggest hit he’s ever taken in his life, and he swears he can taste Hardening crack under the pressure; though that may just be the bile he spits up. He didn’t think it was possible for a living being to punch so hard, except maybe All Might, and he’s almost certain his skin has been broken off, but he doesn’t move until he hears the distinctive click of the wide double doors closing that signals Iida’s escape, and even then it’s to wrap his arms around the gigantic wrist of the creature that had struck him. This doesn’t go at all as planned, as he finds himself being lifted into the air and flung down into the plaza.

It’s not a short flight, and when he lands the paving tiles crunch and crack beneath him until he skids far enough to slam into the fountain. Even with Hardening at its peak it would probably knock the wind out of him, but with the crack across his abs it’s enough to leave him dazed for a solid minute or so - long enough that he doesn’t see what happens to Bakugo, but sure as hell hears the resulting screams. Midobro’s shouting is what finally rouses him, hearing his friend’s distinctive shout of ‘Carolina Smash!’, one of All Might’s signature moves. It makes sense; he hasn’t had a chance to talk to him about it just yet, but Midobro very clearly has something going on with All Might, as well as having a very similar Quirk. Even a dumbass like Kirishima could start putting some of the pieces together - he’s not that bright, but he’s definitely observant, and it just plain adds up to Midobro having a direct connection to All Might. Brodoroki’s theory is that the two are father and son, but that just doesn’t add up to Kirishima, cause there’s just no way All Might wouldn’t be manly enough to own up to having a kid out of wedlock, and it would be even less manly to keep a wife secret if he was married after all. No, All Might is at the peak of manliness, right up there with Crimson Riot himself, which can only mean there’s something else going on there. Not that Kirishima has a chance to think about it much more, because he’s staring down the hands of a villain who has fucking guns for fingers. On literally any other day he’d like his odds to tank a direct shot from at least a couple handgun rounds (heh, handgun), just not today. His luck, however, seems to hold out, with gunfingers coming up dry. Kirishima doesn’t pause to question it, he just gets up and slugs the villain in the face as hard as he can, sending him flying. The way he lands is… Well, he’s not gonna tell Midobro about it, cause he doesn’t want to make his bro cry.

That would be so unmanly. Not the crying, obviously.

Finally his head stops spinning enough for him to get his bearings, and he really hates what he sees. Or rather, what he doesn’t see, because most of his classmates are missing, and so is one of his teachers. Aizawa-sensei is just across the plaza, hair and Quirk both flaring (which explains gunhands), All Might and Midobro are fighting against whatever the hell the giant creature called ‘Nomu’ is, Iida is probably halfway to Hokkaido at the speed he’d been sprinting, and Kirishima really hopes everyone else is okay wherever they had ended up. No time to worry about them when there’s ass to kick, though! All thoughts of tactical advantage fly from his mind as fast as his battle cry flies from his mouth as he focuses his Hardening and charges into the fray of generic street thugs surrounding his remaining teacher, shoulder-checking a cluster of them and bowling them over like douchey ten-pins. No thoughts, head empty, fists full, let’s rock! There’s something incredibly satisfying about the meaty thud of a bad guy’s face or torso when he drives a full-force punch into it, and he feels his grin growing ever wider as their returning blows glance off his Quirk-hardened back. To the surprise of many, Kirishima doesn’t actually like fighting, not for its own sake - he’d much rather be a back liner, the last line of defense for when shit really goes down - but this? This isn’t fighting, this is taking out the trash. This is wiping the damn floor with a bunch of rowdy, inconsiderate assholes who had the sheer fucking balls to come in here and threaten to kill his friends. This is being the back liner, because shit has already gone down, he’s the last line of defense keeping Midobro and All Might focused on the kind of fighting only they can do instead of worrying about who’s behind them. This is exactly the shit Kirishima Eijiro had restructured his entire personality around, so he can be forgiven if he’s having a fucking blast doing what he was made for.

“Kirishima! DOWN!”

Hearing Aizawa-sensei’s shout, he drops on instinct, and a strand of the man’s scarf (capture weapon?) soars over his head, barely knocking aside a large kanabo thrown by one of the invaders and keeping it from hitting Kirishima in the head. As he stands back up though, he notices it disappear mid-air and slam directly into the damaged plate over his abs, knocking the wind out of him again and making him cough up more bile. Aizawa is at his side in an instant, all spinning kicks and flying scarf, beating back the oni-like villain and giving Kirishima room to breathe. This does, however, mean the Pro Hero has taken his Quirk-nullifying gaze off of the villain shrouded in black mist, which shows Kirishima what happened to the rest of his class as a swirling portal forms under his feet and he suddenly finds himself freefalling from the top of the USJ’s glass dome. He instinctively curls himself into a ball, twisting to try and land shoulder-first and avoid impacting with his head or legs, yet before he can even come within arm’s reach of the pavement, he feels the familiar wrap of strangely-motile fabric around his body and finds himself moving in a completely different direction. Namely, directly towards the oni villain at Mach Fuck. He can’t believe Aizawa-sensei would use him as a weapon like that! That’s the manliest thing ever, not to mention effective as hell! He didn’t take the Pro to be the type to use such a badass tactic. The villain tries to block with his war club, but it snaps back and hits him in the face, no match for the flying, fully-Hardened Kirishima.

Feeling really sick of being dazed and having to clear his head, Kirishima replies to his teacher’s mumbled inquiry with a thumbs up, staggering over to stand by his side with his fists raised. It’ll take a lot more than that to put him down and out of a fight like this, bleeding or not. Much to his surprise, though, the area seems to be mostly clear of villains who are themselves in any shape to fight. That just leaves the three big ticket contenders: the black mist villain, Fuckhands McMike, and the Nomu. He’s not sure how much longer Aizawa-sensei can keep Mist Man’s Quirk suppressed, and there’s no guarantee the Pro will be able to catch him again next time, so Kirishima will likely need to take a gamble on the Quirk of the dry, crusty bastard calling the shots. Seriously, what is up with this guy’s skin?

“Hey, sensei, think you can keep Mist Man pinned down?” His voice is kept at a low rumble to make sure the villains can’t overhear him.

“Yeah, but not for too long,” Aizawa-sensei replies in a susurrant hiss. “I overheard them calling each other Kurogiri and Shigaraki Tomura; I’ll let you guess which is which. If I can’t make the report, someone needs to be able to do it; I doubt All Might heard a damn thing.”

“Wait, seriously?” He can understand ironic naming before one’s Quirk develops, but choosing ‘Black Fog’ as your villain name when you’re made of the stuff seems a bit on the nose. Maybe he just wants to fit in? Unless he’s stupid enough to use his real actual name as a villain. “Well, whatever. Let’s do this.”

“Leeroy Jenkins.”

No. No no no Aizawa-sensei did not just use that fucking centuries-old meme in the middle of a fight! Where would he even have heard about that? Oh this is absolutely Present Mic-sensei’s fault. It has the intended effect of boosting Kirishima’s morale, as he starts laughing wildly while charging towards Shigaraki with the full intent of hammering the bastard into a pile of flakey skin.

This is, of course, precisely when everything goes to shit.

Because Midobro is there. He’s broken off from the Nomu, likely at All Might’s instruction, and is charging Shigaraki himself at a much faster speed than Kirishima can. And Shigaraki just takes a half-step out of the way of the boy’s punch, catches him by the arm with one hand and the other snaking around his neck.

And when the villain places his little finger down, Kirishima Eijiro gets to see what Shigaraki’s Quirk is.

“IZUKU!”

Tsuyu shouldn’t be making a sound like that. No human should, but especially not the normally-stoic frog girl. Kirishima can’t blame her, though, because the sight before them is so horrific. Already bruised and bleeding, battered and beaten, now Midoriya is dying, in a slow, horrible manner. The skin on his arm and neck are slowly peeling away, cracking and flaking to expose the bloody muscle beneath, and from the gurgling sounds of distress the boy is making, it’s incredibly painful. The strongest student in their entire class is reduced to struggling weakly, free hand scrabbling and scratching at the grip around his neck, but it’s not enough to break free. In his panic, his fear for his life, Midoriya has probably forgotten all about his legs, because they’re locked at the knee, shaking and barely keeping him upright. It’s only been a few seconds, but a thought finally thunders through Kirishima’s mind.

Stop fucking hesitating.

So he does. Comedy and laughter forgotten, Kirishima lets out a bestial scream like he’s never screamed before, closing the gap between himself and Shigaraki in an instant and slamming into the bastard with every ounce of seething hatred he can muster packed behind his fist. He can feel bones shatter under the blow, but it’s not enough, he wants blood. The red-hot rage stings in his eyes as he watches to see where the villain will land, fully intending to go after him, to pummel him into the dirt until he stops moving, stops breathing, stops being a threat to the health and happiness of his friends, but he feels something touch his ankle. It’s small, and soft, and weak, and it snaps him out of his rage because it’s Izuku. His bro needs him a hell of a lot more than he needs to kill Shigaraki. He barely registers the sound of the Nomu hitting the top of the dome and breaking through it, doesn’t notice the black fog clear away the remnants of the attacking villain as Aizawa-sensei finally blinks a little too long and Kurogiri promptly de-asses the area; he’s too busy getting Midobro laid out gently and giving him a quick check-over. He rips some of the cloth from his own outfit and uses it to dab away the blood around the other boy’s throat, noting that while grizzly, the wound appears to be mostly superficial, as does the one around his wrist. With medical attention, he’ll be just fine, even if he might have some new additions to his collection of scars. He’s joined quickly by Ochako, Tsuyu, and Aizawa-sensei, the latter pulling bandages and gauze from his belt pouches and swiftly wrapping and packing the injuries that need the most immediate treatment.

“‘shima… Kirishima…”

“Midobro! Don’t talk, just try and relax; you’re gonna be just fine bro, I promise!” He can’t hear any shaking in his own voice, which is good; as rattled as he is, he wants to keep his manly facade up for the sake of comfort.

“‘m not worried… About me… Please, you have to… Have to find Shoto. Bring him…” Midobro’s own voice is weak, as is his smile, and he’s clearly going to pass out soon from the pain. “If it hurts too much, send someone else. But please…”

Kirishima forces himself to plaster on a wide, toothy grin. “Of course Midobro! I’m barely hurt at all; I’ll get him back here fast as I can!” It’s not a lie, not really. Kirishima’s pain is mostly mental and emotional, with the cracked skin on his abs relegated to an obnoxious sting. He’ll be okay, even if he ends up needing to carry Brodoroki from the farthest end of the complex. “You get some rest, and when backup gets here they should have emergency medical responders with them! Just do what they say, okay Midobro? That’s the manly thing to do!”

The weak, genuine laughter he gets in response lights a fire in his heart, and Kirishima pushes himself to his feet, giving a little wave to the rest of the students who are stumbling back to the plaza. Everyone is at least a little beat up, or a lot beat up, but there’s no missing limbs or anything like that. All Might is tending to Bakugo with a gentleness that belies his size, and so Kirishima sets out to find his missing friend, churning the day’s event over in his mind. He doubts he’s the only one who had to kill to survive, and he knows from his course over the break between junior high and starting at UA that there’s going to be a lot of trauma to deal with, for himself and for the rest of his class. But he also knows that his mentor at the program, Hound Dog, works at UA and will be more than capable of providing much-needed therapy alongside the rest of the counselors on staff. He himself plans to assist as much as he can from the inside, being one of the class members himself and thus closer to home and easier to trust.

After all, he’s the last line of defense. The rock that everyone can lean against. Sturdy in the storms to come, no matter what the future brings. He will endure, and he will make sure his friends do too.

Notes:

Phew, this one was a lot of work to write!! Mostly because I didn't know if they were going to end up fighting Kurogiri and Shigaraki or not - in the end, I settled for "sort of both" lol

What's the countdown in the notes at the top for? Don't worry about it :3

Chapter 16

Summary:

Midoriya is having a really, really shitty day. Then again, so is everyone else.

Notes:

One.

If you asked Midoriya Izuku on his darkest days who the one person in the world he’d want to see hurt was, he would answer without hesitation: Bakugo Katsuki. But actually seeing the boy he once called his closest friend down on the ground, screaming as his arm is shattered and torn by the giant creature called a Nomu? That’s a very different matter than the fantasies that once flitted through his mind. More than vengeance, he had always dreamed of justice, of a day where Bakugo would be made to answer for everything, but this was neither. It was just pure destruction. He can feel One for All crackling in his veins, stars beneath his skin, and he gives in to the Quirk’s hunger for battle. That’s the best way he can describe it, a hunger. Not an ache in his stomach like a hemovore-type gets, but a physical sensation nonetheless, one that tickles at his scalp and makes his hands twitch with the drive to hit something. Crossing his arms over his chest, he sets his feet carefully, then pushes off, ignoring how he can tell his shoes are starting to fray along the soles. They’re his normal day-to-day shoes, so they’re not reinforced the way his proper Hero outfit ones were supposed to be - he hadn’t had the data on his Quirk ready in time for the initial round of designs being sent off to the Support Department, so those weren’t ready yet. If they can’t hold up, he’ll have to go barefoot.

“Carolina Smash!”

He can admit that All Might’s signature moves are satisfying to both use and shout, way more now that he shares the man’s Quirk than when he was a kid running around on the playground. Unsurprisingly based on how fast it had gone from chasing Iida to its current position, the attack fails to land on the Nomu as it steps out of the way, but that has the effect Izuku had actually been after in getting it off of Bakugo’s body. He suppresses the instinct to grab the other boy and bring him to safety, knowing that it’s far too dangerous to move him in his condition. Or maybe just hoping, because the only way it wouldn’t be is if he’s already dead. Another day that thought may have been enough to make him cry, but not today. Today he has a job to do, and that’s beating the everloving shit out of these villains. He pivots, feeling the soles of his shoes crack again, and kicks them off so they'll stop being a distraction, catching his low-riding socks on his toes to go completely barefoot in a smooth, practiced motion. The Nomu doesn’t move, it just stares, the disgusting pulsating of its brain making Izuku want to gag. Is it waiting for its next orders from Fuckhands McMike over there?

“Shigaraki Tomura, I believe that this green-haired child may be in possession of another powerful Quirk. We should strive to bring him to the Doctor as well.”

“Yeah, alright Kurogiri. Nomu, get him.”

Bingo. The creature sets its deformed feet much the way Izuku himself had, but before it can launch its next attack, All Might comes rocketing out of the sidelines and directly into the fray, taking advantage of its distraction to try and take out this Shiguraki guy. The Nomu must have some sort of automatic override, though, because it instantly spins and jumps in the Pro’s path, arms up in a heavy guard. That should be no problem at all for All Might’s huge Smash, even if it’s not one of his named Ultimate Moves - probably an attempt to keep collateral damage to a minimum.

Except it is a problem. Because despite landing a clean blow on the Nomu, practically nothing happens except a huge gust of air pressure shooting out behind it, narrowly missing Shigaraki and Kurogiri and blasting away the last few villains that hadn’t been caught up fighting Aizawa and Kirishima. Has it got some sort of shock absorption Quirk? Only no, it can’t have, it has a strength enhancing Quirk, right? That’s the only thing that could let it move as fast as it does while still being able to hit hard. When it clicks in Izuku’s mind, he feels bile burning in his throat. This is an abomination. Multiple Quirks fused together. Up until now it had been the fringest of fringe theories, whispered about among the biomedically-inclined members of the Collective on their most melancholy days. But there’s just no other explanation that makes sense, as much as he wishes there was. Mentions of powerful Quirks, wanting to take Bakugo and himself to some unnamed ‘Doctor’, it adds up suddenly in the most terrifying way possible: the Nomu isn’t a one-off creation, it’s a test bed, a proof of concept, and this attack on the USJ to kill All Might and the students is probably only the beginning.

Izuku really fucking hates being as smart as he is sometimes.

But having an over-analytical mind will definitely be a boon in this fight too; with a little more data, he may be able to find a way to overcome the shock absorption Quirk, or maybe another way to take the monster down. All he needs to do is trust Kirishima and Aizawa-sensei to keep the rest of the villains off his and All Might’s back while they fight. He catches Toshinori’s eye and gives him a firm nod, which is met with a determined, understanding grin. One additional upside to spending those ten months of hell training together was that it was together; the duo had come to know one another well, and (albeit after a few rough moments) Toshinori had come to respect him as a fighter as well as a person. Bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, Izuku dashes to one side as All Might shifts to another, the pair flanking the creature before darting in swiftly and landing a few punches, then dashing away again in precise, alternating strikes. The blows are entirely ineffectual, but they give the greenet some insight: rather than muscle, punching the creature feels like hitting tire rubber, but it doesn’t jar his fist. That means it’s a particular kind of shock absorption, not one that reflects the energy. So it has to go somewhere, and that means it’s not completely invincible. The downside of the equation is that the Nomu is entirely capable of striking back, and does so at every opportunity. He’s quick enough on his feet to move aside from most of them, especially with One for All, but even the wind from its punches is enough to cause bruises. A small slip, sweat against stone, causes him to take a blow to the shoulder that he can feel crack his clavicle and sends him spinning to the ground, skull bouncing slightly.

“Izuku! Are you alright my boy?”

Pushing himself groggily to his feet, Izuku manages to grumble out what he hopes is a cognizant response. “Beef polonium.”

“... What?”

“Wait, what?” Damn it, that wasn’t what he wanted to say at all! “Ugh. Yeah, I'm fine! Toshi, I’m gonna need a few more minutes to figure this one out, are you game?”

“Of course young man! Let’s give it our all!” With his signature smile fitting tight around his teeth, All Might launches another flurry of blows at the Quirk abomination, telegraphing his movements just enough for Izuku to track them. Muttering calculations to himself, the greenet moves in for his own exchange, taking a clip to the side and just barely ducking out of the way of a hammer strike. One for All sparks ever brighter, tensing his muscles and improving his reaction times even as it makes his bones creak and ache. His training is holding up, though - he’d figured out a few days into his return to patrols after the entrance exams that for all his conditioning under the New American Dream Plan, his body still wasn’t quite capable of withstanding the full might of his Quirk, and quite frankly neither were his surroundings. So, he’d set up sparring matches with All Might and then eventually started using the Facility for Hazardous Quirks, UA’s special gym for practicing with high-intensity Quirk types, to hone his control. He’s confident that he’s got it in the bag, with enough focus to use about seven percent of his strength.

This is, of course, precisely when everything goes to shit.

Taking a literal and figurative leap of faith, Izuku tries to make an overhead strike aimed at the Nomu’s exposed brain, and misjudges his angles. Rather than the flip into an axe kick he’d been trying for, his foot comes down slightly short and slams his instep down on the creature’s raised arms instead of his heel. With his focus on the wrong part, he can feel the metatarsals shatter, and the pain shooting up his leg tells him his tibia is probably fractured as well. All Might manages to swoop in and save him from a devastating counter-attack, but this one little fuckup may cost them massively if Izuku can’t get back in the fight. So he grits his teeth and lies to Toshinori’s face when the man asks if he’s able to keep going. It doesn’t matter if he is or isn’t, he’d got to do it. No matter what, because as good as All Might - as good as Yagi Tashinori is, Izuku knows it’s going to be his own analysis that saves the day here. As much as his nerves scream when he puts weight on his damaged leg, he compartmentalizes the feeling and ignores it, locking the sensation away and returning his attention to the fight. He’s right on the edge of getting it, he knows he is! So he takes that next step forward and swings his fists.

Left hook. Right chop. Duck the return, step in, check with his good shoulder. Back, let All Might in, step in again. The hits aren’t strong enough to send him flying, but he can feel himself getting knocked back further every time he takes one. His breathing is becoming less steady. Focus. In. Duck. Left, right, uppercut, dodge, take a hit, duck, right, right, left, hit, dip, chop, don’t kick, mind your footing, duck, left, backfist, step out, step in, duck, pivot, three strikes, take a hit, duck, dodge, punch, punch, punch, punch punch punch punchpunchpunch punchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunch punchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunchpunch-. There. That’s it. He’s got it. Step back, duck, retreat.

Breathing heavily, Izuku grabs a sharp chunk of cracked flagstone and tosses it in his hand, feeling the weight and the edge and the potential. He wraps his fingers around it, hefting it like the baseball from the Quirk Apprehension Test as he draws his arm back and channels as much of his strength as he thinks he can get away with. His nerves shout in protest, but he takes careful aim, waits for Toshi to back off, and hurls the bit of rubble with fifteen percent of One for All. Two of his fingers dislocate under the strain and he can’t help but gasp out a scream before quickly pulling them straight again. His calculations are perfect, he knows they’re perfect; the way to overcome the absorption Quirk is to focus as much power as possible into a small space with enough mass behind it to do serious damage. He’s fairly certain that his thrown rock is about as strong as the main gun of a tank, maybe a little stronger, and he’s rewarded with a sickening squelch as it rips through the Nomu’s side just below where its ribcage would be if it were a human.

But what he couldn’t have calculated for was the bastard fucking abomination having a regeneration Quirk.

He can barely hear Shiguraki Tomura cackling and gloating over the roar of rage in his own ears, and when All Might moves to his side to see if he has any ideas for a reassessment of the plan, there’s only one thing to say.

“Cover me. I’m going after the boss.”

And that’s exactly what he does. He registers Kirishima making the same play, but he’s faster, even with his leg being in such terrible shape. He can’t muster enough focus to put the full weight of his Quirk into the blow, but the punch he throws is still strong enough to cripple any normal human it touches, and it isn’t until he’s right there in front of the villain that it occurs to him that he doesn’t actually know what Shigaraki Tomura’s Quirk is. But it’s too late. Izuku is committed, over-extended, determined to give his all to stopping this whole thing by stopping the leader of the invasion while All Might keeps the Nomu from interfering. But it doesn’t matter if the Nomu gets in his way or not, because Izuku’s own body does that all on its own, leg jolting at the very last step and letting Shigaraki duck out of the way right in the nick of time, latching onto his wrist and grabbing his neck. It would be an easy enough hold to break out of from nearly any other person on the planet, but when the dry, flaky villain lowers his little finger, Midorya Izuku understands two things. The first is just how the disgusting man’s five-point contact-type Quirk operates.

And the second is the true meaning of the word agony.

He tries to scream as a flame hotter than anything Bakugo had ever hit him with sears its way into his skin, but all that comes out in a gurgling whine, because his throat is being slowly peeled away, layer by layer. His wrist is deteriorating too, and he can see the rot spread slowly but mercilessly up his forearm. He panics, body locked up in fear, and stops breathing, unable to hear the unearthly shriek made by the nearby Tsuyu. The pain lasts for an infinite eternity, until it’s gone, and he’s lying on the ground. Something had saved him. Someone. He reaches out his mangled hand and gently, oh so gently, places his finger on Kirishima’s ankle. Because what he sees doesn’t scare him, Kirishima could never do that, but it makes him so crushingly sad that he can’t stand it. There should never, ever be a look of such intense bloodlust on this boy’s face. He has to bring his friend back from the brink of madness. Because he knows what it feels like to want someone so dead that it risks killing your own soul. He offers a small prayer in his mind, and feels it answered when the tension runs from the redhead’s body and he finds himself rolled tenderly onto his back to be tended to. Good, that’s good; that’s the look Kirishima should have on his face, that smile of determination and care.

He manages to send his friend, his anchor, away to go look for Shoto, to get his mind off Izuku’s own body, and swims in and out of consciousness for a while. Aizawa-sensei is there, providing emergency treatment. Ochako-chan and Tsuyu too, and he tries to give them a reassuring smile but isn’t sure if it works. Eventually there’s medics, real medics, and a swarm of other UA staff, bursting in through the doors with Iida hot on their heels. He spots all of his classmates as he’s bundled into a stretcher to be loaded into one of the waiting ambulances, noting that none are missing limbs or simply missing altogether, though each and every one is in various states of injury. Bakugo and Shoto have it the worst, aside from himself, but the medics don’t sound like they’re worried about anyone dying, so Izuku allows himself to relax enough to fade out completely. The last thought through his mind before the darkness claims him is how much therapy they’re all going to need after this. He’ll make sure they get it though, even if they don’t want it. Because this is his class. These are his friends. And after this? He’s of a mind to make them all family, too. And he’ll always protect his family.

Notes:

Phew!! Honestly, I'm still not happy with this chapter. I picked a direction to go in for the fight scene, and I'm really on the fence as to if it was the right choice. But!! I can't keep working on this forever, so here it is.

The countdown has reached one. Wonder what zero is going to be? Tune in to the next chapter to find out, likely some time after Monday because I am gone all day Saturday and likely to be busy Sunday!!

Chapter 17

Summary:

Five kids recover from their ordeal in a hospital. No mater what, they're determined to stay together.

Notes:

Zero.

The Pro Hero ward at Shizuoka General Hospital isn’t small by any means, which is why the victims of the USJ Incident were sent there instead of the nearby Takoba Municipal, but it’s still not really equipped to handle an influx of twenty-one inpatients all at once. Most of Class 1-A will be cleared to leave by morning, but apparently Principal Nedzu had been rather insistent that everyone be kept for a minimum overnight stay just in case something came up in the first twenty-four hours. Moving any of the students, even those with comparatively minor injuries, to the better-staffed general ward was an idea so foolish that the hospital director herself had shouted it down immediately according to Iida. The boy himself was an outpatient, being briefly treated for Quirk-related strain after maxing out his Engines, and had ducked into the shared room to explain things to the now-conscious Izuku, Tsuyu, Ochako-chan, Kirishima, and Shoto. Each were in various states of enforced bedrest, which had done precisely nothing to stop Kirishima from shoving all of their beds together in a cluster so they could see and speak to each other more easily, much to the consternation of their duty nurse. When informed that any attempts to force them to separate would be met with continual and frankly obnoxious complaints to as many staff and board members as possible, the man relented after extracting promises that they would all be very cognizant of one another’s injuries. All were in stable condition, with Izuku and Shoto in particular being drip-fed advanced painkillers and fluids, but by no means were any of the five healthy. Nevertheless, they find themselves in a state of gentle recline; Tsuyu with her head on Izuku’s good leg, Ochako-chan resting on the frog girl’s midriff with her feet in Kirishima’s lap, Kirishima tucked against Shoto’s uninjured side gently carding fingers through his hair, and Shoto gently yet insistently nudging Tsuyu with one foot.

“Shoto, I am about five seconds away from biting your toes, kero.”

Shoto pauses, and Izuku can see him mentally counting down five seconds before resuming his nudging. “I know you have something to say, Tsu. I can see it on your face. I am going to continue to pester you until you spit it out, because that is what a good friend does. Or so Ochako tells me.”

Tsuyu rolls her eyes and bats at the offending foot. “Lay off, kero, I’ll get to it when I’m ready.”

Shoto gets one last nudge in, about as playful as he’s capable of being, then moves his foot to the side. “Alright, I’ll go first then.” His piercing yet gentle gaze meets Izuku’s own. “Izuku, I am very sorry to say that many of the villains I fought did not survive the attack. Please understand that I did try to save them, but then I got attacked and shot by my distant cousin. Though I have to say, I think he made an even bigger mistake in assuming that killing me was the best way to hurt my father. If anything Endeavour would have merely been annoyed that his investments in my training had been wasted.”

There’s a sort of stunned silence after that as everyone grapples in quiet rage with just how true the statement is on its face. This momentary pausing is broken almost immediately, however, by Ochako-chan wagging a finger threateningly in Izuku’s face. “No you are not allowed to go to the Todoroki estates and throw hands with Endeavour. That would be very satisfying, but as your girlfriend I am not going to let you get arrested for that. Don’t give me that look, you know you were about to say it.”

Izuku doesn’t dignify this with a response, mostly because she’s right. He does, however, make a mental note to set a new bounty on the forums for someone to egg Endeavour’s car. With a light sigh, he comes to a conclusion: it’s make or break time for all four of these relationships. “Okay, setting that second part aside for a moment. I’m not upset about the first. In fact, I stand by it being the right choice to make. Going by each of your reactions to Shoto saying he killed someone, you all had to make that choice, right?” There’s a round of uncomfortable nods.

“Okay. Well, I’m not glad that you were all put in situations where you had to do it, but I am glad that you were willing to.” He holds up his good hand to forestall any replies, and continues. “If your life is in danger, really in danger, you shouldn't hold back just because the person who’s trying to take it might die. The trick is learning when that applies, as well as how to minimize collateral damage. It’s a hard lesson to learn, and a painful one, and we are all going to need so much therapy because of it. But I really believe it’s for the best that you all learned it now.”

It’s Kirishima who breaks the silence this time. “Midobro, the way you said that, have you…?”

Izuku nods almost imperceptibly. “I’ve told you guys about Mama Nya, right? What I never mentioned is how I got so integrated into her teahouse despite my age. I would have been… Eleven? Yeah. The second year I started going around the city trying to help people out. I saw a girl in a back alley on my way home, towards the end of the night, and some asshole had her backed against a wall. I could see she was scared. So I shouted at him, told him I was going to call the cops and the Pros. Didn’t notice the knife until he was already coming at me. I panicked, grabbed a pipe, and hit him in the knee. He didn’t let go of the knife as he fell, and that was that. Tamahagane, the girl, called Mama Nya, who got there right as the police did, made a big stink about me just being a kid who happened to be there by accident, and if they even thought about pressing charges she’d make a media shitstorm out of it. When she realized I was Quirkless, she actually threatened to physically fight the entire department if need be, and they backed off pretty fast. She took me back to the teahouse to get cleaned up and call my mom, and the rest is history.”

Today’s a day for uncomfortable silences it seems, as the group enters into their third in as many minutes, but getting things laid out on the table is the name of the game. If this is enough to scare any of them off, well, Izuku will be sad of course, but he refuses to let himself regret the level of honesty he’s trusting them with. “Midobro…” Ah, here it comes.

“That’s manly as hell.” Huh? “And I don’t just mean you standing up for that girl either! I bet it took a lot of guts for you to tell us that story, and I’m super happy you trusted me with all that.”

The others are quick to chime in with their agreements, and Ochako-chan claps her hands together, carefully avoiding activating her Quirk. “Right! We’re adding that to the Izuku Lore Book, and we can unpack it in group therapy! Also we’re doing group therapy. Anyone else got anything they wanna add?”

“Guess this is as good a time as any, kero.” Tsuyu scoots up, moves Ochako-chan into the spot she was before, and perches froglike on the most empty part of the bed cluster that lets her look at her best friend and her best friend’s boyfriend. “Okay. This is a little difficult.”

“Is it about your medical chart finally having an F on it?” Shoto interjects, face blank. “Because I saw that as the nurse was coming by.”

“What-? Shoto, shut up, kero, come on. Okay yes, that’s really nice and euphoric but no that is not what this is about, kero.”

“Tsu, that’s super cool, congratulations!” Ochako-chan’s grin is as genuine as it is shit-eating. “Come on, you don’t gotta be embarrassed about that, we’re all friends here!”

“Ochako-chan, I swear-”

“Really?! That’s so cool! We gotta have a celebration when we all get home!”

“Kirishima, kero, seriously?”

“Tsuyu! Wow, what a milestone! Kirishima’s right, we gotta celebrate; I may not really understand this whole gender euphoria thing but I know when it’s time to party!”

“I hate all of you, kero.”

“N’aw, Tsu, ya love us,” Ochako-chan gigglesnorts, and Izuku nods eagerly, his own smile widening menacingly.

“... Yeah, I do, kero. And that’s what this is actually about.”

… Huh?

The girl draws herself up as much as she can in her sitting position and stares at Ochako-chan and himself. “Izuku, Ochako-chan. I’m in love with you both. I want to spend our time together, as much of it as we can all stand and then some. I want to be your third.”

To call this an unexpected development would be the understatement of the century. Sure, the trio are nearly inseparable, and Izuku considers Tsuyu to be the closest of his four best friends aside from Ochako-chan, but hearing a confession of love comes so far out of left field that it’s from a different park entirely! Feeling the metaphor getting away from him, Izuku takes a few calming breaths (as deep as he can make them with his bandaged ribs) and focuses on saying what he feels needs said without hurting the girl. “Tsuyu. Are you… Are you sure that you’re actually in love, and it’s not just the trauma talking? We did just go through a lot, and we went through it more or less together; I don’t want to dismiss your feelings, but I want to make sure you’re asking with a clear head. Is this because you love us, or because you’re scared, and we’re here?”

Izuku clamps down on the panic he feels when tears start slowly streaming down Tsuyu’s cheeks, lacing his fingers between Ochako-chan’s and waiting for her to say her piece. It takes her a few false starts and morose croaks, but eventually she manages a reply.

“That’s. That’s a fair question, kero, and I can’t say it’s not the trauma. And I am scared, kero. But not the way you think.” She hiccups. “I’ve actually felt this way for a while, kero. And I know you and Ochako-chan have feelings for me too. I wanted. I wanted to wait for you both to realize it, for you to decide if you were going to act on it. I didn’t want any of us to feel like I was forcing my way in, kero, because that would just feel awful.” She pauses here, trying and failing to wipe her tears away as they continue to pour down her face, and her voice cracks. “But then you got hurt. You both got hurt so bad. Kero. And I can’t wait anymore! I don’t care if it feels like I’m forcing my way in, kero, because what if this is it? What if this is the only chance I get to say it? What if next time, next time we don’t get as lucky as we did, and it’s one of us who dies?! We’re still just students, but we’re Heroics students, and I can’t let either of you possibly go to your deaths without knowing that I love you both so much that I can hardly even stand it!”

Ochako-chan jumps forward as Tsuyu begins to collapse, pulling her close and dragging her half way into Izuku’s lap so the greenet can wrap his one good arm around them both. It’s heartbreaking to hear a girl normally so stoic and outwardly emotionless break down sobbing, and he’s infinitely thankful for Kirishima waving off the duty nurse when the man pokes his head through the door. Shoto, for his part, glances away, leaning into the redhead and offering himself up as a distraction while Tsuyu lets her feelings out. It takes several minutes, but eventually the sobs fade into tiny, adorable croaks and somewhat shaky breathing. Knowing her best friend almost better than she knows herself, Ochako-chan breaks the ice with a funny quip.

“Tsu-chan. I thought you were a lesbian?”

That draws a wet, croaking laugh from the frog girl, and she sniffs loudly. “Izuku’s special, kero. A girl’s allowed to make exceptions. I wouldn’t date Shoto, no offense kero, but I just can’t help loving everything about this boy.”

Izuku and Ochako-chan join in on the laughter. It’s soft, quiet, and the realest expression of joy any of them can remember making in a very long time. Izuku turns the thought over in his mind a few times before leaning down to plant a gentle kiss first on the top of Tsuyu’s head, then on Ochako-chan’s. “Okay. That’s all I needed to hear. Tsu-chan, I would be more than happy to welcome you into our relationship, provided Ochako-chan agrees. You weren’t wrong in saying I’ve had feelings for you for a while, but I didn’t really want to act on them either until I talked it out with her. I was actually going to do that over date night.”

“It’s kinda funny how timin’ works out sometimes,” Ochako-chan adds in her rural drawl, planting a couple kisses of her own, “what with how I plain forgot t’ ask Izu-kun out mahself right afore we went on that date. But I gotta warn ya, even though I’m gonna accept, you gotta contend with the secret other love of Izu-kun’s life!”

Tsu-chan blinks up at the pair as Izuku sighs dramatically. “Sorry, kero, his what?”

His girlfriend is such a troublemaker. “She’s talking about Toga. Who is not my secret anything, thank you very much! She’s just… I dunno, she was special. Or, had the potential to become special? I know I keep saying it but there was something about her; we only met for a short while, but I really thought we clicked.

“I could never figure out what happened to her. She's alive - I’ve had people checking every morgue in the whole prefecture - but I don’t know where she’s alive. As deep as my connections run, there’s still places they can’t look; for that I want to ask Principle Nedzu and Aizawa-sensei for help. Even if it takes them months, it’ll be better than not knowing.”

Tsu-chan leans up and plants her own very first kiss directly on the freckles that dot Izuku’s cheek, and then a second on the other side. “I understand, kero. I’ll help as much as I can; I can petition Principal Nedzu and Aizawa-sensei right along with you, and I’m sure Ochako-chan will be happy to do the same. Right?”

Ochako-chan nods eagerly, dimples appearing on the pink spots on each cheek as her smile grows wider and brighter. Before she can say anything, though, a knock comes at the door, followed by the duty nurse’s voice. “Midoriya Izuku-san? There’s someone here to speak with you.”

Notes:

Whoops, guess who wrote 2500 words instead of prepping for her tournament tomorrow l m a o

Anyways for realsies this time you're not getting another chapter until Monday at the earliest. Luckily it's already drafted!! So please look forward to it. Wonder who's at the door...

Chapter 18

Summary:

Izuku meets a member of his favourite not-quite-clandestine organization

Notes:

This is not the chapter dealing with gender. That's the next one.

The man standing in the doorway is an odd one to say the least. His attire is understated, professional, yet undoubtedly expensive. His hair and skin are both a difficult shade to describe, being almost pearlescent in nature, but black rather than white. He makes a small, carefully-measured bow, one hand over his heart, and steps a bit more into the room, slowly as if trying to avoid spooking anyone. “Hello, Finder Midoriya, my name is Iyasareru Kyogi. Our mutual friends extend their greetings, and The Sentinel in particular wishes you well. Is now a bad time?”

Finder. That explains it; it’s a formal designation he doesn’t use often, his position within the Collective, meaning this is one of their contractors. “Hello, Iyasareru-dono; now is fine. You’ve spoken to The Sentinel recently? Last I heard they were indisposed; I hope they’re doing alright.”

The man glances at the rest of the occupants of the room, raising a brow just a tiny amount, but remains motionless otherwise. “Friends of yours?”

Izuku nods. “They know enough, but they haven’t come in from the rain. Speak as you must.”

The man visibly relaxes as he pulls up a chair from the side of the room, setting the Gladstone bag he’d been carrying beside it. “Apologies for the formalities; I’m used to dealing with some of the Collective’s… Touchier clientele. And of course The Sentinel; you know how much stock they put in all the pomp and circumstance. They’re doing quite well, by the way, all patched up after that nasty bit of business in Hamamatsu. They heard the news from another mutual friend who works here in the hospital - word of an entire class of UA students being admitted is going to travel fast - and dispatched me right away. It’s quite lucky I was in the area; first thing tomorrow morning I’m scheduled to be on a flight to Shanghai.”

That tracks; he knows how busy some of the contractors get. “So, Iyasareru-dono, what brings you to the hospital? I mean I assume you’re a medical specialist of some sort, since they let you into the Hero ward and you don’t seem like the security type.” He could of course be wrong; The Sentinel looks like a bookish nerd when he’s out of uniform - fitting, given the work of the Collective itself.

“I am! In fact, I’m one of the best there is. Being a student at UA, you’re of course familiar with Shuzenji Chiyo-senpai; my Quirk is a little bit like hers. It’s called Restore, and in a bit of an inversion of Heal, it allows me to take energy from outside the patient’s body and use that energy to accelerate the natural recovery process. The exact details of how it works are classified by the Japanese government as an Imperial secret, but what I can tell you is the end result is a perfect restoration of the affected area. It can even regenerate lost limbs given enough time. As you can imagine, that makes my Quirk a rather hot commodity, which is why I rely on my connections with the Collective to help keep me safe.”

Izuku considers himself something of a Quirk aficionado (though others would call him an expert), but a Quirk like Restore is something that has mostly stayed in the realm of hypotheticals until this moment. The idea that Recovery Girl’s Heal isn’t the ultimate healing Quirk was sort of a given, but the levels to which other Quirks may extend is a subject of ongoing debate among his peers in the analysis community. He doesn’t have any reason to disbelieve the man, given he has the credentials to even be in the room right now, but it’s still a lot to take in. Especially because of the implications that come with being told.

“Alright,” Izuku sighs, mentally preparing himself, “what’s the catch, exactly? Your services may be bought and paid for but your Quirk sure isn’t free.”

This gets a polite but genuine laugh from the man, and a few chuckles from around the beds as well. “There’s two major drawbacks. The first you don’t have to worry about; after extensive study, it was determined that those under the age of thirty are distinctly less likely to develop tumorous growths through extensive healing, and of those few who do, only a fraction then develop cancer - and in all cases, it’s treatable. The second, I’m afraid, is universal. Unlike Chiyo-senpai’s Heal, Restore doesn’t deaden the nerves. Meaning, unfortunately, that my patients are by necessity placed into a temporary medically induced coma - assuming they are conscious to begin with - because otherwise the pain would cause severe trauma and possibly even kill them. And of course this carries the same risk as any other deep sedation.”

That’s. Wow. Tough call to make. It’s Tsu-chan who chimes in next, which Izuku is grateful for. “So, kero, what’s the tradeoff in terms of recovery? Izuku-kun is looking at what, a month to be patched together with Heal, and then a bunch of rehab after that, kero? Your Quirk clearly offers something better.”

Iyasareru-dono inclines his head gently towards Izuku;s new girlfriend. “You would be correct, miss. The longest recovery time my Quirk has ever required was three weeks, for a man who was so badly burned that nearly all his skin was gone. And rehabilitation exercises are routinely outpatient work. I won’t lie, however - the whole of your recovery is going to suck. You’ll be dealing with lingering aches and brain fog the entire time.”

Izuku can see now why this man is a contractor for the Collective. Nobody with a Quirk like that would be able to maintain any sort of independence without some serious backing, and it’s not like the HPSC are good candidates. But even with the greatly accelerated recovery time, it’s not like he’s not giving up anything in return.

“He’s going to need some time to think about it,” Kirishima interrupts firmly, giving Izuku a pointed look that he can’t ignore. It’s not like he’s wrong. “Midobro is smart as hell, but this is a lot. Me, I just want to know one thing: are you doing this for anyone else? Cause I don’t think he’d accept a special favour like that, even from his buddies in the Collective.” Also true; that had been gnawing at the edge of his mind.

Iyasareru-dono makes a small, seated bow with a hand over his heart before standing. “Of course; I will leave you each to your discussions. And for your question, no, my Quirk will not be an exclusive gift. The Sentinel made it quite clear that I was to be hired on a time-gated basis, not a patient-gated one. Anyone in your class who may benefit from my services shall have the offer extended to them - or to their proxy, as need be. You may have the duty nurse summon me when you are ready, Finder Midoriya.”

The click of the door echoes through the room, but it takes all of five seconds for Kirishima to erupt. “Midobro! Dude, you know The Sentinel?! Like, he personally sent someone out to do you a solid?! That’s crazy!”

Izuku blushes slightly and squeezes Tsu-chan a bit tighter, making her croak in amusement. “I mean. Yeah. I’ve had dinner with him before?”

“WHAT?! Midobro, that’s so cool!” Wow, Kirishima being this big of a fanboy was severely unexpected.

“Wait, I know I told you a bit about the Collective, but I definitely never mentioned The Sentinel. How do you know him?”

Kirishima waves the surprise off with a grin. “My uncle was a Hospitaller! Manliest job in the world, going to all those war-torn countries and dangerous gang territory - he was stationed with Médecins Sans Frontières,” the redhead’s French pronunciation is surprisingly good, “and he was one of the security chiefs. He talked a little about The Sentinel and his peacekeepers, ‘cause the Hospitallers would hire them as private security whenever they did events in Shizuoka so that the Knights themselves could have some time off.”

“Woah!” Ochako-chan shouts, “that’s so cool, Kirishima! You’ve gotta tell us about him some time! Well, some time when we ain’t sortin’ things through with Izu-kun. Babe, I think ya already know my vote.”

Izuku nods, kissing Ochako-chan on the cheek, and then Tsu-chan on the top of the head again. “And you? Second girlfriend, second vote,” he teases.

“Rude, kero, but to answer: I’m undecided. The perks are great, but the drawbacks are making me worry, kero. Come back to me in a minute; I know you’ll want Kirishima and Shoto to weigh in too.”

“Take the dive, Midobro!” Kirishima says confidently, fist clenched and eyes sparkling, “sure the recovery is going to be rough but that’s gonna be true anyway! I’ll be here to help you get past it; we all will.”

Even knowing it was coming, the sheer love that pours through the statement warms Izuku’s heart and makes him giggle quietly. “Shoto? You’ve been awfully quiet this whole time; something on your mind?”

The bichromic boy nods slowly, finally sitting back up from where he’d been leaning against Kirishima, and he tucks a tiny braid behind his ear. “I can’t say you should take the offer. The good it would bring you is pretty good, which you can tell for yourself, but the bad? That’s frightening to me. Medical comas are frightening things. You know why I know. And moreover, having brain fog like that is detrimental to who you are as a person. Your big brain and quick wit are so much of you that the idea of them being suppressed, even for a little while, makes me wonder if you’d even be able to function as the person I know and care about.”

Heavy coming from Shoto, as is to be expected. “Yeah, I understand. Heal itself does tend to leave me dizzy and woozy, though, and that would be for a lot longer, even if it is lighter. I think I could manage, but I understand and appreciate your concern, Shoto, thank you for voicing it. Kirishima, I can’t reach, can you deliver headpats for me please?” The redhead does so with gusto, and Izuku smiles brightly, proud of how far Shoto has come to be able to voice his discontent and fears like that. With two votes yea and one vote nay, it’s time to hear from the abstainer and see if it’s going to end up being a tie (even one that Izuku holds all the power to break anyway).

Tsu-chan remains silent in her contemplation a few moments more, then switches to loud, unexpectedly adorable squeaks when her boyfriend starts kissing softly at her neck. “Izuku, cut that out, kero, I was trying to think. Ochako-chan, get him off! No no no, that does not mean join him, kero, damn it!” She squirms and blushes cutely as her partners tease her, finally managing to bat them away. “Alright, alright, kero. Ochako-chan, you get out of here in a week, right? They wanted to keep you in to examine that neck injury, kero. Fine, I’ll add my vote to the yes column. But, on the condition that we have a party - a real party, not a joke one. I want to celebrate your recovery, both of you, and I want to celebrate us as well.” The forwardness of this last suggestion makes the pair blush furiously, and she smiles inwardly. “Also, kero, I am going to be bullying you both about your rehab. You will do it, or you will face my froggy wrath.”

“Ha! As if I fear any such thing, pond hopper!” Ochako-chan retorts in a cartoonish tone.

“No? Then perhaps I will need to set my ultimate weapon upon you, kero. You may not fear my froggy wrath, but you will fear the almighty Iida Lecture of Extreme Disappointment.”

Ouch, low blow! Ochako-chan keels over dramatically and makes a choking noise, mumbling about her one weakness, and the rest of the group collapses into fits of laughter, feeling the stress seep out of their bodies. Eventually, someone thinks to summon the duty nurse to relay Izuku’s acceptance of the offer, and soon enough he finds himself on the way to be prepped for surgery. It won't be an easy road ahead by any means, but he isn’t walking it alone.

Notes:

Well, that's who's at the door!! An interesting fellow with an interesting Quirk, if I do say so myself~

To preempt any questions vis-a-vis All Might, I will inform you that that will be addressed a little bit later in the story. As is just who the mysterious group called "the Collective" are; I've been alluding to them for a while, but this is our first real taste of them. More will be revealed in the future. Please look forward to it!!

Chapter 19

Summary:

Izuku comes home and finally gets his prime froggy snuggles.

Notes:

This is the chapter with the gender stuff. Shoutout to Peggysussy~

If Izuku had thought his ten months of hell training with All Might were tough, the week of recovery following his surgery had been a whole new kind of nightmare. Iyasareru-dono had not been kidding about the lingering ache and the brain fog; they’d been practically overwhelming. Still, he’s on the other side of it now, and just has a bit of rehabilitation work to do with his leg and wrist. The whole thing is right on the border of being miraculous, save for the fact that he knows exactly what had happened and how. Still, he marvels at the lack of scarring where his skin had flaked away, tucked into a loveseat and wrapped in a blanket as he waits for the party to start in earnest. The whole of 1-A was puttering around the dorms getting things set up, save for Bakugo, who still hadn’t been discharged, and probably wouldn’t be for at least a week more. Even Aizawa had stumbled into the kitchen with the goal of making sure everything was stocked up for Izuku to make his mother’s vegetable curry don - a dish the man knew well from his junior high days, as it turns out. The Pro was also sporting a fresh new bruise on his cheek, apparently from Kayama-sensei’s reaction upon learning that Inko had stopped by and spoken to him. The man had been waiting by Izuku’s door when he’d returned to the dorms, to let him know that something important was forthcoming once he’d had time to settle in and the party was over. A gift of some sort.

The greenet’s musings are interrupted when his newest girlfriend hops up into the loveseat, worms her way under the blankets, and nuzzles up against him with a contented sigh. “Ooh, you’re warm; just what I needed, kero. I did a little bit of cold water training. Though that’s just an excuse to get you to myself for a few minutes, kero, before the party gets underway.”

“Aw, Tsu-chan, you don’t need an excuse! You know I’m always down to cuddle.” Though, he can’t help but think that that’s not what she meant, or at least not all of it. “Is something up?”

Tsu-chan nods just a little, seeming to focus on choosing her words. “Izuku-kun. This is going to sound strange, kero, but bear with me. What does it mean to you to be a boy? Or a man, I suppose, whichever you feel more strongly about, kero.”

… Huh. Not a topic he’d been expecting to tackle today. “Uh. I can’t really say I put much thought into it? What makes you ask?”

“You’ve made a comment a couple times now, kero, that made me wonder. You’ve said that you don’t really understand what it means to experience gender euphoria the way that I do. So I was curious if that was because you’d just never really sat down and had a good think, kero.”

Well, that’s. Yeah. He can’t say he ever has. “You’re right. I do say that fairly often, and I really don’t know all that much about what you mean by it. When you do girl things and think about being a girl and stuff, you seem happy, but I don’t really think about being a boy. It’s just what I am.”

“And if you thought about it right now, kero? What do you feel?”

Izuku shifts a little, drawing the frog girl closer, and ponders. He thinks about being male, about being born the way he was, about what it meant to him growing up and what it means to him now. And he’s a little uncomfortable when he lands on the answer, because it’s not really an answer at all. “Hard truth? I don’t really feel anything. To me, being male never really occurred to me; it was just kind of part of what other people said I was, you know? But in that sense, it was always a bit of a pejorative? I was a Quirkless kid, a Quirkless boy, and that made me a failure as a human and as a man. I was a sissy who cried too much, a whiny bitch who like nerdy things too much, a faggot who was too obsessed over a man in a tight suit. I was never what most people said a boy should be, and so I kind of… Didn’t connect with it. I dunno.”

Tsu-chan nods in understanding, which makes Izuku feel a little better. “Mhm. And if I were to ask you why you’re a boy? Is it just because everyone else told you you were, even if they also told you you’d failed at it, kero?”

Another thinker, that one, but the answer is much clearer. “Well, I mean. Yeah. I never really thought about being anything else. I was born a boy, I grew up a boy, I’m a boy now. And one day I’ll be a man.” Suddenly, that was a thought that made a small knot form in his chest. Would he really be a man some day? Or would he forever be that snivelling faggot who got his ass kicked on the playground for crying?

And then Tsu-chan, the wonderful girl who is one of the lives of his life, rocks his entire world with just one statement and a croak: “only if you want to be, kero.”

He doesn’t have an easy response to that. Hell, he doesn’t have a hard response to that. He swirls the thought around in his mind, rotates it like a rotisserie chicken, and finds himself wanting for an answer this time. Does he want to be? Does he want something else? He has no idea. Tsu-chan, for her part, seems to be content with rubbing herself up against him instead of demanding an answer, and this is how the two stay until Ochako-chan comes to get them for the start of the celebrations. The girl’s hand is soft and warm in his, with her finger beans tickling slightly, and Tsu-chan’s larger hand envelops his own in a way he never really noticed before. He thinks about his own hands being that soft, of his nails being neatly manicured instead of rough and chewed out of nervousness. What an interesting thing to think about.

Notes:

I will say straight up: this was always going to happen in chapter 19. But, I had originally planned to make this a part of a larger chapter. When Peggysussy pointed out how it felt like things were being held back with regards to Izuku's egginess, I found myself agreeing, so I took that plot thread, pulled it out, and wove it into this interstitial instead so it could have a clearer focus than if it had been part of the party plot as a whole.

With this, the full USJ Incident finally draws to a close, and we enter a bit of down time. Look forward to some more soft dorm life moments, and maybe a sidestep into Inko territory~!!

Chapter 20

Summary:

Lunch time, announcements about the future, and a visit to Aizawa's.

Notes:

Countdown is over, time to continue reminding people to read the prelude :P

Cooking up curry don for eighteen teenagers and a teacher who has the appetite of one isn’t an easy task on the best of days, and this definitely isn’t the best of days despite how great the welcome home party has been. With Bakugo still in the hospital, Izuku has had to very quickly draft a handful of his classmates to do the basic portions of the prep work so that he himself can handle the more detailed parts of his mother’s recipe. Or, that had been the plan before Aizawa had shuffled in and started grabbing spices out of the rack and the fermented Hokkaido butter from the fridge. His mother and his teacher must have been even closer friends than he realized, for her to have taught him the Akatani family recipe. He does not, however, plan to ask Kayama-sensei if she knows it; that’s a mess he’s keeping far away from until it’s settled. His attention turns back to his work, and soon enough the curry has been finished, the rice scooped into bowls, and the class lined up for their first servings. Each student has an informally assigned seat at the large dining table, and each place is set the customary topping for its occupant to add to their don, from Kirishima’s sensible iron and calcite powder supplements to Iida’s wildly unexpected mounds of green chili paste. Only a few of the students, and Aizawa, eat it precisely as it’s served. It feels weird to miss the sound of Bakugo yelling angrily at everyone who would dare sully his Auntie Inko’s recipe by having the audacity to put toppings of their own on.

After making sure everything is set for the class to serve additional portions to themselves, Izuku finally slips into his chair between Ochako-chan and Tsu-chan, giving each a quick pack on the cheek and smiling across the table at Shoto, who is very studiously using his Quirk to cool his food to his preferred temperature without accidentally freezing it over completely. The look of intense concentration on his face is kind of adorable, and he only looks to his own meal when he feels his two girlfriends reach across him to hold hands, unconsciously placing his own over theirs while using the other to eat. He pushes the thought of manicures and nail polish firmly to one side; that can be thought about more later, right now it’s lunch time. And, it would seem, announcement time, as Aizawa stands from his place at the head of the table after polishing off his plate.

“Right, just a few things I need to get out of the way now that everyone’s finally here. Anyone who makes me repeat myself will not be having any popcorn when we watch movies later, so pay attention.” What a dad. “First and foremost: the IT department has finished screening all of your personal devices. The good news is, none of them were compromised. The bad news is, you still won’t be able to continue using them. Per the new security policy, all UA staff and students are going to be issued secure devices that will be paid for out of the discretionary budget. This will include fully covered phone plans with, to quote Nedzu, ‘all of the bells and whistles’, whatever the hell that means. They’ll be delivered tomorrow morning. Denki put your goddamn hand down, I could not care less what this means for your Azure Lane account, go play a better game and stop wasting your money on gacha. This also means personal devices will be strictly prohibited for all students. Midoriya,” Izuku jolts slightly, “you’re the exception. Or rather, the partial exception. You are allowed to continue carrying those phones you give out on your patrols; Nedzu is trusting that you’re smart enough not to use them yourself. Which segues nicely into the next thing.

“For the next two weeks while the new security systems get implemented, off-campus leave is prohibited except in the event of an emergency. Midoriya, I already know what you want to ask; I reached out to my agency and they agreed to extend the contract they already had for covering your patrols. Please do not sneak out; I know your mother and I am very aware of how badly she would kill me. And finally, the most important thing of all: the UA Sports Festival is going to be changing this year, and these changes may end up being continued through to the future. It was strongly encouraged by the Ministry of Education that we continue business as usual to put on a strong face after what happened at the USJ, but when the entire staff threatened to resign, they backed down. So. Normally, participation in the Sports Festival is mandatory, and it’s used both as a showcase of student talent and to drum up offers for the upcoming internship program with the Pro Hero agencies. As much as I’m sure you’d all love to be a part of that, it’s been deemed too large of a risk.”

This announcement is met with shocked murmurs and a few exclamations of surprise, including from Kirishima. “Sensei! Are you telling us that they’re cancelling the whole Sports Festival this year?!”

“No. Our contractual obligations with the broadcasters wouldn’t allow for a complete cancellation without major penalties; though I personally advocated that we just pay the fines and renegotiate for next year, the final decision was that participation would be made optional for all students with the exception of this class. 1-A is prohibited from participating. Instead, you’ll be doing a class project where you’ll be forming an imaginary Hero agency, researching the students of the other classes, and submitting a series of evaluations in the manner of professional talent scouts. And if I find out that you’re letting Midoriya carry you completely, you’ll find your free periods for the next month replaced with running laps around the gym.” The Pro pauses for effect. “Quirkless. With All Might. So put some effort in, hellspawn.”

Well, that’s nice of him to point out; Izuku would have been willing to carry the class if he’d had to, but honestly the rest of them could probably use the practice. He’s already made arrangements to teach Quirk analysis skills to his girlfriends, Shoto, and Kirishima, so extending those lessons to the rest of the class shouldn’t be any trouble. He’s half way through making a mental list of what he’ll need for a crash course when Iida calls out.

“Aizawa-sensei! Thank you very much for informing us of all of this, I am sure we all appreciate it, but what about Bakugo-san? Surely this is all important for him as well, and you’re usually not the type to want to say things like this more than once! Which I can only presume is the reason you waited for Midoriya to get back from the hospital; Bakugo-san will not be doing so for another week!”

Aizawa sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’m not technically supposed to tell you this right now, because nothing has been finalized, but fuck it. You hellions went through a lot, and you deserve answers. Bakugo… May not be coming back when he’s better.”

The dining room erupts into shouts, with the members of the Bakusquad all jumping to their feet in various states of anger and shock, but quickly falls into silence when Aizawa hits everyone with his Quirked glare. “Pipe down! I get it, alright? Let me finish. You’d think I was dealing with a bunch of teenagers or something.” Ugh, dad jokes. “Look, I don’t agree either, but I can see the reasoning; his father is a very logical man, and it was his opinion that a first-year student shouldn’t need the expertise of one of the most powerful Quirk healers on the planet just to survive his first semester. On that, we definitely agree; none of the shit that happened should have, not on my watch, and not on the school’s watch. You may be training to become Pro Heroes, but you’re still just students, you should be safer than that in our facilities. And your families deserve to feel like you will be. If it comes down to that, we are willing to write letters of recommendation to any other school, and we’re more than happy to handle all the paperwork for a transfer. As it stands, that hasn’t been decided just yet; his parents were willing to wait for him to finish recovering before making a final call. In the meantime, you will respect their privacy on the matter. If I hear that any of you have been causing trouble, I will not hesitate to expel you.”

As Aizawa grabs his plate and moves off to the kitchen to stick it in the dishwasher, the class lapses into quiet conversation, nobody quite willing to break the tension brought about by this last announcement. Izuku excuses himself as well, kissing Ochako-chan and Tsu-chan absentmindedly and signing quickly to Shoto that he’ll be back soon, before heading off down the hall towards the staff rooms where Aizawa went. He catches up with the man, who merely grunts in what doesn’t quite seem like a dismissal, so Izuku falls in line beside him silently. The teacher opens the door to his well-appointed apartment and gestures the greenet inside with his head before slouching over to the couch falling face-down onto it. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t play the gracious host, but to be fair I didn’t actually invite you.”

Izuku politely removes his shoes, then makes the executive decision to remove his teacher’s as well, placing both pairs over by the door. This at least gets a murmur of thanks, muffled by the cushions, so he continues to be bold by stepping into the kitchen and preparing tea. He’s surprised to see that the man actually has a tin, but the label on the top declares it as a gift from Present Mic-sensei, which makes significantly more sense. “You know, I was honestly expecting cats? You seem like the kind of man who has cats, sensei.”

“They’re at Hizashi’s parent’s right now, if you must know; their vet is a ways out of the way and it was time for their annual visit. We’ve got two.”

It’s a bit of an open secret that Yamada Hizashi and Aizawa Shouta are a couple, with those especially in the know being aware that they’re somehow still not engaged despite being junior high sweethearts, but Izuku isn’t going to pry about that today. No, he’s just going to intrude on the man’s home rather than his entire life; he figures he’s cute enough to get away with that much. When the tea is finished, he pours himself a cup, and the rest of the pot into a massive mug that reads ‘World’s Okayest Boyfriend’ in English, something that he’s willing to bet isn’t Yamada-sensei’s. Bringing these back into the living room gets Aizawa to finally sit up, and he downs at least a third of it in one gulp, which would be impressive if it weren’t so concerning given the temperature. How did he do that?

“Thanks, problem child. I mean it; I was probably just going to sleep for a few hours until dinner - it’s been a hell of a week while you were in recovery.” His fingers brush over the bruise on his face, and he sighs. “Things should hopefully settle down soon, and if we’re lucky we won’t lose a student to a transfer after nearly losing him to Izanami.”

Izuku nods, sipping his tea, “If it helps, Uncle Masaru will probably relent when he’s had a chance to scratch his mad spot and get over it. He may be way less fiery than Auntie Mitsuki, but he’s no less passionate, despite how quiet he is. Not to say he’s bluffing or blustering or anything like that, he definitely means it, but he’s obviously pretty upset and needs some time to calm down - and he also needs to save face by putting on a big show. He’d never brag, but he’s an important voice in the local Shinto community, so he needs to keep up appearances.”

Aizawa sips at his tea contemplatively. “That’s right, you two grew up together, didn’t you? Well, I hope you’re right. He’s a little asshole, is Bakugo Katsuki, but I think I was starting to get through to him with the probation arrangement. It would be a shame to lose all that progress.”

The pair sit in quiet reflection as they finish drinking their tea, before Aizawa sets his mug down and reaches into the drawer of the coffee table, pulling out an envelope and passing it over to Izuku. “Here, this is that thing I told you about earlier. Saves me the trip I guess.”

Flipping it open, the greenet is shocked to see the contents: a small, square Polaroid, featuring four familiar faces and their signatures across the bottom. Kurogane Shouta, Yamada Hizashi, Kayama Nemuri, and Akatani Inko. His mother is standing between Yamada-sensei and Kayama-sensei, with one arm wrapped around the latter’s waist and the other flashing a peace sign. She looks… Happy. Just about happier than he’s ever seen her. Hell, even Aizawa is smiling over Yamada-sensei’s shoulder, and is that a blush on Kayama-sensei’s face?! Wow.

“Sensei, are you sure you want me to have this? It seems important.”

“It is,” Aizawa replies with a wry smile., “but it’s important to you too. I want you to have it as a reminder of the good times we all shared with your mother. She was one of my best friends, and she meant a lot to all of us; I want you to be able to look at that when you need to remember that despite anything else that happens, all four of us will have your back. Always.”

He tucks the picture back into the envelope before he can get tear stains on it, scrubbing an arm across his watery eyes. “Thank you, sensei. Mom never talked about her past a lot, even the stuff before dad, and I guess I know why now since I know what happened with Kayama-sensei. I’ll make sure to put this somewhere safe, and I promise to cherish it.”

Aizawa stands to grab the teacups, but pauses a moment to gently ruffle Izuku’s curls, the most affection he’s ever seen the man show. “You look after those girls of yours, problem child, and you’ll have friends just like that some day. Shoto too. But with Kirishima, well, let him look out for you the way your mom looked out for me, and you’ll both be a lot happier for it. Now away with you, back to the party and let me sleep in peace.”

With a slightly damp giggle, Izuku stands, tucking the envelope under his arm and giving his teacher a small bow. “I promise, sensei. I love Ochako-kun and Tsu-kun a lot, Shoto too; and I don’t think Kirishima would stop looking out for me even if I asked. Have a good rest, sensei.”

At this, the two part, each feeling closer to the other than they had before; Izuku to the man who knew his mother so well, and Aizawa to the kid he may have called his nephew the way the Bakugos do if things had turned out just a little differently.

Notes:

Whew, this one was actually a bit of a slog to write. Not because of anything to do with the chapter itself, but because I got really excited to write the next two XD

Coming up next, we're going to switch to a brand new POV character, and then after that? It'll be time to visit Class 1-H and talk about that waterproofing problem~

Chapter 21

Summary:

There's only one thing Nemuri hates more than parent-teacher conferences: Midoriya Hisashi

(Takes place shortly before the previous chapter)

Notes:

Go read Number One With a Bullet. We creep ever closer to it being even more important.

Parent-teacher conferences are the absolute worst goddamn part of working at UA, and there is nothing in the world that could convince Kayama Nemuri otherwise. Even for the normal meet-and-greet kind of garbage it’s just annoying to listen to parents gawp and ramble and rave about their kids, much as she usually likes the kids themselves, but today she had been roped into the big conference with the Class 1-A parents to go over all the security changes after the attack on the USJ. Which is so not her wheelhouse! She’s an art teacher, damn it, never mind that she’s a Pro Hero! But this had been an all hands on deck moment, and let neither kami nor devil imply that Nemuri was incapable of stepping up. Some of the parents had travelled a long way to be there - on the school’s yen - and had been in a sour mood about the whole thing. The Bakugos in particular were threatening to pull their son from the school entirely! She’d done her best to help smooth things over, and they’d luckily managed to avoid any other parents freaking out too much, but it was still mentally draining. She was thankful for the two absentees: Todoroki Enji, that smug fucking bastard, had replied to their official letter with a canned refusal to show up, citing his status as the Number Two Pro Hero to explain how busy he was (or rather, his secretary had; that was an auto-pen signature if she’d ever seen one), and of course there was her. Or rather, there wasn’t her. Zashi had offered to take a private meeting to account for the fact that it was all happening during visiting hours at Shizuoka General. Fucker.

Finally, she reaches the door of the apartment she has in the teachers’ dorm tower, just down the hall from Hizashi and Shouta’s at her own request so she could stop in to visit them without having to walk across half the campus. She fumbles for her keys, forgetting where exactly in the suit she never wears she’d put the stupid things, only to drop them the second she’s dug them out.

“Ne-tan.”

A name she hasn't heard in years. She knows the voice all too well, and she’d recognize the woman it belongs to anywhere, even now. She looks older, far older than she should. But she’s still... Nemuri had once overheard someone call Akatani Inko a pretty little porcelain doll, but they were wrong. She’s a beautiful little porcelain doll. Standing there, just around the corner, tucking that gorgeous green hair behind her ear and smiling that damned smile that had stolen Nemuri’s heart the moment she saw it all those years ago, she’s just as perfect as the day she’d been lost to that conniving, manipulative piece of shit named Midoriya Hisashi. Looking at her it’s a wonder that the Pro Hero hadn’t made the connection between her and her son before that fateful encounter with Shouta; the green of their hair and the warmth in their eyes is so distinctive. But Inko had taken that bastard’s name, and Nemuri had forgotten it, for all she’d never forgotten the man himself. Now, though? Now she can’t help but think about it every time she sees Izuku in her class, the bright and brilliant and wonderful boy that he is.

The boy that should have been hers.

Inko - not senpai, not anymore - strolls forward with a confidence in her stride that belies what she’d been told she was usually like these days, but that matched Nemuri’s memories of her perfectly, coming to a stop before the taller woman who used to be her junior and using her Quirk to lift the keys back into her hand. “Hello, Ne-tan. I think it’s time we have a chat.”

Fuck. There’s that commanding tone that has always been her undoing. Nemuri can’t help but unlock the door and invite the greenette in, letting her seat herself in one of the armchairs around the table as she goes to fix some tea. This gives her a moment to lean on the counter out of sight and try to compose herself. This fails miserably, of course, and she bites back a shriek of frustration. She wishes she could just use her Quirk on her former upperclassman and escape out the window or something, but it’s way too late for that. Instead, she pours the tea into her finest cups and sets them on a tray with a few sticks of dango she keeps in the fridge. It’s not until Inko’s politely partaking in the snack that she realizes why she keeps dango in the fridge: because it was her girlfriend’s favourite. And so, for that matter, is the brand of tea. Inko says nothing about either, damn her; she’s just too polite to bring it up. Everything about her is still perfect all these years later, the polite little heiress to the Akatani legacy. ‘Former heiress’, she reminds herself; one never lost those kinds of manners, though. She’s still mad at herself for not insisting that Inko pick her family over their relationship, given how it had ended, but the woman had always made her own way in life, and damn the consequences. Even if one of those consequences happens to be in the hospital going through recovery from a major surgery right now.

“He likes you, you know.”

That one statement, delivered calmly and quietly with just a hint of a smile, is nearly Nemuri’s undoing. “He does, huh?”

“Oh, she speaks! I thought you may have taken a vow of silence today or something; Hizashi-kun told me your least favourite part of the job is meeting the parents,” Inko titters softly, that polite upper-society laugh, “but yes! My little Izuku is a big fan of yours, and not for the reasons every other teenage boy is - and no doubt some teenage girls as well. Did you know he actually has a copy of your book? Honestly I forgot you’d written that, but that group he works with sometimes, the Collector something or other, they gave him an original edition - the kami only know where they got it. He mentioned something about it being a ‘seminal text’ for modern art history; that’s what you teach here, right?”

Hearing the woman who was once her closest confidant speak to her like this feels like Nemuri has been dipped in a sewer. Were they not friends once? Never mind that they haven't seen each other in years, didn’t they spend all that time in their younger days unlearning all this crap, doing everything they could to speak to one another like people? It’s time to put a stop to this shit.

“Inko-nee.”

Ha, there it is. The greenette’s train of thought sputters to a halt, and she turns an absolutely adorable shade of red. Wait, no, Nemuri stop being gay over your ex for a second, focus! “What are you doing, Inko-nee? I know we’re not friends anymore, but I figured you’d at least still talk to me like I’m a human being and not one of those socialites you always hated.”

The other woman has the good grace to look ashamed as she sips her tea, and the tension visibly leaves her body as she slumps into the chair. “Sorry, that was rude of me; I should have remembered how much you hate it. I fall back on acting that way when I’m nervous.” Same as she ever did. “He really does have your book though. Oh, he was so excited to show it to me! But I didn’t have the heart to tell him why I recognized the author.”

It feels like a breath of fresh air to see Inko like this; not the sadness tinging her beautiful green eyes, but the vulnerability and realness of it. “Yeah, I remember giving the leftover copies I had to a preservation group. I only printed what, fifty? And you wouldn’t let me credit you even though you edited half the thing for me! Kami, that was a long time ago. Feels like a life I dreamed up, which explains why it turned into a nightmare.” That was a bit mean, but Nemuri can’t deny the truth of the statement even if she feels bad at the way the other woman winces. She still remembers how it felt when Inko turned her back and walked away. “The past is the past, the now is the now. At the end of the day, I guess I didn’t think you’d actually pick him.”

Oh, that’s hit a nerve. Inko very carefully sets her teacup down and draws herself up to her full height, bristling darkly. “I only picked him because you made me choose. Don’t you dare sit there and act like you’re totally blameless in what happened, Kayama Nemuri!”

It’s Nemuri’s turn to get her hackles raised, putting her own cup down with a lot less care. “I only ever wanted to keep what we had! Hisashi was trying to take that away with his sweet little lies, and I wasn’t willing to lose you to that! I wasn’t the one who decided I wasn’t worth loving anymore!”

“I NEVER STOPPED LOVING YOU YOU STUPID GIRL!” Inko is shouting now, loudly enough to make the teacups rattle, and Nemuri finds herself taken aback by her ferocity as well as her words. “Never once in all that time did I ever stop being in love with my Ne-tan! But I loved him too, damn it! Yes, I know now that he wasn’t the man I thought he would be when we started dating. I know that he just wanted me for my body. But what I knew back then was that I had two wonderful, amazing people in my life and I wanted to have them both. At the time, Hii-san was willing to be part of a trio with the two of us; hindsight is as clear as day, so he absolutely wanted you for your body too, but the only one who wasn’t even willing to try was you.”

Tears stream down Inko’s cheeks, mirroring Nemuri’s own, and when she speaks again it's so much quieter. “I’m sorry that I didnʼt believe you about his lies back then. You were jealous, of course you were, but I should have trusted you more and seen that there was more to what you were saying. But giving me an ultimatum, putting me on the spot like that? That hurt, Ne-tan. And so did you cutting me off. Do you have any idea how humiliating it was for me to be turned away at UA’s gates because you said you didn’t know me when I came to watch the entrance exams?”

Right. She had done that, hadn’t she? What’s worse, she knows she’d done it maliciously. She’d wanted to hurt Inko the way that she felt Inko had hurt her. And it had felt good back then! But now it just makes her feel sick. It was petty, and stupid, and it should have been beneath her, never mind that she was a teenager going through heartbreak. “I really fucked up a good thing, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. But so did I, really. I wish I would’ve fought harder to keep you by my side; you deserved that much.” Inko pulls a small packet of tissues from the pocket of her cardigan and offers it to Nemuri after taking a few for herself. “When the dust settled, I ended up with neither of you; just a kid to raise by myself and a pile of student loans I could barely handle. I think that’s what pushed Izuku towards working for those archivists, wanting to help with the finances. And it helped, but no child should ever have to take on a job to help their parents manage the bills instead of playing with their friends after school. Oh, but listen to me carry on; I should get out of your hair. I’m sure you’ve got work to do.”

Inko goes to stand, but Nemuri is faster, shooting to her feet before she even realizes what she’s doing. She can’t let things end like this. Not again. She can never let Inko-nee leave on a sour note ever again. “Stay! Please. I, uh. Well, it’s actually my weekend off, if you can believe it; I haven’t got much to do, and really I haven’t got anything I’d rather do. We can. I dunno, we can catch up? Properly, now that we’ve yelled at each other. I want to hear about your life, what Izuku was like growing up, all the things normal people talk about. Never mind that neither of us has been normal a day in our lives.”

Inko-nee’s laughter this time is cleaner, warmer, sincere. “We really haven’t, have we? The art prodigy turned lascivious Pro Hero and the outcast bisexual daughter of Japan’s oldest fashion house. What a pair! Alright, I can stay a while longer; let me just text Izuku so he knows where I am.”

While Inko-nee does that, Nemuri returns to the kitchen with the snack tray to make a little more tea and set out the last of her dango, as well as sending a text of her own to Shouta and Hizashi, asking them to pick up some more and bring it by. On impulse, she also asks if they’d mind a plus one for their usual movie night. She hears back from Zashi first, as usual, a paragraphs-long speech to text message that’s at least eighty percent roasting her for being so quick to bring her ex on a date after the trio had gotten into an all-out brawl over the very idea of seeing the woman again just the other day. Well, he’s free to gloat, the smarmy bastard, but this is not a date. It’s just some old friends catching up and having a nice time together, thank you very much. She returns to the living room with the tea and extends the offer to the other woman.

“Oh? Asking me on a date so soon? You always were a bold one, Ne-tan!”

Fuck. Inko-nee still knows how to tease her perfectly. Nemuri is well and truly cooked, as the kids say, but the truth is that she wouldn’t miss it for the world. And maybe things will work out one way, maybe another, but no matter what the future may bring, the past is the past, and it’s time to leave those old hurts behind. She’s not stupid enough to think that one day of being friendly towards one another, one little shouting match, will be enough to make up for the intervening years, but damn it she is going to try. Let neither kami nor devil imply that Nemuri was incapable of stepping up.

Notes:

Sorry this one took as long as it did, I got sidetracked by the Yugioh World Championships!! Those will be ending Sunday and I should hopefully be right back to writing as my main focus.

Next time on LGC: Midoriya does some fancy mathematics and is sexually harassed about it.

Chapter 22

Summary:

Hatsume Mei sure is something else.

Notes:

Let the games begin, and don't forget to read Number One With a Bullet

Massive blast doors were not what Izuku expected to see at the entrance to the Support Course’s Development Studio, but he can’t say he’s exactly surprised by them either. He’s heard a few horror stories circulating through the school’s rumour mill (courtesy of Mina and Denki), and it does make sense to be prepared for anything when dealing with teenagers who have access to all kinds of dangerous materials for developing Hero outfits. He squeezes Ochako-chan’s hand for support and pushes the button on the intercom, which crackles to life in a surprisingly low-tech manner.

“Power Loader’s office, Maijima speaking.”

Oh good, he’s in. “Hello Maijima-sensei, it’s Midoriya Izuku and Uraraka Ochako; we made an appointment earlier to talk about our outfits?”

“Let’s see, Midoriya and Uraraka… Yep, I’ve got you on the schedule right here. Give me just a second and I’ll come get you.”

Having never actually seen Power Loader up close, Izuku is wholly unprepared for the man who greets them at the door to be his own size. The teacher has a bit of tight, corded muscle to be sure, but he’s lanky, with long arms and bow legs that make him look even shorter, as do his oversized gloves. “Uraraka, you were here to talk about waterproofing, right? The students who worked on your outfit are out for the day, but I can walk through the adjustments with you. Midoriya, you’re looking to get a full overhaul if I recall; that’s going to take some doing, but unfortunately the student you were assigned to is in today so you’ll get to meet her.”

Wait, unfortunately? Ochako speaks up as Power Loader guides them into the studio, past large piles of organized mess. “Yes sensei; you might have heard that during the USJ Incident, I got dropped in the lake of the Flood Zone, and most of my gear got completely waterlogged. I was surprised such an obvious flaw was overlooked!”

“Ah, but it wasn’t overlooked,” Power Loader corrects gently, “it was left that way on purpose. Under normal circumstances, Heroics Department students will get their costumes made to spec exactly as ordered, do some regular usage as they go through their curriculum, and find flaws in their own designs. These are then brought to us, and we get the students assigned to them to go over those flaws with the Heroics students, pointing out any they missed and working together to fix them in the next iteration. We don’t usually expect students to face actual villains in ‘em! You guys got real damn unlucky.”

“Oh! That makes a lotta sense, actually! Well, if the changes have already been noted, I suppose that’s not much for me to worry about; thank you, sensei.”

“Now, Midoriya, you’re a bit of a different case,” Power Loader supplies as he stops walking and turns towards the greenet. “Your outfit was made by a third party, right? And you’re wanting a total replacement?”

Izuku nods sheepishly. “Yeah, my mom helped me with it. And she did great work, don’t get me wrong, but when I designed it I didn’t have a full grasp on my Quirk just yet. I had put in for some special shoes for an upgrade that didn’t end up being ready in time for the USJ, and ended up ruining my usual ones. Now that I’ve got some actual solid data recorded, I know a lot more about what’s going to be necessary to use my outfit to its fullest potential in conjunction with my Quirk! I’m excited to talk shop with your student.”

At this, Power Loader visibly winces, rubbing the back of his head. “About that. I gotta warn you, you ended up with one of the more… Eccentric students in 1-H. She means well, and she’s damn good at what she does, don’t get me wrong, but she can get pretty intense. And she’s not good with communicating, neither.”

Izuku can’t help but chuckle at that. “Power Loader-sensei, I work with people who are bad at communicating all the time, I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’m glad to be teaming up with someone who’s passionate about her work!”

Power Loader guides them to the furthest corner of the Development Studio, where Izuku can see a mess of pink dreadlocks poking up over a pile of materials, as well as a bunch of papers and half-finished projects scattered across the top of a table haphazardly. Is that karpatite? What in the world is she doing with that?

The Pro clears his throat loudly. “Hatsume, your two o’clock is here.”

“Just a second, sensei! I’m close to a breakthrough this time, I can taste it! I can get it, I know I can get it, because she deserves better than those clowns! Tell my two o’clock they might be a two fifteen.”

Power Loader sighs, but Izuku waves him away with an understanding smile, stepping over to where a cluster of stools is set up and peering over the paperwork as Ochako-chan takes up a seat next to him. Huh, this looks like it’s for Hagakure; did Hatsume get assigned to her too? No, she’d made mention of ‘those clowns’; likely her fellow support students who had failed to offer the invisible girl anything actually useful in terms of a Hero outfit. Is she taking on the challenge? She must be. As he waits, he decides to look over what she’s got, and it looks really thorough, except for one little thing that stands out to him like a sore thumb because of his Quirk studies.

“Hatsume-san? Your refractive index is off.”

The pink locks freeze, and a head pops up over the pile of stuff, a pair of absolutely fascinating eyes staring at him in bewilderment. “What? No it isn’t, I did the math seven times!”

Izuku lifts the offending paper and points to one of the calculations. “No, see, look where you’ve rounded for the velocity of light in Toru-san’s Quirk here, right? If you just use inference from seeing her Quirk through a video feed you'd think it makes sense to round at the fifth decimal place, but if you round at the ninth you’ll get a more accurate result - which to be fair only makes any sense to do if you've seen it up close. Hang on.” He rummages around in his backpack and pulls out the latest volume of Quirk Analysis journals, flipping to the correct page and passing it to the pink-haired support student, only wincing internally a little when she takes it with grease-stained fingers. “You see?”

The girl’s irises appear to rotate as she stares at the paper, and suddenly she leaps up, shoving things off the work bench and grabbing others frantically, including the karpatite. Within moments she’s assembled some sort of emitter, which she hangs upside-down in an arm clamp over a piece of fabric. She mutters what sounds like a small prayer and flips a toggle, causing the device to whir to life with an electric hum. A perfectly transparent hole appears in the fabric and Hatsume shrieks, pumping her fists in the air. She turns to Izuku and grabs his hand, shaking it excitedly. “You did it, greenie! You fixed what was wrong with my field generator! With this, that invisible girl will be able to wear a real Hero outfit that can fade away with her Quirk! Oh, you and me are gonna get along swell; I wanna make so many babies with you, greenie!”

Wait, what?!

“Inventions!” Power Loader interjects frantically, waving his hands around, “she calls her inventions her babies. She wants to make you cool support gear.”

Hatsume nods eagerly, her grin wide. “Well, yes, lots and lots of them, but also hello? Greenie has some damn nice genetics; I'd tap that in a heartbeat!”

What?!

“Hey!” Ochako-chan shouts, getting Hatsume’s attention and looking cross. “He’s already got girlfriends! Back off a little, would ya?!”

“Girlfriends plural? So you’re already fine with sharing him, right?”

Oh this is not going well at all. He lays a gentle hand on Ochako-chan’s shoulder to keep her from jumping up and possibly murdering Hatsume, speaking with a professional calmness that he doesn’t really feel. “I appreciate the interest, but I’m not looking for another partner right now. Besides, we’ve barely been introduced - there’s social niceties that need to be observed before that kind of talk.” Sure, it’s a little bit condescending, but he knows Hatsume’s type, and she clearly needs to be told what is and isn’t appropriate.

“Oh! Is this one of those situations? Okay.” The girl wipes her hands indelicately on her pants, which does exactly nothing to clean them, and gives a formal, carefully-practiced bow. “My name is Hatsume Mei, founder and chief scientist of Hatsume Industries. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I apologize for any offense I may have caused.”

Brushing off his girlfriend’s grumblings about dogeza, Izuku smiles and inclines his head gently. “It’s good to meet you as well, Hatsume-san, and I both accept and appreciate the apology. My name is Midoriya Izuku, and this is Uraraka Ochako, one of my girlfriends. The other, Asui Tsuyu, is back at the dorms waiting for us to return, so I’d like to get right down to… How do you say ‘brass tacks’ in Japanese again? Wait, no, that’s an English idiom. Not important! What I mean is I’d like to work out my new costume design with you quickly so I can get back to Tsu-chan.”

“Ohhh, so I’ll need permission from the other girlfriend who isn’t here to flirt with you too, right? That makes sense!” She turns to Ochako-chan with such an intense look of excitement that the brunette jumps in her seat. “Before I forget cause I know I’m gonna get wrapped up in all the sciency stuff: permission to flirt with your boyfriend, miss?”

Izuku can see a slight flash of cunning in his girlfriend’s eyes as she discovers a way out and has to suppress a laugh. “You know what? I’m gonna have to talk to Tsu-chan about it first before I can answer.”

Hatsume nods eagerly before returning her attention to Izuku, who simply holds out another small journal from his backpack, this one intended to get dirty. “I’ve got all the data I was able to gather about my Quirk during the USJ Incident, as well as from recordings of my own training sessions which I’ve also had forwarded to your student inbox. Obviously you know how to handle classified material as a Support Course student, but I want to stress that those recordings in particular are strictly need-to-know because the other person featured in them is All Might. Now, the main points of interest are the reinforcements at the joints and also gloves that are made to the same specifications as my new shoes were, but with a bit more flexibility if possible. The joints need to be reinforced specifically for striking, with the minimum tolerances listed in page twelve, and composite suggestions on page twenty. Also I found that my mask and hood were too bulky together and need to reduce the combination to just a mask, one that can sit around the neck and be donned quickly as necessary rather than being integrated into any sort of headgear, and I’ve sketched out several suggestions starting on page twenty-two for goggles or glasses to replace the upper portion of the mask and how to seat them for easy deployment without the risk of falling off or getting in my way. With me so far?”

Hatsume nods eagerly and launches into a fast-paced reply of her own. “I saw your original outfit and noted that it was really nice aesthetically but didn’t really offer anything by way of support for your Quirk, which made sense when I checked the school’s registry and noticed how much detail was lacking from it! While I was making your shoes I came up with a few ideas of my own based on those and they can be easily tweaked by any competent designer based on the full data you’ve provided here - not that I would call myself merely competent - but a couple of them did rely on more exotic materials that sensei said were outside of my allotment of the program’s budget. However, I was able to secure samples of each of the materials for fairly cheap and I’ve heard that you have someone in your class whose Quirk involves being able to replicate and reproduce just about any nonliving thing so I figured you might be able to sweet-talk her into helping out if I provided those samples and schematics of their exact physical and molecular compositions!”

The two trade rapid-fire exchanges that fly mostly over the head of the teacher and the other girl, both sharing a fond smile and a shrug, and their back-and-forth is only interrupted when Izuku;s phone begins to ring. “Oh, sorry about that! I really have to take this. Toshi, what’s up, I thought you were on your way to Yokohama today?”

“Is this Midorya Izuku-san?”

Izuku’s face grows dark hearing the unfamiliar voice, and his voice shifts into a cold growl. “It might be. Who are you and why do you have Toshi’s phone?”

“This is Sasaki Mirai, I’m an old friend of Yagi’s. I need you to come to the dorms right away; we’ve had to radio for a helicopter and you need to be on board.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“Midoriya-san, there’s been an incident. Yagi’s being airlifted to Central Hospital. Please, hurry.”

Oh no. No no no no, not like this. “Hatsume-san, sensei, I’m sorry but there’s an emergency. Ochako-chan, hold on tight!”

“Hold on to wh- eeeeEEEEEEE AAAAAAHHHH!”

Izuku grabs his girlfriend in a princess carry, Quirk snapping to life under his skin, and sprints, running for the dorms like he’s never run before. Ochako-chan’s yell rings out through the halls as they go, glad that most of the school is empty at this time of day; he doesn’t have nearly as much practice as Iida at swerving at speed and he’d hate to run anyone down. There will be time to explain and apologize later; right now his only focus is on getting to that helicopter and finding out what had happened to Yagi Toshinori.

Notes:

Huh, wonder what that's all about :^)

No preview of next chapter this time, you'll have to wait and see~

Chapter 23

Summary:

Izuku is starting to regret asking what's going on whenever something begins to happen. Looks like he really won't be carrying the class through that group project after all.

Notes:

Go read the prelude.

Also, lots going on in this one, be prepared for a lot of information!! Some of it will be relevant immediately, some of it later, but this is a Lore Heavy Chapter!!

The flight from UA to Central Hospital had been a rapid and surprisingly uneventful one, with Toshi being loaded into a separate part of the medevac helicopter from Izuku. He’d simply needed to present his student card to the emergency responders, and had been bundled on board immediately upon confirmation of his identity. The two had spoken a bit about it before; as All Might, the man had quite a bit of sway, allowing him to request a bend in the usual rules regarding family members to make sure Izuku and his mother were given priority access in the event of an emergency, which wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility given his health. He just hadn’t expected it to happen now, especially so soon after he’d been cleared medically in the wake of the attack on the USJ. What he’d like to know is just what had happened, but the man on the phone hadn’t himself been on the helicopter so he was stuck waiting in the private lounge area of All Might’s personal wing. Being a fabulously wealthy Pro Hero sure comes with a lot of perks; everything here is state of the art, even beyond the medical equipment right down to the vending machines that make up the automated cafe. The wing is practically a second hospital in its own right, constructed with a generous grant to minimize potential media exposure of either the Number One himself or those under his direct care such as his agency staff.

Two sets of doors mark each end of the lounge, one leading to the security booth at the main entrance and the other deeper into the wing where the medical staff and Toshi are, and it’s the former pair that slides open to admit a tall, stick-thin man in a slightly rumpled grey suit. He spots Izuku immediately and makes a beeline for him, halting a few feet away and inclining his head respectfully. “You must be Midoriya-san. I’m Sasaki Mirai, I’m-”

“Sir Nighteye,” Izuku interrupts in a dull, tired voice, tucking his phone back into his jacket, “Toshi’s former Sidekick. Sorry, can we skip the pleasantries for now?”

“Of course.” Sasaki pushes his oddly-shaped glasses up a bit higher on his nose, his own voice sounding tightly professional. “I was at UA to see Yagi for the first time in a very long time. He invited me to drive out to Yokohama with him, and he was running a bit late due to fretting over what to pack. We had a few moments of… Discussion. About his choice in a successor. He walked past me at one point, and when I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him, that is when it happened. Now, what you need to know about my Quirk is that it is not touch-activated; it is a complex mechanism which is based on touch and line of sight, but it is crucial to understand that Foresight is not capable of activating accidentally. And this is crucial to understand because that is exactly what happened.”

Sasaki looks like he’s barely holding himself together, hanging on by a string of absolute professionalism. “I did not see much, which is as unusual as the event itself, just you getting on that helicopter and a few flashes of something else. When it stopped, Yagi… Yagi was on the ground, bleeding heavily from his nose and mouth and having one of his attacks. I called Central Hospital, then Nedzu, then you. And here we are.”

Izuku wordlessly hooks his ankle around the leg of the chair next to his and slides it out from the table towards Nighteye, who collapses into it like every bone in his body has turned to liquid. It’s strange, seeing a man of his stature who’s known for being so secretive having such a painfully human moment, but he’d taken off the rose-tinted glasses back on that rooftop when he’d confronted Toshi about what it really means to be a hero. “Thank you for calling me, Sasaki-dono.” Doesn’t hurt to be polite now that he knows more of what’s happening.

“I should take a moment to apologize to you, Midoriya,” Nighteye replies in a low, exhausted rumble. “I said some unfair things to Yagi, about you. He was vociferous in your defense, in a way that I had not heard since… Well, never mind that right now. On the way over, I was able to read up on the private file Mighty Agency has on you, and I see now just how wrong I was to view you as a poor candidate to be the next holder of One for All. I only hope I get to apologize to Yagi as well. For a great many things.”

“Sasaki-dono. It’s okay, I know.”

Izuku barely has the energy to suppress a laugh at the look of absolute bewilderment that crosses the former Sidekick’s face. “You know? Know what?”

“About you and Toshi. I’m the one who told him to invite you to Yokohama.” It shouldn’t feel as satisfying as it does to watch the horror dawning on Sasaki, that’s mean. “It wasn’t really hard to piece together, since I’ve been spending so much time with him; I doubt anyone else noticed though. I thought he was going to meet you out there; I’m glad you decided to drive up with him instead - kami only know what would have happened if he’d had that attack while he was alone. And, I forgive you for whatever you said about me. I didn’t expect you to like me as his choice of successor, but I guess I’m better than nothing.”

“Oh. I see. Well, thank you for being understanding, Midoriya.”

The two fall into silence, Izuku returning to his phone and rapid-fire texting everyone he can think to. Class 1-A are all on the list of those allowed to know about All Might’s condition specifically, and then there’s his various contacts both on the street and through the Collective who will be best served by knowing he’ll be out of touch for a little while. He knows Toshi would want him to continue on his patrols, but he’s going to have a hard enough time being willing to go back to class after this, let alone do anything else, and in Izuku’s line of work being distracted could get others hurt, to say nothing of himself. He also very, very carefully makes arrangements to have word spread that there may or may not be some surprising news coming out in the near future, the kind that could make people very nervous. It’s pragmatic, as much as he hates to even think about the possibility that Toshi may not bounce back from this one. Even if it just ends up being a longer stay, word has to get out beforehand so that the aftershock can be managed in critical positions, both in Musutafu and around the country. The Collective can get to work fast on the latter, and he knows Mama Nya is the best point of contact on the former. Details are kept sparing, but being the Saviour of Musutafu gives him a certain amount of sway that he’s never been more thankful for than this moment.

It’s never going to be perfect, but he can do his part to keep people from getting hurt.

It’s at least two hours later that one of the nurses comes out to usher the pair through to Toshi’s room, saying that the man is conscious for the moment (a fact Izuku doesn’t miss as being temporary), and he can’t help but let a few tears fall when he sees just how awful the man looks. He’s fully deflated, hooked up to a whole host of machines, and as pale as a corpse. Toshi gestures them closer with the weak crook of his finger, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “Ah, there you are, two of the most important fellows in my life.” His voice is strained and quiet in a way that makes Izuku’s chest hurt. “Mirai, old friend, I am sorry to have to cancel our trip. But, I am glad you could meet young Izuku, even under these circumstances. You see it in him, yes? That spark, the one that left both of our eyes when I got hurt. I know, I know, you had picked that boy of yours to be my successor, but I hope you’ll forgive me for being a stubborn old fool and choosing someone else. I think Izuku will surprise you yet.”

Sasaki slips a hand into Toshi’s own, careful to avoid disturbing any of the sensors, and squeezes it gently. “Yagi, you are an old fool; I would forgive you anything you asked. I still…” His breath hitches, and he shakes his head. “No, we can save that for when you’re better. And you will get better. I must keep that faith in my heart. But, Yagi, there’s something else. I was in Izumo the other day; I had heard rumours and needed to see if they were true.”

Izuku can see the heart rate monitor spike slightly, and hear Toshi’s break quicken. “Rumours? Mirai, tell me it’s not!”

“Yes, this is about him. The time has come.”

Toshi’s eyes widen, looking fearful in a way Izuku has never seen. “And you’ve seen this yourself, Mirai? You’re sure of it?!”

“I am. He’s gone.”

“And the stone? What colour was the stone? Was I right?!” Sasaki hesitates, drawing a weak but fierce growl from the man in the bed. “Damn you, Mirai, don’t treat me like I’ve already died! What colour?”

“Green. It was green. I’ve already made the arrangements.”

With a long sigh like his very soul is escaping past his lips, Toshi collapses back into his pillows, coughing just a bit. “I thought we had more time. It’s too soon, far too soon, but if he’s already gone then it needs to be now. Go, Mirai; tell him. Everything you can. Izuku my boy, I’m sorry that I could not do this myself. I trust Mirai with my life, but more importantly I am trusting him with yours. Please, hear him out.”

Sleeping. He’s just sleeping. Izuku’s mind races as he and Sasaki return to the lounge, trying to process what the hell just happened. “Sasaki-dono, what the fuck?”

The Pro pulls up a chair and gestures for Izuku to do the same. “Sorry, this is going to be a lot to get a handle on. First, a baseline. Can you tell me what you know about the period in history known as the Age of Gods?”

Izuku nods, still confused. “It was about a century ago; it refers to a time when immensely powerful Quirks were more widespread, and powerful Quirk users more or less ruled the world. It poses a counter-theory, or in some circles a sister theory, to the idea of Quirk Singularity. Most first-hand accounts didn’t survive the event that ended it, the massive war waged between some of the greatest Quirks to ever exist, on par with godhood. Some scholars cite two, others as many as twelve. All of them died, and that brought the Age of Gods to an end, restoring rule to the people.”

Sasaki nods. “Most of the scholars are a bit off; there were four godheads, and their disciples made up the other eight. Some first-hand accounts survived through the passing of One for All between its wielders, and in fact all four Cardinal Lords are believed to have survived. Here in Japan, there was the Lord of the East, who took a step back from direct rule to become something of a spiritual advisor for the Emperor after sustaining an injury in that war. He gave a prophecy into the keeping of the holders of yours and Yagi’s Quirk: one day, he would die, and when he did he would leave a sign behind for the one who was to journey to meet the Lord of the West and speak to them. What about wasn’t made known, just that they would be known by the colour of the stone in his shrine. And that stone turned green.”

Green. Midori. Midoriya. It makes an uncomfortable amount of sense; everything in Izuku’s life has been a series of incredibly wild coincidences, leading all the way to him becoming the next holder of One for All practically out of nowhere. “I hate absolutely everything about that, just so you’re aware Sasaki-dono. Answer me one question, and then I’ll decide if I’m willing to take you at your word about… All of this.”

“Anything you need.”

This is it, make or break time. “If this Lord of the West is from the Age of Gods, could they have something, some way to fix Toshi? Iyasareru-dono’s Quirk won’t work, obviously; the shock would be too much for his body, and putting him in a coma would kill him outright. But this is a god we’re talking about, or at least the closest thing to it. Is there a chance?”

Sasaki shrugs, which is honest of him. “The chances aren’t zero, that’s the best I can offer. All I can say for sure is that they live somewhere in North America, and that they’re known for answering questions, for a price. Any one question, in exchange for something the one who asks believes is worth the answer.”

“I’ll go, then,” Izuku says firmly, squeezing his hands into fists. “If there’s even a chance that I could help Toshi, that’s what really matters to me. Everything else is secondary, prophecy included. But I’ll need some way to get there, and I’ll need to say my goodbyes.”

“I have already made arrangements. She should be arriving any minute now, I-. Ah, speak of the devil.”

There’s some sort of commotion by the doors to the security booth, and they slide open to admit a group of people in body armour, full-cover helmets with mirrored visors, and carrying large assault rifles. They move smoothly to flank the entrance, guns down but ready, and Izuku jumps to his feet, Quirk crackling beneath his skin as he shifts into a defensive stance out of reflex. He feels Sasaki’s hand on his arm, and the Pro shakes his head, mouthing the word ‘friendlies’. This doesn’t relax him, but what does is the tall, broad-shouldered woman who walks in after them, her long, perfectly-coiffed hair flowing behind her as she stalks dangerously towards the pair before dropping down and wrapping Izuku in a tight hug. “Izuku! Kami, it’s been too long. I’d ask if you’ve been well but that would be stupid under these circumstances.”

“Wait, Tomoe-san?” Izuku lets out a warm laugh, wrapping his arms most of the way around the woman. “Oh my goodness, it’s been forever! I’m happy to see you, but what in the world are you doing here?”

She takes a step back and ruffles his hair, offering a hand for Sasaki to shake. “Tomoe Yuzu, Vice Chair of International Relations for the HPSC. Your request came to our office because of its nature, and made its way to me because of my personal connection to Izuku here. I owe him my life, so I pulled a few strings to expedite the license.”

Sasaki looks bewildered again, so Izuku takes pity on him. “Tomoe-san and I go back a few years. I came across a pretty nasty car accident while I was out and about, and one of the drivers was stuck. Nobody else was there, and I wasn’t willing to risk waiting for the first responders because the other car was on fire and I didn’t know how fast it might spread. I was carrying a window breaker with a seatbelt cutter on the other end and managed to get her out.”

Sasaki pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of course you would not only know a Vice Chair with the HPSC, but they would owe you a favour. I really should not be surprised, knowing what I know of you.”

“Hey!” Izuku protests over Tomoe-san’s laughter, “she wasn’t a Vice Chair when I met her! Congratulations on the promotion, by the way.”

“Thank you. And, I come bearing a gift!” She takes a small manila envelope from inside her jacket and presents it to Izuku with both hands. “By request of Sasaki Mirai, you’re being issued an International Special Activities License. Normally this would be appended to your Hero license, provisional or otherwise, but an exception is being made because as of about an hour ago, you are acting director of Mighty Agency, as heir apparent of its founder. As such, it’s appended to your student card instead. Now, keep in mind that the ISAL is not a Hero license of any kind - it authorizes limited Quirk usage on a personal level in case of emergencies, but it absolutely does not permit you to engage in Hero activities. In short, it’s a way to bypass any stringent Quirk licensing laws in member states while travelling abroad. Don’t lose it, either; it’s also an emergency passport.”

Well, that’s convenient. Izuku places the envelope in his bag, and hugs Tomoe-san again. “Thank you for this.”

“I’m so happy I could finally help you after what you did for me. I wish I could stay to catch up, but I have to run back to the office and make sure everything’s in order. If you need anything while you’re overseas, don’t hesitate to call my office and we’ll move heaven and earth to help you.”

Hopefully knowing that is enough to make his mom and his girlfriends feel better once he lets them know that he’s leaving. Which he should do as soon as possible. He says his goodbyes to Tomoe, returning to his seat and pulling out his phone, firing off texts to Ochako-chan and Tsu-chan before dialing his home line. “Mom? Yeah, Toshi’s as okay as he can be right now. Listen, something important has come up; can you come by the hospital? Yeah, it’s about Toshi; I’ll tell you everything once you and the girls get here. Okay. I love you too.”

It’s going to be a long day.

Notes:

Will Midoriya be stopping in the US to punch his sperm donor in the face? Not in this fic sadly :P

Next chapter will be another slow one, before we start diving head-first into one of the major story themes: godhood!!

Chapter 24

Summary:

Five friends have some time together before one leaves the others behind. He'll come back safe, but they all have to wonder if he'll come back the same.

Notes:

Please read the prelude.

Also, warning for adorableness and extreme homosexualism.

Buried at the bottom of a pile of his friends isn’t quite where Izuku had expected to be after getting back to the dorms, but it’s definitely where he most wants to be right now. He, Ochako-chan, and Tsu-chan had been ambushed by Shoto and Kirishima as soon as they’d walked in the door, wrapped in a large blanket, and hauled off to the dorm’s quiet room, with Iida running point on keeping the rest of the class from pestering them. The cozy, insulated space stocked with snacks, pillows, and plush toys had been Aizawa’s idea, intended as a small escape for any guests who needed it; the students themselves had their own rooms to retreat to, but was still co-opted on occasion for large cuddle puddles in need of the extra space and privacy. The five friends stay like this for a little while, limbs entangled and skin pressed against skin wherever their clothes have shifted, until someone’s stomach makes a loud growl of protest, bringing a round of laughter. It’s Kirishima who gets up first, with an air of dramatic reluctance, grabbing and distributing chips, chocolate, mochi snacks, and soft drinks. They’ll return to the dorm proper for real food later.

“So.” It’s Tsu-chan who breaks the ice, but not with any of the expected topics. “Hatsume Mei, kero? Ochako-chan tells me she’s quite the character, kero.”

Ugh. Izuku had almost forgotten about the pink menace. “You could say that. I dunno if she was serious about the flirting thing, but she was definitely serious about wanting to make babies with me - and not just the support gear.”

“She’s got some dang nerve!” Ochako-chan grumps between mouthfuls of mochi, her accent slipping. “Sayin’ that kinda stuff like I ain’t right there. An’ then she had the guts to ask ma permission to flirt with him! I told her I’d hafta ask you, Tsu, cause I ain’t his only girlfriend. Got me outta givin’ her an answer, but that won’t last forever.”

Tsu-chan’s tongue darts out to lick a few crumbs of chips from Shoto’s cheek, causing the boy to frown slightly, and she chews contemplatively on her own mochi before replying. “Well, she’s got my permission, kero. Once Izu-kun is back home at least. Oh, and she has to flirt with both of us, too, kero.”

Izuku’s entire brain screeches to a halt, and he turns slowly towards his girlfriend. “Pardon?”

Tsu-chan shrugs, nestling down into the pillows beneath her and waves dismissively. “I’m not saying any of us need to date her, kero, I’m just saying it’s nice that she’s interested. I’m not exactly the jealous type, but that’s the deal: anyone who wants one of us has to woo all of us, kero.”

“Tsu!” Ochako-chan snaps, “how could ya say somethin’ like that so casually?”

“Was she pretty, Ochako-chan?”

Ochako-chan sputters and blushes. “That’s besides the point!”

“It absolutely is not, kero,” Tsu-chan retorts smugly. “Now answer the question, you bisexual disaster: do you or do you not think Hatsume Mei is pretty?”

Face turning an even more adorable shade of red, Ochako-chan nods, mumbling quietly, “she was super pretty.”

“Thought so. Izu-kun, what about you?”

Hm, that’s a good question. “Is she pretty? I don’t really know, honestly. She was all greased up and sweaty; that might be Ochako-chan’s type but honestly her looks aren’t what caught my eye.” The brunette swats his shoulder and he laughs. “She’s smart though. Not to sound like a disaster myself but she’s brilliant; I’ve never met someone who could keep up with me in terms of material sciences. I’d go so far as to say she’s smarter than I am when it comes to support gear and Hero outfit design.”

“I rest my case, kero.” The frog girl waits patiently for Shoto to finish his snack before grabbing him and pulling him under the blanket with her, causing him to let out a long-suffering sigh and begin radiating heat without needing to be asked. “Thank you, kero. Listen, Izu-kun, Ochako-chan, there’s plenty of love to go around in this relationship, kero, and that’s not a bad thing. You’re allowed to find other people attractive, you can flirt and be flirted with, you can even go on dates if that’s what you’re after! All I ask for is communication about it, and for all three of us to be included, kero. Especially if it might turn more serious, like Hatsume.”

More serious. Well, Hatsume had been after something more serious for sure, but is that what Izuku wants for himself? Is now even an appropriate time to be thinking about it, since he’s about to leave on a trip to the other side of the world and track down a god? Or should he be spending more time thinking about the girlfriends he already has, and Kirishima and Shoto too? He should definitely be polishing off his study guide for the 1-A class project so they can complete while he’s gone, as well as asking Aizawa about make-up quizzes and work he can do on his trip. He shouldn’t be gone that long, but the fact remains that he’ll be missing classes. And therapy. And Bakugo’s return to the school. And date nights! He hopes he can at least video call for date nights, even if he’ll be spending whole entire days with absolutely no hugs! Truly the most tragic part of this sojourn into the Americas. He knows Toshi would get a laugh out of that. And so would his mom, to whom he had dropped a series of very (un)subtle hints about using this time to reconnect with her old friends. Maybe he should pay a visit to Kayama-sensei before he leaves? Well yes, he has to do that anyway because Aizawa isn’t going to go around collecting work from his other classes for him; but should he use that as an opportunity? Does it count as playing wingman for his mom? Is that weird? He feels like that’s weird. But honestly despite everything, he feels like the two of them deserve it. Nothing weird about helping them be happy, right?

“Do you think he even notices he’s muttering?”

“Nah, he’s got no idea. Look, he’s still going! Midobro, you’re doing the thing again.”

Crap.

Izuku’s head snaps up and he pulls his thumb away from where he’d been worrying at the nail with his teeth, blushing slightly. “Sorry! I’m just stressed; this is a lot.”

Shoto perks slightly, shifting himself and Tsu-chan up, which causes Izuku’s adrenaline to spike. Anything that can get the other boy excited about something is usually bad for his health. “Commander Uraraka, Second Lieutenant Kirishima, begin stress protocols.” Oh no.

Before he has a chance to make an escape, Izuku finds himself being tackled from behind by his excitable girlfriend, pinned beneath her and unable to flee from the maniacally cackling Kirishima, who swaddles the pair of them tightly in a blanket, tucking and folding it in such a way that it leaves them well and truly trapped, unable to move a limb. This bundle is then flipped, lifted into a sitting position, and tucked against Shoto’s other side, with Izuku effectively tied to Ochako-chan’s lap. Tsu-chan clears her throat and begins singing a soothing frog-song, while Shoto begins scritching gently at the greenet’s scalp and preparing to braid his messy hair. Kirishima, meanwhile, fetches the big guns: a box of Meltykiss chocolates, which he begins hand-feeding his friend with a giant, toothy grin. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop spiralling!”

“Get loved on, bitch. Get absolutely cherished, kero.”

Izuku can’t help but laugh, sinking back into Ochako-chan’s embrace. He still isn’t used to this kind of affection and support, but he can’t say he minds it. He’s going to miss these four goofballs.

“You’re coming back to us in one piece,” Shoto grumbles in his usual deadpan. “That isn’t a question, or even an instruction, by the way. It’s just what’s going to happen. You’ll go, you’ll find this Cardamom Lord, and you’ll come back.”

“Cardinal Lord, Shoto.”

“I said what I said.”

They spend a little while longer like this, just basking in one another’s friendship, camaraderie, and love, before finally heading back out to the dorm proper for dinner. There, the five are greeted eagerly by the rest of the class - and a little less eagerly but still warmly by Aizawa - as everyone sits down to their meal, courtesy of Lunch Rush. It’ll be the last they share as a class for a bit, since Izuku will be leaving before breakfast, and being a gaggle of teenagers they make it as rowdy and cheerful as possible. Izuku gets corralled into providing the class with a movie from his pre-Quirk Disney collection, though Aizawa makes it sharply clear that there is to be no impromptu karaoke this time. There still will be, of course, and their teacher will ignore it like he always does. It’s a wonderful sendoff, and Izuku can’t wait to celebrate coming home, too.

Notes:

This was originally going to be a little longer, and a lot more melancholy, but fuck it!! Cheerful goodbyes only!!

Next chapter, Izuku's flight lands and he meets some manner of creature.

Chapter 25

Summary:

Izuku doesn't have time to care about the mythical significance behind all of this, but he can always make time for a neat Quirk.

Notes:

Read Number One With a Bullet to celebrate 25 chapters with me!!

Izuku isn’t really sure just what it is he’s looking at as he disembarks from the plane. He’d been told that his contact in Canada, provided through the Collective, had an unusual mutation-type Quirk, but this? He’s not prepared for this at all. She’s got a long neck, very fluffy feathers, and clawed fingers which she has folded over one another in a polite pose, likely to keep anyone with a less keen eye from noticing how much they look like raptor talons. As do her feet, for that matter; those toeless sandals she’s wearing are a fascinating design, did she make them herself? He’ll have to ask later. As she moves closer and drops into a practically reverent bow, he can’t help but notice she’s been hunched over this whole time because of how tall she is alongside her feathery bulk; at least two good feet on him, maybe more.

“Finder Midoriya, it’s an honour! My name is Tanchou Zuru, your liaison from the Matsumoto main office. I am a second-level Understudy, here in Thunder Bay to learn stories from the Ojibweg of Animkii Wajiw.” Her pronunciation of the names is slightly clipped, but he supposes that could be because of the shape of her mouth; it’s impressive nevertheless. “They have a branch office of their own, of course, but they’re all very busy right now, so I was appointed to guide you to your destination.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you as well, Understudy Tanchou,” Izuku replies with a respectful bow of his own, keenly aware of their difference in rank within the organization. The Musutafu branch office puts significantly less stock in it than most, but he doesn’t want to be offensive. “We can move past the formalities if you’d like; let’s speak as friends and comrades.”

It’s cute how the feathers on her neck poof out a little as she rises from her bow, though she remains slightly hunched. “I’d like that, thank you. So, you’re here for the rumours of the Lord of the West, right? I can’t promise that he’ll be found on Mount McKay for sure, but oral histories in the area do mention a ‘man of many gifts’ passing this way in the right timeframe.”

Izuku nods, hefting his rucksack with a light sigh as he and Tanchou-san walk from the tarmac, through the small terminal, and out into the parking lot. “I’ve heard that a lot these last few days. I’ve had six stops before this, all to no avail; every time I reach the place he was seen, I find that he passed through and kept on going.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, how do you know the difference?”

He gets that same question each time too. “I can’t tell you the specifics, but my Quirk lets me feel it.” He can’t very well say that that’s because powerful Quirks like One for All and those held by the Cardinal Lords will resonate with one another if they’re close enough together. “So if I reach a spot where he used to be, I can kind of sense if he’s been there recently or a long time ago.”

“Oh, that’s interesting!” The raptor-like girl fluffs up even more, talon-fingers clacking together. “I remember reading something about resonance theory back home; one of the Researchers did a dissertation on it as a companion to Quirk Singularity theory. I wonder if there’s a way to measure what you’re sensing, in order to study it as some sort of proof? Anecdotes are one thing but solid data is where the real science is.”

The two continue to chatter amicably as they stroll through town, stopping only long enough for Izuku to check in at a local motel and drop his rucksack off, swapping it out for a smaller day bag with hiking supplies and his better shoes. Afterwards, they continue walking out of the more urban area towards the woods surrounding the mountain, taking up conversation again on various Quirk theories, topics of Quirk-related scientific studies, and a few of the stories Tanchou had been sent to gather. It’s a nice change of pace, being able to discuss such esoteric topics with someone who not only understands them, but has made a study of them herself; apparently her work with the Collective was mostly being done to pay for tuition at a private school that would get her into one of the top Quirk research institutes of Japan. Soon enough, or perhaps too soon with all the fun conversation, the two reach the base of the mountain - though as a Shizuoka native, calling this a mountain in the face of Fuji is a bit of a stretch - and Tanchou raises an arm towards the cliffsides.

“See those caves up there on the ledge? That’s where the ‘man of many gifts’ is supposed to have gone after paying his respects to the elders. Now, the oral histories don’t say anything about what happened after he came back down from the mountain, but that’s not unusual. And hey who knows, maybe there really is a secret god up there! Good luck.”

“Are you not coming?”

Tanchou shakes her head, feathers rustling. “Nope. Sorry, I can’t really say why; I just know I’m not supposed to.”

Huh. That’s… Weird. But Izuku has seen weirder on his journey across the Americas, so he shrugs it off and prepares for the trek. It’s not a long one by any means, maybe an hour, but it’s steep, and that makes it tough. It’s also a switchback, meaning he has to walk back and forth as he climbs. But as he gets higher, closer to the ledge, One for All begins to hum in a way that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. This is a much stronger reaction than any he’s felt so far! Maybe this is it, and the Lord of the West really is in one of the caves at the end of the trail. That would make every moment worth it, because he’s unshakably certain that this mysterious being from the Age of Gods is the answer to his prayers. He keeps walking, keeps pushing, drawing in deep breaths as his Quirk buzzes louder and louder, eventually drowning out even the sound of his own breath.

And then he’s there, and it stops.

One for All falling silent is the most eerie thing Izuku has experienced in his life, and as he peers into the depths of the cave, he knows why instinctively: just beyond the threshold is something strong, stronger than his own Quirk by an order of magnitude so large as to be incomprehensible. This is the final domain of the Lord of the West for sure; every fiber of his being is telling him so. He draws a deep breath, steadies himself, and takes the first step towards what he can only think of as his destiny.

“Wait for me, Toshi. I’ll be home soon.”

Notes:

Short one this time around; it was originally going to be part of the next chapter but it felt cleaner to do this way. Chapter 26 is also written and will be published shortly!!

Chapter 26

Summary:

Izuku meets the Lord of the West. He's kind of weird.

Notes:

Because this came up for a few people last time I posted back-to-back chapters, note that this is the second posted today, and go back to 25 before this one!!

Also go back to Number One With a Bullet because we rapidly approach terminal relevance :P

“Ah, there you are.”

The voice that greets Izuku has a quality he can’t quite put his finger on, part echo and part melody. It’s like a choir speaking as if they were a single person, and it makes him a little dizzy. He slowly takes stock of his surroundings, which are decidedly not a dank, dark cave in the Canadian woodlands. He can feel the distinctive soft give and tiny ridges of tatami under his feet, because his shoes have disappeared, and smell the light scent of high-quality matcha. In the middle of the room, which he can tell is four and a half mats, sits a dark wooden zataku-style table with two square cushions, one of which has a kasuri weave making a pattern of sakura petals floating in the wind. He can’t tell what the pattern on the other is, because seated upon it is a person who hurts just a little to look at. They seem to notice him flinching, and immediately something about them shifts, letting Izuku see them clearly. They’re rather short, only a scant few inches taller than Izuku himself, but the way they hold themselves speaks of strength that belies their lithe body. They are also, despite the surroundings, decidedly not Japanese. Their skin is the pale pinkish-white of a westerner of European descent, with strawberry blond hair and deep brown eyes. They gesture for Izuku to sit, and he does.

“Sorry for earlier,” the Lord of the West intones in a much more human manner, “it has been a very long time since I’ve had a proper guest. Nothing but supplicants in thirty years, and those expect a certain air of godliness. Here, drink up.”

Izuku lifts the proffered teacup, a beautiful thing of fine black Seto-Guro stoneware that has had several breaks repaired with gold in the hibi style. He lifts it to his lips and takes a small, slow sip. The flavour that washes over his tongue is bright, green, and ever so lightly sweet.

“Do you like it? I picked it up from-” He cuts off suddenly, waving a hand. “Whoops, I almost used his name. You’re definitely not ready for that yet. The Lord of the East, as he came to be called. Tragic that he’s passed, but I can’t say I’ll miss him all that much after what happened. You can call me West, by the by; that’s easiest.”

“West-okami,” Izuku mumbles, bowing deeply over his tea. “You honour me with this meeting. The tea is delicious; and I assure you that I’m not saying so just to get in your good graces.”

The god smiles as Izuku lifts his head, joining him in taking another sip of the tea. “Good, good. So! You are here to ask a boon, yes? And you know how these deals work?”

Izuku nods. “The legends say that you’ll answer any one question, offer any one solution to a problem, in exchange for something from the asker. What that thing is is determined by the one who asks: you never set a price, you simply hear an offer. If I may have my chance?”

West tucks a stray lock of his neck-length hair behind his ear. “Yes. What is it that you offer to me, youngling?”

This is it. Izuku has spent hours, days of his journey going over old stories of those who had made deals with the Lord of the West in the past, trying to find the perfect thing. And he’d landed upon something that is so bold and arrogant that it just might work. “West-okami, Cardinal Lord of the Age of Gods, to you I offer something that only a god could take: my gratitude for answering my question, regardless of what that answer is.”

West freezes, and the whole room ripples with the volume of the laugh that comes from his mouth. The god cackles, wheezing and snorting loudly, slapping his thigh with his palm several times before he can calm enough to choke out an answer. “You cheeky little fucker! Gah! The audacity of offering your gratitude for answering a question that you’ve yet to even ask! Oh, I like you, Midoriya, I like you very much. East was right to choose you. Very well!” He straightens, a broad grin splitting his face. “I accept your gratitude, youngling; ask!”

Izuku smiles, screeching internally as his nerves twang but manage not to snap under the stress. “Do you have something that I could use to heal my mentor and friend, Yagi Toshinori, the Hero All Might, Symbol of Peace? He lies dying, and I desire to save his life.”

West nods, gesturing with one hand to the small puzzle box that sits by Izuku’s teacup. Somehow, it feels like it has been there since he’d sat down, even though he could swear he hadn’t noticed it. “There, your treatment. Well, sort of - you’ll need to unlock that box first. I can’t tell you how, but since you’re such a cheeky little shit, I can tell you why. Tell me, Midoriya, do you know why I am the Lord of the West, a god from an era long past?”

Izuku frowns, tucking the puzzle box into his bag to look at later. “Your Quirk. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but you and the other Cardinal Lords have incredibly powerful Quirks. You’re not divine in the sense that most of the Shinto kami are, for instance; you’re a very powerful mortal who came to be worshipped.”

“Incorrect!” The word is spoken with that same reverberation, and West is briefly back to being hard to look at. “My Quirk didn’t make me a god, as powerful as it is. Rather, it helped unlock my potential: I was always able to be a god, but I needed that little bit of extra strength. Pantheon, it’s called. The specifics aren’t important right now, but in a nutshell it lets me affect causality in such a way that I always have exactly what I need. However, I am indeed divine. Behold.”

This last word is akin to a deep whisper, but somehow even more melodic. West waves a hand over the chaire, which begins to shake. Slowly, the powdered matcha coalesces together, then suddenly bursts into leaves before Izuku’s eyes. The tea leaves begin to sprout tendrils from their bases, and within moments there is a whole bush growing from the ceramic jar, glistening in the light. An energy ripples through the air, the same energy that Izuku has been tracking through six holy sites, and One for All pulses wildly in response, green lightning crackling from his skin. There’s no doubt in his mind that the Lord of the West is a god, a kami in the truest sense of the word; something beyond mortals, beyond Quirks themselves, ascended from humanity. And there’s only one thing going through his mind.

“Why are you hiding here?”

The god seems to deflate at that, a melancholy look crossing his face. “I lost that battle, at the end of what you call the Age of Gods. I made my way here, slowly but surely, and when I settled in, well. South came, and we argued. Long, loud, painful. At the end of it all, this place was cursed, an insidious curse that affects even me: anyone who leaves this cave can never enter it again. And if I can’t come back, then I have to leave behind… Well, don’t you worry about what I keep here; just know that it can’t be moved. And so, when you leave, you too will never be able to return.” He lets out the heaviest sigh Izuku has ever heard, then straightens again. “Now, where was I? The puzzle box, that’s right. That box will open precisely when it needs to, and not a moment before, because you, youngling? You’ve got the spark.”

The. The what?

“Oh, there’s that little mortal look of befuddlement! Not so high and mighty now, are you little ‘gratitude for your answer’?” West waves a hand at the tea bush, nodding sagely. “The spark. The divine spark. You, Midoriya, have the same thing that I and the other Cardinal Lords had: you can ascend to godhood some day. You even have the Quirk for it.”

“Wait, wait wait wait!” Izuku stammers, “are you telling me that One for All can make me a god?! An actual, genuine kami with powers that surpass Quirks?!”

“Ah, sort of?” West’s smile takes on a distinct shit-eating quality that Izuku definitely doesn’t like. “It’s not really that All for One gives you the power, or even that it directly unlocked your potential, like Pantheon did for me. Rather, it altered your DNA in such a way that it awakened the latent Quirk hidden in your blood, and that is what in turn awakened your divine spark.”

Izuku’s brain tries to process this, fails, and decides to check out for the day, leaving him to babble incoherently. He pauses, takes a few breaths - ragged though they may be - and tries again. “Altered my DNA?”

“That’s right,” West confirms, plucking one of the tea leaves from the bush and popping it in his mouth to chew. Weird. “You were Quirkless before you got One for All, but Quirklessness doesn’t work the way you think. See, Quirks are a mutation, but they’re not recessive. Quite the opposite, in fact: Quirks are a dominant trait that always passes down, but there’s a secondary mutation, one that expresses as an extra joint in the toe. This mutation suppresses the mutation that expresses as a Quirk, which is how you get Quirkless people - Quirklessness is a surface trait.

“Deep within your genetic code lies the potential for a Quirk, but normally this potential can’t express itself because of the other mutation. The exact mechanics of that are outside my specialty, but that’s the gist of it. I once heard North’s subordinate say it’s similar to those Blaschko’s lines; go ahead and research them when you get home. Anyways, what happened to you, youngling, was very simple: inheriting One for All broke that genetic sequence and allowed your inherent Quirk to express itself properly. And that’s why your spark ignited, letting you have the potential to become a god.”

This. This is going to take a lot of time to process, far more time than Izuku can take right now, so instead he shifts the conversation a little. “Okay, let’s pretend for a second that that’s all fine. I can have a meltdown later. What, the pray tell fuck, has this got to do with the puzzle box?”

West laughs again, quieter this time but still energetically. “Where’s your sense of fantasy, Midoriya! I thought it would be obvious. The puzzle box is tied intrinsically to your divinity; it’ll open when the time comes for you to fully unlock your spark and take the first real step on the path to godhood! You’re going to perform a miracle, Midoriya. Can’t say what, can’t say when, but I’ll give you this: the ones you wish to protect the most will not perish before that happens. All Might won’t die until you’re ready to save him from it; otherwise I wouldn’t have held up my end of the bargain.”

Fuck.

Izuku has never felt so much relief in his life, and he falls back, thumping against the springy tatami and burying his face in his hands. “And I have your word on that? As a god?”

“My word is my bond, and this I so swear: you and yours shall not feel the touch of Izanami before such time as that box opens and you perform your first miracle. This will not be forever; the event will take place one day. But until it does, there will be no death before you.”

Izuku sits up again, places his fists on his thighs, and bows deeply. “Thank you, West-okami, Cardinal Lord of the West. I am in your debt, as you gave me much more than I requested. Some day I will pay you back, even if I can never enter this cave again.”

The Lord of the West inclines his head respectfully. “I fully believe you’ll find a way to see me again, youngling. And when you do, all I ask in exchange is for you to make me a meal; food is sacred in ways few know, and fewer understand. Take your leave now, Midoriya, the outside world awaits.”

Pushing himself up slowly, Izuku bows again, and moves towards the sliding doors behind him. As he moves it aside, he finds himself standing at the mouth of the cave, facing the other way from when he’d entered. One for All buzzes lightly under his skin, and he knows that even if he were to turn around, he could never enter the cave again. Filled with knowledge, filled with questions, and carrying the puzzle box that is meant to save Toshi, he turns to walk down the trail. As he gets about half way, something other than his Quirk buzzes: his phone, secured in the pocket of his day bag. He’d forgotten all about it. Unzipping the pocket, he pulls it out and swipes it as soon as he sees Ochako’s number.

“Hey! What’s up, it’s not date night until tomorrow isn’t it?”

“Izu-kun! Thank every kami ya picked up! Ya gotta get home, ya gotta get home right now!”

“What? Ochako-chan, calm down, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Iida. He’s…” The girl on the other end of the line chokes, and Izuku can feel his own throat closing in panic. “He got hurt. He’s hurt real bad, Izu-kun. The doctors don’t know if he’s gonna make it. Please, please come home, Izu-kun!”

Notes:

You guys didn't expect for internships not to be held just because Izuku was gone, did you? :^)

Don't worry, we won't be hanging from this cliff for long!!

Next chapter, Izuku comes home.

Chapter 27

Summary:

Something happens in a dark alleyway to keep Iida Tenya alive.

Notes:

Very short interstitial

The metallic tang of blood is to most an acrid stench, but to the man known as Stain, it’s the delicious scent of a job well done. The pathetic heap of trash masquerading as a Hero calling itself Native had been easy pickings, but something about the boy, Ingenium’s younger brother, had been different. For the first time in far too long, Stain had found himself in a real, honest fight for his life against the child, because for whatever reason, his Quirk had failed to activate correctly. It’s something he’ll need to investigate. Still, Iida Tenya had eventually gone down, his bloody corpse decorating the alleyway alongside his true target. Or, no, not a corpse just yet it seems, because he’s lifting his head to glare at Stain, trying to croak out what’s probably more threats to kill him around the blood dripping from his mouth. Oh well; he can at least honour the boy’s tenacity by giving him a quick death. Stumbling slightly, he lurches towards the mouth of the alley to grab his katana from where it had landed after a particularly fearsome kick, hefting it slightly and turning back.

“You will halt.”

A voice at the mouth of the alley. Another pretender come to stop him? No, it’s too calm. He spins suddenly, swinging the blade in a rapid diagonal chop, and hits… Nothing. Where did they go? There! He lashes out with a foot in a feint, bringing his katana around in a sideways jab but still finding nothing but air. Growling in frustration, he launches a flurry of attacks towards each place he feels the opposing presence appear, but each and every one somehow misses. And then they’re before him, holding the sword he hadn’t even noticed them take from his hand. “Who are you?!”

The noise that comes from under their hooded cloak can’t truly be described as laughter, but it carries a hint of amusement nonetheless. “Have you forgotten me so soon, Stendhal? Well, no matter. What’s important is that the Lord of the North has decreed this child must not die here. So, die here he shall not. Stand aside.”

Lord of the North? Impossible! But no, the ‘face’ of his foe peers out from under their hood, three empty, black holes like a kodama tilted quizzically to one side, staring at him as if he were a fascinating insect. This is the woman with stars in her eyes, first disciple of a Cardinal Lord. He bristles, snatching his katana back and shoving it into its holster, growling. “The Lord of the North has no business here in the East!”

“That is where you are wrong, Stendhal.” Her tone is one of a parent chiding their child, and it pisses him off. “The Lord of the East is dead. So, North and South now vye to be the one to appoint another. And West, perhaps, but nobody has seen him in decades.”

A Cardinal Lord, dead?! The world itself is going to tremble like it hasn’t in a century, then, and the woman with stars in her eyes is going to be at the heart of it, no doubt. But he won’t bend the knee so easily. “Even if your master ordered it, I am neither his disciple nor his subject. The boy is my prey, so back off!”

He reaches out to grab the woman, but finds that she’s already behind him without having moved an inch. Damn her and her Paladin magic! He watches as she stoops over Iida Tenya’s body, a faint orange light emanating from her hands as she moves them over him. “There, that will do the trick for now. You may wish to lie low for a while, Stendhal; things are about to get very interesting. Do not forget what you owe me, and by extension my master.”

And then she’s gone. Bitch. He can tell that whatever she did to the child has stopped his life from fading away, but as the wail of sirens grows closer, he knows better than to stick around. He hates the need to run away with a job half-finished, but on the bright side, this makes one more survivor to spread the word of Stain, the philosophy and the warning of his intent to cleanse the world of pretenders to the title of Hero.

Notes:

Realized part way through working on Izuku's homecoming that this wasn't going to fit in that chapter, but it's too important for setting up later plots to cut, so here it is as a standalone. The actual chapter will arrive Monday!!

Chapter 28

Summary:

Izuku doesn't like hospitals much, but at least he's not the one staying this time.

Notes:

Read Number One With a Bullet please. This is your final reminder!!

The hospital in Hosu is no different from any other that Izuku has found himself in over the years, be it for seeing his mother after a shift or for any of his own numerous injuries. Sterile white halls, too-bright lights, the distinct scent of disinfectants and other strong cleaning agents that usually manages to drown out the acrid stench of blood, it’s the same all over. It would be comforting in its repetitiveness if it weren’t so unpleasant in its essence. The person he’s rushed to see (for a given meaning of rushed; the return trip had eaten up two days) has a private room in the Hero wing, which at least looks a little more inviting as he enters through the guest reception and security area. The walls have tastefully selected pieces of art by local artists - all for sale, with portions of the proceeds going towards various charities or the hospital itself - and even more tasteful artificial flower arrangements. Can’t risk any sort of allergic reaction, after all. As he reaches the door he’s after, one towards the end of the hall, he hears the dulcet tones of someone absolutely furious with his friend, which brings a smile to his face.

“-ALL THE IRRESPONSIBLE, HARE-BRAINED, HALF-COCKED, MORONIC SHIT! IF YOU EVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN I WILL BREAK YOU INTO SO MANY PIECES PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU HAVE MY QUIRK!”

There’s a pause for a quieter response. “DON’T YOU ‘NOW DARLING’ ME YOU ASSHOLE! YOU ALMOST DIED, TENYA! YOU MADE YOUR FATHER CRY! YOU MADE YOUR MOTHER CRY! SHE ALMOST LOST BOTH OF HER SONS! AND ANOTHER THING-!”

Figuring he should probably step in and save his poor friend from the wrath he faces - though he finds himself agreeing with the general sentiment - Izuku knocks twice on the door and pushes it open, stepping inside swiftly and nodding to the other greenette in the room with a huge grin on his face. “Tokage-san, sorry to interrupt you when you’ve got a good roll going.”

“Oh, Midoirya, hey.” Tokage Setsuna’s posture relaxes immediately as she comes down from the adrenaline high she’d been on, voice a little cracked from her shouting. “Sorry you had to hear that, but someone’s got to yell at this bozo. How was your trip?”

“Eventful,” Izuku replies smoothly, telling the truth to the 1-B student without revealing any sort of details she doesn’t need to know. She may be Iida’s girlfriend (shocker of shockers if you ask him), but she’s not been read in to any meaningful degree and believes he’d travelled as part of a consultation with medical experts about All Might’s condition. That much going public had been unavoidable, and he’s glad he’s gotten ahead of it. “Where’s your better half? And not the one in bed, clearly.”

Iida looks mildly offended at that, but Tokage lets out an amused huff. “Back home, taking a nap after bawling her eyes out. Kinoko was really relieved that Tenya’s surgery went so well, but she was in no shape to travel, poor thing. I should get home to her. Look after this fool, yeah? He may be a dumbass, but he’s my dumbass.”

Pausing to kiss her boyfriend chastely on the cheek, Togake exits the hospital room, one hand trailing behind her that ruffles Izuku’s hair on its way out. It’s always a little funny when she does that; for whatever reason, she’s never actually stood near him when patting his head or playing with his hair - almost like she’s embarrassed to show affection to someone that isn’t Iida or Kinoko. Speaking of affection, Izuku skips over to Iida’s bed, grabs the hand that’s not hooked up to any IVs or monitors, and rubs his face against the back of it like a cat. He can’t hug the other boy, so he’ll have to settle for this. Iida’s hand is warm and soft, which calms his anxiety a little. He’d feared coming back to a cold corpse even after West’s oath and Ochako’s billion texts reassuring him that his friend had gone through surgery successfully and was recovering well despite his injuries. The two stay like this a moment more before Izuku speaks. “She’s right you know, you really are a dumbass. I cannot believe you went on a mission of vengeance! Without me! You jerk.”

Iida manages a quiet laugh, rubbing along Izuku’s cheek and up into his hair when he ducks down into it. “I am truly sorry, Izuku! I lost sight of what it means to be a Hero, blinded as I was by the rage of what happened to Tensei-nii. I was shown the error of my ways quite handily. Nothing makes it clearer that I remain a mere student of Heroics than getting my backside handed to me by a villain - though I will say I gave him what for! It was odd, really; his Quirk, something related to ingesting blood based on his eating of mine, failed to work for some reason. Even so, it was the most difficult fight I have ever faced. Stain was not able to kill all those Heroes and wound my brother by mere chance.”

Quirks not working correctly is practically unheard of, except for Quirk negation tools and abilities like suppressor cuffs or Erase. This makes two times in recent memory: once with Sir Nighteye, and now this. Once is an incident, twice is coincidence, but if a third shows up, that would be a pattern. Is something going on on a broader level? Maybe it has something to do with the other Cardinal Lords; that would only make sense given that one is apparently dead now - he can’t imagine the sudden loss of a god wouldn’t have some sort of wider consequences on the world. Is this a sign of something to come? Is it related to his own apparent godhood in some way? No, nothing should happen with that until he figures out the puzzle box; or at least that was the implication, did he misunderstand somehow?

“Izuku, you are muttering! And what’s this about godhood and a puzzle box?”

Ah! Shit. He hadn’t intended to bring all that up just yet. But, it’s not like Iida was going to be kept out of the loop anyway. He reaches into his bag and takes out the puzzle box. It’s a small thing, made of some metal he doesn’t recognize with a dark, coal-fired patina. There are several different things to solve, one on each side, ranging from a small maze that doesn't have a peg to a series of buttons that won’t depress. It’s evident that there’s something he needs to do to make the thing function before he can solve it, but he hasn’t been able to figure that out yet. Iida turns it slowly around in his own hands as Izuku explains the meeting with West and subsequent revelations about his own alleged nascent godhood, waiting until he finishes for any questions he may have. Which isn’t many, as it turns out.

“Do you think this is why there have been so many strange coincidences in your life? Maybe that is what your supposed Quirk was meant to be!”

“Maybe!” Izuku chuckles, humming quietly as Iida returns to toying with his hair. “It would sure explain how I always seem to be in the right place at the right time to make a connection that’ll be meaningful later. What a weird Quirk though! I guess the best way to figure it all out is to do some Quirk studies on myself, see what I can come up with. Want to help? It’ll give you something to do while you’re stuck in here.”

Iida nods eagerly, pausing to adjust his glasses. “Of course Izuku! I am always more than happy to help a friend. Though to hear the doctors say it, I will not be cooped up in this ward for long! From what I have heard, my recovery is going remarkably well, and soon enough I will be able to convalesce at the dorms rather than needing constant monitoring! They say I will even be able to return to the majority of my classes not long after; though I will be strictly prohibited from any sort of practical Heroics or standard exercise and training. Instead, once I am deemed fit, I will be partaking in a special rehabilitation regimen set out by Recovery Girl-sensei herself! In a few months, I may even be fit enough to resume my usual isometric exercises! I must say that I am very excited to get started! Hospitals have never agreed with me.”

Izuku smiles broadly and nuzzles even harder into the boy’s hand. “That’s great! And I’m sorry again about not being able to have Iyasareru-dono heal you like he did me; he’s been out of contact with the Collective ever since he checked into his hotel in Singapore. Not unusual for a contractor like him though. Speaking of the Collective, maybe once you’re better we could go and see the Musutafu branch office together! With Ochako-chan and Tsu-chan and Shoto of course; and maybe even Tokage-san and Kinoko-san if they’re interested. It would be great to get to know them better. I still can’t believe you landed a relationship with girls like them, you dork!”

“Midoriya Izuku, I am offended!” Iida’s smile belies his amusement. “I will have you know that I did not land a single thing! Setsuna’s parents and my own introduced us; the Tokage family is nearly as old and respectable as the Iida clan, and her parents are traditionalists when it comes to marriage. Well, for the most part; they’re modern enough to approve of Setsuna and Kinoko’s relationship, even if they don’t understand it. I count myself incredibly lucky that Setsuna likes me as much as she does sweet Kinoko! And learning more about your relationship with Ochako and Tsuyu has helped me better understand theirs! I thought it quite unusual at first that Kinoko would not be interested in a relationship with myself and Setsuna both, but Tsuyu was very helpful in explaining various types of polyamory to me. I am quite content to remain metamours, though obviously I would not object were she to change her mind in the future!”

“Well, I don’t think Kinoko-san is gay, so you’ve got a shot,” Izuku teases, “she’s a bit more like Tsu-chan than anything: it’s the person that matters.”

The duo continue to chat inanely until towards the end of visiting hours, when Ochako and Tsuyu drop by to pick Izuku up and bring Iida a get well soon card signed by all of 1-A, which makes the boy tear up. The three say their goodbyes and head back to the dorms, conversing about this and that on their way and holding hands together, Tsuyu in the middle. If the doctors are right, it won’t be long now until they’ll be able to walk out of the hospital with Iida in tow as well, and have things return to a semblance of normal. When they return, Shoto eagerly informs Izuku in his excited deadpan that it’s his turn to make dinner for the class, a weekly rotating cycle. That means vegetable curry don! And with Bakugo back in action, he’ll have much more competent help, too. He loves his girlfriends, but learning the recipe properly is a matter of years, not weeks of practice. And he fully intends to spend those years with them, and with everyone else in his class who cares to learn. Because for all it’s a family recipe, he considers them all his family, now and forever.

Notes:

You guys didn't think I'd kill Iida off just yet, did you? Though he may have wished he was dead rather than getting yelled at by his girlfriend :P

Next chapter there will be a time skip, and a change in POV. After that will come a small hiatus as I make some big plans for the story, and also work on my return to competitive Yugioh!! Please look forward to it!!

Chapter 29

Summary:

Hatsume Mei works on Hero outfits and flirts mercilessly

Notes:

Content warning for a high school student taking lewd photos of herself and related sexual content. No actual sex takes place.

To an outsider, the Support Course workshop smells like a vague blend of oil, grease, and metal, with no way to differentiate between them, and indeed no thought that there may be a difference. Not to its number one mechanic and tinkerer, though! Hatsume Mei, self-styled founder and chief scientist of Hatsume Industries (not that there are any other scientists for her to be chief over just yet), can tell each of them apart effortlessly, be it by scent, texture, colour, or in several unfortunate cases, taste. There’s a reason she only eats jelly pouches in the workshop anymore. For instance, the one in her hands is a small applicator tube of graphite powder lubricant with a molybdenum disulfide additive that smells very faintly of rotting eggs. It’s a scent she doesn’t like, not because of the smell itself, but because of the desperation it represents - it’s not a normal lubricant to apply to her babies, and is almost entirely used when absolutely nothing else has been able to help get a seized part that she can’t put a blowtorch to unstuck. In this case, it’s the bearing at the base of the hinge on Mochi’s helmet visor, which had apparently taken a heavy kick from Eraserhead during Class 1-A’s final exams that day. She’d made a deal to swap over some of the other students’ Hero outfits into the care of her classmates in order to work on Mochi, Froggy, and Greenie’s outfits, as a gesture of respect for their budding relationship together. Permission to flirt with Greenie had come with the caveat that she would have to express interest in the whole of the trio, which she has absolutely no problem doing! Greenie’s the best for making new babies by far, but Froggy has a sharp wit and the kind of tsukkomi-style humour Mei adores, and Mochi is just unbearably adorable. Especially her Iga-ben!

It’s been an interesting couple of months getting to know the three, the ins and outs of their relationships with one another and their various interests. And it’s been a huge boost to her communication skills! Her mother had always told her that learning to communicate was a key skill both inside and outside of the career she’s pursuing as an inventor and purveyor of support items, but she hadn’t really internalized it until starting her pursuit of Greenie and his girlfriends. And speaking of communication, it’s time for her daily special! She mutes the timer on her phone and pulls her gloves off to handle it better. She can still hear Sensei’s shouting in her ears from the other month.

‘If I ever catch you fooling around in here again, I will ban you from the workshop outside of class hours, so help me!’

What a prude. It’s not like she’d been caught having sex or anything! She’d just wanted to help Greenie relax a little after a long day of training, one thing had lead to another, she’d pinned the smaller boy to her work bench and tied him down with some spare electrical wire, and maaaaybe her hands had been somewhere in the vague vicinity of his underwear when Sensei had come back from his break, but he was seriously over-reacting with a threat like that! How is Mei supposed to make any babies at all if she’s not allowed to use the workshop after class! So she’d devised the perfect solution: right when Sensei was scheduled to go on his break, she would get her daily special ready! The special being perfectly, flawlessly, geniusly tailored selfies of the raunchy and lewd variety. She lifts her shirt, tucking the hem into her teeth, and snaps the first picture. This one will go to Mochi, who she’s learned has an appreciation of her body when it’s all sweaty and dirty from her work. Next, she angles the phone camera down a bit so that the bottoms of her breasts are just barely in the frame, with the main focus being her abs, and just a hint of the top of her bikini line. This one’s for the tummy-loving Froggy. Finally, she grabs a towel and a few skin-safe degreaser pads to wipe herself down, tucking one lock of pink hair behind her ear and smiling invitingly around the hem of her shirt. Greenie loves when she’s a bit spruced up, and is very interested in her face, particularly her eyes. He’s also about to leave on patrol, so this will make a nice gift to take with him.

She gets a text back from Froggy first, a thumbs up emoji next to a frog one, which Mei has come to understand means the girl is trying really hard not to tent her skirt and unwilling to admit to any such thing. Moments later she gets a video clip from Mochi, which, rather than a naughty subject of her own, contains something even better: a furiously-blushing Greenie tripping over nothing on his way out the door of Mochi’s room. She cackles and sends a follow-up text to Greenie, reminding him to stay safe while he’s on the streets, and to watch where he’s walking. His only reply is a keysmash, which makes her cackle again. It feels good to have friends she can tease like this. She hadn’t realized until meeting Greenie and Mochi for the first time just how lonely she had been up to that point, but now? Now she’s got not only the three of them, but Sprints, Rocky, Icyhot, and all the rest of 1-A too! She’s closer with some than others, closest with the three targets of her flirting and affection, but she considers each of them friends, which is super weird for her. Rocky in particular had been crazy hyped up about her nicknames, helping her go through the whole class and pick out ones that would make it easy for her to remember, rather than judging her for her inability to retain names. She’d actually been six before she’d properly learned her own.

It’s not perfect, of course; she wants to be an official member of the polycule, but they’re not quite ready for that just yet, still too new with one another. Mei knows she also has to contend with Greenie’s love for Toga Himiko. Mochi had been joking when she’d brought up the missing girl, but while Mei isn’t good at communicating with people, she is good at reading them. She can tell that Greenie really does have an obsession. Not in an unhealthy way so much as a deep, powerful longing for her. Mei can understand that. Probably a lot better than most. Greenie's eyes light up whenever he’s talking about Toga, but his body always carries a tension like an over-wound gearspring too. Like he’s holding himself back from looking over his shoulder at someone who isn’t there, but should be. She wants to find the right words to reassure him before she moves past flirting and occasionally joining them for movie nights.

Setting her phone and her shirt back down, Mei returns her attention to her work, finally getting that hinge bearing unstuck and the visor removed to be repaired, which will have to come later because next up is Greenie’s outfit. Or rather, the remains of Greenie’s outfit. With All Might out of commission, one might think UA would phone it in and set his pupil’s test to a more mental one than a physical, but no, that would be the sensible thing to do, and kami forbid anyone accuse the principal of being sensible! Greenie’s final exam was best described as an all-out brawl, facing off against Ectoplasm, Midnight, Cementoss, and Vlad freaking King all at once! Rather than capture or escape, Greenie’s exam had been about timed survival: hold out long enough for his fictional backup to arrive, and he’d pass. Supposedly because of the rapid growth in the power of his Quirk, this was considered the best way to handle it, but what nobody had thought of was the idea of actually telling him the parameters were different. No, Greenie had assumed his final exam was the same as everyone else’s, had pushed himself to his limit, and soundly trounced the entire quartet of teachers in a display of strength that quite frankly turned her on a lot. Less attractive was the state of his Hero outfit in the aftermath, with even her newest blend of reinforced fibers failing to stand up to the frankly ridiculous pressures he was now capable of exerting. Mei likes a challenge to be sure, but this? This is getting silly.

It’s time for the nuclear option.

With the help of one of the Management students, Mei has drafted a letter of requisition to Mighty Agency’s in-house design team for samples of the fabrics used in All Might’s own costumes, a closely-guarded secret that normally they wouldn’t even deign to glance at a request for. But with the big man himself still in intensive care, Greenie was the current executive of the whole shebang, and as his primary support provider at UA, that puts Mei in a pretty lofty position, with Greenie reluctant to exercise his own power over the Hero Agency. Mei has no such qualms, and had honestly considered marching down there herself on a day off to get what she needed directly. She’d been persuaded to play nice at first by her Management contact, but the door was very much still open to make an in-person request if they proved unwilling to cooperate. In the meantime, she’ll stick to working on design adaptations. To start, the armor in the tops of his shoes is going to replicated, since it seems to hold up pretty well, and turned into shin guards similar to the ones Sprints wears, designed to take the brunt of high-speed kicks while cushioning the blow enough to shatter neither the wearer’s femurs nor the target’s skull unless the latter is absolutely necessary. His gloves will be changed a little to give him a tighter grip for when he needs to grapple, something he’d noted as being a problem while attempting to subdue Midnight. They may also be altered to have some way to focus blasts of air he’s found himself capable of generating by flicking his fingers; Mei thinks it’s a little goofy, so they’ll sit down and workshop it when he’s got the time. He wants to ditch the goggles entirely, but she figures they’re better off as an additional tool added to one of his belt pouches rather than being integrated into the main costume the way his mask is. And as for the mask itself, it’ll be getting a newly upgraded filter better capable of blocking out concrete particles. She’s thrilled it had protected him completely from Midnight’s Somnambulist, but it had become clogged at the end of his fight with Cementoss.

She flicks through the copies of the notebooks Greenie had given to her, humming a nameless tune to herself as she takes notes of other things she can do to upgrade his outfit, from design to materials to additional tools he may find useful in the field. Many of those are also carried in the backpack he brings on patrol, since he’s not licensed to wear his proper Hero suit out just yet. Maybe she can convince the principal to let 1-A take the Provisional License Exams early? She’ll reach out to her Management liaison and discuss sending the idea to whoever needs to hear it. She picks up the next book from the stack, only to realize that it wasn’t one about Greenie at all, but rather the analysis of the rest of his classmates’ Quirks, freshly updated with his observations during the final exams. He must’ve left it in there by accident, or maybe with the intent to have her disseminate it to the rest of 1-H. She picks up her phone to ask him in a text, but almost drops it when she spots something, a series of mathematical formulas labelled ‘Hagakure Toru’ that gets the gears in her brain spinning at top speed. Thoughts of Greenie’s new costume leave her brain completely, and every other project currently taking up space on her workbench is unceremoniously shoved into a heap on the floor to be dealt with later. She quickly but carefully copies the tightly-scrawled numbers onto a larger piece of paper so they’re easier to reference as she works, grabbing a multitude of different materials and half-assembled gadgets, including her first working prototype of the field generator that allows the invisible girl’s outfit to disappear alongside her Quirk. Working fast, she tears apart everything else to extract their materials, muttering chemical formulas and equations to herself as she goes. If these numbers are correct, if Greenie has done his math right, she’s about to have a breakthrough the likes of which has never been seen! Or, that will be seen, because that’s the goal here. She offers up a prayer to whatever deity might be listening as she crams the new focus in place on the copy of her field generator. The old one is set on the table with the piece of fabric she’d created for Hagakure’s outfit draped on top, turning a large part of it invisible as expected. The new one, however, is suspended from her arm clamp before being switched on. It sputters, coughs, whirs to life, and… She can see the whole cloth.

Mei shrieks at the top of her lungs, half in victory and half in overwhelming anger that it had taken someone else’s ideas to figure it out, grabbing the device and running past her startled Sensei, who had returned from his break and come to check on her.

“Hatsume, where the hell are you going?!”

“No time, Sensei,” she calls back over her shoulder, tears streaming down her face. “I gotta get to the 1-A dorms! I’ll explain later! Don’t touch anything!”

Panting and heaving, she runs as if the fires of Amaterasu are racing after her, all the way to Heights Alliance, pausing only to smash her key card against the guest entrance doors while clutching the new gadget to her chest. She grabs the first person she sees, barely registering that it’s Eraserhead, and shouts “get me Hagakure Toru NOW! It’s an emergency!”

To his credit, the Pro Hero doesn’t even bother to question her, recognizing the girl as part of Izuku’s inner circle, and takes off at a sprint down the hall, returning a few minutes later with a floating school uniform in tow. “Sensei, what the hell is going on? Wait, Hatsume-san, is that you? What are you doing here?”

Rather than a verbal response, Mei takes the prototype field generator that she’d fashioned into a makeshift necklace with a bit of scrap wire, tosses it over where she guesstimates the invisible girl’s head should be, and flicks the switch to turn it on again. An instant later, the floating uniform is filled out by a girl with long, messy, iridescent blonde hair and striking eyes of blue with a yellow inner ring. Her form flickers, unstable, but it’s there, she can see it. She tilts her head quizzically at Mei and Eraser. “Huh? What’s wrong, why are you guys crying?”

“Hagakure…” Eraser’s breathing is shallow, his voice strained in a way neither girl has heard before. “Hagakure, you. I didn’t realize you could see yourself. Your hair looks very pretty.”

It takes a moment for her to process what she’s just heard, and when she does, her knees give out, only avoiding a nasty fall thanks to Eraserhead’s quick reaction to catch her and hold her up. She looks up into his eyes and sees, for the first time ever, that he’s meeting them dead on. She hiccups, coughs, and begins to scream, collapsing against her teacher as she wails, sobbing and babbling incoherently. This, Mei knows, is the mark of true success. Doing something so important, so meaningful to someone that they’re completely overwhelmed by their own feelings, solely to have done it and not out of any obligation or expecting any compensation. Greenie had been right about that. It really is the best feeling in the world. The rest of the students, drawn by their friend’s cries, come rushing to see what’s wrong, and most stop dead in their tracks when they see the strange girl clinging for dear life to their teacher and begin to put two and two together. Someone fetches Froggy and Mochi, who immediately call Greenie to come back early from his patrol - if anything is worth interrupting his mission to help Musutafu’s unfortunates, it’s this. Eventually, Hagakure cries herself out and is able to be coaxed back to the dorm proper, made comfortable in one of the many armchairs in the sitting room and wrapped in a blanket. She wipes her face indelicately on her sleeve and looks up at Mei with a smile wider and happier than the mechanic has ever seen.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I finally… I finally feel like a real person. Thank you, Mei.”

Mei returns the girl’s smile with one of her own. “That’s what we do in the Support Course, Hagakure-san. And this is just a prototype! I’m gonna get right back to work making the final version, something smaller and lighter, one that’ll work even better! You’ll see; and so will everyone else!”

A wave of laughter ripples across the whole class, and Mei feels like she could take on the world. Having friends really is the best thing ever.

Notes:

Whoops, I accidentally sat down and wrote this in a single session. And now that it's done, I'm going to be taking a short hiatus as announced previously!!

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with the story thus far. This is an order of magnitude more successful than anything else I've written, with 3,277 hits and 64 kudos as of the time of writing. It still amazes me that so many people enjoy what started out as a very self-indulgent writing exercise in creating a transfem Midoriya, inspired by several other fics of the same nature. As so many things do, it snowballed from there into a proper story. When I sat down to begin making something real out of it from the loose scattering of ideas it started life as, I was shooting for what I considered a lofty goal: 100,000 words total from beginning to end. I though this was a reasonable challenge to take up for this fic, something to strive towards, as it was on its own a little under half the length of my entire Melodies of Earth C series (including works that aren't published just yet).

And then I reached 1/3 of that goal before finishing the USJ Incident Arc.

So, who knows how long this will end up being by the time it's done. Or even when it's going to end!! I have plans through the Shie Hassaikai Raid arc for sure, and even some vague ideas beyond, but there's going to be even more major changes to canon that will take it in all-new directions, so what's left will look a whole lot different, and I'll have to figure out what's going to stay and what's not. But that's part of what this hiatus is all about!! I'll be rereading more of the manga and taking notes for the future. I hope you all look forward to the next chapter after I get back, as well as everything yet to come!!

As a bit of a teaser, I'll say just one thing: a few of the setups from the very earliest chapters are close to paying off, and not too long from now, you'll learn all about one of the bigger mysteries~!!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Loaded God Complex