Archive of Our Own ^beta

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UPDATE: THE FIC STARTS ON CHAPTER 3

Unless you wanna read my ramblings, idk

Ummm, hi? This is the first chapter. I think? This is my first fic, so be gentle... daddy?

Um, excited to be here, but honestly these first couple chapters are just going to be me figuring out how AO3 works. So if you're not interested in that, and don't wanna watch me fumble my way through that, then feel free to wait until like, chapter 3 or 4, the fic'll get started soon, I promise

For instance, this was inspired by a few different fics, but so far I've only been able to list one, I'll figure that out. Or I won't, feel free to help

I'm tryna figure out how to make some custom tags, too, that part's not as important tho

Also, I'm tryna figure out how to bold and put stuff in *italics* (we'll see if those asteriks did anything) so... if someone could help with that, I'd really appreciate that.

I'm writing this because fics give me dopamine, and I'm basically an addict who's learning to make their own drugs to get my fix.

While I have vague bullet points I plan to hit, I don't have a solid "plan" plan, so if y'all wanna see something specific, I'll take it into consideration.
Relationships are pretty set tho, and you'd have to make a pretty damn convincing argument for me to add anyone. Mei arguments get a discount because, this being a support fic and all, plus I already planned for them to have a partnership/friendship, kinda lends itself to that, you'd have to come up with a valid way for Mei to be dragged away enough from babymaking to pursue a relationship. "Oh she's so pretty, and got big, big, butch muscles" is not a valid way to do that.

Um, I think that's it, learning how to post images here could be useful, ok thanks guys, see ya next time- The Bath

Chapter Text

AHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

I AM HERE... WITH NEW KNOWLEDGE THAT COMES WITH FUCKING AROUND AND FINDING OUT

I just kinda messed around with the buttons until stuff came up.

I still can't put pictures in here, but tbh, that wasn't super important, you guys'll just have to use your imaginations

Chapter Text

“I’m afraid there’s no hope for her."

“I’m sorry Izumi, please just try to focus on something else.”

“If you want a quirk so bad, why don’t you pray for a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof?”

“So, can you be a hero? I don't think so, not without a Quirk.”

Izumi Midoriya had always been brilliant, and ever since she was young she wanted to be a hero, to help people, to protect them.

Even when she’d been told she was quirkless, she’d looked for ways to not let that stop her.

By age 7 she was analyzing hero fights, and she was great at it, able to cut through all the flashy moves to discern the tactical decisions behind them. Analysis wasn't her only talent; she’d started to make her own support equipment too: bracelets that could shoot out a long-range, non-lethal blast of air, jetpacks to assist with high-speed mobility, gauntlets that could increase your strength for close-quarter encounters, armour that could protect you from falling from large heights.

Sure, all of those projects had been blown to hell and back by Bakugou Kacchan, but that was just his way of telling her she needed stronger materials! He was just helping her out! Plus, it’s not like she was defenceless! She’d been working out, she’d definitely gotten stronger, even if all the kids at Aldera kept telling her she was weak…

…but, none of that mattered now, did it? Her idol, The Symbol of Peace, All Might himself, the greatest hero of all time! Just crushed her dream… 

He… he didn’t even listen to her explanation about her support equipment, how’d she’d gotten stronger, all he’d heard was “I don’t have a quirk.”

Just like everyone else

And so the child stands, abandoned on a roof, let down by the one person she thought might lend her any words of encouragement.

“So that’s it then? He thinks I can’t do it. Everything I’ve been working for is… Everyone was right, after all. I can’t… I can’t go back," she started to sob "I can’t keep doing this, and if they find out All Might told me to let my dream go, things’ll only get worse.”

She stared down at the street below. “I’m sorry mom, but who knows? Maybe things’ll be better for you without someone like me weighing you down”

And she jumps

Pain. Absolute, complete pain. Even Bakugou’s burns which littered her skin had never felt like this. They were concentrated in small portions of her body. This was a full body experience, nerves firing wildy, electrical signals travelling everywhere. Everywhere except… her arm. Where was her arm? How was she even alive? ...she must’ve hit a sign or something on the way down. Managed to break her fall and lost the arm.

"Must’ve gotten the trajectory wrong, nice going genius, way to use that big brain of yours"

“Stupid Deku can’t even kill herself without fucking up.” she weakly muttered as she agonizingly, slowly got up.

“HOLY SHIT, KID ARE YOU OKAY?!” shouted a passerby, but Midoriya couldn’t hear him over the blood rushing in her head. 

Instead, her body unconsciously travelled towards the distant sound of explosions. 

“Why am I even here?” She thought as she took in the scene. Fires. Civilians panicking both at the scene in front of them, and the young, armless girl spilling her worthless blood all over the street.

“Ah, a villain fight, looks like bad habits are hard to kill, among other things”

The heroes hadn’t even noticed her yet, understandable, Backdraft was putting out fires, Kamui Woods was helping civilians, and Death Arms, Mt. Lady, and the other heroes were… standing back because they couldn’t use their quirks?!

“Oh no, not being able to use a quirk, what a nightmare, really, All Might? I can’t be a hero, but someone like them can?”

They weren’t even keeping the property damage down for fucks sake, even now she can see debris from the nearby residential area.

“Great job guys, the populace sure is lucky to have you. Who’re they even fight- 

…that’s the same guy, the sludge villain from earlier

How did he even-? It must’ve been when I climbed onto All Might. He must’ve gotten loose! This is all my fault! He was right.”

“Sorry kid,” she muttered towards the still struggling hostage “it’s my fault you’re in this mess, a real hero will help you soon enou-”

Those eyes.

Bright red eyes that she’d seen every day at school and in her nightmares it was Kacchan!

Let him suffer, this is his punishment, if he dies, it’s because the heroes they're praising weren’t good enough.

“I gotta do something!"

But how? 

"He’s clearly got immunity to extreme heat, he might be able to be frozen, but I don’t have any way to do that. Backdraft could water him down, but he’s busy with the fires. Think, Deku! His body’s mostly liquid, except for his eyes! I’ll need some kind of weapon..." she looked at the yellow school bag, that was slowly being stained red, miraculously still clinging to her shoulders "My pencils from my bag could work! Okay, but, he won't just take that lying down, how could I keep him down while we escape?" She looked over to see a mostly full container of bleach amidst the debris “He was travelling through the sewers earlier, and based on that awful smell, he probably absorbed some of it, so this is bound to do something! And with his body the way it is, I don’t think he’ll die.”

Would it be so bad if he did?

Stuffing a pencil in her mouth, and holding her newfound weapon she found herself lingering towards the edge of the crowd. “Can I really do this?” and that was when she caught sight of an emaciated blond figure watching from the corner.

“I will do this” was her one thought before she lost control of herself, her legs moving on instinct, dodging the reaching arms of the heroes that had only just noticed her. 

“Ah my old skin suit comes crawling back, eh? Well too bad! I don't take damaged goods! Got a new meat bag now, and he’s much stronger than-” were the only words the sentient sludge got out before a bottle of bleach was thrown down his throat, and a pencil plunged into his eye with a loud, wet, sickening “POP!”

"GAHHHHHHHHH!"

“Deku? What the hell are you doing here?” Katsuki asked, finally being given the chance to breathe, but his question went unanswered in favour of pulling him out of the still-screaming muck. Everyone tensed, expecting the villain to unleash a vicious counterattack.

“NO NEED TO FEAR, CITIZENS, BECAUSE I AM… HERE?”

But no attack came. The chemical reaction brought about by the cleaning agent was making it difficult for the villain to maintain his form. The villain was… defeated. Defeated by an armless child who hadn’t used any flashy powers, who was still currently bleeding all over the place.

The fires were put out, the people were still, until the silence was cut through by loud, nigh maniacal, laughter.

Bakugou turned toward his saviour usual target “Why in the fuck is she missing an arm?!” and found her looking at him with eyes that were practically glowing a toxic green. A terrifying presence was felt by everyone in the vicinity, freezing everyone who felt the pure violence radiating off the girl.

“I did it, I did it, did you see that Kac. Chan? Who’s useless now? I did it. I defeated a villain. I WON!” It might’ve just been the blood loss making her lose control of her motor functions, but with every time she put emphasis on her words, Bakugou swore she moved like a corpse being controlled, like a puppet with her strings cut.

Her maddening giggles only continued to grow as she turned to the Number One Hero.

“This child’s eyes...” Yagi Toshinori thought as eyes that were like a stained glass window someone put back together incorrectly; focused on him.

“You were wrong. I’ll show you, we will show them all” were the last words out of the young woman’s mouth before she passed out.

Chapter Text

She woke up to the bright glow of overhead lights. “Ugh, where the hell am I?” and was greeted by a loud, crying, green-headed blur.

“IZUMIIIII!”

“Ah! What the fu-! Mom?!”

“Oh, my poor, little baby! They told me everything! They said how brave you were, and how you helped the heroes save poor Katsuki from that villain, and-”

I did what? Why would I help that jacka- Oh, right, the sludge villain, they must’ve taken me to the hospital after I blacked out.

She figured she should stop her mother before she started to spiral “Mom,” she started, pulling the older woman off of her. “I’m okay, I’m right here, I promise.”

“But the doctors said that you had fractures all over your body, and they’re not even sure where you could’ve gotten them, and- and Izumi, your arm… it’s-”

“I know mom, it’s alright, I mean,” she let out a small chuckle “I saved the day, didn’t I?”

Her mom laughed weakly as she wiped away her remaining tears “Heh, yeah, I guess you did.”

Izumi finally gathered the courage to ask the question that was on her mind. “Mom… if- if I told you I still wanted to be a hero...what would you say?”

“If you’d asked me a week ago? I would’ve told you no. I probably would’ve said to forget about it and for you to keep working on your support gear.”

“And now?”

“...Izumi, if it weren’t for you, Katsuki could’ve died , or he would’ve gotten some sort of brain damage from the lack of oxygen, or- or something else terrible could’ve happened! You jumped in, even though you were hurt, and you did what the heroes were too scared to do. You saved his life , Izumi; Mitsuki still has her baby boy because of you. As far as her and I are concerned, you already are a hero.”

Izumi could feel her eyes start to well up as her mother continued. Ugh, dammit, I thought I was done with the crying thing.

“I know I didn’t always handle your situation the best way I could-”

“No, mom,” she sat up and grabbed her hand “you did everything you possibly could, I was the problem-”

“No, Izumi, you never were, and you shouldn’t have ever had to feel like you were. Please , let me do this for you.”  Her body started to shake as her tears flowed once again “I’m going to make it up to you starting now, with the words I should’ve told you that day. I want you to look at me young lady.” She wore a serious expression as she locked eyes with her daughter “Izumi Midoriya, you too, can become a hero.”

The dam broke, and everything they were holding back came out as both Midoriyas sobbed against each other.

“From here on out, if you want to work towards your dreams, I’ll support you, whatever comes in store.”

“How could I possibly ask for more?"

 She sat up and stretched. “Well, I’d say that’s enough sappy stuff for one day, how about we get me out of this hospital?”

“Woah there missy, hold on! The doctors still need to take care of- of your arm! Plus the doctors wanted to keep you for observation, and they wanted you to pick your choice of a prosthetic! That’s not even mentioning the amount of therapy they already have planned, what with you almost watching your friend die, and-

“Mom!”

“-what?” she turned bewildered towards her daughter.

“Mom, it’s fine, I’m fine, I promise. I’ll take care of it, you just gotta trust me.”

“Wha-wha- what?!” She spluttered out. “Trust you?! Izumi, this isn’t like you’re telling me you can get the groceries by yourself, or- or when you waited in line for hours to get a new piece of All Might merchandise!” she didn’t notice the scowl that crossed her daughter’s face as she brought up that particular memory. “I mean, I can’t even imagine what you must be feeling right now-”

“Mom.”

That tone was something she had never heard from her meek, even-tempered daughter before, and it silenced her instantly as Izumi grabbed her lightly by the shoulders.

“I swear, I don’t need it. I’m feeling better than I have in a long, long time.” Inko stiffened at that. “Right now I need all the time I can possibly get to work on getting into U.A.”

After a moment of consideration, she relented “Fine, now about the prosthetics-”

“I’ve got something for that, too”

“Izumi!”

“You did say you’d support me, whatever comes in store”

“...didn’t take you too long to start abusing that, huh?”

“Figured I might as well” she said with a shit-eating grin. “Please mom, it’s important to me, and it’ll work, I swear to you. I have a plan for this. ”

She’d never seen that look in her child’s eyes before, and she could tell something wasn’t quite right, but she knew Izumi would never be asking something this insane if she didn’t have a good reason, so Inko put her face in her hands and said “Ugh, fine! But if I don’t see any results in-” she looked around wildly, trying to think of a reasonable deadline. “-in a month, we’re coming back here to look at what they have to offer!”

“Two months.” At her mother’s glare, she quickly added “That’s just to be sure, I guarantee it’ll be done by then.”

Inko frustratedly looked down at her hands. “ Fine ! But if there’s nothing by then I’m dragging you here.”

“If there’s nothing by then, I’ll march down here myself, no dragging required. Scout’s honor!”

“...you were never a scout, Izumi.” Inko said with a deadpan expression.

“...we could pretend I was.” Izumi said with a smirk.

Inko was not amused.

While her mother was busy telling the hospital staff that, no she was not crazy, she simply didn’t want one of their prosthetics. Izumi caught sight of a tall, skeletal, blonde figure, and her vision went red .

At the same time, the figure saw her and began to speak, but the words barely registered. “Young Midoriya! I’ve been looking for you! I’m so very glad you’re awake. We truly got off on the wrong foot. Allow me to introduce myself once more. My name is Toshinori Yagi-”

He was interrupted by her shoulder  ramming into his damaged side, seeing a small trickle of blood spurt out his mouth was almost satisfying enough to ignore the jolt of pain that travelled up her stump, almost.

“Save it, if I hadn’t won, would you still be giving me that little speech, or would you just be telling me that you were right, after all?” Yagi didn’t respond. “Don’t worry, I won’t spill the beans about your embarrassing little secret, but  the time being at least, you better hope you stay out of my sight.”  

“Izumi?”

Izumi turned around with a slightly too wide smile on her face. “Hey mom! Finished explaining things to the doctors?”

“Err, yeah, I think we mostly came to an agreement. Izumi, who is this?”

“Oh, this is someone I met the day of the sludge villain attack, he just came here to check up on me, and I was just saying thank you! We ready to go?"

“Eh… yes, I suppose we are” Inko said nervously

“Great, I’ll be right there, I just gotta finish up here!” She turned back to Yagi with the same sharp eyes he’d seen right before she passed out that day. “Thank you so much for all your help, I’ll see you around, Number One.”

The next two months, something was wrong with Izumi. Strangely enough, it didn’t even seem to be her getting used to her newfound lack of an arm. Instead, she barely ever left her workshop she had set up in the garage, even to bathe or to eat. Except for those few times she’d gone to some beach for pieces of scrap metal. Why was there even scrap metal on a beach? The few times she did come out; she looked haggard, exhausted, she barely spoke outside of thanking her mother for the food or commenting that “the materials” or the “calculations hadn’t been quite right” and Inko swore she kept seeing that glint in her eyes that she’d seen at the hospital.

Had that moment of openness been a one-time thing? Maybe Izumi didn’t have things figured out. Maybe she’d been in denial or something? That was one of the stages of grief, right?

She had to go back to work during the second month, they needed money after all. The entire time she was there, she just kept wondering how grave of a mistake she had made. That was when she got a phone call about the reports of screaming coming from her house.

She rushed out of the office in a panic, and practically burst down her door to find… Izumi, looking better than she had in a month and a half, eating popcorn while some horror movie or other played on the TV. 

“Um, hi, mom? Uhh, whatcha doin’ home so early?” She extended the bowl of buttery goodness to her mother. “Popcorn?”

“What am I do-? I- the neighbours said they heard screaming , are you ok?”

“Oh, that , um, I… wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Absolutely not young lady, it’s my job to worry about it!”

“I thought you were an accountant.”

“Don’t you get smart with me! You’ve barely exited that workshop of yours for a month, your deadline is almost here, and I’ve seen no signs of this damn mystery project, and I demand results .”

“You’re looking at ‘em.”

“Huh?” She was about to ask what she was talking about, until she noticed the arm extending the bowl of snacks. Izumi’s left arm. An arm that should be somewhere rotting in the streets of Musutafu. An arm that looked shiny and metallic.

“ Izumi, explain.”

The girl suddenly looked nervous at the rage-filled expression on her mother’s face “Um, well, you see, I-um, I already had the neural interface in the works to make better support gear, and-”

“ The what?”

“Oh, you- you thought it was just a normal prosthetic…” Izumi gulped, knowing she just fucked up.

ゴゴゴゴ

For the second time that year, the residents of Musutafu were subjected to a terrifying presence.

“ Izumi Midoriya, are you telling me you connected a foreign object, to your nervous system, COMPLETELY UNSUPERVISED?!”

“Well, you see... when you put it like that -”

“YOU ARE SO LUCKY THAT YOUR ARM ACTUALLY WORKS. YOUNG LADY, BECAUSE YOU ARE BANNED FROM ENTERING YOUR FUCKING WORKSHOP FOR THREE MONTHS!”

“... can it be two, because I still need to get ready for U.A?”

“TWO MONTHS AND NO LESS!”

“... that’s fair.” 

Somewhere on the floating city of I-Island:

Melissa didn’t really use forums for quirkless people, she’d never really had a reason to. People on I-Island treated her nicely enough, probably due to her father, but the island was a cultural melting pot, so views on quirklessness weren’t really as extreme as they were in places like Japan. However, she did get curious from time to time, and wanted to see what other people’s experiences were like, and this time, a post had caught her eye.

Not_useless: Um, hi? I don’t really post on places like this, but I have a pretty big announcement! Uh, I got the chance to meet my idol, and he told me to give up on being a hero. That was the same day an old childhood… acquaintance told me to take a swan dive off a roof [don’t ask, I don’t wanna talk about it.] But y’know what? I’ve decided I don’t give a fuck about what they think. That was the same day I stopped a villain! [If you keep up with the Musutafu news, you might’ve seen it.] So in just a couple months [I got grounded from my workshop for… reasons] I’ll work on making my support gear, and I’ll crush the U.A exam, just you guys wait! I can guarantee you’ll see me at the Sports Festival, so you guys best keep an eye out!

“Oh you poor thing… they make their own support gear, huh? Must be pretty smart. I’ll keep an ear to the ground and see if they make it in a couple months.”

Chapter Text

Two months would be a long time to be banned from making any equipment. A long, boring , time. A few months ago, she wouldn’t’ve known what to do without her workshop, but now it was more of an inconvenience. With all the… training she had planned; her schedule was pretty packed anyway. 

“Yeah… training, that’ll hold up in court.”

Despite what her recent actions would imply, she wasn’t stupid, she’d looked into the laws regarding vigilantism, and she found a loophole!

  Probably. Kinda. Maybe not. 

Strictly speaking , vigilantism was defined as unlicensed hero work with use of a quirk. So, if someone saw a robber and just threw a rock or something at them, it’s not vigilantism. So Izumi didn’t have that problem. So that only left her with a few…teeny-tiny details to deal with besides vigilantism charges; like even surviving her first fight. See? Teeny-tiny. Or like not getting caught, or hoping the hero or cop who catches her both isn’t quirkist and is partial to vigilantes, or not getting charged with assault, or battery,  

or manslaughter if it came down to it. 

But it wouldn’t, she would make sure of that. If she wanted to show All Might where he could stick it, she’d need to make sure to do things by the book. And that’s what it all came down to, she needed to get better, quickly . She wasn’t a fool, she couldn’t just barge in expecting to win fights with the power of friendship or something. Her own strength would only get her so far when everyone else had an innate biological advantage over her that they’d been training for years. If she wanted to survive in U.A, she’d need real combat experience to gain an edge.

She’d be feeling less nervous about gaining an edge if she’d been able to work on her equipment though!

The only usable equipment was the Mk I, since, shocker, a cloth costume doesn’t exactly need much maintenance or calculations put into it. She’d prefer not using a prototype, especially since the placeholder support gear it was equipped with was basic at best, and several years old at worst. But, like it or not, Mk II wasn’t usable right now, it didn’t even have a functional power source for crying out loud! So forget about being equipped with any long range weaponry, much less any flight capabilities. But hey, a grappling hook was… kinda like flying, right? For the foreseeable future, she’d have to work on her hit-and-run tactics. Whatever, she’ll work with what she has; if she fails now, and ends up bleeding out in some alley somewhere, then it would mean she wasn’t ready to be a hero anyway, that All Might was right. 

And she’d be damned if she let that happen.

She put on the dark fabric, adjusted her gear, and snuck out of the house when Inko was asleep. 

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop was easier than expected, and surprisingly fun. Still scary though, but she was getting the hang of it. So far, there wasn’t anything, not surprising with All Might’s presence in the city. Wait, there! There was a girl walking by, being followed by a group of men.

“Welp, here goes nothing.”

“Maximum effort.” She said as she attached the grappling hook to a building on the other end of the street and swung down.

Kyoka just wanted to go home after picking up an album she’d forgotten to buy earlier, she really didn’t think it was that late, but apparently it was “stalk young girls on their way home, like a buncha superhero movie scumbags” hours. The idiots thought they were slick, but she’d heard them coming for the last 3 blocks. She was pretty sure she could handle them, but she’d need to be careful about this. With how strict quirk laws are, this could ruin her chances of getting into U.A.

“Stupid HPSC. Stupid quirk laws... Oh crap.”

They’d gotten closer, it was now or never.

A new sound entered her range from… above?

“Oh thank god, must be a hero.”

It sounded oddly like metal scraping stone, followed by some crashing noises, and judging from the way the breathing from the group behind her hitched, they heard it too.

“Did you guys hear that?” the smallest one asked before the wall next to him exploded , knocking him out where he stood.

“ Oh shit!” Seeing his buddy already on the the ground, the biggest one rushed into the hole in the building left by the explosion… where his screams would echo from the darkness just moments later.

The last one was already running when some sort of cable was shot out of nowhere and dragged him into the nearby alley.

She probably should’ve run, but her curiosity was getting the better of her, she needed to know what the hell just happened. As she got closer, she could hear the third guy yelling.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DON’T KILL ME MAN! DON’T KILL ME MAN! I’LL DO ANYTHING, PLEASE!”

And a heavily modulated voice gave its quiet reply.

“I’m not going to kill you, I want you to do me a favour, I want you to tell all your friends about me.”

“What the hell are you?!”

“ I am fear . The wall that will stand between you and the innocent people of this city. The reason why every single one of you will be afraid to go out at night, why you’ll breathe easier when the sun comes up. When you look into the darkness, and you think twice because you don’t know where I am? That is fear , that is what I am, but you ? You can call me The Prowler.” 

Was all she heard before the thug’s scream was cut off.

“What the fuck was that?”

At least it sounded like they were a hero… probably. Hell of an introduction though, pretty metal, she could respect that.

Her hearing picked up the scraping sound again, and it was getting closer .

“Are you alright?”

She definitely did not almost fall over. “ Gah! Jesus, fuck! I mean, uh, I’m fine, um, thanks?”

She gave the figure a once-over as they stepped into the dull glow of the streetlights. Their costume was a dark, almost black, purple with dark green highlights on the sides of their body. The mask had some sort of lens in the eyes, with dark markings making them pop even more in the low light. They wore a pair of heavy-looking clawed gauntlets, probably the source of the scraping sound, and how fast they knocked everyone out. The belt of gadgets around their waist was probably how they blew up the wall, and how they moved around so fast. 

The figure seemed to be giving Kyoka an inspection of their own.

“Always happy to help”

“Right… soooo, “The Prowler” huh?”

“ How did you-” they seemed to notice the jacks on her ears. “Oh, neat quirk”

“Oh. Uh, thanks, usually they don't get much attention, because they’re not super flashy. But, yeah, they can send out soundwaves too in case I need to deal with muggers or scary, masked saviours, so that’s pretty cool.”

Prowler let out a small chuckle before speaking. “Fascinating…” Well, at least they were polite. Most people were pretty dickish about her having a “weak mutation quirk” so that was definitely a point for “The Prowler” in Kyoka’s book. “That’d be a great quirk for heroics” 

“Well, that’s the plan, so, well, thanks for the rescue I guess. Um, weird question, but… are you a hero? I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that the name’s really throwing me off.”

“ Yeah, probably should’ve picked something better, but yes, I’m… like a hero”

“Okay, yeah, no, it’s cool. It’s definitely scary, so it’ll get the job done. I dig it. Rock on, dude.”

“...I’m a girl”

“Oh… sorry.”

“It’s cool.”

“Why is this so awkward?!” Was the thought that passed through both of their heads. 

“So, tell you what. If you’re in the area, and you happen to get followed again-”

“Real funny”

“-give me a call on this, and I’ll come running.” She said, tossing some sort of device to Kyoka.

“Is this a distress signal?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, looks like I have a superhero stalker.”

She barked out a laugh at that. “Hah! Could be worse I guess. I’ll be seeing you.” she said, pulling out a grappling hook.

“Wait! Um, name’s Jiro, Kyoka Jiro. I, uh, guess I already know yours.”

“Heh, yeah, guess you do. Goodbye Jiro, have a nice night.” was what she heard before they grappled away.

“Yeah, you too.” She said staring after the rapidly shrinking figure in the sky

Somewhere on a rooftop

Any residents looking out their windows would be able to see a young vigilante beating herself up.

“Ughhhhhh, that was so awkward! What the hell was that!? You take down three guys like it’s nothing, but talking to a pretty girl is what throws you off?! Ugh, whatever, point is, you did it, and the night’s still young.” The collateral damage was a little regrettable, but she had to be sure she made as big as an impact as possible. She pulled her mask back on. “Let’s go push our luck.”

Waiting for two months was harder than she thought. Her training was going surprisingly well. Even if sometimes her “vigilantism” was just helping old ladies walk down their street at night. But still, having real, live combat, even against your average goons on the street, gave her a solid edge. In the past two weeks alone, she’d gotten faster, more precise, doing more damage, getting hit less, and with her exile from her shop almost over in less than a week, she’d be able to work on the new suit. Inko had pulled her out of Aldera pretty soon after the… incident, and online school was easy, so her days were pretty much free. She’d already spent the past couple weeks gathering everything she thought she’d need from Takobah.

Takobah .

Honestly, the state of that place. She’d heard about a beach that’d been abandoned and turned into a makeshift dump when the ocean currents brought trash its way, but she never thought that it would be that bad.  

What’s wrong All Might? All your fancy quirked heroes too good to do a little community service?

*SNAP*

“I-Izumi?”

She looked up with a smile. “Yeah, mom?”

“It’s nothing honey, it’s just- you- …that’s the third pair of chopsticks that you’ve broken this week…”

“Oh…” she looked down at the splintered remains of her utensils. “Sorry about that mom, still getting used to the new hand, y’know? I think I still need to mess with the controls for fine motor skills.” 

Might as well give it a try…

“So, can I use the workshop?” 

Inko finally looked down, and with a long-suffering sigh she relented. “Fine, you were probably going to sneak down there anyway…”

And that was all it took for the remnants of her daughter’s bad mood to disappear. “You know me so well.” With a kiss to her mother’s cheek, she scampered off. “You’re the best mom ever!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…”

“So much for having everything I needed” she grumbled, once again making her way to the trashed beach. The suit and her Mk II arm were completed, colour scheme and all, she was actually pretty proud of them. Flight-capable, repulsor blasts that doubled as flight-stabilizers, equipped with both non-lethal rounds and rapidly-hardening glue bombs, they were magnetized to protect against electricity, and  the arm could blast sound waves which she had based off that Jiro girl she met, someone that definitely had not been the focus of her thoughts lately. Totally not.  

Focus. 

Anyway! And the suit still had the claw gauntlets and grappling hook! They weren’t strictly necessary anymore, but hey, you never know when you might need a sneaky entrance, or when your systems might fail. 

“Of course, for my systems to fail, they’d need to fuckin’ work first! ” she shouted, as she kicked a piece of scrap across the dump.

Everything was set up, except for the power source. Did she need it to be an arc reactor? No. Would it be incredibly convenient? Yes. Had she been working on this since she was 8 after the lights had gone out during a particularly bad storm with no success? Yes. Was she on attempt 547? Yes. Had it so far been a waste of time and resources? Yes , but she wasn’t about to give up. More importantly, would it be cool as hell? Yes. Thus her work continued.

“Maybe I should sacrifice some of my nights to focus on it.” She started to say, when she heard a large metallic 

* CLANG *

-from further in the scrap heaps.

“Is someone there? Do you need hel-” she was interrupted by a pink-headed flurry of movement.

“Hi stranger! Do you wanna help me with babymaking?! What’s with that weird look on your face? Is this arm your baby?!”

“ Do I wanna help with fucking wha- ... is the arm…? Oh! I see. You’re an inventor. Uh, yeah, I guess it is, I mean, I made it. Got another in the works right now.”

The strange girl was currently closely inspecting the prosthetic. “This. Is. Amazing! You gotta share all your secrets with me right now !”

“Man, not that I’m complaining, but this girl has never heard of personal space!”

She gently pushed the girl off of her “Uh, how about you buy me dinner first?” She quipped, though the other girl didn't seem to react or even register the joke. “Or at least tell me your name? I’m Izumi Midoriya.”

“Already forgot it, Cyborg Girl! The name’s Mei Hatsume, future CEO of Hatsume Industries!”

“Cyborg Girl? Ouch, but ok. She seems like she’s totally insane.” She watched as Hatsume was already distracted by a nearby piece of scrap metal. “But that type of insanity might be just what I need to make this work!” She thought with a smirk.

“Hey Hatsume!” 

The other inventor turned around. “Yeah?”

“Would you like to help me make an arc reactor?”

Hatsume tackled her in less than a second.

“ YES ! AN ARC REACTOR?! You’ve got one in the works!? Let’s go make a baby! Hope you don’t mind some explosions, Cyborg!”

“ Well that’s not concerning at all.”

“Ok, well I do have conditions." Hatsume turned with a frown. "First off, no explosions or my mom will ban us from my workshop. Second, cool it with the “baby” talk or she’ll have a stroke. Third, how about after we do this, we make that “Hatsume and Midoriya Industries?” I mean, two heads are better than one, right? You could use some help building a company.” She said, extending her hand.

Hatsume looked contemplative before seemingly making up her mind, and taking her hand. “You got it, new partner! Let’s go make a reactor baby!”

Izumi let out a sigh. “Regretting this already, let’s go!”

Inko was most definitely not afraid of her daughter. I mean, that would be absurd! Izumi was such a sweet girl, and she clearly still loved her! But sometimes Izumi made her a little… nervous. Yeah, nervous was the word! She was just nervous for her daughter’s mental health, and wellbeing, like a mother should be! It was just… Izumi never told anyone how she lost the arm, and a few months later she finds her with a prosthetic connected directly to her nerves! When she gave her daughter those two months, she kinda assumed it was some effort to process what had happened, or even build her own basic prosthetic, but she never expected something like this! Or how sometimes Izumi would get this look in her eyes, like the one she’d seen at the hospital, and when asked what was wrong, she’d just give a slightly too wide grin, and say she was thinking. She even made a new friend, which normally she’d be overjoyed by, but Izumi’s new friend was… strange. Wild-looking, always talking about “babies” something or other, and when they both spent nearly a month in Izumi’s workshop only for Inko to hear cries of “POWER! UNLIMITED POWER!” she'd say she was pretty reasonably worried. While she was grateful she essentially didn’t have a power bill due to whatever an “Arc Reactor” was, she still didn't know who this new friend even was or how they even met. Izumi was also gone most days, something about “community service” and “training for U.A” but she knew that Izumi had also been sneaking out at night for months, so when did her daughter even sleep? Izumi… felt like a stranger.

Chapter Text

She was actually here, standing in front of the gates. She actually did it. All her hard work actually paid off…

A pink ball of excitement crashed into her side “You ready to show these exams what H&M Industries can do, Cyborg Partner?!”

Ok, yes, fine, she wouldn’t’ve gotten here without Mei.

For someone who was definitely off their rocker, Mei was ridiculously helpful. Yes, she occasionally needed to be reminded to eat, sleep, shower, and one time even breathe.

“Still no idea how she even managed to forget that.”

 And yes, they’d had some close calls with explosions, even though they were still proud to be an explosion-free workshop, (well, she was, Mei wasn’t) but holy hell, was that girl smart! Not only was the arc reactor finished in a goddamn month! Mei had even been willing to help her make her suit Mk III with stronger materials.

That thing could probably survive a fall from the stratosphere now, even if she’d turn to jelly in the process. It had a smarter targeting system, was capable of collapsing itself, and being moved around in a carry-on, albeit one heavy-ass carry-on; the one she was dragging around now, actually. They had a way for Mei to see her P.O.V through her mask so she could invent based on actual combat, and now the suit was capable of feeding her a constant stream of environmental data to help her navigate new surroundings. They’d also improved the arm once again, equipping it with non-lethal rounds that could be launched with even more devastating effects thanks to the new and improved sound cannon. Mei hadn’t even cared that she was The Prowler, to be completely honest, she didn’t know who that was, but she still kept her secret nonetheless.

“Mei, I know you know my name, but hell yeah, we’re gonna crush this thing!"

"Let’s fuckin’ go.”

She couldn’t believe how massive this workshop was! “U.A really spares no expense, huh?” she muttered as she turned to Mei, who was already looking around the workshop, practically vibrating in place.

“SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO MAKE BABIES!” 

“And there go any opportunities we had to make friends.” she thought as the other students were already giving “the chick with the weird tattoo” and “the pink baby weirdo” a wide berth.

They suddenly heard a tired voice from the front of the classroom “I don’t even want to know.” The man was shirtless, with orange, metal-tipped fingers, wearing plain-looking jeans, fingerless gloves with metal arm guards, and most notably: some kind of helmet shaped like excavator claws. “Hello, and welcome the exam for the Support Course, my name is-

“ Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh! You’re Power Loader! You’re one of the only heroes to also have a support license!” Before the man could continue, a green flash was halfway across the room and shaking both his hands in a firm grip. A really firm grip. A kinda painful grip, actually, what the hell were they feeding kids nowadays? Oh, she was still going… “and even though your costume needs some work, it’s such an honor to meet you! I plan to follow in your footsteps sir!… e-eventually, after I sort some things out…”

Well that wasn’t strange at all. What was that about his costume? Whatever. 

“...as your enthusiastic fellow examinee just explained. Yes, my name is Power Loader, and I’ll be overseeing your Support Course Exam. There are two parts to this; you should’ve already worked over the summer and brought in some sort of invention or support item to show your skill on a large scale project. For the second, you’ll be tasked with creating a basic piece of support equipment over the course of two hours; to show me what you can do under a time constraint, there aren’t any limitations because I want to see what you’re capable of. Any questions?”

The green girl raised her hand.

“For the summer project can two of us present something we both worked on, or can only one of us get credit?”

Huh, the hero never thought he’d ever actually have to use one of Nezu’s weird contingencies. This girl was someone to keep an eye on…

“You will receive partial credit, if your partner wishes it, but you better have brought your own project.”

The girl gave a polite bow “Of course, thank you, sir!”

With a small clap, he announced “Alright, if there’s no other questions, you may begin!”

The test was shockingly easy, but she supposed it was because it was really more of a pure competition than anything; you simply had to have an objectively better support item, in at least some aspect or another. There was no real way to cheat on this other than already having something in mind, and anyone stupid enough to actively attempt to copy someone else’s idea was promptly kicked out.

Unsurprisingly, her and Mei were on the same page. Both of them made one of the weapons they were planning to add to the Mk IV. She made a freeze gun capable of shooting out a beam that was capable of raising glaciers, Power Loader did not appreciate her scraping the Support Department’s ceiling. Mei on the other hand; made a heat gun, capable of reaching temperatures even Endeavour would have trouble with! …Power Loader wasn’t too happy with that either… or the melted workbench that followed… or the explosions that came before… but hey! Mei was down to only 2 explosions per project, so that’s an improvement! Now came the part she was actually excited for:

Show U.A what you can do.

It’s not like the faculty had done something to her personally, she was sure it was full of great heroes, but All Might had been in Musutafu for a weirdly long time. Even though his agency was in Minato, it wasn’t odd for the Number One to travel around Japan, but he typically didn’t stay in one district for very long, much less ten months . No one had really noticed, and it’d taken her a while to come up with a reason, but she was pretty sure he must’ve taken some job at U.A, probably to give him a safe place to run out of time. That was why she needed to make sure she made as big of an entrance as possible; his eyes should be on her, and her only.  

She’d show him, she’d show both of them.

Mei and her had hashed out who was going to show off what, so she was ready. Mei had already gone in, only for the lights to flicker and grow brighter, and a cry of “IS THAT A FUCKING ARC REACTOR?!” to be heard from Power Loader’s office, and the teacher had come out looking at her with something akin to fear, so she was pretty confident she’d gotten points for that; now it was her turn.

“Miss Midoriya, you can come in now.” she heard him say from his office.

It’s now or never.

She grabbed a leather strap from Mei, she’d need it if she didn’t want to crack her teeth when she did this. She also took the time to give her the USB and the laptop they made, but those were for later. She was a little surprised Mei went along with her plan so easily, maybe she thought it’d be a good challenge, or a way to start making "babies" specialized for her "future customers."

(and for Izumi to have footage so she could start to plan.)

Were there easier ways to impress Power Loader and possibly even Nezu himself? Yes. Well, probably.

But this, with her "summer project", combined with her previously shown skills, and the arc reactor was going to to make the biggest damn entrance she possibly could.

“You’ve made quite the spectacle, kid, well, both you and your little girlfriend there.”

“My-? Oh. Uh, no, Mei isn’t- we’re not- she’s great and all, but, um, yeah.”

“Oh, apologies, I didn’t mean to assume-”

“Yeah, no, it’s cool, it’s fine, um, anyway, my summer project?”

“Right, show me what you’ve got young lady! I’ve got pretty high expectations for you.”

It’s do or die time

“I want you to pay close attention to this, sir.”

The support tech watched with bated breath, as the kid put a leather strap in her mouth for some reason, and proceeded to rip her arm off. 

Wait. What the fuck?! 

Yep, he definitely wasn’t hallucinating. She was still going at it. She was letting out muffled cries and screams, yet oddly enough, wasn’t actually crying. What should he do? Nezu definitely had some self-harm procedure, but his mind was going blank. Was she having some sorta psychotic break?! He watched, horrified, as with a final cry, she pulled off the… metal arm?

“ Gah! Ugh, god, that stings every time.”

Something that made her scream in pain is what she calls a sting?!

She seemingly noticed his terrified expression. “Oh, uh, sorry, guess I shoulda warned you, that must’ve been kinda freaky, huh?” She let out a weak chuckle. “Heh, my bad. Anyway, presenting the Mk. III cybernetic arm! That shoots sound!”

“The fucking what?”

 “Well, as you might’ve noticed, I’m sorta missing an arm. So, I just made my own, and decided to make one I could connect directly to my nervous system!”

“You did fucking what?”

“And while I was at it, I decided to magnetize it, and equip it with non-lethal weaponry!”

“You decided to fuckin-” 

“I brought the blueprints for it if you need proof that it’s actually cybernetic.”

She watched as Power Loader put his head in his hands, walked over to his desk, and proceeded to take a hefty swig from a flask. 

“Kid, what’s your quirk?”

Time to rip off the band-aid

“I’m quirkless”

“Are you serious?”

And there it was, U.A wasn’t going to be any different. 

Whatever .

“Yeah, what about it?”

Power Loader didn’t seem to notice the shift in her mood.

Or if he did he doesn’t care, after all, who gives a shit if Deku throws a fit?

“And your friend, Hatsume, she doesn’t have an intelligence quirk?”

That threw her off; what was he talking about?

“Uh, no?”

He chuckled “Looks like I’m going to be teaching a couple of bonafide geniuses this year.”

Wait, what?

“Wait, so, you don’t care that I’m quirkless?”

“Oh shit, I didn’t even think about that, sorry kid, I’m better with machines than I am with people. Next time I’ll try to be more considerate.”

“Soooo, I made a passing grade?”

“You do get points taken off for bringing a loaded weapon to a school.”

“Oh… right.”

“-but the waiting period will just be a formality, you and the Hatsume girl are in. Congratulations. Welcome to the Support Course.”

The girl looked up with a hopeful gaze “R-really?”

“Kid, you two made an arc reactor in your garage-”

“It’s a workshop-”

“ and you made three versions of the world’s first cybernetic prosthetic!”

“Well, I doubt it’s the first -”

“Kid.”

“Yeah?”

“Why do you think Ectoplasm uses those peg legs things in combat instead of something like what you’ve got?”

“I- I just kinda thought he preferred it that way-”

“Kid, it’s because they don’t exist! In fact, your first task when you get here is to make some for him.”

“With weapons?”

“Uh, maybe, we’ll have to ask him about it.”

“ YES! I won’t let you down sir!”

That excitement for weapons is a little concerning.

“Keep up the work you’ve shown today, and I’m sure you won’t, neither of you, even if I’d prefer an explosion-free workshop.”

“Mei’s working on that, she’s actually got a lower rate of explosions per project now.”

“That’s…” he took a bit to drink in the implications of that. “...terrifying. Anyway, earlier you mentioned wanting to follow my example and get both your support and hero licenses right? I wish you the best on your exam today.”

Midoriya’s voice took on the same strange cadence it did when she mentioned she was quirkless, and she looked at him with a wild glint in her eyes.

“Don’t you worry sir. I’ve got a plan for that.”

Chapter Text

She stared down at her would-be tormentor. They’d locked eyes the second she walked into the room, but the fear she was expecting to feel... just wasn’t there.

“Bakugou.”

“ M- Deku. ”

The slip went unnoticed.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, guess it has, haven’t seen you at school.” He gave her a once-over. “Last I saw, you were missing an arm.”

She looked down at the sleek, matte black appendage. “I got better. Last I saw, you had sludge lodged in your lungs.”

The sass caught Katsuki off guard. “I-” he swallowed. “I got better.”

Midor- Deku just gave him an ugly sneer and a non-committal hum. “So it seems. Is this seat taken?”

Today was not going to be a good day.

Today is going to be an amazing day.

The support exam was fantastic, better than she could’ve hoped, the written exam was so easy she barely even took an hour, much to the surprise of Ectoplasm; who was overseeing the test, she was pretty damn confident about her chances of passing the practical, even without her… external preparations , but getting to mess with Bakugou just put the cherry on top, and brought this day from good to great .

They watched as more students pooled into the auditorium, and the chatter rose to a crescendo, and was quickly silenced by the appearance of Present Mic. 

“ WHAT’S UP, U.A CANDIDATES ?! Thanks for tunin' in

to me, your school DJ! C'mon, and lemme hear ya!”

“ YEAAAAAAAAH !”

“Love that fighting spirit you got, Examinee 2234! Keep it up!” he said, pointing to Izumi.

He started to explain the rules of the exam, she should be listening, but she wouldn’t have gotten this far if she couldn’t multitask. 

So my preparations are complete, I’ve given the letter to Power Loader, Mei knows what she needs to do, now all that needs to happen is either not get caught, use the loophole we found in the rules if we do get caught, or hope Nezu finds it charming or entertaining enough that he lets us go. If it just doesn’t work from the beginning, then we just need to rely on the actual armour itself, it’ll give us more than a chance to pass. If all else fails, the arm should be enough, but it won’t make the impact we need, this’ll work, it has to work. We should probably help people if we notice they’re in trouble, right? I mean, it’d be just absolutely insane if a hero school didn’t have some sort of point system for saving people, but this might just be a way to assess people’s quirks, so just to be safe, we should focus on going after any of those fancy 3 pointers Present Mic’s talking about.

“-and you!”

Huh?

Some asshole with blue hair and glasses was pointing at her. “You've been muttering this entire time. Stop that. If you can't bother to take this seriously, then you should leave. You're distracting the rest of us.”

And making an impression at the entrance exam starts now, it would seem.

“Oh fan-fucking-tastic.”

“What did you just say?!”

Oh, looks like we said that out loud. Whatever, tear this dude apart.

“Hey jackass! Some of us need to talk to ourselves to actually strategize and get our thoughts in order! If that’s all it takes to distract you, maybe you’re not fit to be a hero and you should leave!”

Her outburst seemed to have dumbstruck the boy; even Bakugou almost fell out of his chair, and a loud “Oohhh!” was heard spreading through the auditorium.

The loud voice of Present Mic cut through the tension. “Alright, alright little listeners! No need to argue, we’re all friends here! I get we’re all nervous, but let’s settle down!”

He continued explaining the Zero-Pointers, and how they were an obstacle to be avoided.

That’s… a really weird decision, on the diagram, they seem way bigger than any of the other robots, so they’re bound to be dangerous. Looks like we were right about there being some way to gain points for saving people, but we shouldn’t rely on that. If it’s super obvious we know, they probably won’t give us any. 

She caught the ending part of Mic’s speech. “I'll sign off with a little present. A sample of our school motto! As General Napoleon Bonaparte once laid down. "A true hero is one who overcomes life's misfortunes." Mm‐hm. Now that's a tasty soundbite! You ready to go beyond? Let's hear a Plus Ultra!”

“PLUS ULTRAAA !”

“NOW THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT 2234! Try not to start any more fights, alright? Best of luck to all of you, hopefully I’ll see you later in class!”

She looked into the nearby camera as it observed the students at the starting line.

I hope you’re fucking watching this All Might.

To the amazement of the nearby examinees, her carry-on exploded into a flurry of motion. Interlocking plates of armour surrounded her person. She put on the bulky chestplate and watched as the individual parts all came together into one glorious piece of armour.

“Gotta tell Mei to watch it with the green next time, these are supposed to be a little more stealthy.”

Jirou almost couldn’t believe it. It was her, it had to be! Sure, the suit was definitely different, but the glowing eyes, the colour scheme! She started to walk over when she realized; holy shit, was she saved by a vigilante?! A vigilante that was her age at that! She’s kinda pretty not the time. She was about to speak when she was interupted by some dude with glasses.

There were two girls walking over to her, one was oddly beautiful, with a black bob of hair, stoic expression,  piercing deep-blue eyes, and- 

Oh my god, you walking gay disaster, can you focus for more than half a second?

Right! And the other one was Jirou… 

Oh shit, it’s Jirou! Fuck! She absolutely knows who you are, there could literally be no other reason why she’s coming over! You gotta play it cool and deflect any suspicions. Oh god, she’s starting to say somethin-

A hand karate chopped down in between them. “You!”

What?

“How dare you employ such an ostentatious getup at the exam of such a prestigious institution! Attempting to cheat on the practical exam; are you here to make a mockery of U.A?! Look, two of your fellow examinees came up just now, clearly to tell you that your display interrupted their preparations! Were you placed here by the faculty as some sort of distraction? If not, then you should leave immediately, as you are clearly not fit to be a he-”

“Shut. Up.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said shut up, or are you deaf and a prick? Nobody gets to tell me I don’t get to be a hero; least of all some stuck-up rich kid."

Somewhere in the crowd; one of the bystanders shouted “ Rematch!” and that just got Izumi even more fired up.

“First off, fuck you, my partner painted this for me, but you wouldn’t know ostentatious if I shoved it up your ass to keep the stick that’s already up there company. Second, it’s not cheating, it clearly says in the rules that you’re such a stickler for that you’re allowed to bring support items in with you if you registered them, hence why other people that you didn’t choose to pick on are wearing them. It’s not my fault you didn’t check the damn guidlines for the exam. Third, why don’t you let them decide what they were gonna tell me, and if anything, once again, you’re the more distracting one out of the two of us. Finally, even if I was; why would I tell you? That’s like asking an undercover cop if they’re a cop, how stupid are you? Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got some conversations to get back to, dickhead.” She added as she turned away from the absolutely flabbergasted teacher’s pet to face the two girls. “Did you two need something?”

“Mmm”

“Oh, um, hi Kodai, my name’s Izumi Midoriya.”

“Mmm!”

“Oh, you think so? Thanks, I built it myself, well, me and my business partner did.”

‘Mmm.”

“Some hot-rod red? Uhhh, yeah, sure, I guess we could work that in. What about, like, some ambiance down the sides?”

“Hmm”

““Like I’m bleeding from my armpits”... that’s certainly descriptive. I guess we could put more green on the mask, and replace the highlights here with red?”’

“Mm!”

“Okay, cool, sounds good.” Izumi suddenly looked bashful. “Um, if you want, you could come to my workshop when we redesign it…”

“Mm!”

“Okay, great! I’ll be sure to remember to get your number after this!”

“Mm.”

“Sure thing, and was there something you needed?”

Jirou was still dumbfounded; both by the verbal murder she had just witnessed, and by her managing to communicate with a girl who didn’t actually say anything, so she didn’t think about preparing what she was going to say. How should she even bring it up? “Hey, are you the vigilante that saved me a few months ago?” she didn’t want to expose her for vigilantism in front of all these people; they’d need to talk about this in private. Luckily, she could hear Present Mic’s chatter as he climbed up the steps of the balcony overlooking the exam field. “I think the exam’s about to start, but can we talk after this exam?”

Shit, she definitely knows. At least she didn”t yell out that we’re a vigilante, so for now, just play along.

“ Sure thing. Wait, did you just say that you think the exam’s about to start?”

“Yeah? I can hear Present Mic laughing about something with some of the other teachers.”

“Your hearing’s that good?”

“Oh, uh, if I really focus on it, yeah?”

“ That is awesome dude! You could be the best recon hero with skills like that! Oh, shit, wait,we should probably get ready.” She looked at the other two. “You two want a boost so you’re ahead of the pack when he starts us off?”

”A boost?”

Izumi suddenly got a smug look on her face. “Oh, yeah, the suit can fly.”

“That is so freaking cool!”

Midoriya and Jirou both turned to the apparently not so stoic Kodai.

“Mm?”

“Uh, nothing, I guess.”

Izumi flipped the mask down. “Mei, do you copy ?”

A cheerful voice responded. “ Read ya, loud and clear, Cyborg! ”

“What’re we looking at?”

“There’s a buncha them towards the center of the city, and progressively less as they move further out.” 

“Thanks.”  

Jirou turned to look at her. “What was that?”

“ Nothing, just my business partner. ”

“Why does your business partner know how the exam robots are deployed?”

“... no reason .” Midoriya turned to her two companions. “ So, if you don’t mind me asking, what’re your quirks?”

“Mm.”

“ Size alteration, okay, and you ?”

“Besides the enhanced hearing, I can jab these into pretty much whatever, and release bursts of sounds.”

“ Okay, so since both of you aren’t really combat focused, I’ll drop you near, but not in the heart of the city. That way you don’t get overwhelmed. Sound good ?”

“Mm.”

“Whatever you say, dude.”

An ear-splitting “ EEK!” was heard through the comms. “So many potential customers! So many ideas for new babies!”

“Mei, stay focused, we can review the footage and build later.” 

“Finnnee.”

Jirou perked up “Mic's almost to the balcony!”

“ You guys might wanna hang on to something, this thing goes pretty fast .”

Yui eagerly latched onto her arm, and eventually, Kyouka followed suit.

“Lower thrusters to 30 percent, we got passengers.”

When Present Mic’s voice blared above the attendees with a “Right, let’s start!” Izumi was halfway to the mock city. 

She dropped Yui and Kyouka near a group of one-pointers, and blasted the bots away with a sonic wave.

“ You two alright on your own from here?”

“Mmm!”

“Sure thing, thanks man!”

“ Don’t mention it, I’ll see you two in class!” She gave them one final wave goodbye, and flew off towards the heart of the city.

There was a vigilante patrolling the streets of Musutafu, and Aizawa was pretty sure he just found her.

The Prowler.

Barely a few months after their first appearance, and they’ve got quite the reputation.

Not to mention, they’d already gotten better at what they do; doing tighter, more efficient work. They’d gotten sharper, faster, stronger . They didn’t stick around for the credit, hell, the most Eraserhead had seen of them was helping old ladies across the street. 

Until now.

Izumi Midoriya. One of first ever quirkless applicants for U.A, and from the looks of it, possibly the first quirkless person to actually make it in. All her months of combat experience clearly shining through. She reminded him of that tough old man he’d met years ago, especially since they’d clearly found the same loophole.

She’d already made quite the impression; what with the fancy suit of armour she’d built, getting on Mic’s good side before the exam had even started, Power Loader bursting into the observation room saying something about “arc reactors”, a letter to be opened after the exam, and cybernetic limbs. And most notably, when he first heard her name, the emaciated form of All Might spat out a glob of blood, much to the surprise, and confusion of the recommended students, who had been given an invitation to watch the exam. 

Her quirkless status had also raised some eyebrows, most being impressed, All Might sputtering something about pulling her out for her own safety, only to be silenced by a glare from most of the staff, Todoroki seemed indifferent, muttering something about his “mother’s ice”, that seemed like something that’d need to be addressed this year, and Yayorozu muttering something about a “null”, and that would need to be addressed far more urgently than whatever Todoroki had going on.

Naturally, there were other worthy applicants, and some less worthy; Eraserhead kept finding his gaze being drawn to a fumbling indigo-haired boy who clearly was too reliant on his quirk, but needless to say; everyone’s eyes were on the girl. Well, almost everyone; the rat seemed distracted.

“Sir, is everything alright?” He asked as Nezu sat hunched over a monitor.

The principal hesitated for a second; before relaxing and giving Aizawa a grin. “Oh, it’s nothing, we’ve simply had a security breach.”

…

Yagi, not yet used to Nezu’s bullshit, spits out more blood. The recommended students wonder why such an obviously unhealthy man is here, and Eraser wonders why a security breach gets the same reaction as a young, quirkless girl.

“Care to elaborate, sir?”

He was met with a light cackle. “It’s of little consequence, someone within the school is viewing and recording the camera footage of the exam in Battle Center B, and transmitting it to someone in said battle center. The only person in the entire school that seems even remotely likely to be doing that is one Mei Hatsume.” The camera footage switched to a girl with pink dreadlocks, with headphones and a microphone hooked up to a computer. “And her partner should be fairly obvious.”

Power Loader let out a long sigh. “They’re already causing problems, aren’t they?”

“So it would seem.”

He pulled out a flask. “I’ll punish them once classes start.”

“That won’t be necessary; I’m actually going to reward Miss Midoriya for this.”

That was when Yayorozu chose to speak up. “Mr. Principal, sir, with all due respect, wouldn’t that be rewarding cheating?”

“On the contrary, I’ve framed the rules in such a way to encourage creativity and ingenuity, most students simply don’t take advantage of them.”

“But sir, surely all she’s done would qualify as unsportsmanlike behaviour?”

Eraserhead interjected. “That’s an illogical train of thought. Heroes should look for any advantage they can in the field. Villains won’t be playing fair, why should we? The kid knows her limitations, and worked to go beyond them. It’s not like she’s on equal footing with any of the other examinees.”

Present Mic heard that, and decided to jump in. “Woah, Sho! That’s a little too far!”

“It’s the truth, they all have an innate advantage over her, and she’s prepared herself to rise above that.”

The rest of the staff were stunned; praise from Aizawa was exceedingly rare. Nezu, however, decided it was time for the conversation to come to a close. He also partially just wanted to release a giant robot on unsuspecting teenagers. “I couldn’t agree more, Shota. But the real test has yet to come. Let's see how they react.” He said as he smashed his paws down on the big red button in front of him.

He blinked. “Was that the button that unleashes the Zero-Pointer, or the one that gets me a coffee?”

Izumi was having the time of her life. Flying over city streets, smashing faux-villains, even managing to save the occasional examinee or two; including this light purple haired kid who flipped her off. Rude. She’d lost track of how many robots she’d taken down at this point, but if she wasn’t getting in at this point, then nobody was. She shot her hand out, and beam of concussive force blew another Three-Pointer into pieces

Sharp static came in through the comms before Mei’s voice came through.

“Hey Cyborg? You’re gonna want to get out of there now!”

“Mei? What’s going on?”

“They’ve released the Zero-Pointer! It’s massive, you gotta go!”

“Mei, if this suit can’t take down one robot, why’d we even build it?”

“ Izumi! Fucking run!”

That was when the rumbling started.

“Holy shit.”

It was bigger than any of the surrounding buildings. Like some sorta robot Godzilla.

“Izumi, I swear to god, I am not losing my first partner to some stupid exam.”

“Hey! It’s not stupid… but also, point taken, I’m going.”

Or at least she would’ve if she hadn’t heard it.

“OW!”

A cry for help.

“Mei, where is she?”

“... you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Where, Mei?”

“She’s pretty much directly under the Zero-Pointer.”

“Godammit.”

She shot forward, thrusters at full capacity. There was a brown-haired girl struggling under the weight of the rubble from the buildings.

“HELP! SOMEBODY!”

“It’s ok, I’m here.”

“I can’t move, I think it might’ve broken my ankle!”

“Mm.”

“Yo, dude!”

“Kodai, Jirou?! What the hell are you two doing here? You gotta leave, that thing might crush you!”

Jirou gave her a smirk. “We saw you fly here like a bat outta hell! Figured it wouldn’t be very heroic to leave you to deal with this alone! What can we do to help?”

“Can your soundwaves shatter stone?”

“Yeah.”

“Great, both of you work on getting her out of here. I’ll deal with the robot.”

“Hell no!”

“Are you crazy?!”

“I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me!”

She turned to the three of them. “It’s not just her, who knows if the rubble that thing is flinging around might hurt someone else. Someone needs to stop it. Might as well be me.” She speaks into the comms. “Mei, time to test out our ultimate move. Firing all weapon systems, and diverting all power to the central beam. We only get one shot at this, what weak points does this thing have?”

“You’re not gonna like this.”

“Hit me.”

“Anywhere else either doesn’t stop it, or it falls on other examinees. So you’ll have to hit it straight in the head, and the only way you can do that is-”

“I know.” She turned to the other three. “Not to alarm anyone, but you guys might have to catch me once I do this.”

“What?”

Without an explanation, Midoriya took off to face the metal behemoth.

Back in the observation room, everyone watched as, even as it mixed with his blood, Toshinori took a swig from Power Loader’s flask, despite his body no longer being able to handle the stuff, and spoke:

“There are no combat points for taking down the Zero-Pointer.”

The camera showed Midoriya as she launched a barrage of high-powered weaponry at the head of the giant robot, holding it back for a second.

“But there is opportunity, a chance to shine, to show what you’re truly made of.”

The armour sent some sort of laser from the center of her chest, destroying the massive beast, as her flight stabilizers faltered and she dropped like a stone.

“Nothing is nobler than self-sacrifice.” 

Her fall was broken by a blast of sound by Jirou, while Kodai enlarged rubble so Uraraka could slow her descent.

“That is the true essence of being a hero.”

The large overhead screen lit up.

1. Izumi Midoriya 80 Villain Points. 72 Hero Points. 50 Ingenuity Points. 

Total: 202. New Record.

Chapter Text

Hey.”

“...hey.” Midoriya couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’ve got to meet with my partner after this, plus I kinda promised Kodai we’d meet up, so I can’t stay for long, but you said you wanted to talk after the exam, so…here I am.”

“Did Recovery Girl heal you up? Can’t imagine you fell as hard as you did without getting all banged up.”

Her flesh arm wrapped around her prosthetic. “Yeah, well, you two and that one girl with the brown hair-”

“Uraraka”

“-oh, thanks. Yeah, Uraraka, seriously slowed down my fall, so I was fine, only a couple bruises. I’ll have to thank her once I see her again.”

“... that was stupid.”

For the first time in this conversation; Midoriya actually looked her in the eyes. Toxic green shining with indignation. “Excuse me?”

“That was stupid! What if we hadn’t caught you?! You would’ve died over an exam , dude!” 

“We would’ve been fine , that suit was made to take a fall.” Midorya started to mumble. Jirou could see the metallic fingers making deeper indentations in her skin. “I wouldn’t be a very good support tech if I didn’t take possible failure into account.”

“ Made to take a fal- do you even hear yourself?! You were like a thousand feet in the air, dude! No one else was willing to break their bones over this exam but you!” Jirou got her breathing steady as she continued. “Either way, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh… right.”

Well, if she was having any doubts as to who this was, that response cleared them all away.

“I thought you told me you were a hero.”

Midoriya stared at the ground. “I said I was like a hero”

She let out a sigh. “Look, Green, I don’t know what you think this is, but it’s not like I’m gonna turn you in for vigilantism, I mean, you saved my l-”

“I-It’s technically not vigilantism because I don’t have a q-q-quirk, it’s a s-sort of legal loophole, so technically there’s nothing we could be charg- wait… did you say you’re not going to turn me in?”

“Of course not, it’s the least I can do considering yo- …did you just say you’re quirkless?”

Midoriya stood stock-still “Y-yes?”

Nice going dumbass, there goes one of the first people who were ever nice to us.

Midoriya seemed to shrink into herself, both arms wrapped around themselves; she started to shake and back away.

“Yeah, u-um, s-s-sorry. I guess I made it weird, huh? W-We just- I’ll leave you alone now.”

Oh come on. Coward. You’ve stood up to more intimidating people than her . You’re The Prowler, dammit, a hardened vigilante, you made the Number One Hero freeze in his tracks, and you’re running from some teenage girl? 

“Wait, Green!” A hand reaches out and grabs her arm, her right arm. “Hey, it’s ok, just breathe, I couldn’t care less about any of that stuff.”

What?

“You don’t?”

Jirou let out a surprised huff. “Of course not! I saw you take down three guys in like five seconds; before giving the most punk rock monologue I’ve ever heard in my life! You expect you telling me you’re quirkless to suddenly change that? What, like being quirkless means you’re useless or something?! I’d have to be crazy to say you can’t be a hero! Hell, even today I wouldn’t’ve gotten half as many points without you helping me with your crazy suit! You might as well consider yourself a hero already, because you’re sure as hell mine!”

Jirou realized, as Midoriya stared at her, red-faced and wide-eyed, that she had just spent like five minutes gushing about, essentially, a total stranger…to said stranger. “So, yeah.” She flushed and attempted to ease the awkward energy by punching Midoriya’s shoulder, only for her playful fist to meet metal. “Fuck!" She withdrew her now stinging hand. " Ow… uh, Midoriya?” She waved her hand in Izumi’s face. “Um, you good, bro?”

“...” Midoriya just stared at her; processing what she had just heard. 

She knows we’re quirkless… and she doesn’t care?

Oh please, she’s lying.

She’s like all the others

You give her a chance, and she’ll humiliate you.

She’ll leave you

You can’t trust her

She’ll just get in your way

Shut. Up

Jirou felt arms wrap around her. “Grrk, hey, Green? Ribs. Kinda need ‘em."

“ ...thank you. Thank you so much.”

“...don’t mention it.” She gently pulled away from the hydraulic press of a hug. “Just don't crush every bone in my body, and we’ll call it even, okay?”

Midoriya let out a weak chuckle. “Heh. Okay, sure. Hey, a thought occurs, do you still have that distress signal I gave you?”

“You mean, the distress signal given to me by a vigilante on one of the coolest nights of my life? Uh, yeah. I still have it, I was thinking of putting it in a display case, actually.”

“Very funny, well, offer still stands, if you ever need anything…”

“I could just give you my phone number, dude”

“Oh… right… that- that could work too.”

Jirou laughed as she handed over her phone. “Pfft, I can’t believe this is the same person I watched knock three grown men unconscious.”

“I-I just, I’m… not the best with conversations that don’t involve quirks or tech.”

“I don’t know, you seemed pretty good with conversations when you ripped that dude with the glasses a new one, but we can work on that.” She retrieved her phone from Izumi’s grasp. “Well, I don’t wanna keep you if you’ve got something to do. So, guess I’ll be seeing you Miss Prowler.”

Midoriya didn’t even register the name. “Y-yeah”

Before Kyoka walked away; she turned to face Midoriya again. “Call me sometime, maybe we could hang. I could even see if Uraraka or Kodai wanna do some karaoke or something, kay?”

Midoriya just dumbly nodded. “huh?”

Kyoka just giggled at seeing her saviour with that “deer in the headlights” look “Hahahaha! Hoo boy, you’re too much man! I’ll see you in class.”

"Uh, about that, I’m not going to be in the Hero Course. At least, not right now.”

“...excuse me?”

"I'm... not in the Hero Course?"

"Literally how?! Did the staff say something? Because, I swear, if it has to do with you being quirkless I will march up there right now and-"

"Woah! No! Nothing like that, please don't attack a room full of pro-heroes, at least not for my sake. I just feel like you should know; I gave a letter to the staff saying I didn’t want to be accepted to the Hero Course just yet. I’m in the Support class though, so, feel free to stop by anytime if you want upgrades to your gear. From now on, you can consider me your personal Support Tech, oh, and I guess you can pass that offer along to Kodai and Uraraka, too.”

“Wait. So. I-... you’re breaking my brain here. Why did you even take the exam?”

“Oh, that? That was to send a message.”

He knew it was about him.

How she even knew he'd be here, he had no idea, but it was definitely about him.

She’d outperformed every single other contestant. In every category.

3 Points above Katsuki Bakugou, the student with the most combat points.

30 points above Ochako Uraraka, the student with the most rescue points.

50 points all to herself in a category few ever managed to get into.

And she’d beaten him , taken his spot as the record holder in the Hero Course Exam.

And of course, he couldn’t forget what had thrown the observation room into debate and confusion:

She didn’t even want to be in the Hero Course

At least, for now, if the letter she gave to Power Loader was any indication. 

According to her; she did this to “prove herself”.

Yagi knew why. 

Because he crushed her dreams, to keep her safe, and yet, instead of backing down, of giving up, she rebuilt herself, better than she was before, and proved herself to him, and then refused to enter the course where she would’ve excelled.

What had he done?

He took someone who would’ve become one of the greatest heroes of this generation, and turned them away.

What if he had chosen her as his successor?

With her gift for quirk analysis and support gear, with her heroic spirit, she could’ve easily surpassed him, giving Japan its next new, and improved, Symbol of Peace.

He made someone who he could’ve shared a bond with as a student into someone who would probably try to spit in his face the next time she saw him, and he wouldn’t blame her.

How badly had he fucked up?

Why didn't he notice all this when he'd met her? He was too busy wallowing in his own self pity to see that there was someone worthy of surpassing him. "To keep her safe" and yet, somehow, that very day, she got hurt, and he was pretty sure that was somehow his fault too.

What would Nana say if she could see him now?

It had been eight months, and sure enough, the same user on the forum had posted again.

notuseless: STAGE ONE OF MY SUPER GENIUS MASTER PLAN IS COMPLETE! I FUCKING DID IT! GUESS WHO’S IN U.A? I AM! FIRST QUIRKLESS PERSON TO EVER GRACE THE SCHOOL WITH THEIR PRESENCE, LET’S FUCKING GOOOO!  

Granted, it’s the Support Course. And before anyone starts shit-talking, I could’ve made it in the Hero Course, but I’ll make more of a splash this way in the Sports Festival. The entire world is going to see what I can do. More importantly. There’s someone who I need to see eat their words. See ya then.

They’d… done it. 

It wasn’t just the post on some forum that had convinced her. There had been waves made recently in the Support world; some examinee had managed to amaze Power Loader, and if the rumours were right, they were quirkless.

The first quirkless person to ever make it into U.A… Uncle Might’s alma mater.

They’d proven wrong what people had been saying for decades.

Even if it was just in the Support Course, this was groundbreaking, this was unprecedented, this was amazing. This was-

Melissa had to meet them, to work with them-

But how?

She put her finger to her cheek in thought. “Hmm, no two ways about it, I’ll just have to ask dad to arrange a meeting for me with the staff. Maybe I should let them know about their earlier post too. Being treated like that... poor thing. If there's anywhere they should be able to feel safe and get the help they need, it'd be at U.A"

Chapter Text

She wondered how she would’ve handled these weeks of waiting before her awakening…

Probably not very well. 

The time she’s been spending continuing her preparations for the sports festival, working on her suit, and dreaming about the moment when she can savour the look All Might’ll have when he hands her her medal, would’ve been probably been spent agonizing over whether or not she’d been accepted, or being a nervous wreck trapped in her room for nearly a month.

Jumping off that roof just might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to us.

“Hey Green, you might wanna hurry up there, not sure how much longer we can keep Mei’s attention!”

Ok, maybe actually having friends for once was the best thing…

… maybe a close second.

Do you mind?

In the weeks following the exams, she’d actually hung out with Jirou and Kodai, even Ururaka when she could make it, they’d even managed to convince Mei to join them (read as: physically dragged her away from the workbench) saying that “human interaction would improve her customer service skills''. With it having a surprising amount of success. 

Sure, Mei still needed to be reminded to eat, sleep, breathe, and shower, but not as often, and she could even remember more people’s names than Izumi’s.

The past few weeks she’d been spending with the four of them had been… amazing, better than she ever dreamed having friends would be. They were fun, kind, they didn’t care about her quirklessness, or even about her vigilantism, well, Ururaka had concerns, but Yui practically vibrated when she was told.

They’d painted the Mk. IV together, gone to the movies, Jirou had practically dragged the entire group to karaoke single-handedly, which Yui had been surprisingly good at; selective mutism be damned, Yui had shown off her figurine collection after making them all swear not to touch them, Ururaka had opened up about her parent’s situation, and the group had taken to giving her some food to help her save some money; even Inko had taken to making her food when she stopped by. 

Izumi’s… actually really happy, she’s felt like a normal teenage girl, no quirklessness, no suicide-baiting, no missing arm, no vendetta against one of the most powerful people on the planet , just her, hanging out with her friends, waiting to get into her dream school.

I must admit, this has been a…  pleasant way to pass the time, but I’m afraid your vacation’s over. The time for your retribution has come, you cannot let your efforts go to waste.

Dramatic much?

If you falter here, you will never get a second chance, and nothing will change. You have a choice: you can continue in this comfortable life you’ve made, stagnant at best, or lose everything you’ve worked for at worst, or you continue forwards, and make a difference.

…

Like it or not, the brief respite was over. The weeks of waiting were up, they’d gotten their letters from U.A. and she couldn’t afford to slow down.

“Green! We’re gonna start without you!”

Izumi descended the stairs. “Alright, alright! I’m coming!”

One final moment of peace, and from here on out it’s war.

Now who’s being dramatic?

“What… is it?”

“Mmm”

“What button?”

“Wait, so it’s some sorta hologram?”

“THEY HAVE HOLOGRAM TECHNOLOGY THAT’S THIS SMALL AND PORTABLE?!”

“Mei, no.”

“MEI YES!”

“Fuckin… you can deconstruct it if you wait until everyone’s listened to their message, yeah?”

“Fine…”

The messages came and went.

Ururaka got 4th.

Yui got 9th

Jirou got 10th

The cheers and congratulations slowly got quieter, not that she even heard them in the first place, as the others noticed Izumi wasn’t cheering along.

Her eyes had a sort of mania in them, and the scowl she wore was something unlike anything the rest had ever seen on her. She hadn’t even looked like this during her confrontation with “Glasses Dude” as Kyouka called him. “Looks like we were right.” She clicked the button on the side of her projector. “Let’s see how you manage to ruin this for me, old man”

“Booyah! I am here, as a projection now!”

She hated the way those words still managed filled her with awe and admiration, even after everything.

“Greetings! Young… oh. Um, wow! It’s…” The energy the Symbol of Peace was showing a few seconds ago left him. “... it’s been a while, hasn’t it, Young Midoriya?”

The rest of the girls watched as Izumi grabbed the edge of her table so hard a section started to splinter. 

The projection of All Might turned to someone behind the camera. “Y’know, I’m suddenly feeling kinda camera-shy, why don’t we give me a minute to collect myself, and try this again later? What do you mean we can only do one take; why?! …I have to do how many of these?! Ugh, moving on.”

“You passed the written exam in the top ten percent of examinees! Very impressive! Onto the practical; you scored a whopping 80 Combat Points, more than enough to earn you first place! Congratulations! But that’s not all! You see, the practical exam was not graded on combat alone!” 

The video showed a montage of Izumi helping a handful of examinees, but most importantly, destroying the Zero-Pointer.

“How could a hero course reject someone who is committed to saving others, no matter the consequences to themselves?! After all, that is what makes a hero, and that's what my alma mater is all about! Training those who would risk their lives for the greater good. So, we have Rescue Points! A panel of judges watches, and they award points for heroic acts, beyond just fighting villains, so the judges gave you 72 Rescue Points! But wait, there’s more!” 

For the first time during All Might’s speech, Izumi’s grimace dropped, and she looked up in confusion.

“You see, Nezu likes to reward students who pay attention to the loopholes he’s intentionally left in the rules. Things most people ignore, or don’t even pick up on. Like bringing support gear or weapons to the exam; so long as the proper paperwork has been filled, of course. A hero should look for every advantage they can in the field after all! You chose to do this by bringing that fancy suit of armour you made, and so the principal’s chosen to give you: 50 Ingenuity Points! Quite the accomplishment! With all this, your combined score is an incredible: 202 points! You’ve even managed to break my previous record of 180! You, Izumi Midoriya, are our new Record Holder! Congratulations are in order; this is quite the achievement!” 

All Might’s enthusiasm dropped again, and he stopped sounding like he was trying to sell Izumi a used car. “Now for the elephant in the room… your refusal to join the hero course.”

The group went silent, and everyone except Jirou looked to Izumi in confusion.

You probably should’ve told them

It never came up

It did, you simply wanted to hold on to your artificial peace a while longer.

...

“The staff begs you to reconsider; you have the makings of a fine hero, a true hero, and we would all sincerely enjoy having you in the course.”

The edge of table snapped off.

“No. Nononononono. How fucking dare you. You weren’t supposed to admit it yet. She lunged at the hologram, as if she were trying to attack All Might through the non-existent screen. She didn’t even acknowledge her hitting the floor. “I WAS SUPPOSED TO RIP THOSE WORDS OUT OF YOUR STUPID. SMILING. FACE!”

The only thing she caught from remaining part of the recording was that the staff would like to meet with her to discuss this and “something else that came to their attention” at “her earliest convenience” and that was enough to make her scramble to her feet; she’s going to U.A.

“You’re fucking dead, you hear me?”

The group could only watch in dumbstruck silence as the apparent new record holder went on her quest to kill the Symbol of Peace. 

Before she went up the stairs; she turned to them “You guys want anything? I’m gonna make a pot of coffee, so I can throw it in Toshinori’s big, dumb, blonde, face.”

She decided to take their terrified silence as a “no” and ascended.

Hmm, looks like my motivation wasn’t necessary, you would’ve regained your drive on your own.

“Shut up.”

This whole thing was… unpleasant to say the least.

The examinee with the most points in U.A history doesn’t want to join the Hero Course. 

She’s already getting offers from Shield Industries, one of, if not the, most respected support tech companies in the world, and Melissa Shield herself wants to meet her. 

But, what was most concerning, she’s apparently gotten bullied to the point of being told to kill herself, and her idol told her to give up on her dreams.

And Eraser has a pretty good idea as to who that hero is. Shota’s pretty sure most of the staff have figured it out.

Sure enough, Nezu calls a meeting, apparently she’s on the premises, marching in like she owns the place, busting down doors looking for something. Or someone. Sipping a piping-hot pot of black coffee she was angrily carrying around. Shota likes this kid’s style.

It takes her 5 minutes, tops, to find the room they’re in. She starts to say something, but the presence of the whole staff seemingly takes her off guard. 

She slowly walks in, blowing a strand of hair out of her face, and awkwardly waves.

“Hi.”

That’s when Nezu takes his opportunity to start his introductory speech. “Hello, Miss Midoriya! I’m the one who could be a dog, or a mouse, or a bear, but more importantly... I'm the principal! Please, have a seat.”

The kid stands, dumbstruck, before bowing, sputtering out a greeting, and taking the seat that was left for her.

“Now, I assume you know why you’re here?”

Um, the staff wanted to convince me to join the hero course?”

“In so many words, yes.”

“Look, I’m honored that you found me impressive enough to ask me to reconsider, but my answer’s still no.”

Eraser took his chance to speak. “Kid, you’re throwing away something most people never even hope to achieve. U.A. is the best of the best, and as it stands right now, you’re the best of the best. It’d be illogical to throw it all away now.”

“ That is where you’re wrong- uh, sorry, what’s your name?”

“You can call me Aizawa.”

She didn’t respond for a minute, eyes giving him a once-over, taking in the scarf, the slim, black, bodysuit, the tired eyes of someone who’s stayed up too late, and finally, the bright yellow goggles. 

Hmm, perceptive kid.

“Holy shit, you’re Eraserhead!” She leaned over the table towards him. “You’re pretty much the top underground hero of the past decade, you’re such an inspiration for me, you’re-.” The kid started looking around like she was trying to find an exit. “oh shit… you’re Eraserhead.”

Some of the staff started to chuckle at the way the girl's expression dropped.

Not helping, people. Especially you 'Zachi.

Nezu jumped in before things could take a turn. 

“Aizawa already informed us of your… questionable late-night activities as soon as he saw your armour at the exam, but that’s a conversation for another day. Isn’t it, Miss Prowler?

She looked around the room, clearly looking for some excuse. “Who’s The Prowler?”

The room gave her a deadpan look

That’s what she came up with?

She faceplanted onto Nezu’s fancy-ass conference table. “Ok, I… guess it was kinda dumb to bring something so recognizable”

“Maybe a little, but it was a safe bet, considering only Aizawa here recognized you. Anyway, there’s still a few more matters to address. You seem quite adamant in your refusal to join the hero course, so what’s this here I see in your letter; about the Sports Festival?”

Midoriya took a swig of her coffee, still keeping her eyes on Eraserhead, presumably still thinking this was some sort of trap, before answering: “I know that, right now, I could win the Sports Festival, even if the other students knew what I had planned, I don’t need the element of surprise that comes with not enrolling in the course, if that’s what you’re thinking, but I need people to know I did it on my own. Taking the exam was to prove to you guys that the Sports Festival isn’t just gonna be a fluke; I deserve to be here. But the Festival is so the world knows I did it by myself. Otherwise the media will have a field day."

She took on a nasally, sarcastic, high-pitched voiced. “Oh, her friends took it easy on her. She sabotaged their preparations. She’s in the Hero Course as a publicity stunt.” She exaggeratedly moved her hands back and forth with each example. “I’m not just doing this for me, but for every quirkless person who ever had to feel like they weren’t enough! Then, and only then, will I join the Hero Course!”

The room sat silent, before Nemuri jumped up to give the kid a hug, saying something or other about how she wouldn’t have to feel that way here, and Ryo stood to affirm the sentiment. The kid just stood there seemingly unsure how to respond.

Doesn’t get much positive affirmation, seems like.

The rat stood up from his chair onto the table. “Well, Miss Midoriya, I’m sold! We’ll go along with your plan, and you’ll have the full support of the U.A. staff! I truly hope you manage to accomplish your goals, and truth be told, I might put you in the Hero Course whether you win or not. Now, we have… another matter to discuss… would you like the good news or the bad news first?”

Nemuri froze and Ryo went back to his seat as the mood turned cold.

“Umm.” Still trapped in Nemuri’s tight grasp, she craned her neck to look at the principal. “The good news?”

Nezu brightened. “Well the good news is Shield Industries has reached out to us, asking about you specifically!”

“ huh?”

“Yes! Melissa Shield herself wants to work with you! She’s heard about what you’ve done and she’s quite impressed!”

“huh?!”

Shota speaks up. “Sir, I think you broke her.”

“So it would seem.” He passed a steaming cup over to the girl who was still out of it. “Tea?”

She took a sip of her still warm coffee.

“Good enough. The bad news, and the reason Miss Shield’s reached out to you is because she noticed you on an…internet forum, how quaint, and in her message asking to work with you, she brought to our attention some troubling accounts of… previous interactions with some of your peers, as well as a hero.”

The girl was no longer out of it. She moved to spit out her coffee, seemingly realized Nezu’s table was Italian maple, or maybe just didn’t want to spit on Kan and Shota, and quickly swallowed it.

”Oh.” She paused; thinking about what she was going to say. “Look, it’s really not a big deal, I was actually gonna handle those two myself.”

Eraser spoke up. “You were going to handle an old bully of yours and a pro hero… on your own?”

“Yep!”

“You realize… we can’t let you do that, right?”

Her arms dropped, and her neck leaned to the side with an annoyed expression.“Oh, come on, I thought you said I had your full support? Besides, I was just gonna shut them both up at the Sports Festival. Mostly by beating K- my old friend, but I figured that the hero would be there too.”

The staff bristled at that. Nemuri spoke first. “Are you saying that your old classmate is currently enrolled in U.A?!”

“I mean, I was kinda seeing red during the recording, so I didn’t really see the rankings, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t make it in!”

“Miss Midoriya, I feel I must inform you U.A has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying or harassment, and we simply cannot allow a student like that to stay here.”

She turned to the chimera; almost seeming misty-eyed. “You… actually mean that, don’t you?”

Nezu leaned forward to put his paw on Midoriya’s shoulder; this was probably the most compassionate any of the staff had ever seen him. “Of course, we wouldn’t be very good educators if we didn’t take situations like this seriously, and U.A. prides itself on the wellbeing of its students.”

She looked hopeful for a second before her gaze hardened once again. “That… that’s very kind, but no, I need to do this on my own. If I don’t beat him by myself, at the Festival, he’ll always be able to say that I’m a fake. Besides, I don’t even know what he’d do if being a hero wasn’t an option, best case scenario, he runs off and becomes a vigilante or something; it’s probably just best to keep him here.”

“Very well.”

The rest of the staff turned to Nezu, wondering if he was just going to let something like this go, but turned away when they saw the scheming glint in his eye. “We’re willing to do as you say with the student, but the hero’s another matter, we cannot just let a young teenage girl such as yourself confront an licensed hero.”

“Well, about that…”

“Problem Child, you can not be serious.”

“Problem Child?”

Hizashi gave his two cents. “Don’t worry bout it, listener. Sho likes to give his little titles, it just means he likes you.”

“Um… ok, but look.” She held up her hands placatingly. “I’m not against you holding him accountable; there’s no love lost between us, I mean, that asshole’s the reason I jumped off that rooftop and lost the arm, but-”

Nemuri cut in. “Wait, you did what?!”

For the third time this month, the conference room exploded as discussion broke out.

Midoriya realized what she just admitted in front of a room of suddenly very murderous and concerned adults. “Look, it’s not such a big deal-”

Nezu slammed his paw down to quiet the room. “Miss Midoriya, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you inform us of the identity of this hero, so they can have their license revoked, and after this, we’ll have to discuss setting you up for regular therapy sessions, no matter where you choose to go, U.A will cover the cost, though might I suggest our counselor Hound-”

Midoriya slammed her metal fist on the table. “Enough! Alright, I get it! Look, it’s not ths greatest situation I’m in, but we don’t need your damn pity! ”

She took a deep breath. Her scowl turned into a bladed smile as she leapt onto the table and landed with a heavy thump. “Truth is, we can’t let you do anything as drastic as taking his hero license away, Japan kinda depends on him having it.” 

She was walking towards the end of the table towards All Might… towards the emaciated form of All Might. 

Eraserhead paled. “Oh god, no.”

She craned her head over her shoulder to look back at him, and somehow, her sharp smile got even wider. “Nice observational skills, Eraser. Yeah, and the truth is, you can’t really blame for much, because honestly, he didn’t even do that much. But he didn’t say what we needed to hear. Instead, he left a young quirkless girl alone on a roof top because he ran out of time. ”

She was in front of All Might now.

“Isn’t that right? To shi nor i?

She got closer to his guilt-ridden face with every syllable, until their noses were practically touching.

“And to be clear, your little stunt in that recording changes nothing, I am going to win the Festival, and I’m going to be a better hero than you ever were.”

“... you already are.”

Judging from the newfound frown on her face, and the flick to the forehead she gave him, that didn’t help anything.

“Yeah, yeah, save it for when you give me my medal, big guy. Look forward to being taught by you Mr. Yagi, should be fun.”

In a split second, she splashed her remaining coffee into his face, which Yagi didn’t try to dodge, she jumped off the table, and was at the door, bowing towards the still dumbstruck staff.

“Thank you very much for the attention you’ve shown us, I can’t wait to show you all what I can do. Thank you for your time sir!

Bye Toshinori."

She walked out the door, and the room exploded for the fourth time that month, this time directed at one person, and this time, Shota joined in.

Chapter Text

Where the hell is she?

Blood-coloured eyes scanned the stupid list of scores.

She should be here right?

He reached Number 20. It was some random extra, probably the floating gym costume who was bawling her eyes out.

“And I was lying, no one's going home. That was just a rational deception to make sure you gave it your all in the tests.”

He scanned the field full of nobodies; sure enough, she wasn’t here.

Katsuki thought maybe he just missed her in the commotion the extras were making before class. Especially with some of the ones in the back trading “war stories” about how Dek - Midoriya - “ saved them” whatever that means.

Apparently she’d made some friends after the Entrance Exam.

Good for her.

Whatever, it doesn’t matter.

But, he’s looking out at the class full of nobodies… and she’s not here. 

She doesn’t matter, it’s easier this way…

At least this way there’s nobody who could possibly stand in his way to the top. 

Not one of the weaklings here could ever hope stand up to him. Some dumbass rich kid with glasses had tried earlier; Katsuki had ripped him to shreds, and he’d gone and sulked in the corner. Probably not the first time that’d happened to him.

What a little bitch.

Everything was back to the way he remembered from Aldera. Back to the status quo.

Maybe she was just a fluke? 

Twice? You know it wasn’t a fluke.

She beat you by a mile. More than double your score.

Only because of those shitty “rescue points” or whatever.

…

He remembers the first time he ever saw that video. He stopped watching it after the nerd got obsessed with it, he should’ve never shown it to her, just another thing ruined by that damn idiot.

“Who is he?! The guy's already saved a hundred people at least and it hasn't even been ten minutes!”

“AH HA HA HA HA HAH!”

“He’s laughing!”

“FEAR NOT CITIZENS; HOPE HAS ARRIVED!

BECAUSE I AM HERE! ”

Oh, look at that, looks like you do remember what being a hero’s about.

Shut up. No one asked you.

Any additional points aside, she beat you in combat, your specialty. Most importantly, she saved your life, she defeated the Sludge Villain when you weren’t able to. She beat him with a missing arm. You’re smart enough to know that wasn’t a fluke.

Just a fluke.

He finally got around to looking for his own placement

He… he wasn’t in first place…

Just a fluke.

Two of the extras had beat him.

Just a fluke.

Some half-and-half bastard with an ice quirk, and some pompous rich bitch with some overpowered bullshit that could let her make whatever she wanted; who “was surprised no one else figured out” that expulsion was a ruse.

Just a fluke.

He could’ve scored higher, but that creepy-eyed bastard was staring at him ever since he threw the ball.

Probably just realizing who’s gonna surpass him once I graduate, he threw me off.

Even if that wasn’t a total lie, they were faster than you, they were better at using their quirks than you are.

Just a flu-

“That. Was. So. Manly!” Some extra with shittily-dyed red hair was approaching; fists pumping in the air with each syllable. “The way you blew everyone outta the water was so freaking cool! Not to mention your quirk! Man, I wish I had something as flashy as yours!” He lifted up his arm and Bakugou watched as it turned into some kinda stone.

Not terrible.

Not impressive.

“Your battlecry needs some work if you wanna be a good hero, but overall-”

Wait, what?

Ah! HA! Hahaha! Looks like your precious status quo isn’t restored after all!

“Hah? What did you just say to me, Shitty Hair?!”

The redhead was taken aback. “Wha- we have the same haircut! And yeah,I mean, most people don’t find a hero screaming “Die!” very comforting…” He pointed at himself with his thumb. “Names Eijiro Kirishima, pleased to meetcha! Your name’s Bakugou, right?”

He seemed to take Katsuki’s sullen silence as a “yes”, and continued.

“Anyway, like I was saying, you seem pretty impressive, no one gets that good without a totally manly amount of training, and I was thinking we could be friends!” He stretched out his hand towards Bakugou.

Time seemed to slow as the blonde’s eyes widened.

Are you ok, can you get up, Kacchan?

Katsuki glared at the annoyance, and smacked his hand away. “Fuck off.”

Shitty Hair just grinned and raised a hand to the back of his head. “Bad day, huh? My bad. But I’ll be sure to try and get that handshake once you’re feeling better though!” The redhead started to turn away.

“No you won’t.”

He called back. “I’ll try again tomorrow!”

Sparks littered the bomber’s palm. “You’re gonna die!”

He heard a distant “We’re gonna be friends!”

“You’re gonna be dead!”

Hey jackass, look around.

The rest of the class of idiots were staring at him after that display.

He already had his hands crackling as he turned to face them. “What the hell do all of you think you’re looking at!?”

They all went back to what they were doing, while the creepy, dead, glowing eyes of his teacher turned on him again, like he was searching for something, going over every inch of Katsuki, before turning away again.

He thought about that idiot with his stupid toothy grin. “Looks like I’ve got some target practice to deal with tomorrow.”

He tilted his head back as he let out a long sigh.

Great, now I’m gonna have two people clinging to me, like when those baby ducks imprint on humans or whatever.

“Speaking of, why are you so damn quiet today De-”

He turned to see nothing where there should’ve been a glowing smile, a helping hand, or green hair peeking out from behind a tree.

Or, maybe just one…

“Where the hell is she…”

It needs to be two millimeters to the left. Well, if you want to be able to walk again after taking this off.

“Hate when you’re right.” She readjusted the needle. “Well actually, the way I’m planning on taking this off might be… less than careful. So we need to account for that…”

You couldn’t have thought of that two hours ago?

“Fuck off.”

Power Loader had given her own “private workshop” (which really just meant it had some walls and a door) as a prize for joint first place, ( Though it might just be an excuse to keep Mei away from the rest of the Support Class) and while at first she didn’t care much for it, she was glad for it now, so the rest of the Support Department couldn’t hear her actively losing her damn mind, or, more importantly, disturb her work.

A knock was suddenly heard from the door.

She let out a disgruntled sigh, and covered her newest project. “Ugh, speak of the devil.” She reluctantly poked her head out through the doorway. “Mei, I’ve told you, we can hang out after the Festival, but right now, I’m bu- oh… What do you want?” 

Before her stood the emaciated form of Toshinori; sporting a black eye and a few mottled bruises.

“Look, if you’re to apologize, you can forge-” she opened the door further to find both Ectoplasm and Principal Nezu.

 “Oh, hi, Mr. Principal, sir, and Mr. Ectoplasm, come on in!” She waved them inside, and pointedly ignored Yagi’s presence. “What can I help you with?”

The rat spoke up. “Well, Ectoplasm is just here to get the new prosthetics you promised him. I trust they’re ready?”

A half manic spark appeared in the young technician’s eyes. Not unlike Hatsume’s, but more  controlled than anything the staff had previously seen from Midoriya.

“Oh, you betcha!” She walked over to one of the many covered objects in the room and unveiled a pair of sleek, black, unassuming prosthetic legs made of interlocking metal pieces, and more than four feet tall. “Feast your eyes on these puppies!”

The amputee hero approached them with an evaluating gaze, and ran his fingers over the sturdy material.

“Miss Midoriya, I want to say that I do sincerely appreciate your efforts, but other than a slight height difference, and a more human design, I see no functional difference between these and my current legs.”

Her grin got wider. “Only if you’re seeing with your eyes, oh dearest teacher of mine.”

“...what?”

She slapped the roof of an imaginary car. “These babies can fit so many capabilities in them!“

“Young Midoriya, are you feeling alri-”

“Shut it!” She held out a mechanical finger to her side, ignoring that she was pointing to the opposite side the group of adults was on. “Blonde fuck-faces don’t get to talk during presentation time!”

“Fair enough.”

“First off, a whole foot higher than the average human leg length is huge; increased visibility and a slight improvement in movement speed are already big improvements, so don’t underestimate height. Then, we’ve got the ability enhancers. ” She let out a small manic giggle. “Padding on the bottom ensures that your footsteps are as quiet as can be for maximum sneakage!”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it-”

“What did we say about talking!?”

“...carry on.”

“The soles can let out small bursts of air to let you jump huge distances!” She posed dramatically. “Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!” 

The adults shared a nervous glance.

 “What’s with that look? Oh, right, no, don’t worry about it, they’re shock absorbent, you won’t even feel it. Oh! Here’s one of my favourite parts; I call this one: Scary Legs™️! ” She pressed a button at the top of the left thigh, and the seams where the metallic segments interlocked began to glow a deep red colour. “Boom! Scary Legs™️!” 

Her enthusiasm was met with perplexed glances.

“…uh, yeah, they- they just glow red…” 

She spread her hands wide as she took a dramatic stance.

 “But picture it! You’re sneaking up on a group of criminals, you clear a building to land in the nearby alleyway with a huge “thunk”, they all turn like “What was that?” You turn on the Scary Legs™️, the whole alleyway glows cherry red, like your feet are setting the ground itself on fire , all they hear is your creepy mechanical breathin-”

“My breathing isn’t mechanical.”

Her presentation reached a screeching halt. 

“Oh, right, I might be thinking of a movie I saw once…”

“...”

“Anyway! The dramatic pose resumed. “Before they even have a chance to scramble away; you send out an army of clones to surround them, use the bursts of air to launch yourself off the wall, and deliver a high-power kick to the face of- oh shit, right.” Her presentation once again was stopped, and she hesitantly turned to face the group. “So, um, these are a bit heavier than your usual legs, and you’ll probably need to practice with them… if you don’t wanna kill someone…” 

In an instant her expression shifted back to her eager grin.

“ But, if you do want to kill someone; you have these!” She waved her hand over a sensor on the right thigh, and, to the shock and slight horror of the various teachers, an array of both lethal and non-lethal weaponry popped out of the metallic limbs. 

“ Ta-da! These babies are all voice-activated for ease of access; they’ll only respond to either your voice or mine. Now, obviously you’ll need some training to get used to the various settings, plus the recoil, plus these things aren’t as mobile as I would like, they’re actually pretty static, so you’ll kinda have to do some calculations on the fly to make sure you don’t hit anyone you don’t mean to hit… but you’re the math teacher, so I’m sure you do fine. Now, demonstration time!”

She moved a few steps to the right, and gestured to the others to do the same. 

The teachers immediately moved to press themselves against the nearest wall.

“Fire!” A round shot straight forward, and embedded itself in the far wall of the workshop.

“Roundabout!” A thankfully non-lethal projectile shot itself forward, before circling back around, barely avoiding the prosthetics, and coming to the sudden stop against the opposite wall with a metallic tink . 

“Spread Shot!” A wide spread of projectiles shot out, narrowly missing an unfazed Midoriya’s face.

That was when Toshinori decided to step in. “Young Midoriya, that is enough! For your own, as well as our safety-”

Midoriya simply waved him off. “Easy, Superman-wannabe, or I activate Spread Shot again! Either way, that’s all, figured too many modes would screw around with Ectoplasm’s style anyway. So, there you have it! You’ll be faster, stronger, with more ranged capabilities, and that’s not even the best part! We’ll need to reopen your old wounds a bit, and stick these needles here-" She gestured to a pair of thick-looking needles in the thighs of the prosthetics. "-in your bone marrow; which, trust me, will be just as painful as it sounds, but once that’s done: boom! Full cybernetics! Connected straight to your nervous system!”

She ripped off her metal arm with a hushed “Fuck!” pushed through gritted teeth, and held it aloft. “Just like this old girl right here! That’s not even mentioning that these things are even more durable than your old legs! With all these top-of-the-line features, I’ve considered choppin’ off my own legs just so I can get some of these instead of my squishy human ones! ”

At the look of concern she got from the staff; she quickly backtracked.

“Not that I’d actually do that; I’m just sayin’.” She hurriedly pushed the surprisingly heavy cybernetics into the fumbling arms of a flabbergasted Ectoplasm who barely managed to let out a “Thank you?” before being shoved out the door.

She leaned against the closed door and let out a groan. “Ugh, gotta work on those presentation skills.”

Turning to the remaining two; she spoke. “Alright, let’s get to it, why is he here?”

Nezu made a mental note to put Midoriya receiving therapy higher up on his list of priorities and spoke up. “Yes… well, as you recall, we were planning to discuss your vigilante activities, but then we got caught up in…” Two gazes fell on Toshinori; who stiffened upon feeling them. “...other matters, but we believe we’ve found a solution, at least a temporary one, for both of those issues!”

Izumi looked unimpressed. “Lay it on me.”

The chimera mimicked Izumi’s grand “presentation stance” 

“Our solution… is for you to patrol with All Might!”

“...”

“...”

“Excuse me, what?”

“The hope was that you and Mr. Yagi can better your relationship, that your reputation as “The Prowler” could be improved in the public eye, and that U.A could use a momentous change, like the Symbol of Peace patrolling with a brand-new apprentice, to its benefit.”

Izumi took a breath. “Okay, so, first off, you expect us to work with him ?! During the day ?! The Prowler is a night-time vigilante; half of my takedowns are due to sneak attacks! All he has to do is show up and throw a single punch! Oh…”

She put her thumb to her chin, and the two heroes watched as an overwhelming wave of mumbling began.

 “Ok, yeah, I get your point; you don’t always get to choose who you work with in the field, or choose the times crimes take place, and there’ll pretty often be some sort of power imbalance between you and whoever you’re working with. Starting with someone like All Might, who is opposite to me in pretty much all our methods would prepare me for virtually any situation, since the power difference can only get lower from here-, ugh fine, whatever, I’ll work with him.”

In a rush, she stuck her finger in Nezu’s face. “Second, what was that about my reputation?! I’ll have you know The Prowler is a respectable vigilante!”

The principal just stared at the finger that had been thrust into his face with his black, beady eyes until she uncomfortably backed off enough for him to continue.

“Miss Midoriya, while it is true that you have an excellent track record, in terms of property damage and civilian rescue, the general public still sees you as an unpredictable vigilante. Between your limited sightings, the speed with which you’ve become known to incapacitate criminals, your appearance, and even just your name “The Prowler” I’d say it’s either very impressive or very lucky that your reputation isn’t lower than it is.”

“Um, weird question, but… are you a hero? I don’t mean to be rude, it’s just that the name’s really throwing me off.”

“Would you believe that’s not the first time I’ve gotten advice on the name?”

“Yes./Yes.”

She took that moment to recover from the hit to her pride. “...shut it Yagi. Fine, ok, now for the weirdest thing you’ve said; how does this benefit U.A?”

“I’m glad you asked! It actually benefits us in two ways. Firstly, the elephant in the room; that being Toshinori’s time limit. I’m not aware of how much he told you, but he’s only able to maintain his “All Might” form for 3 hours a day, and with him becoming the new heroics teacher…”

“It only gives him an hour of hero time, and even then he’ll have to manage that so the entirety of Japan doesn’t find out about… “Small Might.”’

“Ha! Indeed! The other benefit is that I’ve been wanting to establish a sort of “rehabilitation” center here for quite some time now, much like they have over at Ketsubutsu, to see if we can put misguided young vigilantes and villains on the road to being heroes! And our soon-to-be-announced newest teacher being seen with a former vigilante as his apprentice could be just the push we need to convince the school board.”

The vigilante seemed to debate it in her head before reaching a conclusion. “Fine… Ugh, fine! I’d feel like an asshole if I didn’t agree after all that. Besides, it’d give me at least an hour a day I can spend making fun of this asshole.”

“That was part of our intention, yes.”

“But, is it fine if I miss that many classes?”

Power Loader’s distant voice chimed in. “If it means the department doesn’t have to hear you talking to yourself all the time, then yes.”

…Looks like the walls weren’t as thick as she hoped.

Nezu seemed to simply take that sliver of information in stride. “That’s settled then! It really isn’t too different from the work studies we do with the hero course students later in the year, so you have nothing to worry about as long as your grades stay within acceptable parameters.”

“Sounds easy enough.” She turned to Toshinori, seemingly giving him a once over.

“A work study with The Number One Hero, eh?” She held out her hand. “ You ready, Toshinori?”

He hesitantly took it. “No.”

The flash of cameras surrounded them like a solid wall of light, not made any better by how damn flashy her armor was.

Damn it Mei.

“Ok, maybe I’m the one who’s not ready?”

She never thought she’d be comfortable using All Might himself as a human shield, but life’s been full of surprises lately.

“AH HA HA! Too late for that, I’m afraid!”

He pointed at someone in the crowd. “YOU THERE!”

Some woman stepped forward with a microphone. “All Might, the whole country, especially those here in Musutafu,  is wondering why you’re currently in the company of known vigilante “The Prowler” and why they seem to not be in custody! Do you have an answer for the people of Japan?!”

He threw his head back to give a hearty chuckle. “HA HA! OF COURSE! FIRSTLY, IT WOULDN'T BE ACCURATE TO SAY THEY’RE NOT IN A CUSTODY OF A SORT, BUT I OWED A FAVOUR FOR A FELLOW HERO WHO WANTS TO ESTABLISH-”

Midoriya just hung back and let out a tired groan; it hadn’t even been 10 minutes and she was already exhausted. 

Today’s gonna be a long day.

They sat on a rooftop, and Toshinorini’s deflated form was handing her a can of coffee; her favourite brand. Not that she’d ever let him know that.

He held out the cool drink tentatively; like he was scared she’d bite him or something. On another day, she would’ve considered at least mockingly doing it just to scare him a bit, but today she was spent. She took the coffee gratefully, and chugged it without a second thought.

He felt safe enough to let out a chuckle. “Not exactly the type of patrol you were expecting, huh?”

She leaned against the nearby wall. “You’re telling me. I don’t think my mom’s taken that many pictures of me. Frickin’ pack of vultures… I don’t even know how you managed to get us out of there by the end.”

All Might reappeared in a puff of smoke. “Ha ha! I stand for justice, not soundbytes!” …and immediately coughed up a fountain of blood.

“Hmm.” The coffee was already doing its magic… or possibly just the placebo effect.

"Soooooo, U.A let you keep the teaching gig?"

The tension Toshinori had managed to forget, if only for a second, came back with a vengeance. "Yes, well, we did arrange a contract, I sorta have tenure..."

"Mmm, lucky bastard. Fair enough."

"I... I-If it makes you feel better, all my lessons will now be overseen by an experienced member of the staff. Whoever's available, be it Midnight, Ectoplasm, or Eraserhead. A-And Nezu's given you special permisson to insult me whenever I'm in your presence."

"Hmm, I was gonna do that anyway, but good to know I've got the green light."

She shifted closer to the edge of the roof and dangled her legs over the edge, swinging them back and forth, observing Toshinori all the while. His expression seemed to stay the same. If anything, he seemed more relaxed now that their conversation was over.

Wow, he really is kinda dumb, huh? Or really unobservant at the least.

"Y’know, the last time we were on a roof together didn’t end so well for me.”

He spewed even more crimson that pooled on the sidewalk.

That got her to perk up. “Hah! Gotcha.” She leaned back against the wall. “But nah, I’m too tired to be up your ass today, so you get a break; just for a bit.

“Well I appreciate you not being up my ass for once.”

“That’s what she said.”

That got a bark of laughter out of him. Genuine laughter: not the showman stuff he put on for the crowds.

“Is it always this exhausting for you?”

He sat down with her. “Not usually, but then again, that’s part of the reason why I move around so much. If the media ever manages to get a hold of me, it wipes out my whole day.”

“Yeah, you usually only stay in a single region for a month or two.”

“Oh? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you noticed that.”

“Yeah… I- I used to be a big fan…”

“Young Midoriya-”

The empty can of coffee ‘clunked’ against his amazingly thick skull.

“Don’t start; you know I’ll only accept it after the Festival.”

He rubbed at the place where it struck. “Then, can I ask a question?”

“Nice pun. Sure, spit it out.”

“Why? Why is the Festival so important to you?”

She was about to call him a dumbass, but then realized; she didn't know? Why was it so important to her? Ever since she got the idea of winning it in her head, she’d been obsessed, but why? She’s been turning down time with friends, with her mother, she’s been turning down an apology from All Might of all people, that she should’ve been ecstatic to receive, hell, she’d turned down her place in the Hero Course for this, why?

The most amazing hero always wins no matter what!

Jeez, Izumi, you really can’t do anything right.

That must be what you call a helpless loser who’s completely useless

Whatever , Deku , no matter what power you end up with, you’ll never be able to beat me.

You’re a total failure Deku.

She mumbled out her answer.

“Sorry?”

“I’m not weak.”

“I… didn’t say you were?”

“I’m not useless.”

“Y- Young Midoriya?”

“I’m going to prove I’m the strongest.”

“Oookay.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and started to guide her towards the roof access. “How about we just-”

She shook him off. “We’ll prove to him- to everybody- to the world that we’re a hero who wins. No matter what. ” She looked down at herself; inspecting her body. She clenched her fists. She knew what she had to do. “ No matter the cost."

A raspy voice rang out through the empty bar.

“Master… have you heard the news?”

The blank screen of the TV responded.

“Yes, so it would seem that the fool has chosen a successor.”

The bone-deep itch started again, like it always did in times like these.

“ But why?! I don’t understand! They told us he was a damn teacher now! I swear, if that little brat lied to us, I will dust him.”

“You will do nothing of the sort. As long as he is alive his parents will cater to our every whim. A good leader knows that he must remain calm even as the enemy flashes their strength. Think, Tomura, how would he convince a vigilante to both turn themselves into his custody, and reveal themselves to the public?”

Tomura thought for a moment. “He already knew them?”

“That is the likeliest option. Not to say that that blonde buffoon wouldn’t pick up any random stray on the street, but it’s unlikely that any self-respecting vigilante would stay behind to build a rapport with a hero. Now, why would he still go teach at U.A instead of keeping an eye on his pupil?”

“They… go to U.A? They’re a student?”

“Very good, Tomura! I see your lessons in deduction haven’t gone to waste. Of course, knowing the idiot, this could all be unrelated, but no matter the case, it means your plan of attack can continue. Are you ready, Young Tomura?”

The itching stopped. 

“Yes Master, the Symbol of Peace dies.”

Chapter Text

She heard a knock at the door. 

She didn’t want to open it; in case it was that husk that’d stolen her daughter’s voice.

But nowadays she- they- it - she didn’t really knock or announce her presence. 

She would just… appear.

Just a short while ago she was so happy. Izumi had been bringing friends over, had been heading out during the daytime instead of the night, it’d seemed like she was finally healing. 

Until, for the second time, screams had been heard from her house. Not pain, like the first time, but anger, a storm of incoherent rage that been heard two houses over.

She’d come back to find Izumi missing, and a group of shocked-looking schoolgirls discussing “what they should do” and “why didn’t they stop her.”

Apparently she'd been invited to some sort of discussion at U.A.

Apparently she’d gotten first place in the Support Course.

Apparently, she’d broken the record for the Hero Exam.

Apparently, she didn’t want in.

Apparently, she knew All Might.

Apparently they had history.

Apparently it was bad enough for her to immediately go and walk all the way to U.A so she could splash piping-hot coffee in “Toshinori’s” face. That would explain why all his merch was off her walls.

Apparently her daughter was some kind of crazy, armour-wearing, violent vigilante.

Apparently she was now working with All Might himself.

…apparently her daughter thought none of this was worth mentioning to her.

The girls were still stopping by, at first, this was because they wanted to see if they could find Izumi, but now it was to see how Inko was doing.

Even the “baby girl”, who she’d learned was named Mei, was checking up on her, though she seemed to mention her babies less and less, Inko didn’t think she’d ever miss that, but life was full of surprises lately.

Don’t get her wrong, they were all lovely, they really managed to fill in the silence in the old house, and they did honestly seem to care about her… but they weren’t Izumi.

She wanted her daughter back; not this girl who shuffled through their house like a zombie, muttering about avoiding veins and nerves.

The knock came again

She reluctantly got up to finally open the door. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

A voice on the other side replied 

“That’s what she said.” 

Probably not Izumi then.

She opened it to find a tall, ponytailed, purple-haired woman in a light purple dress shirt and suit, and a black, high-waisted, a-line skirt that did little to distract from her eye-catching… glasses.

Dammit, Inko, eyes up!

She raised her gaze to the woman’s face, hoping her indiscretion went unnoticed.

Judging from the amused smirk on her face, it definitely hadn’t.

With burning cheeks, she stuttered out a greeting. “I-I, um, canIhelpyouwithsomething?”

The lady’s stifled giggle didn’t help her nerves.

So she’s a lady now?  

“Hello, I’m speaking to Mrs. Midoriya, correct?”

“Ms.” 

What the fu- you’re not divorced! Get a grip, woman!

“And please, call me Inko.”

Christ on a stick.

“Will do, Inko. I’m Nemuri Kayama, you might know me as Midnight, I’m one of Izumi’s teachers, I was hoping to discuss something with you.” She gestured towards the house. “May I come in?”

Oooohhhh, that’s why she seemed familiar.

Inko scrambled to clear the doorway. “Y-y-yes! Ahem. Yes, come on in!”

Jesus, you’re so down bad, it’s not even funny.

Nemuri-

Oh, so she’s Nemuri now?

-sat down on the couch, the picture of grace, and watched as Inko managed to deep clean her living room in record time; even if all that meant was shoving anything undesirable in the nearby closet.

“So, w-what did you need to discuss?”

“Well, I came here in, sort of, an official capacity, I was hoping we could discuss Izumi.”

Welp, there goes the good mood.

“Oh… I-I see… has- ahem, has she done anything wrong?”

Midnight didn’t seem to expect that response, and seemed taken aback. “No? In light of… her recent experiences, U.A wanted your permission for her to receive some therapy sessions with our counselour Hound Dog… were you expecting her to have done something wrong?”

Inko honestly didn’t even know how to answer that. ‘Yes?’ ‘No?’ ‘Maybe?’ ‘Define “doing something wrong?”’

“I… don’t… I don’t really know what I expect from her anymore…” The dam that’d been building for almost a year started to break.

Oh my god, please don’t start crying in front of the 10 out of 10.

“I-It’s been really difficult l-lately.” She could feel the tears starting, but the embarrassment wasn’t a good enough deterrent to stop. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“I’ve b-been trying to reach out, but s-she just keeps getting farther away. I-I d-don’t know w-what to d-do…”

Midnight started to panic as the woman in front of her started sobbing her eyes out.

Oh god, oh crap, ah dammit. What do I do? What do I do?

Izumi had been on the verge of crying during her conference room rant, but hadn’t actually started crying. 

Her mother, however, was currently trying and failing to not bawl her eyes out.

Nemuri usually didn’t have to comfort crying people, she was typically a background hero, playing support for easy arrests. Her persona just wasn’t built for the public. Not many people wanted someone like her comforting them, traumatic situation or no.

She tentatively reached forward toward the verdette who was flooding the room. 

“Uh, Inko, is it okay if I-”

As if she sensed her arm; Midoriya grabbed her in a surprisingly ironclad grip, and buried her face in Midnight’s neck.

She could feel the tears running down her shirt, as she awkwardly patted Inko’s back.

Okay, what now? Think, dammit!

There was something; she wasn’t exactly on great terms with Toshinori right now, none of the staff were, but damn if the big guy wasn’t useful for something.

“I-It’s ok- ahem, I’m here. ”

That seemed to do the trick. She was still shaking, but at least the sobbing had mostly stopped, save for a few sniffles here and there.

She still had Nemuri’s shirt in a tight-fisted grip.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

Midnight rubbed her back soothingly.

Gonna need to ask Nezu what the hell we do now.

“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

The conference room had been concerning.

According to Nezu; her demonstration for Ectoplasm’s legs had been unnerving, but this?

There was something deeply wrong with Izumi Midoriya, and Midnight could only hope U.A could figure out how to help her before she got hurt.

Her hand fucking burned . The feeling was travelling all the way up her bicep.

That can’t be good.

She shook it around, hoping to get rid of the sensation. No dice.

Something must be wrong with the wiring. Fuck.  I was hoping for a test run today. Whatever, I can fix it once we’re done with patrol.

“Something wrong, Young Midoriya?”

“None of your business, personal problems Toshinori.”

“Ah… I see. No worries! I can just run down to the pharmacy and-”

“ What? Oh! Fuckin- no! I meant it’s a me problem, Jesus.”

“Oh. Sorry…”

“Yeah, whatever… you do know that even if that was the problem, I probably still wouldn’t tell you, right?”

“Yeah, I know, I panicked.”

“Just, boundaries man, Christ.”

Normally they’d only patrol for an hour, but there’d been some sort of security breach earlier in the week: the U.A gate had been completely disintegrated, but for some reason, no one was hurt, so they were on the lookout for anyone who seemed suspicious; not that anyone really thought that they’d find anything. 

Plus, Toshinori had some kind of field trip or something with 1-A today, so only one hour of teaching was really necessary. Aizawa wouldn’t really care all that much if Toshinori didn’t show up for a while, apparently his class was difficult to keep a handle on even without the commotion caused by the Number One Hero, and Izumi was gaining a lot of experience, so she was maybe less conscientious of Yagi’s time than she should’ve been. 

So basically, they’d spent two hours out on patrol today, and took a break on a nearby rooftop before it was time to wrap up. 

Suddenly, from their vantage point on the ledge, movement caught her eye. She flipped her mask down, and got ready to move.

“Look at that dum-dum.”

“What?”

“Guy in the stripes, ten points.”

“Really? The ‘points’ thing again?”

Some shifty-looking street punk in a striped puffer was weaving through the crowd; clearly focusing on the purse in front of him.

“Seriously, how do these idiots not know your patrol routes by now?”

“Patrol routes?”

She turned to face him. “The fuck you mean, “patrol routes”? Have you not noticed you take the same routes everyday?”

“I have?”

She shot him a look he could feel even from under her mask.

“Oh my god. You’re such a fuckin- whatever, race you to him.”

She shot off the building right as the would-be thief put his grubby little mitts on a woman’s handbag, and, using the claws from her gauntlets, clung to the wall.

“Special move! All Father!”

The purse-snatcher looked up.

“What the fu- hrrnk!”

In a flash, the mugger was a full meter off the ground, suspended by his neck by a length of cord, and struggling to breathe. He was pulled down from the air, with The Prowler being dragged down the building slightly, by a tired-looking Symbol of Peace.

“Oh for god’s sake, Youn- ahem, Prowler! We talked about this!”

“What? It’s efficient, and has minimal property damage!”

“Yes! But I’d prefer it if you didn’t hang criminals by their necks!”

“And I’d prefer to be working alone and at night, but here we are! ”

“I’ve told you that if we’re going to work together, you’re gonna have to follow my lead.”

“And I’ve told you; not gonna happen. I’m more than capable of calling the shots against two-bit thugs like this guy,-”

“Hey!”

She shot the failed criminal a look. “- you shut up.” 

And took the opportunity from the interruption to get closer into Toshinori’s face. “And if you got a problem with that; then you can march your shiny, blonde dome right up to Nezu, and see what the rat has to say about it.”

The bickering was stopped when The Prowler dropped her prey upon hearing a beeping sound coming from her belt.

“What? Oh no. Nonononono.”

She dropped to the ground, and chucked the thug towards the nearest police car, much to Yagi’s shock.

She fumbled with the containers on her belt. Claws scratching at the metal.

“Come on. Come onnnn.”

The gauntlet was haphazardly dropped in exchange for clumsy fingers.

“Why.”

Digits scrabbling at the lid.

“Can’t.”

Hand getting clammy with sweat.

“I.”

Her suffering was stopped by Toshinori’s massive fingers, who simply flipped open the lid.

“Thanks.” She barely took a second to acknowledge him, though even that was enough to shock him, before scrambling for the device.

The signal was faint, barely detectable.

“I don’t understand, this should be able to reach me from across Japan, and it says they’re still at U.A?”

She turned to face him. “All Might.”

He was still reeling from the shock of her thanking him; if she was calling him by his hero name instead of “Toshinori” or “fuckhead” then this was serious.

“Yes?”

“Where is Class 1-A right now?”

“The field trip was still on U.A grounds, to a facility called the U.S.J.”

“...Universal Studios Japan?”

“No, the Unforseen Simulation Joint, it’s meant to simulate rescue train- what’s this about, Young M- Prowler?”

“I- the distress beacon- my friend- uh, Jirou has a tracker on her, and I told her to activate it if she ever needed help, and she just turned it on!” She started pacing around. “It can’t be an accident, she’s had it for months, and she’s never activated it!” She turned the screen towards Toshinori, where a flickering, barely visible dot could be seen near the U.A campus.

Her breathing was getting heavy, she started to remove her helmet before remembering they were in public.

“And the weirdest part- the weirdest part is that, right now, I can barely see where she is, it’s like something’s trying to block the signal, with how close we are to U.A, I should be able to see if she takes a goddamn footstep!” 

She attempted to latch onto his shoulders, but with her short stature, settled for grabbing his arms. “Please, All Might, I am begging you, I- I’ll follow your lead, I’ll do whatever it takes, but we have to get to U.A right now !”

He put his hands on her shaking form.

“Everything’s going to be fine.

Because we’ll be there.”

“Where is he? He was supposed to be here?!”

“It’s possible he’s neglecting his teaching duties for time with his protogé.”

“ HA! EVEN BETTER! JUST YOU WAIT UNTIL HE FINDS OUT SOME BRATS DIED BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY WITH HIS PRECIOUS “ REHABILITATION! ”’

“Stay back! Those are real villains!”

“I'll scatter you across this facility to meet my comrades, and your deaths!”

This is bad. This is terrible . We are so completely fucked.

It was supposed to be a normal field trip. Just basic rescue training, but then some kinda portal quirk just, showed up in the middle of the facility. Through it came some sorta monster, like 30 villains, a man made out of dark purple fog, and this psycho covered in human hands.

God, just the thought of that made Kyoka want to heave up her lunch.

Long story short, before either Thirteen or Eraserhead could stop them, the hands guy had given some speech about killing All Might, and the class had been scattered throughout the U.S.J by the man made of purple mist.

She’d ended up in the Mountain Zone with Ochako and that Yaoyorozu girl.

Momo, was it?

Doesn’t matter.

Apparently they’d brought even more henchmen than she thought; judging from the wave of goons that crashed down on them shortly after landing here. It can’t have been more than 10 minutes, but cuts and bruises already littered her body, and one of her jacks was battered from either body armor or some kinda defence quirk

She was starting to regret not tracking down Izumi and asking for those upgrades she promised. Ochako probably felt the same based on the black eye and scrapes she was sporting; how Yaoyorozu could stand fighting in nothing but that leotard, she would never know.

Fortunately they were successfully beating back the tide of people, her jacks tripping up villains, Ochako making them weightless and sending them down a twenty-foot drop (Uraraka was surprisingly ruthless under pressure), and Yaoyorou wasn’t half-bad with a staff. She'd like to think this was due to sheer skill, but it was probably due to the fact that they’d been warped to the top of said mountain, while the villains had to fight an uphill battle.

“RAAAGGH!” Some idiot with a cheap Halloween mask made a ‘Hail Mary’ charge at her, only for Yaoyorozu to smash her bo staff into his face and send him tumbling down the mountain.

With no other villains in sight; they could take a minute to finally rest and collect themselves. Jirou panting with her hands on her knees, Momo found a suitable rock to sit on, apparently sitting on the ground was too “undignified”-

But damn if she doesn’t make sitting on rocks look goo-

Nope. Life or death situation. Focus. Focus. Focus.

-Ochaco chose to just collapse on the ground.

For a moment there was a silence; only cut through by their own wheezing gasps intermingled with weak moans of pain from the villains at the bottom of the zone.

Ochako was the one who first broke the silence, speaking through her gasping breaths.

“What- hah - the hell is- ugh - going on!?”

“It appears- whew- that we’re under attack.”

“It was rhetorical, Yaoyorozu.”

“...ah.”

That managed to get a fit of quiet giggles out of the violette. Ochako followed with loud belly laughter from her spot on the ground. Yaoyorozu simply looked on, seeming slightly concerned.

Eventually Kyoka recovered enough to speak.

“Hah. Hehe, whoo, okay, let’s review.” Ochako and Momo were staring, giving her their full attention, well, as much as Ochako could stare from her spot on the floor.

Oh god, does this make me the leader now?

The rocker continued. “We got scattered, presumably around the facility considering there were villains waiting for us. There might be people in the main entrance, but we can’t bank on that. Mr. Aizawa’s in the plaza fighting, like, 30 guys at once by himself. They’re jamming our communications, and we’ve got no way of knowing if there’s any reinforcements coming our way.”

Momo looked absolutely crushed. 

She might’ve said all that a little too bluntly.

Eventually, she recovered enough to give Kyoka a nod. 

“Alright, so what’s your plan? How do we get to the others?”

Kyoka could feel her jacks going haywire as she stared at the heiress in disbelief. “WHAT!? Are you crazy!? Join the others?! We could barely even handle ourselves, and you want to go looking for another fight?!”

The ravenette got up, seemingly offended, and the smouldering glare she gave Kyoka almost made her back down.

Damn, anger looks good on her.

Nope, having an argument, not now.

“It is a hero’s duty to protect those in need, and that includes our classmates!”

Oh, so she wasn’t a “real hero” now, huh?

She got up in the taller girl’s face… as much as she could. “Well, excuuuse me, princess! It's also a hero’s duty to know when they’re gonna lose! We’re tired, we’re beaten black and blue, and hell, the only reason we survived is because Ochako had the guts to drop them off the side of a cliff! We go looking to “help” right now, and the only thing that happens is we die, and traumatize whoever’s there! ”

“Well, if she was so pivotal to our victory, then maybe Uraraka should decide!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

They both turned to the rosy-cheeked girl, who had been looking up at them as soon as her name was brought up.

“Well… when I was fighting; it wouldn’t have been my first thought to throw them over the side, but my actual first thought was “What would Izumi do?” so I just went with the option that would end the fight the quickest.”

Jirou gave her a curt nod in agreement. “Yeah, my thoughts were something similar.”

The gravity-wielder continued. “Right, well, I still keep thinking that: “What would Izumi do?” and, honestly? I think she’d try to help, though if she was as beat up as we are, she’d probably be more careful about it. So, what if we only pick off, like, stragglers on the edges or something, while we try to see if there’s anybody near the main plaza?”

Wait, Izumi. 

Jirou facepalmed as she remembered the beacon. “Of course, ugh, I’m an idiot!”

The other two looked at her strangely as she pulled the device out of her costume’s pocket, and pushed the button. “I don’t know if this’ll reach her, but it’s worth a shot! And if it does, there’s even a chance All Might’ll show up! If they’re still working, that is.”

She turned to Ochako. “I don’t like it, but I’m willing to stick to your plan, we’ll make it to the plaza, and decide from there.”

Uraraka was still giving her an odd look; pointing to the beacon.

“What’s with the stare, Pinky?”

“Nothing, just, where’d you even get that?”

“Did I never tell you how we met for the first time?”

‘No?”

She let out a chuckle as she looped her arm around the brunette’s shoulders. “It’s actually pretty funny once you remember how much of a dork she is. I’ll tell you on the way to-”

“Wait, Izumi? Izumi Midoriya? The girl who broke All Might’s entrance exam record? The Prowler? The null that works alongside All Might? You have a direct link to her?” Yaoyorozu suddenly interjected, the gears having turned in her head.

Kyoka turned to face her with pure rage on her face. “What the hell did you just cal-”

She heard the ground rumble before she felt it, and only had enough time to shove Ochako out of the way before a villain had his arm around her neck.

“Easy, ladies, don’t wanna have to fry your little friend here. Do what I say, and we all get to walk away.”

She could barely hear him over the blood rushing through her head.

She panickedly fought against his tight grasp, but just couldn’t get out.

Shitshitshitshitshit

What would Izumi do? 

What would Izumi do?

There was that move she’d seen her do on the news the other day. Everytime she did it, All Might seemed to chastise her for it.

She understood why, of course, but it would sure come in handy now.

“ALL-FATHE-/ GAEA’S EMBRACE!”

“Gah!”

Before she could wrap her jacks around the man’s neck, a clawed gauntlet from overhead  stabbed into the man’s bicep, the villain loosening his grip on her, and a hand being wrapped around the top of his face as she was quickly shoved away.

Next thing she knew, her assailant was pulled down by all the weight of a mechanical suit of armour, and thrown into the ground with an impact so powerful it left cracks in the mock mountain.

There was a smack as a metallic fist collided with the man’s face, probably just for the hell of it considering he was absolutely knocked unconscious by his introduction to the ground.

Her saviour practically ripped off her helmet and gauntlets as she wrapped Kyoka up in her arms and picked her up off the ground.

She stared into the concerned, bright green eyes of Izumi Midoriya. “Are you alright?!”

Huh, haven’t seen that shade of green in ‘em in a while.

Lately, Izumi’s eyes had this toxic sheen to them, advertising that her focus was somewhere else, that sticking too close to her was a good way to get hurt; not that anyone in their little group had cared. 

Mei called them Izumi’s “inventing eyes”, while Ochako said they reminded her of a snake, Yui didn’t have much to say about them.

Kyoka, on the other hand, thought they looked like pond scum, there was a darkness behind there that she couldn’t quite figure out.

She liked the way they looked now, even if it was full of worry; like someone sculpted two perfect spheres of jade and put them in a human.

They were beautiful.

She was beautiful.

Her reverie was, of course, broken by the ever-worrying vigilante.

“Oh god, why couldn’t I have gotten that big idiot to get here sooner? Ah!” She lifted up the bruised musician’s head. “This one looks bad! How’d you even get this!?”

Kyoka gently pushed her hands away. 

“Green, that’s a mark from when I tripped and bumped my chin on the stairs when I was a little kid, you need to chill. I t’s really not as bad as it looks. What’s important is for you and All Might to go help the others! Eraserhead is down there fighting off an army by himself, who knows how long he’ll last!”

“Right, of course, and we will, I just-” Izumi put her calloused, non-metallic, hand on the side of her face. If Kyoka leaned into it, just a little, you’d never be able to prove it. “-I just needed to be sure you were safe.”

They were interrupted by a loud enthusiastic gasp and a hushed cry of: “It’s just like my novels!” followed by not-so-muffled snorts of laughter.

Izumi pushed away from her at record speed, slamming her metal hand directly into a bruise-

Ouch.

-while she was at it.

“Y-y-you didn’t say your classmates were here.”

Uraraka stepped forward with a wry smirk on her face.

“Oh, so the rest of us aren’t as noteworthy as dear ol’ Jirou here? I’m hurt, Izumi, really thought we had a solid friendship goin’ on. But no, seems you’ve only got eyes for our lil’ Kyoka huh?”

She leaned up against the armoured girl, who currently had her face in her hands, while her smaller companion “tried" and failed to hold back her laugh.

“Green.” 

It was impressive how quickly Izumi snapped to attention, and Jirou had to fight down her rising blush.

“First off.” She pointed to the shoulder the cybernetic pushed off of. “Ow.” 

“Ah! I’m sorry! I just panicked, and-”

Kyoka cut her off with a wave of her hand. 

“It’s fine. But she does have a point: did you seriously not notice there were other people here?”

The vigilante looked down as she gave her response. 

“I- I just-” She took a breath. “I saw you in trouble, and… I kinda freaked?”

Jirou’s face was fully on fire now, Uraraka was fully doubled over-

Note to self: Kill her after we get out of here.

-and Yaoyorozu was getting more starry-eyed by the minute.

She poked Izumi in her metal-plated chest as she spoke. “Whatever, just get down there so you and All Might can go and do your hero thing, alright?”

“Right! Shit, I told Toshinori this wouldn’t take too long.” The girl fumbled while getting her helmet back on, and aimed their grappling hook towards the overhead metal beams in the center of the facility.

“And Izumi?”

They paused to look at her.

“Yeah?”

“Stay safe.”

She could practically see the smirk as The Prowler responded. 

“As you wish.”

They watched as she flew off to help Aizawa, and even as The Symbol of Peace broke through the glass of the ceiling, Kyoka only had one thought.

All this chaos, all these people, and the only one she could see… was me.

Chapter Text

15 Minutes Earlier

Come on, faster!

The cityscape of Musutafu passed beneath them in a blur.

Can’t this thing go any faster?!

You need to calm down.

She tugged on the blonde tufts on her partner’s head.

“Don’t you tell me to calm down!”

Toshinori let out a grunt of pain. “GAH! I didn’t!”

“Well, whatever! You have to hurry up, Jirou could be in danger!”

“Young Izumi-” She gave another tug. “Ah! Motherfu-, ugh we’re already here.”

“Huh?”

They landed with ground-shaking *BOOM*, and came to a skidding stop in front of the repaired U.A gates; the unusually late arrival meant there were few, if any reporters, thankfully.

“Toshinori… what the hell are we doing here?”

“Oh for crying out lo-” He delivered a slight chop to her head. “-this is me saying it this time; you gotta calm down. We’ve gotta make a plan! I’ve dealt with these types of situations before, and panicking won’t help Young Jirou!”

That managed to get through to her; her breathing slowed, if only a little.

“Ok, alright, fine. I did say I’d follow your lead after all. You said you’ve seen this before?”

The tower of muscle held back a laugh. “Eleven times, as a matter of fact.”

“Elev- …did you just?”

“Yes, thought it’d lighten that serious mood you got. Now, you listening?”

His armoured partner gave him a nod.

“Good!” He held up a single large finger. “First! We should go, and actually take a look at the USJ. If your little beacon thingy went off by accident, we don’t want to cause an unnecessary panic.”

Another nod. “I’m following you so far.”

A second finger joined the first. “Second! If Class 1-A is under attack: I want you to assess how bad it is; you’re better at that whole “analysis” thing than I am.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t butter me up too much, big guy.”

“Ha! See! Quips, that’s more like it! A hero always keeps their cool in a crisis situation!”

She narrowed her eyes at him under the helmet.

“When we met; didn’t you say something about “smiling to hide your fear " ?"

He briefly sweatdropped before continuing.

“I- uh-” A third finger was raised. “Third! Once we’ve assessed-”

“We’ve?”

“Once you’ve assessed the situation, I’ll head back to Nezu and alert him. Once I get back, you and I’ll go in.”

She put her finger to her chin in thought, words firing a mile a minute, before nodding to herself.

“Okay, it… seems like a surprisingly solid plan, especially coming from you. I’m a little surprised, honestly.”

“I’ve been a hero for over 40 years, y’know, you pick up a few tricks. Now let’s go!”

“Fair enough.” She clambered back onto her place on his back.

The pair launched off the ground, with a significantly quieter jump than when they started, and landed with a slight *thump* on the domed roof of the U.S.J.

“Can you see anything?”

Her mask’s sensors zeroed in on the figures she could make out, and she went pale under the mask.

“Oh shit.”

“What is it?”

She turned to the veteran hero. “ We’re under attack! ”

She felt a large heavy hand shake her from her shoulder.

“Remember Izumi, focus! Don’t panic. Come on, deep breaths. Tell me what you see.”

Breathe in. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Breathe out. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Who knew the big lug actually knew how to do hero work?

You’re letting your anger blind you. He’s a pro. The Number One; he’s been the Number One for four decades. If he wasn’t at least halfway competent, he wouldn’t be here.

…shut up.

“Cannon fodder. There’s a lot of them, but still cannon fodder; Eraserhead’s mowing through them like they’re not even there, mutant-type quirks be damned. They’re scattered everywhere through the facility. Maybe the class had already started the training? No. There’s no way they would’ve made it past the plaza, and I see no other entry points. The class was ambushed; who knows how they got in.”

She turned her focus towards the plaza. “There’s a big guy in the middle; almost as big as you. Something’s wrong with him though: he’s just standing there, no movement, hell, I don’t even think he’s breathing. His brain is exposed, and I don’t have any idea what his quirk could even possibly be; we should probably take him out first.”

She turned to face him, and he was giving her his full attention. “Don’t hold back. Even if he wasn’t all weird; he could definitely take a punch from you. Better to go overboard and break some of his bones than risk him doing anything.

He gave her a nod. “Got it.”

She turned back. “There’s someone covered in human hands-

“ Human hands ?!”

“-maybe, might be just a part of his costume. He seems different; dangerous. Hands, his hands, are covered with gloves; quirk is probably five-point activated, or, at least, related to his hands, and he presumably can’t control it, or it causes some sorta backlash, so it’s used sparingly. He’s watching Eraserhead fight, and he’s talking to somebody, so he’s either the leader or a strategist. An unknown quantity, we’ll come up with a plan for him after we get more information. Last is some misty guy, and-”

She suddenly stopped.

“Oh Jesus.”

“What? What is it?!”

She took the moment to swallow, and continued.

“I- um- hmm. I found our entry point. Mist guy has a teleportation quirk. Thirteen’s down.”

“Is she alright!?”

“He turned ‘Black Hole’ against her. She’s… stable; the damage was mostly superficial since she shut it off; mostly just some lacerations across her back. The bleeding doesn’t seem too bad, but she’s not really used to combat; so the pain was too much for her and she collapsed. The class is trying to patch her up with… Christ, is that tape ?! No one has any bandages?!”

She turned away and paced along the roof; arms angrily gesturing as she talked.

“First aid is a major part of hero work, and fine, maybe the ones with supplies got warped away, but they’re applying it to her suit , and not her actual body !”

She pointed to All Might; who was giving her a deadpan look. “We should tell Nezu to prepare a first-aid class!”

“Young Midoriya…”

“What?”

He pointed toward the glass pane roof “The attack…”

“Oh, fuck, right. We should go for the warper after we take out the big guy. Lemme see what else…”

She walked back over to her vantage point and stiffened.

“What is it now?”

“Kyoka’s in trouble.”

“Izumi, the whole class is in trouble, the sooner we beat the main villains back, the sooner Young Jirou will be fine.”

He’s right, we need to-

“I don’t care. She’s in danger; I’m going down there.”

All Might took a look through the dome, and saw what she was so concerned about. A villain had grabbed his student by the throat, and was using her as a bargaining chip with Uraraka and Yaoyorozu.

Midoriya was practically frothing at the mouth, pressing against the glass roof, and he knew she would go down there whether he gave her permission or not.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do.” She turned to him so violently he thought her neck would snap. “Eugh, anyway, while I go alert the staff, you have my permission to assist Young Jirou as you see fit.”

She waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, no strangling, I know.”

“I said ‘as you see fit’, go ahead.”

There came another neck-breaking head turn. “Wait, what?”

“Izumi, I didn’t want you strangling people who probably just needed to steal to get by. Legally, though, this is a terrorist attack against a group of children; go wild, do whatever you want.” He thought about that  a little more, and added: “Though, maybe be discreet until I get back.”

She gave him a nod. “Thank you, Toshinori. This’ll be quick. Once I’m done; I’ll be waiting inside, on the supports overlooking the plaza.”

He gave a quick chuckle. “Hm, someone’s confident.”

He could hear her gauntlets powering up as she prepared to launch herself through the pane she was currently opening, and heard the quiet metallic *shnk* as her claws deployed.

“They lost the moment they put her in danger.”

He decided to file this protective attitude away for later, and prepared for his own jump to the main campus.

“Once I get back, update me on any developments, and we’ll attack on my signal. Ready for some real hero work, Prowler?”

He could feel her vicious, toothy grin through the helmet. “Born ready.”

She scrambled onto the metal beam; ready to drop down as soon as All Might gave the word.

Well, that was embarassing.

Oh my god, not now.

You didn’t even realize there were other people there. There could’ve been more hostiles. You’ve got it bad, huh?

Lalalalala! I’m not listening!

You’ve only known this person for a few weeks, I’d almost be impressed by how fast you’re falling if it weren’t… slightly pathetic.

She put her helmeted face in her gauntlets. 

God, I can’t wait for Toshinori to give the damn signal.

Her musing was interrupted by her suit’s enhanced audio receptors picking up a loud *snap* and a harsh cry of pain.

“Oh shit.”

Looks like the big guy, Nomu, apparently, was a bigger threat than they thought.

Bioengineered?

That can’t be good.

Her hand snapped to her earpiece.

“Toshinori, you there?”

The crackling static of his comm activating came through, along with a sound she couldn’t quite make out. Was he laughing?

“Ha ha! Whew. Oh yes, I’ve been here for a while, Young Midoriya.”

Oh.

He saw, didn’t he?

He definitely did.

He’s not gonna let us live that down for weeks, will he?

No he will not.

“ Toshinori… ”

She could hear the shit-eating grin on his face. “Hm. Alright, alright. Not the time… you kids are adorable, though.”

Kill us.

I hope we die here.

“Eraser’s in trouble.”

That, at least, got him to perk up.

“Change of plan?”

“Not really; the big guy, “Nomu” they’re calling him, is basically what we thought. He snapped Aizawa’s arm like a twig. They said something about him being “bioengineered” and it seems like its strength and speed come from a mutation quirk, because Aizawa erased his quirk, and it did jack-shit. We still take him out first, we just gotta watch out for Era- fuck.”

“What is it?”

“Bystanders. There’s a group of students in the water by the plaza. Probably came from the Shipwreck Zone. A girl in a green costume with a mutation quirk, a blonde; not sure what his quirk is, and some tiny purple guy … wearing a diaper? He’s got a mutation quirk, and I can see him shaking in his boots from here. The blonde and the green girl are stuck together with… something. Looks like something to do with the purple one. Is that her tongue? Ohhhhh, I see, it’s a frog quirk.”

The helmet’s sensors picked up on the spike in the hand villain’s heart rate, and notified her of the  change in his demeanor with an “Agitated” near the outline of the villain’s form.

“He’s playing it off like he didn’t notice, but the blue guy with the hands definitely knows they’re there.”

She weighed the options in her head. 

“For now, we’ll split up. You go for Nomu, I’ll handle Handsy. If something changes once we’re on the ground, I’ll let you know. On your mark, Tosh- nope. He’s talking about killing kids; something about “wrecking your pride”! Go! Now, now, now!”

She jumped down toward the crusty villain, whose hands were already stretching out as he rushed toward the group of students. 

She heard panes of glass shatter and rain down around her as her and Toshinori’s war cries intermingled.

“DAEDALUS!/SMASH!”

Minoru was a coward. 

He’d be the first to admit it.

But honestly, who could blame him?

Sure, heroes faced dangerous situations, and every once in a while, somebody died, it was just a sad fact of life.

But those were rare cases, usually some hotshot in over their head; trying to make their name in the industry, and even then, they were pros, fully trained and graduated from a recognized hero course.

So why was everyone acting like he was the strange one for being scared?!

Bakugou and Kirishima just rushed that fog villain like it was nothing, like they were expecting this! As far as Minoru was concerned; it was their fault the class got scattered.

Then, that total babe Asui gives him crap for being scared.

How could he not be!?

He was just glad her plan had worked.

And to find out that his quirk didn’t conduct electricity.

And that Kaminari didn’t get mauled like some horrifying piece of fish bait.

…

Just try not to think about it.

Even from their spot here in the water, he could see people on the plaza fighting, trying to escape, hell, some of them were even patching up Thirteen!

Was he really the only one who thought this was crazy?!

“Let's make sure the Symbol of Peace is broken. Let's wreck his pride.”

Ah.

So that was it.

They weren’t thinking.

Someone who was thinking wouldn’t rush the first villain they saw.

Someone who was thinking wouldn’t come up with crazy plans like electrifying villains using your classmate.

Someone who was thinking wouldn’t be trying to perform rudimentary first aid on a badly injured hero.

Someone who was thinking wouldn’t be pushing Asui out of the way, so they could take her place in death.

He could sense more than see the hand that would be his demise getting closer and closer with every rushed step the frantic villain took.

 The steps seemed slowed; like his killer was running through molasses. 

At first Minoru took this as an opportunity; maybe there was still a chance he could run, he could live! But he realized with no small amount of dread, that he was even slower.

Oh, must be one of those near-death adrenaline things.

That thing they say about your ‘life flashing before your eyes’ is a bit misleading. It’s not quite your whole life; just the important bits, your accomplishments, the bonds you’ve made…

Minoru didn’t see much.

He saw his parents giving him a look of disapproval when he got his first detention.

Them moving on to push their hopes and dreams onto his siblings when he bought his first pin-up poster.

The tepid response when he told them he got into U.A.

U.A…

Oddly enough, most of what he saw was here.

His classmates, the training, meeting All Might, he even made a friend in Kaminari. He felt… weirdly happy here.

Even then, most of what he saw was tinged with disapproving looks.

Really didn’t make the best first impression, huh?

Maybe this would make up for it.

He could feel the tears welling up, but he turned to give a shocked Asui and Kaminari a smile.

Maybe they’ll remember me going out like a hero.

The thudding footsteps stopped, time resumed at its normal pace, and a pale, crusty hand stopped mere centimeters from his face.

A raspy voice scraped out. “Y’know, I could see you shaking even from over there. Thought you’d run for the hills for sure. But look at you! You pushed them out of the way, you even gave them a smile; just like the big guy would’ve done!”

The would-be murderer gave a exaggerated shrug. “None of it will matter soon, but for what it’s worth, you’re pretty cool, kid.”

That did ease the sting a little; oddly enough. 

Maybe it won’t be so bad. 

He turned to face the hand.

If they manage to get away, it’ll be worth it.

He felt the villain’s fingers start to grasp his face, and-

“DAEDALUS!”

She felt the claws dig into his shoulder, as the dust and debris from All Might’s attack went flying across the plaz-

Wait. Debris?

The shoulder she was slicing into felt… meaty, and tough.

Oh no.

He’s faster than we thought.

Ths dust cleared just as she came to a sudden halt as her claws reached the steel-like bones of the Nomu; it’s shoulder smoking from where Toshinori had presumably grazed it during his initial attack.

“Calliope!” She wasted no time in raising her arm to the thing’s head, and shooting a high-powered burst of sound aimed directly at the monster’s brain. It unleashed a horrid screech, and its violent twitching gave her the opportunity to escape; albeit while nearly wrenching her shoulder out of its socket.

A slow clapping was heard from behind the beast. “Heh. Well, well, well. If it isn’t All Might’s little disciple.”  

The guy with the blue hair stepped out from behind his pet war crime. “We’ve got sources that say you’re some sorta secret encounter or something.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Toshinori, All Might had already rushed Eraserhead to the entrance, and was rushing between the various zones if the larger, slightly confused group of students was any indication. She expected him to have all the subtlety of a freight train, but he was surprisingly stealthy for his size. She would’ve laughed; if it wouldn’t give him away. She had to keep this guy talking. 

Keep him occupied.  

He seems like a showman.

He seems like a clown.

Keep him occupied.

Keep him distracted.

Entertain him.

He’s got a hair-trigger temper .

Reminds us of somebody.

Keep Bakugou at bay.

Wait until All Might can help.

Wait until Toshinori can take the brunt of Nomu's attack.

Win./ Win.

She raised her arm to him, repulsor at the ready, while her right hand was resting on her glue bombs. “A secret encounter huh? Pfft. Bitch, please, I’m the final boss.”

“Heh. Interesting… maybe you’re not who they think you are.”

Ok, what?

Keep him talking.

“Who do you think I am?”

“No one important. Someone who thinks they’re Player 2.”

“Then yeah, that’s not me. I’m Player 1. At best, you’re Player 2.”

He actually started laughing at that; fully hunched over laughing.

“Hoo. Well, you’re certainly something alright. Maybe they were wrong?” He gave a quick shrug as he spoke. “Either way, my orders are the same.”

Uh oh.

That’s not good. Do it now, and get ready to move!

“Nomu!”

Four things happened at once.

She fired a blast from her arm; knocking the villain to the floor.

She threw a glue bomb at the Nomu-creature-science-experiment-thing.

She rolled out of the way in case she was too slow.

The Nomu ripped itself out of the glue, with pieces of the concrete floor still attached, and launched its attack; while it’s massive fist missed her by a fraction of a millimeter, the shockwave of the force alone was enough to send her sprawling.

She looked up to see that the Nomu had rushed to his master’s side.

She thought maybe knocking those weird hands off his face would do something, but he just seemed focused on her.

“Ho-ly shit. You dodged that!? That’s fucking awesome! You could learn a thing or two from her Eras-” He turned to look behind him; only to realize the wounded hero was no longer behind him.

Oh shit.

“Heh. Hehe. Hahahaa. HAHAHAHAHAH! Whoo, man! You really are something special, aren’t you?” He pointed an accusatory finger. “You sneaky lil’ shit, you got me monologuing! Haha! You didn’t ask, but the person who’s about to kill you is Tomura Shigaraki. Figured you deserve to know that much before you die.” He ran his fingers through his scraggly, matted, cyan hair, and turned to his science project. “Nomu, no holding back this time.” He turned back to her. “Your little Soulsborne trick won’t work this time, I’m afraid. But hey, once we get outta here, I’ll dedicate a shrine just for you, how ‘bout that? Just for being so special.”

…holding back?

We’re going to fucking die.

She had to get Toshinori here. Now.

“ICARUS!”

Shigaraki’s smile turned manic as he snapped his fingers. “Too slow!”

The first thing she felt was the metal buckling, oddly enough. 

Next was the wall she crashed into-

Scratch that.

- two walls. One of which she actually came to a stop against. Though there was definitely a dent in the brick work.

Yeah, there’s also probably a dent in your spine.

Not helping.

Half her vision was black…

At first she was hoping it was just blood or just a swollen eye.

But then she raised an gauntlet-less hand to her face, and felt sharp, jagged metal.

Well that’s… unfortunate. 

Just another piece of us sacrificed for our cause.

Our cause ? You’re dumb as fuck, you know that, right?

Then you’re probably not gonna like what happens next.

What’re you gonna-

She raised both hands to it, her flesh hand felt kinda funny, and they wrapped around the shard.

For the record, this is monumentally stupi-

She pulled...

It didn’t feel like she expected…

Didn’t feel like anything really…

Two brick walls at the speed of sound, and an eye, and I feel nothing. Guess I’m just that toug-

…

Oh, and there was the pain.

“G̮ͥͬ̀҉̢̨̕͜R̖͔̀̇ͦ̅͘Ḁ̷̸̴̹̟̀͢͠͝͝Ă̢̦̞͕̳̋͏A̛͟҉Ą̺͎̦̻̈́͛́͠҉̸͏̕͝҉A̷̵̶͕̥̯͌̔̕͜͟H̑̈̒͏̵͠҉̴H̷̶̩̔̾́̀͏͢H̷̡̧̞̽ͭͧͨ̀̕͘͜H̡̰̗̻͕̋͜҉̨̀H̷̸̶̡̙̩͈͙͂̔̋̒͘Ḩ̤ͬ̊̋Ĥ̠͙͚̗̎H͚̻̰͍͒̔͑̏҉͟Ȟ̪̥̦́͘͢͡͡!̣̳̔͂̕͜͝”

Honestly, it wasn’t too different from the fall.

Which is to say, it was complete and total hell across her entire body. The sharp pain in her eye almost seemed dull in comparison.

Her ribs were absolutely broken, if not completely shattered.

She was going to be picking the remnants of her suit out of her torso for weeks.

Her arm was definitely broken;the only reason it wasn’t jutting out hideously from her skin, as well as why most of her body wasn’t currently red paste, was probably the armour.

Her spine felt… off.  

In the medical field, that’s what they call “very not good.”

Gee, thanks. Where would I be without your overwhelming wisdom?

You’re gonna have to double-check if this’ll affect the arms.

Yeah, but maybe after we’re done here

She took a painful few moments to move her arms, her legs, her neck. 

Everything worked… as far as she could tell.

From what she could guess, one of her lungs had collapsed

Probably the rib fragments.

At least you and All Might match now.

  “C̷͎͈̀͠ȍu̵l̨̕͠ͅd̸͙̿̈́ ̷̧̜͍̔̔͝y̧̢̛̗ͤͥ͟o̬̞u͍͂ͤ̚͡.̞̻̏ͭ͜͢” She took a shuddering breath. “ .̸̡ͦ͛̄̀̀.̛̛̖̐ͣ͑҉h̷̸̹͆̆́͠a̝͚h̹.̸̐͜.̨̊ͮ̾́́͘.̮̻ ̙shͧ͘͟͢ṵ̷̢͇͟͢t͍͂͐̂҉ ͟ũ̠̥p̵͖̂̑̽?͔͍͟͜”

If you need a distraction, you should know that the voice modulator is damaged and it makes us sound fucking terrifying.

Noted.

It felt like she just got punched by a walking earthquake.

Well, you did get punched by someone built to take down Toshinori, so I’d say that’s accurate.

Speaking of which, she was faintly aware of a booming voice; just strong enough to cut through the overwhelming agony.

“ WHAT DID YOU JUST DO !?”

Awww, he cares.

“Y͋e̿̕a̡̫h͝.͈͐..͈͞ ҉ú͘g̫h̨̟.̴.͙͡.̅ ͧ͘h͖aa̞ͤ̕a̵.̘͌.̛͙̆.͟àlr̝̕ēa̟d͔y̖ͮ͏ ͨ̀k̳̎͡n͗͜eͤw ̌t̔ḣ̲a̖͟t̷̯, jͩu͇s̷ͣt̠̓ do̅͢n'̷̺̈́t̸ ̣̋ca͠r̶e̜̕.̣ ̀C͉̕aͨn͏'t ͇̅affơ͕r̤ͩd ҉t̛͚̽o̘.̔ N̶oͭ͝t̨ ̸̙͐y̟͞e̶͙ͮť̛.́ ̖̽I̸͓ẗ̥'͈l͏l ̴ͤmȧ͔k̭è̝ ͟u̙s͘ ̅ç̋ͅo̽m̋p̧̺l͖àc̛én͔t̴͍.͍”

I can’t believe we’re like this.

Every little movement sent sharp shards of pain through her whole body. With her luck, the metal shards hit a nerve or something.

Giving herself no time to think about it, she just tried to stand up.

“Ha̕aȧä́h̶̫.̑̕.̴͔.͜h̘ͪa͇a̧͉hͧ.̃.̠͑.́ȏ̫h̵͈ g̻o̳͏d̐͞.ͬ ̏H̰̓͢ur̛͈t̻͜s.̀.̷.̧͈ ̓h̭ạh̜̎.͢ ̣͐͞O̹h͖ g̡o͑d͓͢,̲ ̢̹i̴t ͬ́h́u͠ͅr͍҉t̡̐s̩̊ .̡ͫ.̴͐.̛͖̋ ̸̺̄h̬aa̷h̵.̞.̢͕.̨ iͭ͝t͉ ̈́͝hͮ͢u̸ͩr̶t̖s̵̗ ̯̾r̵̲e̶̓a͍͜l̈́ ͇͞ba͌d̐. ̏H͍͒͞a҉h̨̭-͝ b͢u̴tͅ ̵̔w͓e͢ ̖g̵̜ͦo̥̊t̊́tǎ ̅͜gẹ̀ṭ̍͏ ͬ…u̜͜p͞.̢́ .̊.̨” She weakly attempted to stand, but her legs failed as she tried to shimmy her way up using the partially dented wall behind her.

It feels like everything’s on fire.

That’s because everything’s on fire.

“W̨h̸̞å͖t̩?ͅ”

We’re in the Ruins Zone, I don’t know if it’s supposed to be like this, but it’s on fire.

“G̛ͨo̹͗͢oḑ̪.̸̺̽..͛ ͬaḩ̀!̯͏ ̸ͥG̨̮̀o̡̻o̪d͇ͭ t̞̕o͔ ͐́k̜no͕ͣ̕w̢͋.” She let out a weak cough that left blood staining her hand. “U҉h̚ ̢̄o̳h̬̿. ̦͞T͙̃͏h̵̅at͇ͦ's̙̏̕ ̢̰̓n̟o̮t͑ ̞ͨ̀go͕o̾d̖̄...̔”

She focused on the distant sounds of violence. The booming thuds of Toshinori’s punches.

The giddy cackling of the blue-haired madman.

If he fails, the whole class will die. We need to go.

Right. We’re Izumi Midoriya. We’re The Prowler. We always get back up.

Her musings were broken by the voice of some thug.

“Hey! There’s another one over here! She looks like she’s in bad shape, I think we can take this one!”

Yeah, I don’t think we’re getting up this time.

So be it.

“S̝̈́o͕r͖ṙ̼y̨͕̽ ̃҉J̹́͟ir͉̚o̓u,͏ d̨̈́i͌dͫn̽'͏t͕ ̧k̠̎e̪͢e̶̲ͬp͂͠ ̍̕ț̍͜hͭa̿t ͅp̫ͭr̹o̹̓mͮis̷̠e.̏ͅ”

The sneering villain drew closer. Some sorta chameleon. “What’d you say kid?”

The damaged gauntlet went back on her hand, and the claws unsheathed.

“Y̧̰̑o͎uͩ ̠͛thi̠̍ṅ͔k͟ ҉y͈̓o͎ͬụ̌҉'r̓e͓̔̕ ̵̹̈gͮonnͮ͏a̢̺ ̨b̴̲ͭe̪ͦ͢ ͦẗ͡h̍e͞ ̣҉o͚̕ṇ͞e̓s ͢t̂͡o̡̪͆ ̧̹d̙o̵̝ ̺m̴e͐ ̮͏i͙n̚͡?̚̕ ͝H̛̗eͭ͠h̆҉e̮͠.͢” Another weak cough rattled through her as the ruined remains of her mask were put back on her face. “We̴'͔̽͘r̶̤ͯe̞͘ ̔n̛ͣo̯t͖̽́ ̔ĝo̶͔i͈ͭ̀n̴̯̓g̉̀ͅ ̟d̒o̓w̨̟ņ́ ͯu̾n̖͢t̰i̒l͐ ͎̊͘wȅ ̞ͯs̢h̛ͅo̭̓w͘ ̫̒e̝ͮ͢veͫr̼y̺̾on͇͐e͌ ͂w̢̥ḩa̜͡t͉̓ ̸ͯa̧̠ ̷̬͑re̯a̞͐l̻ͬ҉ ̠̅h̴ͨe̘r̊o͍͋ ͣi̲ş̪.̻.̰͌͞.͠”

Mechanical arm pointed toward the approaching goons who were scrambling through the doorway.

“W̛e̢̻ ̨c̜ò̯u̡̗ͧļ̻ͨd́ ̥t̃̀ak̬͟e̎ ̪a̓ ̶̒h̀u̬̽n̢̝̊d̦͜r̘e̵͑d͙͝ ̝̓ǫ̫f ̆y͉͝ou̴ ̨̘b̶͐ê̸f̓ỏ̸̞r̅e ̷w̴͐ͅe̳͜ e͙ͤ̕v̓e͡n̻̆͠ ͬ͠ģ̻͑e̔҉t͍̀ ̛t͍ͭi̱͑́rͮe̤d̦̓̀.ͮ͡”

Well, this was nice while it lasted.

“SO͉ͥ ͚̅͏B̾R͝I̗ͤ͝N͛G̅ I͓͟T̈ ̸O̰̎͡N̫N̠N̦͘!”

“ DIE !”

A explosion rocked the room, and knocked the group of villains down like bowling pins, as a smell like burnt caramel filled the space.

Ohhhh, that’s why this zone is on fire.

The newcomer launched themselves above the group of attackers before they had a chance to recover; raining down fire and pain from his palms. 

“Shitty Hair, now!”

Is this better or worse than just dying here?

Hmmmm… maybe worse.

“I’m here!”

Some redhead made out of stone bowled through the remaining villains.

After a few more airborne blasts, he landed with a less than graceful dismount, and promptly launched a remaining idiot halfway across the room.

“De- Midoriya, you look like shit.”

…

What the hell did he just call us?

Hmm, probably some underlying guilt.

OH FOR FUCK’S- WHY DO THEY ONLY FEEL BAD NOW!? BOTH HIM AND TOSHIN-

FOCUS. It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is he’ll most likely follow our lead. You’ve got a willing attack dog we can send wherever we want.

Can I send him to the depths of hell?

Are you purposefully this stupid?

Usually.

“Ḿ̰aẏb̸̫ë̵́ ̛s͖͠t̘o̔pͤ͡ ̪̿ľ͖ōo͒ķ̼́i̮̐͡ń̟g ̾͜l̵i͋k̰e̹͜ ͓ͮaͬ ̙̾b̷ͭl̙͘o̢̰̐w̫̏͞-̴̱d͈ri̢ͮeͅd͝ ̴̩̅P͎ͬ҉omͮe̺ͯr̙a҉n̯i͗aṋ͆ ̛̠͛b̗̄eͮf̦̾͘ór̯̀e̹̒ y̗ͮ҉o͍͝uͤ c̙̑r̴̾it̗̉i̾ćizͩė̢̦ ̕s̗̽o͢m̛e̤̓o̢͖n͓̈e̼͢'͔̋s̷͎ ͗l̸̜oo̕ḳͭs̛͋.” The coughing was back, and it felt worse. She was definitely on some kinda timer.

Maybe you shouldn’t spend the last few minutes of consciousness we have on sass.

The kid from earlier with… oddly shittily dyed red hair reappeared. “Baku-bro, you know The Prowler?!”

Ohhhhh, Shitty Hair, I get it.

“We…” He gave her a look.

What the hell was that look?!

“... we went to school together.”

“Bro, that is so awesome!”

“B̳ͧo͝t̡ḥ͝ ͚̾҉ǫͩf̧̳͌ ͎̆y͓̕o̢u̗̅-” Another cough wheezed its way out of her insides. “.̓̀ͅ.͈.̲̌͠ ̪͒u̥͒́g̴̩h̴̻̃,̤͒ ̯sͨh͍u͜ẗ̵̲́ u̢̎p͇ ḁ̅n̅͢d ͡l̢ĩ̞s̷teṉ̑͟.̩̅ ̫T͠h̯ͥe͖r̞͞e̷̞͐'s̤ͧ ̴s̰̈́o͌͢m̟e͢ ͙̿F͒rą̙n͙̚k͡e̶ǹ̡s̕t̊e̗҉i͈ǹě̮d̗ ̨fr̨ea͞k ̴̣̔ỏ̩͝u͚ͤţ͚͌ ͓ͭṯ͟h̒e͛r̪e̟͘ ͪt̡͓h̶̾ä͠t̛̼̚ ̲ç̈́ã̖̀ṋ͑ ̳͟g̢o̅ ͍to͜e-t̂oͫ̕-́t͑͜o̧e ̈̕ẇi̳̇th͚͞ Aͫ҉l̑l ͉͌M̤ͬ͢i͢ğ̤́h̷ṫ.̸̖ I̊f́ ̶yo̤ü ̛f̒͏ȇ̵ḙl ̙l̿͏ik̶e͖ ͚͏li̼v͓ing͐ ̦t͇͒͜h̻͏rȏuͬgͫ͜h̸͎ ̡̅t͊͏h͔ͤ͜i̴s͗ ̘̌c̹l̨̃us͜t̛ͯer̐͜f̈͟ͅu̞c̜k,̶ ͮyo͕͐͜u'͜l͘l̬ ͕̇l̢̉i̇sͧ͢t̵ͨe̡̳n̔ ̵̗͋t̲̉ǫ̮̔ ̝͢m̟e͙͜.”

Both of the boys turned to her. Shitty Hair turned to Bakugou, as if asking for his approval. The bomber eventually gave him a nod in response.

“H͕ér̡̬e͎ͮ̕'s̒ ̸̙ͭt̷͈h̰͑͜e ̎͠p͈l͎͋͞a̦n͟.̢͉ ̫͛͘F̶̟͑iͪ̕r͏st.͜..”

The duo looked at her expectantly. And she simply raised her unbroken arm.

“ ̞h̻e̯͝lp̡̠ ̧̼m̆e͕͘ ͡up̯̂.”

Contrary to what previous events may lead you to assume, she wasn’t much of a fighter.

Hell, maybe that was what you’d assume considering they’d barely survived that mountain.

She hadn’t even confronted Yaoyorozu for what she said before Izumi had shown up.

So Kyoka was more than content to let All Might handle this.

She was almost enjoying the show.

Sure, it was after his heyday, but even fighting what was basically a reflection of himself; the big guy still seemed as strong as ever.

He was getting a little roughed up, but the dude was constantly being (ungodly loudly) punched by a shock-absorbing, constantly healing, constantly screeching ( incredibly loudly) version of, well… himself. Even then, he seemed to be winning; if how antsy the hand guy seemed to be getting was indication.

On top of all that; they were both so damn strong that they were generating shockwaves that were blowing away anyone who dared to stand too close to the brawl taking place.

There was literally no reason for her to dig her jacks into the concrete and painstakingly drag her way over the supposed leader of these chucklefucks.

Except she’d heard his broken cry of anguish,  seen the look on his face; not one of determination, or even the righteous and just look of fury he had when he first burst into the U.S.J, but despair ; mixing with unbridled rage. The same look she’d been seeing in Izumi the past couple weeks. She didn’t understand what could possibly cause that kind of shift until she heard the leader gloating.

“It doesn’t matter how this ends, your precious little party member is gone, and nothing you could possibly do can fix that.”

Party member? Who the hel- oh no…

She was dead?

She- no… 

I saw her like 5 minutes ago. 

She can’t- 

There’s no way she-

Her eyes widen as she realizes.

Not unless she tried to fight something as strong as All Might himself.

That idiot…

Her classmates tried to catch her as her knees buckled, but some half-conscious, animalistic p

art of her brain managed to use that momentum to throw herself down into the large plaza and land in a clumsy roll.

Her side would be feeling that bruise tomorrow, and who knows what in the fresh hell getting closer to all this was doing to her ears.

But it’s nothing compared to what she must've gone through.

She trudged, step by agonizing step, until she was right behind the murderous little freak.

“Some hero, can’t even save your own student! Every one of those punches you’re tanking right now? That’s same thing she had to deal with. We’re not all as durable as you, though; all it took was one hit and she was gone! You’ll probably be picking what’s left of her up for weeks!” All Might gave a wordless cry of rage as he pushed the Nomu back even further. “Do I get an invitation to the funeral? It’d be a closed casket, right?”

Kyoka had heard enough.

“YOU BASTARD!”

“Huh?”

It was a sloppy punch that caught him on the jaw. Honestly, it probably hurt her a lot more than it did him, and she’d have to see if she broke something once she got out of here, but it did the job, and he went down; along with some of those weird hands. 

The screeching stopped for some reason, but Kyoka wasn’t in a position to check why.

“Goddammit! That’s the second time!” He picked himself up, and readjusted the creepy fucking decorations. He started scratching at his neck like a dog with fleas. “Why are all these kids so fucking tough?!”

It only took half a second for him to make his way over to the musician.

“You the brat’s gal pal or something? Look, I probably should be giving you some menacing, fancy-schmancy, villain speech about how cool that was, but I’ve already given three of those, and I’m pretty much done with this place. I’m just gonna kill you, kill All Might, save our progress, and close it out.”

The hand was already nearing her face, maybe she should’ve thought this through a little more.

“Think of it this way, at least now you can join your friend.”

Two things happened.

Just as she was closing her eyes and accepting that this was how it would end; shots rang out through the U.SJ. and the hand villain was thrown to the ground, for what was apparently the third time, with bullet holes through his torso and arms, and with two severed fingers on the ground next two him.

And then Kyoka heard her.

“S̋H̓͢E̞ H͓A͕͗S͚̑ ̙ͬ҉R̴͑I̠S͚͞EN̬ B̞̐A̻̿BY̙ ̶̅Ģ̅I̺͝R͎͡Lͯ́!̻”

“FUCK!”

This couldn’t be happening.

This could not be happening.

HOW IN THE FUCK IS SHE EVEN ALIVE?!

Probably shouldn’t be his highest priority considering his fingers just got shot off, the U.A staff was here, and the Nomu’s crashing like Tomura just tried to boot up Fallout.

But Master had said this one was different, but Tomura’s not so sure he agrees.

She’s… special. That’s for fucking sure. She was probably leagues above the rest of these self-sacrificial brats.

But she’s not the one. He can’t quite put his finger on why, but deep down he knows. Something about her stance, her mannerisms. The way she’s bloodily grinning behind a half-ruined mask; panting like a wounded animal…

He just knows; this isn’t the ninth holder.

Even All Might, useless, overblown, self-righteous, meddlesome, idiot that he is, wouldn’t give his legacy to someone like this.

A blinding flash surprised him, as well as all the nearby students, and the purple-haired girl in front of him was pulled aside by… floating gloves?

“Da fuq?”

Quirks are such bullshit.

He could hear explosions coming from nearby, and some sorta laser, along with the pained screeches of the still gridlocked Nomu.

With his eyes still reeling from the flash, he only opened them in time to see the heavy stone fist rocketing towards his temple, busting his lip open, and snapping his head to the side.

“Fa- Fath- Father!

I’m so sorry!”

The weed whacker caught him in the face, busting open his lip, and forcing him to turn to face the ever-growing destruction.

“STOP IT, TENKO!”

…

What…? What was-

She stepped up to him. Raspy, half-manic laughter racking her form as reddish-pink foam bubbled up from her lips. God knows how she was still standing.

“H̶́ḛ̛̇hͤe͎̕h̢̤͑è̷̖h̃͏e͐.̾́.̴.ͫ ̧̱̊h͕͢a̤ͨaa̷ͩhh̡h͞.̼͞.̖. p̽ͅr̮ͪe̟t͜t͇y̰͘ c͑le̘ͯ͡v̶͍̾e̹͡r͎ͥ͢,̈́ ̥h̥͡ù̳h̃?̢”

She was wheezing like Darth Vader, fucking hell, her lungs must be wrecked.

“Fi̵g͍u̘ͣ͞r̹̀e̎d͓͂ ͪtͯheͩ҉ ̸̗ͭN̨o͓m̈́u̶ͬ ̼̃prôb̤̔̀a̲͏b̸l̷͈y̨̹̆ ̫͊h̡ͥä̗́͏d ̢̼tẅo̸ ̞̐c͘o̻m͞m̷̳a̵̬nd̗s̪ ̼t̶̮̃o͔ͬ ̖ͤ͝fo͎l̞̕l̶̘ow̛ ̨̫o̵͍͆n͒ ḯ̧̜t̻͗͟şͧ ́o̪͐͜w̨n̛.̍́ ̱H҉aaͩa̸h̴͈ͣh̹.͎.̶ͅ.̚̕”

Blood was fully spilling from her lips now, dribbling down her caved-in chestplate, staining it an even deeper red.

“O̢̯n̫̅͢e͡.”.̪  She held up a shaky finger. “ Wo̅u͋l̬͢d̓'̡v͠e͍͡ ̫͒b̿e̹e͑n̑ ̯̉͏tͦ͜o͆ ̒̀p̗r̶͚̔ot̾͢ḙc̣̀̕t̃́ ̕y͐o͗u͎̔. Cͨỏn̺̿͘ș̷ͤi͖͒d͟e͎ri̒nǵ̩͘ ỹ̶o͖̒u͛ ͂d͉͆i̝͘d͡n͈'̱ͥ͝ṭ̀ ̸̰saỳ ̣a̤n̬ỳt̷͚́h̍i̤̔͡ńg̛,̙̇ ̟͏ą̤̚n̾d̴̎ ̶̙i̩̓t͠ ̒s̷̬̓t̲͗i̘͛l̳l̶̒ g͟o̩t́ ҉i͔n̵ ̣̍҉m̤y ̶wą̉y̻͢.̴̽ͅ Tw͊o̧͔.̛̻͂” A second finger joined the first before her arm gave out and dropped; to her apparent annoyance. “̞U͙̓͢ģ̜h͕,̷̺ wo̧u̕l̎d̆'̬v̱͒͡e̷ ͝b̸͚e̹ͧ͟e͙ń͡ ͚͝t̡̄o ̥̓f̖̀͠i͔͌ǵ͕h̖̋҉t͚͢ ͭA͍̚ll͆ ̓Mḭ̢g̢̻͐h̸̻ͪt̬̓ ̱̌u̼̍n̝̂͏l͠e͕͘ŝ͓s̴ ̫ͨ͡y̧o̟̿͏u̵̖ ͊t͉o̔l̹d̢ it̏͠ ̨̥ot̳̕h̝ę͓r̦̉wis͠ḕ̹.̘ͦ͏ I̢͙f̗̾͡ bo̧̊t̴̟h͢ n̸e̼҉e͍d͕e̽d̓ ̨ͧt̥͜o̦̊͞ b̸͕e-͍́ ͢h͔̏a̡a͍hh̸̫-͉̓͟ ̑f̼̎͢u̶͉ͯf̴ͭi̵l̖l̩e̖d̠͛ ̛͎ȃt ̹oͬn̙͒͢ç̜͂e̵ͅ,ͦ ̛̩͊I̵ͬ ̷͉g̬͑͠u̕e̸̥šs̻ͩ̕e̺ď̺ ͚͝i͟t͕͢'ͧ͡d̡̐ ͊e̟i̭t̨̗ḩeͯ͡r̲͐ ͝f̞̅͝r̆͡eͩa̷̓k̟ͩ҉ ̺o͢u̮̐t ̨̜̍a̡̼n̜d̢̈ ̡͆-͓̔u͘g̲͋͟h͂-̣͒̀ fr̗͂̀ȩ͗e̊͢z͍̕e̶ ̀i̞ͧ́n͉ ̸͔p̗l̎a̸̙c͔ḙ̛̈, ͒́o̴̳r̳ ̭͗͢i͖t̶͈̂'̫̕d̡̬ ͈̊͡f̧̚o̴̐c̦u͜s̆ ̢̰õ̢n̦ ̥g̶öͅo̍̀d͉ ͉ol̶'̒͜ ͎A̖l̲͘l̸̽ ̖ͧM͔͋i̵̪̚g̫ĥ̯t͈͠ ̸̬t͇̊h͕ͩ͠ê͔͘re.͜ ͊T̖̈h͍͠o̹u̷̜͌g̛̤ͣh̛ ̸i҉t͛ ͉̎l̻o͏o̴͑k̨̅s̱͡ ̴̾l̐i͉͞k͘e̵̮ͫ K̡͕ỹ̧o̴k̿a̻͏ ̧̫b̜̄ĕa͒t̳ ͇m͡e͉ ͟ţ̤o̖҉ ̕it͛.̣͢” She suddenly grabbed at her chest before finishing up her little speech. “A͔͏ẖͣ̀!͆ Ho̫o͙͋͝,.̨̗̉r̈́u̩̅n̽҉n̖̄i̞ńg͇ ̏ǒủ̗̀t̳͞ ̰̈́ȍ҉f̧̗ tͮ͏ime͖,͓́̚ p̡̽ơ̫͊iͩn̫͗t̊ ͇͡i̴s̵̭ͪ:-̸͒ ͗-y̩͠o̠͋͞uͣ ͧ͞j̃͠u̓st͂͝ ̨̫ͭlo̞s̛t̷ ͓ÿo͈͗҉u̞҉r̨̽ ̅la͘sͦt̴ ͈͠l̖̉͟i̩ḟ̱e̸̘.͚̋ ̀G̨aḿe̜͌ o͝vͨ͜e͈r̴.͘”

It really was, wasn’t it? There was no way to regroup, he could see pink mist spreading through the facility, a bunch of people with robot legs taking down what stragglers escaped the gas, he even saw some poor schmuck get dragged underground. …who knows what was going on over there.

He’d made up his mind even before the Nomu had gotten launched into orbit.

They had given him… a lot to think about.

Who the fuck is Hana?

He picked up his fingers; Master would be able to help.

But will he?

“Kurogiri.”

The Nomu butler appeared at his side; flecks of ice decorating his shoulders… for some reason.

“Why’re you- forget it, I don’t care, we’re going home.”

She stepped forward; as much as a half-stumble could be considered a step.

Her neck cocked to the side mockingly. “Aw̱w̕w̛̏,̵̹ͭ r̨̪͊un̸ni͍͂n̡̏g̣ ̲a̅w̠ͯ̕a̸y?̻” She cooed with a ragged breath. “̷H҉ơ̺͛wͮ͠ ab̛ǫ̜u̷ͭt͖ͬ ̀y͛͠o͋u̗͟ sta̳y͔ ̷änd͔ͧ ̌͠ͅfi͡g̋͢h̷͇̃t͕̍͡ ̬̇͏ĺ͎į̟k̳ͤȩ̐ ̭a̩ ̻ͤm̦҉an͒͟?̊̀ ̠I ͝p̲͡r̛̠oͨm̖̈҉i̡s͡é ̠̽I̼ͥ'͕ͥ͏l̂͏l͍̅ ͓̍o̬͛n̖ͣ͘l̹̐͡y̑ ̻a͛rͤre̷̟s̙̈́t͇ ̖͘ý̹o̒͞u͘.̔”

Kid had guts, he’d give her that. On second thought, the blood dribbling from her mouth meant that maybe she didn’t.

“Little word of advice, maybe don’t try bluffing when I can see you bleeding out.”

“Y̟̎͏o̯͑͏u'̥͊rͫ͘e̱͒̀ ͕͢n̶̙o̡̍t̋ ̒͝g̛ȩ̉t̉t̥ḭ́n͚ͬg ͉̀́a҉w̰͂a̎y͟!̕” She put up one of her fancy little laser arms again, the other reached for those bombs she threw at Nomu earlier. Looks like she only had the same bag of tricks.

“Yeah, we are.” He was already stepping through the portal. “See you around Player Two, we should do this again sometime.”

“N̠͜Ó̘͢!ͧ͜”

Kurogiri portalled away most of the glue away, but some flecks still managed to decorate the main space of the bar.

Just great…

“I’ll give you that one, brat.”

“ I take it the attack didn’t go well, Young Tomura ?”

“And where’s my Nomu!?”

Ah, he’d forgotten about this part.

Fuck.

The class survived.

Almost no serious injuries, well, physical ones, at least.

Zero fatalities.

An almost perfect victory.

Well for most people.

“Dammit! We let those shitty bastards get away!”

“Calm down, Young Baku-”

“F͋͟UC̦K̝!̳̋ ̱̽I ̮H͒A̾D͔͜ ̡̹'̶̘̚E͔ͨM̗!͎ ͈҉Tͫ́H̟ͥE̡͚Yͬ ̸S͏L̲̚I̮͜PP̺̓͏E͆̕Dͧ R̷̾Ĩ̪͡G͎͠HͯT͇̕ OŲT͉̏ ̎́F͇Ŗ̱O͟M̆͠.ͅ.̣ͤ̀.̵̳ ̸̹B̛̭ET̀W͝EE͘Ņ͍.͙̾.̧̝͊. ̹ͨM͢y̓.͙ͭ.ͧ.́” She let out another bloody cough. “ṳ̧̌h͠ oͅh̫͊͟.͖̋”

What little adrenaline she had left was slipping away.

She clutched her broken chest, not that it did anything through metal armour. “oh jeez̸u̷s͜ t͠ha͟t̡ hu͘rts̨.̶ yayyyy̢y͟y ͞gu͡y̷s̀,̨ w̶e͟ ́d̷i͘d҉ iţ.͏.̵.” Her cybernetic fist weakly raised in victory before immediately. “f͢uc̴k͡. ͢i'm͜ gon͡na̸ ̛n͠e̵e͢d ̀s̸ome he̛l̀p̀.́ Tosh̛inori, cou҉ld y̡ou̵ ҉ca̴tc-͘”

She was already swaying. 

Her vision was going dark, well, dark er .

Gonna need to fix that .

I know.

Both Toshinori and Bakugou spoke at once. “Again?” / “Again?”

Oh yeah, this is the second time they’ve seen you pass out after a villain attack. And with a missing body part. What fun.

Well that’s embarassing.

She felt slender arms wrap around her waist… before immediately failing to hold up the weight of the armour, but hey, she appreciated the gesture.

She couldn’t see her, but who else would it be?

“he҉y͜ Kyo̴.”

“Fuck, you’re heavier than I rememb- OH MY GOD! What happened to your face?!"

"f͘u͘ck yo͠u t҉o҉o.̕ h͝e͞h͝..͡. ̀h҉e͡y,̸ ̷coul̕d͞ ̕yo̸u ͠tell s͡o̶meo͞ne͘ ̛t͟o get̸ Re͢cov̵er̕y Gír̀l?҉ ͞be̛caųśe ̴Į ̕t҉h̛įnk ͏I̛'ḿ about̀ ̢to͝ ҉pas-”

They say you can never quite pinpoint the moment you fall asleep, but she was pretty sure it was when Kyoka’s grip got just a little bit tighter.

Ugh, you’re such a fuckin sap, it’s so gross, it’s unbearable. Much like this pain, actually, can you pass out for real this time? Because I think our organs are shutting down.

Shit, fair enough.

Chapter Text

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘YOU LOST IT?’”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe I mean that IT GOT LAUNCHED INTO SPACE?!”

His damaged arm was strapped down onto the table, while Kurogiri rudimentally stitched the blown-off fingers back on until Master could take care of it.

He really should be more concerned about that, hell, a few hours ago, he should’ve been shrieking in pain and crying on the floor, but he had a lot on his mind.

A shaky, ever so slightly glue-covered, hand pointed angrily at the monitor.

“Your calculations were wrong, old man, that stupid thing barely held its own for a whole, stinking, minute before being KO'd!”

He could already hear the doctor’s pathetic groveling.

“Master, the Nomu’s underperformance was merely a fluke; we’re simply in the testing phases, you see, the next one will surely be able to best The Symbol of Peace.”

“That’s what you said 10 months ago! He broke through it’s ‘Shock Absorption’ like it wasn’t even there! Some brat even managed to help him take it down! Some “All Might Killer” you managed to make there, if it can’t even take down some random student,  Dok-tor!”

“Why do you insist on calling me that…”

“You wouldn’t get it!”

He shook the remaining glue off his undamaged hand. 

“It’s attacks obviously had some kinda debuff, even- ah!” 

He turned to the misty bartender. “If you’re not more careful, I will dust you.”

The threat wasn’t very effective. “Understood, Tomura Shigaraki.”

That’s not your name.

“Anyway, like I was saying, Player Two managed to survive it! Hell, she dodged the first punch!”

…

The other end went silent. 

Even Kurogiri stopped the makeshift surgery to stand at attention.

Tenk- Tomura was starting to think he’d made a mistake.

Finally, the deep, rumbling sounds of Master’s voice broke through the quiet static.

“ What did you just say, Young Tomura?

That voice wasn’t good; that was the voice he remembered from when Master had first taken him in.

After everything that happened with M̭o̞͘͞n͖͚, ãͫ̿n̒dͧ̊̀ͦ ̍̏͑̈̀̏Ĥͥa̔͑n͓̺̣͌ͣ̔̃̉̐̾̆a̛̕͏, a̵̴̧̨̧̛̛͔̬̒ͯ̀͜͝͡҉ņ̸̸̵̴̨̛̟ͥ̕̕̕͡d̷̹͎̄ͧ͝ͅ҉̶̴̡̨́̀̀͢͡͞͏̴̷̵̴̸̢̧̧̀̀̕͢͟͡͠͏͠ ̼ͪͩ͋̚͏̵̧̧̧́͘͜͜͝͡͠͝͞͏͏̶̵̵̴̶̴̧̨̡̛̛͘͜͢͡͝͞͝͏̕̕D̷̶̢̛̏̑͟͡͝͏͘͢͢ă̶̢͚̜͕̥ͥͩ̌͟͜͢d̶̵̸̡̨̛̛̛̳̞͉̀̕͢͟͡.

He shook off the mental static; he had to focus on what Master was asking. “R-right, I was saying that, uh, the brat, dodged the first hit, she tried gluing Nomu to the floor, which failed, obviously, and she survived a direct hit, even after I told Nomu to stop holding back…”

…

More silence.

Not the silence that came when they were discussing something and didn’t want him to hear, but actual, dead, silence.

Master’s presence was the kind of thing that could flood a room even when he wasn’t there. Tomura half-suspected it was a quirk, but right now, it was the dark melodious laughter bubbling from the dark screen.

“ Such a weak protégé the fool has chosen. ”

Even through the screen; he could feel his Master’s theatrics, see him spreading his arms dramatically in the cluttered hospital bed, forcing his laughter through the ornate mask.

“ Their body hasn’t fully acclimated to the raw power of One For All! Do you understand what this means?! My - our victory is assured! The line of succession dies with them! ”

He was almost afraid to ask.

“Uh, Master?”

Annnnd the laughter’s stopped, that’s not good.  

“She survived, so…how exactly does it die with them?”

“ Ahh, naive little Tomura, some days I forget just how far you have yet to go. The blonde oaf obviously made a poor choice in successor; one who is yet unable to harness the full power of the quirk she wields. If we strike at the opportune moment, this frivolous goose chase is finally over, nothing will possibly be able to stand against us! ”

“Uh, about that…”

He could practically hear the needle scratch as he interrupted his Master once again.

Stop questioning him. He’s not gonna like this.

“ What. Is. It. Tomura? ”

That. Is the tone of someone about to kill you through a TV screen. Stop it now.

“Oh, well, I- I just-”

Thisisstupidthisisstupidthisisstupid -

“I don’t think she… actually has ‘One For All’?”

Well, it’s been a pretty shit run, better luck next ti-

… he’s laughing again.

Are you… not gonna die?

“ Young, foolish , Tomura. I’m in quite the good mood, so tell me, why don’t you believe her to be the Ninth? ”

“I- um- it’s the way she fights? Her general demeanour. She’s- it- kinda like- she’s like some kinda animal. She stood there, ribs crushed from Nomu’s attack, bleeding from everywhere; all over the floor, and she still said she wasn’t gonna let us go. I really doubt that even that giant, mouth-breathing, waste of space would be idiotic enough to pass his quirk onto someone like that?”

“ Hah! Is that all? Believe me boy ; that’s exactly the type they look for. These heroes are like cockroaches; you can rip out their stomachs, and the pests will still find a way to survive. Lousy wretches… Not to mention, the quirk is likely why she even survived. Otherwise she would’ve been merely red mist in the face of the Nomu’s overwhelming power. ”

“Master, I really just think that-”

“ Enough, Tomura. ” His tone was sickeningly saccharine, but it still managed to fill his veins with gravel.

Ah, that voice means he’ll kill you.

“ Are you questioning me, Tomura? I know what the quirk looks like. If anyone knows my brother, it’s me. Now, are we going to trust the word of someone who briefly encountered an upstart runt at a failed attack on said runt? Or the word of someone who’s been chasing his brother’s quirk for over 200 years? ”

“... your word, Master.”

“ As I thought. Now, let’s hear no more of this theory of yours. ”

“As you command.”

The static indicated the feed was cut; conversation was over.

Kurogiri’s eyes brightened, the Nomu free of whatever spell Master’s voice puts him under.

“That was foolish, Tomura Shigaraki.”

Real helpful; like he didn’t already know that.

“... just shut up, and keep sewing you gaseous bastar- GAH, SONUVA- a little warning next time!”

The bartender seemed to laugh (?) before continuing his grim task. 

“As you wish, Tomura Shigaraki.”

He’d never understand these damn High-Ends…

Bright lights flooded half of her vision.

Where are we?

Ask me after we take a nice 48 hour nap. 

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so sore in my life.

Hopefully someone got the number of the truck that hit us. 

What the hell happened?

How the hell am I supposed to know?

Think, jackass!

You think! I don’t gotta do everything around here !

You’re an asshole.

Takes one to know one.

Fine! Let’s see, got a distress call from Kyoka, went to the U.S.J… oh.

Oh right, the Nomu hit us, and then we started bleeding out on the plaza floor…

Wait, where the hell are we?!

“Ah! Am I dead!?” She sat up and patted down her apparently still living torso, regretting it with every touch that sent a shock of pain up her chest.

“Ow.” She gave a sharp wince as she fingered each scar where bits of her armour entered her body.

A quick glance around the room revealed a cramped-looking infirmary. 

You’d think U.A. would get something more top-of-the-line . 

Maybe it’s better than it looks?

“Really gotta stop waking up in hospit-”

“YOUNG MIDORIYA!”

“ -aaALS, FUCKIN’ CHRIST!” She clutched her chest, and was given a nice little reminder of the Nomu’s friendly little love tap.

“What is wrong with you!? I just woke up!”

“Oh… sorr-” A sharp *smack* rang out in the infirmary as steam flooded the room. “MOTHERF-”

An angry, elderly- sounding voice filled the room. “I’ve told you before not to disturb my patients! Especially this patient!” The ‘Youthful Heroine’ turned to Izumi with a total switch in her demeanour. Probably bedside manner kicking in.

“How are you feeling, dearie?”

“Like I just got isekai’ed by Truck-kun”

A wheezy “H ah!” was heard from the blonde cradling his shins in the doorway; while the medic just clicked her tongue. “Tch, I’ll never understand you youngsters…”

Well we’ve got one fan, at least.

“Care to translate, dearie?” The elderly heroine started pulling out her stethoscope and gingerly placed it to Izumi’s bandaged chest.

“I feel like I got hit by a garbage truck.”

Seemingly finding nothing too concerning, the doctor moved to get some x-rays from her file.

“That’s a bit of an understatement.” She handed them over to the bedridden teen. “Why don’t you take a look at these?”

…

Ah, that explains why everything hurt.

The old woman continued. “ Sixteen shattered ribs, four fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, damage to your spine, metal shrapnel peppered through your torso that took me three hours to remove! Honestly, you’re lucky your armour kept your arm in place; that was the easy part. All this; not even mentioning-” she seemed to regain her composure for this bit. “Well- you might want to sit down.”

That annoyed her a little.

Do they seriously think I don’t know I’m half-blind?

“I know the eye’s gone, I pulled the metal out myself.”

“...Young Midoriya…”

Ugh, the goddamn pity every time! We’re not made of glass, y’know!

She just shrugged. “Not the first time I’ve lost a piece of me, Toshinori, we’ll just have to get used to it.”

While he was spluttering; she turned to Recovery Girl. “Any other injuries, what about Eraserhead, and Thirteen?”

The old lady just shook her head. “They all got out hours ago; you should be more worried about yourself.”

“Nonsense Chiyo, putting others before yourself-” Toshinori grew in a puff of smoke. “-is the essence of being a hero!”

She just shook her head.  “Well unless she wants to be turned into “the essence” of a hero, she’d better start taking it easier!”

The girl in question just laughed. “I’m not exactly planning on charging at an All Might level threat any time soon.”

Said hero chimed in. “That may be so, but it was because of you, and your sense of self sacrifice, that Aizawa escaped with only some damage to his arms, you gave us an opening for the students to unbalance Shigaraki and for Young Bakugou to assist in my fight against the Nomu. You saved the lives of Young Jirou, Young Mineta, and who knows how many more, all while risking your own.”

The teen was clearly soaking up the praise like a sponge even if she (poorly) pretended like it meant nothing to her. “Oh, well, y’know, it was nothing, anyone could’ve done what we did.”

All Might shook his head. “No, not anyone, I believe that in you is something truly exceptional, and that is why I want to grant you the greatest honor of which I am capable. Something I should’ve given you a long time ago.”

She turned to him with a wide-eyed, and slightly puzzled, stare. “Toshinori, what’re yo-”

“Absolutely fucking not!”

They both turned to the elderly hero; who apparently knew what he was talking about. 

“Chiyo-”

“Don’t you ‘Chiyo’ me! You’re about to make a very stupid decision!”

All Might was getting… angry? The hell was going on?

“She’s just like how I was growing up! I can’t think of a single person more worthy than this girl.”

“Her worthiness isn’t the issue! The problem is exactly that! She’s just like you!”

All Might seemed physically struck by the statement. "I never expected such a sentiment to come from you of all people; after all these years.”

The nurse just seemed more exasperated. “ Oh my god, you are the dumbe- .” She pinched her nose, and took a breath before raising her hands in surrender. “You know what? It’s not my choice to make.” She waved Toshinori off. “Proceed.”

He seemed disgruntled but continued. “It’s time you learn the truth behind my abilities.” He shrunk again in a cloud of steam, and spread his arms out as his head leaned back dramatically. “The truth is I wasn’t born with this power; it’s a sacred torch that was passed on to me by someone else!”

What?

“Whenever the press asks about it; I just crack a joke and dodge the question, because the world needs to believe that The Symbol of Peace is a natural-born hero just like the rest of them.”

What.

“One person improves the power, and passes it off to the next person. It continues to grow

as it's passed along, it is this cultivated power that allows me to save those who are in need of a hero, the truth behind my strength. This is what I meant to tell you all those months ago in the hospital; the true name of my power: ‘One For All’.”

“ One. For. All.” 

“And if you accept; it’s awesome power is yours for the taking!” He finally lowered his gaze from the sky (read as: the infirmary ceiling) as he scratched the back of his head. “… at least, it would be, but there’s something else you should know.”

Too bad, kick his ass.

Hold off, I think he’s about to tell us something actually important.

“While you were unconscious; a friend of mine in the police force delivered some… unsettling news. The fight I told you about the first time we met, the one that gave me my scar, it’s possible it’s not quite over. As I’m sure you heard, the villain known as “Nomu” contained multiple quirks.”

“Contained?”

“Er, yes. That’s the most accurate word for it. Once it was out of the U.S.J. it was essentially a husk, with no real will of its own, it was practically brain-dead. And there’s only one person I know of who’d be capable of something like that; someone whose brains I felt splatter against my fist nearly six years ago.”

I get that we’re mad at him, but that’s- heugh- that’s actually really fucking disgusting.

And lowkey kinda cool.

… yeah, and kinda cool.

“ What does have to do with the villain you fought?”

“For that, I have to tell you a story, back when Quirks were just starting to show up, before society had figured out how to deal with-”

“So, you think it’s the same guy?”

“Yes. Now with that in mind-” He stood up and pointed at her face.

Bitch just loves his theatrics.

To be fair, so do we.

“Listen well, young lady, this is your choice. Do you wanna accept my awesome power or no- hmm?”

He was interrupted by a light tapping on his shins by Recovery Girl’s cane.

“I just wanted you to know; when she breaks your kneecaps I’m not healing them.”

He just seemed confused. “Why would she? Ah.”

She was giving him The Look™️

You’d think he’d be used to it by now with how often he got it, but it seems like it coming from only one eye makes it about ten times worse.

“...what did I do this ti- GEUGH!” A foot connected with his flower-shaped injury, and he went toppling into the opposite bed.

“I just want to be sure I understood this right. All that stuff about some power-hungry madman aside, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it, and it’s not like we can hunt him down right this minute, so I'll focus on the here and now. You used to be quirkless!?”

“You know, with the benefit of hindsight- AAGH!” Another kick in the ribs while he was down.

“We just- I just- I-” She took a deep breath; it didn’t help. “We need some air.” Sleek black fingers scrabbled at her IV before just ripping it out, and tightly gripped the door frame to drag her half-dead body into the hallway.

Her head felt like it was underwater; her body was already giving up, she was keeping her grip on this wall by sheer spite at this point.

How fucking dare he.

Recovery Girl’s trying to get your attention.

“-keep going like this, and you’ll do unspeakably gruesome damage to your internal organs! Your injuries aren’t done healing, and-”

She saw why Toshinori seemed so frightened by this girl.

As both eyes opened, and angry, pink, pitted flesh stared back alongside toxic green, she felt her protestations shrivel and die in her throat as the girl went around the corner and out of sight.

He’d messed up again.

He knew that from the second she’d walked down that hallway.

Well, maybe from the second she’d kicked him in the non-existent stomach.

Regardless, he was expecting this.

“What did you do?!”

“What are we going to tell her mother?!"

"How can we be sure her treatment's finished?!"

Well, not the capture scarf bringing him a foot away from Aizawa’s face, but the questioning was unavoidable.

“Are we about to kiss?”

The scarf unwrapped and left him to drop onto the conference room floor.

“Oof! …that’s fair.”

Honestly, he was surprised Nezu hadn’t asked any questions.

Unless…

Ah. 

Of course, Nezu’s not asking questions, because the rat already figured out what he told her, why she ran off

Great. Wonderful.

I am so dead.

When the mammal finally spoke; his quiet tones were enough to silence the rest of the clamour.

“Toshinori.” Padded feet walked along the wooden table. “How are we going to convince Izumi Midoriya that she should make use of our licensed counseling services when one of her main sources of emotional anguish is constantly adding more emotional anguish?”

“I… um… I didn’t mean to?”

The chimera just shook his head. “Of that, none of us have any doubt, but unfortunately Kant isn’t in the room with us,, and your means don’t justify your ends. How are we going to explain to Mrs. Midoriya that one of the sources of her daughter’s mood swings  and the reason she stormed out of he infirmary has tenure?”

“I-uh, I could…”

The principal just raised a paw. “I’ll leave you to think on that one. What I want to know is what caused this in the first place. It wouldn’t happen to be something that would force me to break out the NDA’s would it?”

“Well, I- uh-”

“It wouldn’t be something that’d force me to reveal there’s a clause in everyone’s contract that says they'll follow my orders, should U.A. ever declare war on an entity or person, would it?"

That one certainly got heads to turn.

“It wouldn’t happen to be a Category 0 National Secret, would it?!”

“I-I um…”

“Toshinori…”

“It… might be?”

“Which. One?”

“...b-both of them?”

“I will sink my teeth into your neck like it’s a slice of Pecorino.” He gestured to the onlookers nearby. “Care to share with the class?”

He turned to face the perplexed faces of the rest of the staff.

“During the dawn of quirks; there were two brothers…”

Chapter Text

“Our enemy, the threat we’re up against now, is nothing but pure evil: incapable of feeling anything other than anger, hate, aggression-”

Someone interrupted Toshinori’s briefing.

“A Jedi craves not these things!”

The door slammed open, and indented itself into the wall.

Only 3 people would dare enter his sanctuary like this.

One was in Tokyo, patrolling, and most likely didn’t care about anything having to do with U.A.

One was off in America, and also didn’t care about what went on here. Although she might now that her “master” teaches here.

These silly humans with their odd attachments.

Really; she’d only met him the one time.

A bias or some form of awe would be understandable, but her obsession is quite… odd to put it likely. Could be considered a weakness… or a bargaining chip at the very least. Hmm… thoughts for later.

Well, technically there were four people who would dare enter his conference room in such a manner, but he was unlikely to enter through the door.

In any case she was here, kicking open his door, thermos of coffee in hand, and sporting star-shaped sunglasses over her newly acquired eyepatch; entering the room with a flourish.

“WHAT IS UP, PARTY PEOPLE!?”

Livelier than ever it would seem.

Toshinori was the first to speak. 

“Young Midoriya, are you feeling alright?”

“You know it, choom! Never felt better! I’m cocked, locked, and ready to- BLEAUGH!”

She hocked a glob of red saliva into a nearby trash can, and wiped any remaining blood from her lips before flinging it off her hand.

She turned to face Recovery Girl who was giving her a grim, but knowing look.

A cybernetic finger flipped up. 

“You get one ‘I told you so’.”

“I told you so.”

“... that’s fair.” She turned to shush the rest of the room before chaos could break out. “Before y’all start. It’s fine, I’m fine, It’s just some damage that didn’t quite get fixed, it won’t affect my abilities, I’ll just have to do that sometimes.”

A nervous blonde gave his two cents. “Heh, I suppose we match now, eh? Young Midoriya?”

He was quickly met by the glances of a dozen murderous adults.

…and laughter.

“Pfft, hahaha! I’ll give you that one, old man!”

Nezu decided it was a good opportunity to broach the elephant in the room.

“Miss Midoriya, now is probably good time to bring it up, if Mr. Yagi’s presence makes you uncomfortable in any way, you will no longer have to work with him, and-”

She had the audacity to simply wave him off!

He rather liked this human.

“Nah, it’s all good. I’ve been kinda getting used to the fact that he’s just an idiot who keeps sticking his foot in his mouth.”

Toshinori deflated at that response.

“More importantly, I heard that you guys were having a meeting without me!”

“And where did you hear that?”

He felt his eye twitch as coffee splashed onto the floor.

“Oh, from Power Loader of course!”

The whole room turned expectantly to Majima; who raised his hands defensively.

“Woah, don’t look at me, kid, I didn’t tell you jack-shit.”

“Well, I heard you muttering about it when you left your office.”

“... my office? …wait, you mean just now?”

He was met with a shrug. “Yeah, I was in my workshop.”

Power Loader put his face in his hands, along with every other responsible adult in the room, before speaking. “I regret giving you that workshop, Midoriya, it is Sunday.”

The girl stiffened up. “What? No- the U.S.J was, like, yesterday.”

“The U.S.J was three days ago ! Have you done nothing but work in your workshop for three days ?!”

She tapped her fingers together. “I… went to the convenience store a few blocks from here a couple times; it’s where I got these sunglasses.” She flipped them up and down her face for effect. 

“And you didn’t realize that it wasn’t the same day?”

“I dunno, it was night every ti- whatever, Mei’s still here, why am I getting singled out?!”

“Mei isn’t here! Hatsume left, Friday , to go hang out with her friends, like you should have done .”

“Mei doesn’t have any- …oh, no, wait, yeah I guess my friends are our friends… okay, so… compromise. I’ll go home at the end of the day, but I get to stay for this meeting.”

Such unmitigated gall… Nezu thinks this child is becoming one of his favorite humans.

It was refreshing to have someone other than Aizawa who felt free to speak their mind around him.

“Why would we agree to that, Miss Midoriya?”

“If you drag me out of here, I’ll go kicking and screaming and spitting blood everywhere, which wouldn’t look good for your PR after what happened.”

“...Fair enough.”

“Plus I heard you talking.” She turned her quizzical gaze to All Might. “Did you tell them everything about the… thing, with the thing, and the thing?”

Eraserhead was the first to respond. “If you’re asking if we know about All For One and One For All, then yes, All Might told us the day of the attack, after you left the infirmary.”

The child ignored the last part. “Exactly! We’re all part of “The Super-Duper Secret Secret Club!” and I figure you guys could use a fresh pair of- well, a fresh eye. On this thing. Heh!”

…

“Wow, tough crowd.” She continued unfazed. “Plus, even if you don’t let me listen in here, I'll just bug Toshinori until he cracks because he feels guilty.”

“...I’m sitting right here”

“Are you saying you don’t feel guilty?”

Yagi simply slumped in his chair. “Goddammit.”

She responded with a self-satisfied smirk as she turned back to the rest of the room. “So?”

 Aizawa caved, as was expected, with a sigh. “Fine, you already know what we’re up against, and with you working so closely with All Might, you might be around when he gets attacked again, it’d be logical to tell you how we plan to deal with this. Not to mention; you went through a traumatic terrorist attack, escaped with massive injuries, and you just-” Aizawa seemed at a loss for words for once. “-went back to spend three days in your workshop, like nothing happened.”  His finger raised toward the nonchalant child. “To be clear; I think you’ve definitely got some screws loose somewhere in that head of yours, but that might be just what we need. We’ve been working ourselves to death over this, while you managed to just… go on with your life; maybe whatever nonsensical horrors you got swirling around in there could give us a different perspective. What do you got for us, Problem Child?”

She put her fingers to her chin, words filling the room so fast even Nezu struggled to follow before the stream suddenly stopped.

“Well for one, they’re not after All Might, at least not anymore, they’re after me.”

“...”

“... :D”

“...”

Aizawa introduced his face into the table before shaking it off and continuing.

“Explain. Also how did you convey that through speech?”

Ahe waved him off. “No idea what you’re talking about, but that Shigaraki guy kept saying that I “wasn’t who they thought” I was. I didn’t get what he was talking about, figured he was just some nutcase, talking out of his ass, but thanks to Toshinori’s big mouth here-” She ruffled the man’s hair as she walked past him.”- I now have a different theory.”

It didn’t take long for everyone to connect the dots. Nezu spoke up. “Are you saying that they believe that you are the current holder of One For All?”

The support technician shrugged and took another sip of coffee. “I dunno, maybe not anymore after the U.S.J, but that’s what it would seem like. Makes sense to me, I mean, you don’t even work with Nighteye anymore, and then; outta nowhere you pick up some random vigilante? Pretty weird if you ask me.”

All Might suddenly lit up. “That’s perfect!” The rest of the room turned to him for an explanation. “I know All For One better than he knows himself; Young Midoriya might’ve just given us the best opening we could’ve asked for.”

Eraserhead leaned in from across the table. “Which is?”

“All For One himself.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Oh, right, I forget how new to this you all are.” The wounded hero walked over to the whiteboard, and doodled an outline of a man with half a head.

“All For One is a master planner, manipulator, and one of, if not the, oldest human alive.” All this was marked down on the board. “He’s cruel, uncaring, and willing to sacrifice anything and everything to get what he wants.” More bullet points were added. 

“Oh great; love that this is the guy that’s coming after us. Great pep talk, Toshi.” 

He ignored her complaints for once. “His primary goal is to “reclaim”, in his mind anyway, ‘One For All’; after which he’ll go back to ruling Japan from the shadows.”

Present Mic took his legs off the table as he raised his hand. “What do you mean “go back to ruling Japan?” Feel like we would’ve heard about that.”

Eraser responded before Toshinori could. “For as long as I’ve been an Underground I’ve heard rumours, whispers from some of my informants, some sort of kingpin running the crime in the underbelly of Japan.” The rest of the room all focused on him. “The reason the Yakuza were cast to the side as a footnote, the reason crime became so rampant in the two hundred years since quirks came into existence, able to gather a whole army to his beck and call like nothing.” The tension in the room was steadily rising and slowly was reaching a fever pitch. “The whispers got less common about five years ago, nobody was sure why, anything and everything from “he was killed” to “he’s been replaced” to “he finally started a family and retired” and now I know why.” He turned to Yagi. “You took down The Boogeyman of the underworld, didn’t you?”

“It took me fifteen years to dismantle most of his network, and our battle leveled most of Kasuga Forest, but yes.”

“The Kasuga Disaster, they concluded that, despite the damages, it was just a freak earthquake; that was you?!”

Toshinori gave a grim nod.

“How were you never suspected for that?!”

He just shrugged. “Easier to believe it was just a natural disaster; the government certainly helped push that idea. The Symbol of Peace doesn’t destroy historic monuments… or blow out the brains of the villains he fights; but Yagi Toshinori does.”

A thick silence pervaded the room.

What more was there to say in the wake of something like that?

Until said silence was broken by Midoriya.

“FUCK! And the good times just keep on coming! That’s what’s after us?! How do we even remotely provide any sort of opening at all?!”

Majima got up from the conference table. “Even if she can give us some kind of opening; I will not let you put my student in danger like that.”

Aizawa got up to face him. “She’s in danger no matter what. The League of Villains have her, specifically, in their sights. She’ll be attacked again, we all will, I want to hear how this could even possibly be advantageous for us.”

They all faced All Might once more.

“Simple, All For One is weakened right now, having to rebuild his empire from practically the ground up. The only advantage that he thinks he has is that he knows the whereabouts of the newest wielder of ‘One For All’: Young Midoriya…who doesn’t actually have ‘One For All.-”

“Except, like I said, pretty sure that Shigaraki guy figured it out.”

“True, but All For One was likely the one who thought you had it in the first place, and his pride won’t let him let go of his initial idea.”

“Even if his successor, or student, or whoever that fuckhead is tells him that they were wrong?”

“Especially then.”

“Wow…that’s really fucking stupid. You sure about this?”

“Last time we fought; he could’ve just finished me off. Even before it started I was tired.” He cracked a pained smirk as he remembered. “Heh, fifteen years all spent hunting down a single person will do that to you, I guess, and when he managed to get in that last hit… I was in bad shape.”

Nezu remembers how they found him.

Blood gushing from a massive wound in his side, flowing into one of the massive openings found in the ground, like it was a libation to the very earth.

The mountain itself cracked into pieces.

The once beautiful forest flattened.

Intestines visible through the massive fingers grasping at them.

Pinkish-grey covering one hand, still clenched in a tight fist.

Shaky knees wobbling towards the three of them.

Blood pouring out of his mouth by the pint.

That cheek-splitting smile on his bloody face, even as he fell face-forward.

“I was barely conscious, operating on pure instinct, and even then I beat him. You know how?”

Midoriya’s eyes fixed on him with razor sharp focus as she shook her head.

“He got cocky, he could’ve finished it all right then, could’ve ended 200 years of chasing, and gone right back to having Japan in the palm of his hand. He knew how dangerous I could be, how I had torn apart his organization, but he decided to toy with me, mock my master; someone whose name had no right to be in his filthy mouth. Even when I got back up; he decided to fight me in close combat when he could’ve killed me from a mile away. His pride is the reason I blew off the top of his skull; why I’m standing here today.” He turned back towards the rest of the room. “I’m not gonna pretend I’ve thought of some master plan, but, for the first time in centuries, All For One has the wrong intel. Until he confirms for himself that Young Midoriya doesn’t have One For All, it won’t matter who tells him otherwise, his damn pride won’t let him come to any other conclusion. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

A sharp ting rang in the room as metal fingers snapped together. Midoriya look at Toshinori with a playful smirk. ”You son of a bitch, I’m in.”

Aizawa spoke from his slouched spot at the table. “If the Problem Child’s willing to go along with it, I can’t see any reason we should stop her. Keeping her out of the loop won’t help anyway.”

The rest of the room seemed to come to the same conclusion.

Nemuri leaned forward. “That being said; we should take some precautions, right? Off campus  she’s essentially defenceless.”

“I’d take offence to that if we weren’t up against a 200 year old maniac… what about some sorta dorm system?”

Kan spoke for the first time from the far end of the table. “That would just endanger the rest of the students; we’d have a repeat of the U.S.J.” He thought to himself for a moment. “What we could do is set up an on-campus dorm for you specifically? You and your mother?”

“You guys are gonna have a hard time selling that; she was already freaked out enough without me stopping a terrorist attack… and then disappearing for three days, apparently. …ohhhhh, that’s why our phone kept ringing. Shit. I’m definitely in trouble.

Nemuri jumped up from the table. “I’ll do it!” The perplexed gazes of everyone present locked on to her; who sheepishly coughed into her fist. “I could just say you had a negative reaction to the events of the U.S.J, and we’re keeping you here to make sure your mental state doesn’t worsen; especially right before the Sports Festival. Could say that the staff decided her being here could help.

The girl gave a shrug. “Yeah, it’s as good a shot as any-” Eyes widened as she suddenly chugged the remaining coffee. “-wait, what was that about the Sports Festival? That shit’s still on?! Isn’t that a massive security risk after what just happened?!”

Nezu was who reluctantly replied. “The administration said it was “a good opportunity to show the threat has been dealt with” that U.A “isn’t frightened by terrorists.”’

Midoriya spat out a clump of bloody spit in her now empty thermos; to the disgusted grimaces of the staff. “What do you mean “the administration?” Aren’t you-” She spread her arms wide. “Who the fuck runs this school?!” 

“With smaller, more local decisions, such as new hires, or the curriculum; it’s left to my discretion. Larger decisions, however, are up to the HPSC.”

Midoriya deflated. “Oh, well, fuck.”

“Quite.”

He walked down the steps that connected to the table. “With the start of a plan to confront The League, and arrangements for the Midoriya’s safety in place; I’d say this meeting has concluded.”

That was when Yagi nervously reached for Midoriya. “Well, actually Young Midoriya, there was something I wanted to talk about.”

She whirled around to face him. “What’s up?”

“I have an offer; an apology gift of sorts.”

The rest of the staff got ready to intervene, which didn’t escape his notice as he arched a brow.

“Really?”

Aizawa adjusted the grip on his scarf. “You don’t exactly have the best track record.”

“I… ugh. I wish I had a rebuttal to that. Anyway, I wanted to aid you in your combat training.”

She looked unimpressed. “Ok, I’ll bite, how?”

“Well, originally, I was going to offer this to you before the U.S.J to help you train for the Sports Festival, but now, with the chance of League coming after you again, I figured you probably need it.”

He buffed up held out a stack of papers clipped together with a shiny laminated title page that read “Aim to Pass: American Dream Plan!”

“Stupid name.”

“Wh-wha-?”

“Stupid name.”

“It’s called that because of my time spent in Ameri-”

“Don’t blame America for your dumb training plan, Toshinori, s’not fair to them or training plans.” She started to flip through the pages before looking up. “Keep going with your sales pitch.”

“Err- yes, well… you mentioned when we first met that you’ve bulked up some by yourself, and I imagine that’s only continued with your vigilante work, but I wanted you to have a more regimented program, and contacted the finest dietitians and and personal trainers the All Might Agency has on call!”

Aizawa let go of his scarf. “That’s… surprisingly well thought for you.”

“Yes, well, I do try to learn from my mistakes, I’m not an idiot all the time.”

He was met with a tired shrug. “Fair enough.”

Midoriya pointed to a section of the packet. “Combat Training?” You’re going to fight me?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I was planning on-” The room looked on as Yagi started violently shaking. 

Nezu simply smirked, realizing who All Might had contacted as the usually boisterous hero slapping his thighs, to the concern of increasingly nervous Midoriya.

“Dammit, legs, stop shaking!”

“Who the fuck am I fighting?!”

“My old teacher! Tell me, Young Midoriya, have-”

Smack!

“-you-”

Slap!

“-ever-”

Wham!

“-heard of-”

Thwack!

“-a hero n-named”

Whack!

“G-G-Gran Torino?”

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you can handle this,Young Midoriya?”

“Pfft, I ain’t afraid of some geezer, this guy’s gotta be so old he can’t even walk, I mean, you said he was your master, right?”

“ No .”

“Woah, umm… okay?”

“Sorry, it’s just… I have tremendous respect for Torino, and he taught me a great many things, but Nana Shimura was like a mother to me. Nobody could ever take her place.”

“...she sounds like a great person.”

“She was.”

“Is she…”

“Yes, she faced down All For One on Rishiri Island, nearly 30 years ago.”

“Rishiri? The Rishiri that was mysteriously wiped off every map 30 years ago? The same Rishiri that was suddenly leveled by a “freak tsunami?”

“Oh, well… yes.”

“Get the feelin’ there are less “freak disasters” than they say there are.”

“That’d be a fair assumption.”

“Could be a way to track him down.”

“Hmm, could be, but, heh… heheheh, after meeting Gran, finding All For One will be the last thing on your mind.”

“Told ya already; ain’t scared of him.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.

“Oh, please, what’s some grandpa gonna do?”

She spat blood onto the mat for the fifth time this morning, and wiped the remaining liquid off her face with a fist tinged with red. 

“We’re… hah… gonna fuckin get you for this, Toshinori. GAAH!”

More blood pooled onto the mat as a scraggly old man landed on her back.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve been saying that five times a day, every day, for a month, and you still haven’t gotten him back. Get up, training ain’t over.”

She shakily got up to her feet, closed her eyes, and started to bounce on her toes as she raised her guard.

The trick was to rely on her hearing.

Torino was fast. Way too fast to track with her eyes, well, eye. 

On your left. Eight o’clock.

Even if she still had depth perception; she wouldn’t be able to keep up with him, so it was easier to focus on the sound of the air blasting out of his feet.

On your six. Dodge to the right.

She eventually discovered that his jets made a different noise depending on whether they aimed at an angle or not.

Above you. 

A swing and a miss that led to her getting a faceful of yellow miniature boots.

She regained her stance, and continued.

Apparently, this wasn’t the way Torino had expected her to improve, he had planned for her to just work on her reflexes and whatnot, but he said that she was better than he expected.

Three o’clock. Block.

Her arm reverberated violently as his boots crashed against the metal.

Toshinori practically had an aneurism when he heard Gran actually compliment her; even a weak compliment like that.

Twelve o’clock. Now!

Her eye opened as she saw a domino mask zooming towards her.

Pistons clicked as her cybernetic extended towards her diminutive teacher. 

Come on. Come onnn.

The jets let out a sudden boost, he zoomed past her, and drove his fist into her solar plexus; knocking her off her feet and back onto the mats.

“Your stance is still off. I keep telling’ ya, right now, your legs are your weak point. You need a solid stance to be a threat.”

Izumi responded from her place face-down on the floor. “Yeah, I know.”

A light kick to her ribs only elicited a small groan. “You have gotten better though. I only knocked you down eleven times today.”

Another tap.

Another groan.

“Wake the fuck up, samurai, training still ain’t-”

The school bell rang out, indicating that lunchtime was starting.

“Oh, or maybe it is. Okay, kid, go on and get some grub.”

She stumbled making her way back up, and wiped her face. “I can keep going.”

He grabbed a bento seemingly from nowhere. “Yeah, well, good luck training by yerself, cuz I’m gonna eat lunch.” 

Where the hell did he get that lawn chair from?

He pulled out a pair of chopsticks and went to town. “Come on, kid, Toshi told em you had some friends. Why don’t you spend your lunch with them?”

She awkwardly scratched her neck. “Well, I guess it has been a while.”

He responded with a mouthful of food. “Ow log’ zit ben?”

She had to think about it.

Probably not a good sign.

“Uh, I-um, well, the U.S.J?”

“...”

“What?”

He rubbed his hand down his face. “When was the last time you talked to them that wasn’t a traumatic terrorist attack?”

She visibly wilted. “Uhhhhhhhhhh, let’s see. Um-”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Hang on, hang on, I just need to think! Um-”

We’ve talked to Mei.

No, Mei tried to talk to us, and you ignored her because we were busy.

We’ve hung with Jirou.

No, she asked to hang out, and you were too busy mumbling to yourself to pay attention. 

And you didn’t say anything?

I did.

…fine, we’ve hung out with Yui though.

You have over 30 missed messages from her because you keep blowing her off to work on our ace for the Festival.

… Uraraka?

She’s the one you talked to the least, even before we got all obsessed.

I take offence to that term.

I take offence to your stupid fucking face, but here we are.

A sudden punch knocked the wind out of her, had her spitting up more blood, and sent her back to the ground.

“Jesus, maybe your lungs are your weak spot; that makes twelve.  Anyway; you’ve been mumbling to yourself for two minutes, which is two minutes too many. Go to the damn cafeteria, or I ain’t training you anymore!”

She exasperatedly threw her head back. “ Ugghhhhhhh, finnnneeeee.”

The past month hadn’t been great.

Well, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement.

It was fine.

Sure, the U.S.J was stressful, but everything turned out fine in the end!

Okay, yeah, most of the class ended up having regular sessions with Hound Dog, but they’d all made it out okay.

Physically, at least.

Well, on the bright side, Mineta had chilled out some.

That’s fucked up, I shouldn’t think like that, Asui said he saved her life. Cut the guy some slack.

Then Mr. Aizawa gave the class that scare when he announced the Sports Festival was back.

And just before lunch a whole crowd of people, led by that zombie-ass, half-dead-looking-ass, scrawny-ass, dramatic-ass dickhead, “declared war” on their class, or whatever.

Honestly, all of that seemed way more important than what was on her mind right now, but tell that to her brain cuz it didn’t seem to care.

Izumi had ghosted all of them. Again.

God, if she were a guy, I’d be failing the Bechdel Test right now.

The group was avoiding the topic, but it didn’t mean they weren’t thinking about it.

She shows up at the U.S.J., saves their asses like some sorta goddamn, hot , mechanical, warrior, hero, thing , fights some psycho’s science experiment, almost dies, loses an eye, passes out, and then none of them see her for a whole month!

Hell, Kyoka thought she might’ve died!

But Mei mentioned off-handedly that she was back to working in her workshop, a day later, like nothing happened! 

They had been walking on eggshells about it ever since.

And quite frankly; she was fucking sick of it!

The others startled as she suddenly jumped up. “Ok, that’s it! Have any of you talked to her?”

“Mmm.”

“What? No, you reach out!”

“Mm.”

 A light dusting of pink appeared on her cheeks. ”I’m not the one closest to her, you are!”

“Mmm.”

She felt a heavy blush settle on her face, as her jacks went haywire. “I- that doesn’t- how did you even hear about- besides, I-I don’t!”

She heard Ochako snicker from across the table.

Damn it.

“Don’t you start!”

That made her burst out laughing… annndddd now people at other tables were looking at them.

Just great.

Ochako finally recovers before speaking up. “Hahahah! Whew, well, for one, I told her. I dunno how you expected me to not tell her about what happened at the U.S.J., especially when you tried to catch her before she passed out, that was so sweet! ...w ell, it was for, like, the second you managed to hold her up. But, even ignoring what happened there; you two have always been pretty tight. I guess it’s because of how you met; the only reason Yui’s managing to keep up is because she’s so assertive.” She went back to scarfing down her free lunch.

“Wha- keep up? It- it’s not a competition!”

The brunette ate the dregs of her meal in one gulp.

How the hell does she swallow all that, and not choke?

“It totally is! A battle between rivals; both of you competing over Izumi’s mechanical heart!”

“I’m pretty sure her heart’s not mechanical… and we’re not competing over her!”

“Well, not with that attitude, you’re not. At this point, Yui’s gonna have her all to herself!”

“Mm.”

Kyoka could feel her brain overheat and start to melt as she began to even try to process that.

Ochako, on the other hand, was apparently ready for any response. “Damn, both of them?! You go, girl, I believe in you!”

“Mm.”

“Oh… no, thanks, I’m flattered, but I- I don’t- I- you guys aren’t my type.”

“Mm?”

“Blondes, or maybe green hair, but…not Izumi.”

“Mm.”

She desperately wanted to stop talking about this before she had a stroke.

“Mei!” All their eyes fell on the uncharacteristically quiet inventor. “Have you tried talking to her?!”

Wait, why is she so quiet?

The pink haired girl kept her eyes on the floor as she shook her head. “I’ve… been kinda scared to.”

What?

“What are you talking about? Mei, she’d never hurt you.”

She exasperatedly slammed her hands on the table. “I know that! It’s… it’s because it’s my fault she got hurt at the U.S.J.”

“What’re you talki-”

Jirou was interrupted by the dull thunk of a plastic lunch tray bumping the back of her head.

“Sorry, I tried to go around, but still seem to have bumped into that big head of yours!”

The hell is this guy’s problem?

Some blond with overly gelled hair was staring at her, seemingly waiting for her reaction with a smug smirk.

After that fiasco with the crowd earlier, she was getting real tired of blondes with dumb hair.

“I know you?”

“Ah, of course not, how could I expect someone from 1-A to pay attention to their sister class?”

“Sister- so, what, you’re in 1-B? If you’ve got such an issue with us, for some reason, why don’t you just ignore us?”

He just got further in her face. “How could I with the racket you’re making? Bad enough you hogged everyone’s attention with that little fiasco at the U.S.J.”

She could her blood rushing through her head. 

“Excuse me!?”

“You’re excused.”

The audacity of this bitch.

She was struggling to figure out where to start dissecting his dumbass logic; when suddenly she noticed the shape looming behind him.

Monoma only noticed once mechanical fingers clamped down on the top of his skull.

“This guy bothering you, Jirou?”

“Bad enough you hogged everyone’s attention with that little fiasco at the U.S.J.”

Fucking what ?!

Who even thinks like that?!

You should kill this guy.

It’s definitely that blonde guy with the greasy hair.

Blonde guy? Oh, you should definitely kill him.

I’ll settle for crushing his skull.

That’s also known as “killing him”, but whatever floats your boat.

“This guy bothering you, Jirou?”

God, I bet you think you sound cool, you fucking loser.

Wha-! That was cool, it was a cool line!

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

…hey, I think you’re leaving finger-sized dents in his head.

Whatever.

Don’t take my word for it, so does she.

“Yo, Green, that’s enough!”

Fingers unclenched as the boy went to the floor, cradling his skull.

“Oh, sorry… soooooo, how you been?”

She just spluttered “How have I-? Dude!” and pointed to the still kneeling blonde; who was starting to pick himself up.

“So this- ah- is how 1-A responds when challenged.” That insufferable smirk was still on his face despite his obvious pain. “Employing brute force against its superiors. Too weak to respond any other way? It’s a wonder you even made it through one attack!”

Kill him?

Kill him.

Before she could even think about how to go about doing so; a giant hand slammed into the boy’s neck.

“Monoma, what the hell is wrong with you!?”

The hand shrunk down to reveal a hot red-headed girl.

We are not doing this again.

Huh- wha?

Don’t play dumb, you know what you’re doing. Plus, she’s a ginger, gingers have no souls.

But they do have ridiculously good looks.

Eh, I won’t fight you on that.

“Um.” She held out her hand. “Izumi Midoriya.”

The girl gave a bow as she took it. “Right! Itsuka Kendo. I’m really sorry for Monoma, and anything he said before I got here, he’s kind of an idiot.”

Izumi gave a shrug. “Eh, don’t worry about it, every class has one.”

She gave a quiet chuckle. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

That’s a nice laugh.

Oh, good lord, I can’t believe I have to watch you do this for the fourth time.

What’re you talking about?

I told you not to play dumb.

I’m not! I legit don’t know what you’re talking about.

Maybe that’s what separates us, I’m the smart one, you’re the dumb one.

Maybe you’re the one that shuts the fuck up . 

Fine.

The newcomer-

Kendo

-Kendo, played with her hair a bit before continuing. “I, uh, haven’t noticed you around before, but, I guess I haven’t really interacted with 1-A all that much.”

“Oh, I’m not in 1-A, I’m in the Support Course. These are just my friends.”

Why does Yui look offended?

Like I said, you’re the dumb one.

“Wait, really? But you’re so… well built.”

“Uhhhhhm-

I’m a vigilante

I work with All Might

I run almost entirely off caffeine and spite

-I… do some training here and there.”

“Really? Well, maybe one of these days you could go a few rounds with me?”

She could feel blood coming up her throat, and managed to gurgle out. “I-I- wha?”

She could hear Uraraka nearby “We got another one.”

Followed quickly by Jirou’s harsh “Shut up!”

Yui’s glare only got more focused.

Damn, she’s locked in.

Locked in on what?

…

Itsuka seemed to understand her confusion, and waved her hands frantically in front of her face. “Wha- no no no! Sparring! Sparring, I’m talking about sparring!”

“Ohhhhhhhhh. I- uh, yeah, sure! It’d be good to train with someone who isn’t over 40 for once.”

She heard Jirou’s muttered “You could’ve just asked.”

Oops.

That Monoma guy seemed to have regained consciousness by this point. “Absolutely not! Kendo, I forbid you to fraternize with these animals!” He raised a finger at Yui; who gave him a death stare as soon as he turned to face her. “Or you, Kodai! The superior women of 1-B shouldn’t be seen in the company of these mindless savages!”

“Monoma, you can’t forbid us from doing anything. Also… that “superior women” thing is a really creepy statement, don’t… don’t do that.”

Yui, for her part, simply got up, glared at Monoma, and…

Did…

…did she just slap Kendo’s ass?

Yes, and it was so hot. 

…everyday; I wish someone would just kill you already, and end my misery.

While Kendo was still blushing and yammering in confusion, and Jirou let out a “What the hell was that!?” Yui walked over, put her arms around Izumi’s neck, and proceeded to suck her soul out through her lips.

Goddamn! Someone’s certainly forward!

…

No response, huh? You shutting down over there? 

Your part of our brain just meltin’?

Hmmph, maybe she should do this more often, get you to shut up some more, so I can get some peace and quiet.

Yui broke the kiss, and while Midoriya was able to actually breathe again in frantic, panting gulps, Yui put her lips right up to the other girl’s ear.

“You, me, the movies on the Friday after the Sports Festival; wear something nice.”

Izumi could barely focus on the words when her hot breath kept brushing against her skin.

“Oh, and if you win, like you kept saying you would, I’ll be sure to give you a special little… reward.”

While Izumi’s brains were busy melting onto the floor; Yui walked to face Monoma. “How’s that for “being seen in their company” asshole?” Before sitting down at her table, to the shocked faces of her friends, as well as pretty much anyone else who was watching.

A booming voice cut through the palpable tension. “So… if I may…”

Oh god.

“How much of that did you see?”

Toshinori very obviously held back laughter before calming down, and taking a more serious demeanour. “Enough to know that Young Monoma here is about to have a visit with the principal about his conduct. Also, Young Kodai; please refrain from any more PDA while on campus grounds.

“Mmm.”

So he saw everything. Again.

Goddamn it.

She didn’t even bother looking at him; she knew she’d lose all her composure if she looked at the shit-eating smirk she knew was there.

Luckily Monoma managed to steal all their attention.

“But sir, they started it! 1-A made a declaration of war to all the other courses participating in the Festival!”

Tryna argue with All Might, huh? He’s either very brave or very stupid.

“Young man, I sincerely doubt the students of 1-A would do something like that.”

“You can ask anyone! It was the blonde with the spiky hair!”

Very stupid.

Monoma was stopped mid-rant by Izumi’s laughter which made anyone still watching this turn away uncomfortably.

“Bakugou? So you took a look at the angriest kid there, who definitely has an anger problem, probably didn’t even let anyone else talk, and decided that the whole class was like that? Pffftt. Hahahaha! Oh man, if that’s all your brain’s capable of-” All of the sudden, she was up in his face; scared, pale blue eyes staring into a single, glowing, green one. “You don’t wanna know what would’ve happened to you at the U.S.J.”

…

Why’s it so quiet?

Why?! Because we basically just threatened this idiot!

Oh, shit, you’re right for once.

Now is not the time to trash talk me.

She nervously turned to the only slightly fazed All Might.

Hmm, guess he’s getting used to it.

“Did’ja need somethin’, Toshninori?”

“Ah, yes, well, I was gonna ask you to eat with me.” He held up a tiny wrapped bento; seemingly ignoring the “That’s adorable!” from Uraraka.

Why does he pack his lunch like a schoolgirl?

“But I seem to have come at a bad time. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Shut. Up. Fine, lunch, why not.” She turned back to a flabbergasted Kendo.

Welp, that’s one first impression ruined.

“Eh, sorry about this, Kendo.” Cold metal scratched the back of her neck. “We’ll have to pick this up some other time, yeah?”

The redhead gulped unsteadily. “Y-yeah.”

Mmm, better than nothing.

It was enough for Izumi; who gave the other girl a grin as she turned back towards the Symbol of Peace. “Great! I’ll see you around!”

A heavy hand clapped her on the back. “Reelin’ in another one, eh?”

“Oh. My. God.”

“Yes sir, mm-hmm, yes, as far as I know. No, Young Midoriya did not start it. Well, yes, she did finish it. Well… threat is a bit a harsh term; I prefer to call it… a bit of a reality check. Well, okay, that doesn’t sound… great. Mmm, mm-hmm, yes, I’ll tell her. Okay. You too, sir.” Toshinori hung up the phone and faced her. 

“So, you’re not in trouble, but preferably try to not react so… violently towards your fellow students.”

Izumi was facing the wall; pouting on the couch. She idly scratched her chin before answering.

“Fiiinnne, I guess. I’ll… try to be more lovely.”

“That’s all I ask.”

She leaned back, happy that the scolding was over. “So, why’d you wanna talk? Any word on The League?”

Toshinori just looked confused before pointing to his bento and a few boxes of takeout.

“I told you, lunch.”

“... y’know, I was actually gonna talk to my friends for the first time since the U.S.J. I kinda figured you’d have something, like, actually important to say, but no. You brought me here so we could have lun- …is that a Bloomin’ Onion from Outback?”

He just gave a knowing smirk. “Yeah. You want some?”

“Tch, uh, yeah. ” 

Toshinori had gotten quite a spread, from a few different places, actually. 

“How much did this cost you?”

He just sat back on the couch. “Practically nothin’, you’d be surprised just how much the Number One Hero makes.”

It was a mish-mash of cuisines that would make a foodie cry, but as long as it tasted good, she didn’t care. She sucked the remaining grease and seasonings off her hand, and reached for the katsudon.

“Did you just lick the oil off your metal fingers?”

She glared at him. “My “metal fingers” are pure, clean, chrome , not your germ-filled, fleshy, blood bag fingers.”

“Oooookaayy. Filing that under reasons to be concerned.”

He poured her a cup of tea, and took a sip of his own. “Look, I’m sorry I dragged you away from your friends, if I’d known you hadn’t talked to them since the attack, I would’ve done this another day.”

She waved him off. “Eh, it’s fine, honestly, it worked out since you got me away from-” 

Her mind flashed to the boy whose skull she had been on the verge of cracking.

Monoma

Monoma, whatever. To whatever the hell that was with Yui.

“-whatever that was. I…think I have a date?” 

“Pfft. Yeah, so I saw.”

She threw her head back in her seat, and raised her arms to the ceiling. “Ah, god, that was so embarrassing! I just stood there like an idiot!

The adult just chuckled. “Yeah, I think she took that as a good thing. Probably found it charming; in a pathetic kinda way.”

Izumi went back to pouting; speaking in between bites of her meal. “Shaddup. So what did you wanna talk about? Doubt you just wanted to sit here in silence.”

…

…

“I- well- I mean-”

She arched a brow. “You wanted us to just sit here?”

“I thought you could use a moment to just relax.”

“Fine, silence, let’s do it.”

…

…

…

“This was a bad idea.”

“Yeah, silence is terrible, say literally anything.”