I'm back to the shaking.
My knees buckle as I rise, and there is nothing in the world I want more right now than to not be me. I'm sure I was right about Kamui Sensei's strategy. But, as it's the reason I'm facing the lion's den, it seems foolish to be proud of that.
As I set my stance, there are far too many eyes on me. Some are sympathetic to my situation, pitying me for never having a chance. Others avert, pretending to pay attention to the apparently very interesting floorboards. I'm sure they're just eager to have the ordeal over with, but I'm grateful to those eyes.
However, I can't help but pick out one particular person at the very back of the room. His shadowed eyes prowl my misery, waiting with sadistic glee for me to fail royally.
I don't know how I manage to do it, but I push him out of my mind. The stage is mine, and I'm not wasting this shot.
I steeple my index and middle fingers, clasping the remaining fingers in front. The sign of the Tiger. Should be easy enough, I assure myself. It's just one sign. I fend off another nagging thought, which is that this exact jutsu has never once worked out in my favor. No! Focus.
Shoulders forward, back straight, eyes shut.
I want to open my eyes as someone else. What would it be like to be Tsuyu? Being like a frog might be nice, but I'd have to adjust to being a girl, too, and I'm too squeamish for that. I could have hardening skin, though, like Eijiro. Or electric powers, like Denki. Any kekkei genkai will do. Any amount of talent will do.
I open my eyes to miniscule slits. As far as I can tell, my wish didn't come true. I'm not someone else – or even a better version of myself. I'm still me, in the same predicament as a few seconds ago.
Ochako and I lock eyes. I don't know how she noticed, but she stares back with eager anticipation. In the span of a few seconds, our eyes convey what a million words wouldn't be able to. She tilts her head ever so slightly, making the glare of her headband perform a flickering dance as it flows across the sacred leaf symbol. I want to wear that. No. I'm going to wear that, I decide.
I clamp my eyelids, and inhale.
Give me anything.
Exhale.
Anything…
Shadow Clone Jutsu!
POFF!
I jolt, not expecting to have expelled that much chakra. Most days I'm lucky to have harnessed any at all – but that was a sizeable chunk. I even feel the prickling sensation lingering on my chakra network; it isn't used to that much strain.
When I finally pry my eyes open, the vaguely mocking atmosphere has been swept out the window. Now, the air is like stale bread. Heavy, chewy, and tasteless. Everyone's eyes are to the left of me, and most of them are so wide I can't see their eyelids.
Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease…
I slowly pivot my neck, my knees smashing together at a record speed. Bullets of sweat shake off me and rain to the floor. Teeth chattering, lungs hyperventilating, heart beating, I'm going to pass out…
PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEEEEEASE!
I finally look, and…
Oh, throw me to the dogs.
It's garbage. A gray mass of whatever I would look like if I'd been eaten by a bear and then defecated onto the classroom floor. Maybe a bear had broken into the classroom, swallowed me whole, then just plopped me out. That would mean I'm dead – a ghost witnessing the aftermath of my own untimely demise. Which, I must admit, is a preferable alternative to what I'm dealing with right now.
"Wh… Wha…?" I whimper.
As if waiting for the cue, the class breaks the sound barrier once more, but this time they're laughing uproariously. It's not a dry laugh either, it's a full-bodied crying laugh you'd expect from a circus audience – not a class of comrades that have struggled with you all the way through your Academy years. Looking around, I notice that it's mostly the rough kids who are laughing. And some of those, at least, look like they don't want to be. I can't blame them. I know I'm pathetic.
But there's one who isn't sorry in the slightest. He'll laugh standing on my grave. Those shadowed, unsympathetic, mean eyes. I unweave my hands and let them drop to my side. They close into fists automatically.
"What's so funny, Kacchan?" I ask before I begin to tremble. I've always had a shaky constitution when it comes to Kacchan, ever since we were kids. Some would vouch I have good reason to.
He leans forward, emerging from the shadowed corner, and his expression twists from common schadenfreude into his signature hard grimace. He doesn't even have to speak to portray his ultimacy over me and, in his mind, everyone else.
"What's funny? You made a turd, that's what's funny!" The disgraceful clone vanishes into a puff of smoke, as if running away. This makes Kacchan laugh even harder. The lingering cacophony of chuckles quiets as he siphons everyone's attention. "I don't see why you even try, stupid Deku. You've been a failure since you were born, and you'll be a failure six feet under!"
"Katsuki, come on," says Denki. I think he means it, even though he's still teary from when he was laughing a minute ago. There are several scattered murmurs of agreement.
"Can it, Dunceface!" Bakugo warns. "And the rest of you posers, too!" In one swift motion he stands on his chair and plants one foot loudly on the desk. Even from the back of the room, his presence is titanic. "Get it, broccoli stalk? You're not even good enough to make me look better by comparison! You're always pissing around, pretending you could ever be anything but a disappointment, but you're not even as good as the worst of these extras! PAYING ATTENTION, STUPID DEKU? YOU'RE NOTHING!"
"That's enough! I think he gets it," says Kamui Sensei, finally swooping in with his waving pen. He seems to take special offense to Kacchan standing on the desk, not the incredible verbal thrashing I'm taking. "If you don't settle down, I'll fail you, too, Mister Bakugo,"
If there weren't tears in my eyes before, there are now.
"Too?" I say.
He scratches his neck. "Yes, Midoriya, I'm afraid I can't pass you."
"Um, sir," Ochako says, raising her hand. I can tell she hadn't been laughing. "I know it wasn't perfect, or even good—" unnecessary, perhaps, but fair, "—but Deku, I mean, Izuku did perform the jutsu. In fact, I've never seen him perform it better."
My heart swells, and for a second there is a ray of hope in her words.
Kamui Sensei sighs, thumping his pen on his mask.
"I'm sure Mister Midoriya appreciates the sentiment, Miss Uraraka, but that is precisely the point." He turns to me. "I've kept you in class because you have exceptional intellectual skills. Strategy, decisiveness, and trivia are your strong suits, and they are admirable traits that I had hoped others in the class," he cuts a look at Kacchan, whose eye twitches, "would latch onto. But your consistent lack of any kind of ninja aptitude has been a bother, to say the least. Your ninjutsu is pathetic, your genjutsu is nonexistent, and you can't even last one minute in our sparring sessions. Lacking in one of these categories is fine, and two is acceptable in certain cases. But to fail at all three is unacceptable. So, I'm sorry, Mister Midoriya. You are unfit to be a shinobi."
My body gives up upon hearing those words. I've been waiting to hear them my whole life, but I'm not ready when they come. They spread through me, a sobering poison numbing my body. My nerves unwind, no longer anticipating. My muscles untense, no longer working. For a second, I think I'm going to faint, but my spine remains upright, and my legs help a dead-eyed zombie stumble forward.
Expressions of worry graze my peripheral vision, as well as offerings of "Are you okay, man?" and "Wait, I'll get the nurse." These gestures are barely-intelligible static in my ears, and I can't bring myself to acknowledge them. The world itself may as well be white noise.
I'm living in third person now, looking on from somewhere high above. I watch myself walk the aisle. I reach the row my seat is in, but I don't stop. I keep walking, trudging past my seat, past a silent Kacchan, and out the door.
