After the encounter with their greatest hero, even swapping bodies does little to help Izuku's state of mind. Well, the lowered heart-rate and lack of physical stress help at first, but then he reboots the accursed process known as thought, and ends up managing to convince his male body into just as panicked a state as Izumi.
Izumi. Now there's something else to think about. He latches onto the name and breathes deeply, his heartbeat slowing to a steady thrum.
It's a nice name. They've decided before today, thanks to mom, that if they ever need a name for their female form, Izumi would be the one they'd go for. It's a little obvious, but the ability to be called "Izu" in both forms will help to cut down the chance of their quirk being discovered in certain situations. They think.
Izuku has no doubt that they'll need to work some miracles if they want to keep their identities separate for much longer. For one, if All Might ever decides to visit their mother, the results would not be pretty. But if they can keep the two separated, they can hopefully prevent any conversation between them from becoming long enough to realise the inconsistencies.
At least until Izuku is ready to tell.
Izuku's thoughts are blasted out through his ears by a strangely familiar boom that resounds through the air. His head whips in the direction of the noise, and even through the towering skyline he can see part of what must be a gigantic cloud of smoke.
Usually, this wouldn't be something Izuku goes to see, but if they know anything about All Might, it's that he'll risk his own safety to bring down whatever villain disturbed the peace, regardless of any limitations of his body. So he switches over to Izumi, takes a moment to calm down her thumping heart, and sets off at what most would call a mad dash - though to her it's a fairly leisurely run - towards the towering cloud that blots out the sky.
There's a bunch of heroes here already.
She spots Kamui Woods, carrying half a dozen citizens to safety with his branches. With the force of periodic fiery explosions rattling nearby windows, he probably can't apprehend the villain for fear of being set alight.
Backdraft can't do much directly either. He's needed elsewhere, with the explosions causing so many fires nearby.
Mount Lady can't even get onto the scene without causing property damage. She won't be much help - she should probably hurry to get backup. Maybe even carry them here.
Izumi spots a hero she doesn't know. He's too slow to make a proper attack on whatever villain is nearby and his quirk just seems to be enhanced strength concentrated in his arms, but he's certainly using it wisely - just as he positions himself seemingly randomly, a chunk of building crumbles and he's able to shield the citizens below from the majority of rubble. She can't help but wonder how much easier his job would be if he learned how to use his arm strength to pull himself around more quickly, but he's certainly doing a good job.
She finally runs out of breath and breaks into a cough, forced to switch to Izuku to let Izumi catch her breath. As he weaves between the crowds, impeded a little by his slightly bulkier figure, he can't quite get a glimpse of the villain...
And then he does.
He knows.
Villain: sludge. Hostage: Kacchan. Time to plan: none.
Danger: risk of outing Izumi. Losing that shield. Dying.
It doesn't matter. He's running anyway.
His form flickers and his rucksack is suddenly empty, the contents stored with his quirk. His mind goes to the dumbbells he has, and he feels the bag's weight shift. Perfect. He shrugs it off his back and just as the villain starts cackling, he swings.
Four teeth come out.
Dimly, he's fascinated by the blood oozing from his enemy's gums. Where does it come from if the rest of him is sludge? There's no time for theorising though, so he takes the opportunity, as the villain howls with pain, to vanish the dumbbells, open the zipper, and swing again.
This time, the bag catches and when he wrenches on it, a big yellow eyeball is torn from its socket - or whatever classifies as a socket, at least. The villain's shout turns into a screech of anger and he can't help but grin. Izuku could never beat this guy in a full-on fight, but with a bargaining chip? Well, it depends on how much he values depth-perception.
Abruptly remembering Kacchan, Izuku swaps over to their female form, glancing at their long-time bully. He's still struggling to get free, hopefully too hard to have gotten a good look at his savior. His mouth is freed for a moment as he tears away at the slime, and Izuku watches him grimly suck in a breath.
"Yhou!" The villain cries, recognising her new form. He makes to lunge for Izumi, but a raised fist, pointed towards the wriggling backpack, stops him short.
"Drop the boy and I won't send this eye to another dimension," she tells him. Her voice is shaking from the previous run and the fear, but given what she's already accomplished, she doesn't think it undermines her authority much.
The villain snarls. "Haf 'im," he lisps through his bloody mouth, and she's sent sprawling as Kacchan is ejected bodily into her stomach. The rucksack is torn from her hands with the eye still inside, but she's still smiling.
Izumi lost her bargaining chip, but in his anger, the villain lost both his hostage and power. And that means...
"Surrender now!" Shouts Kamui Woods, finally able to engage.
Pinned underneath a thoroughly stunned Kacchan, Izumi grins. This is a victory.
Izumi knows Kacchan well enough to realise that he doesn't suspect a thing. He looks frustrated and humiliated at his inability to fend off the villain, but rather than exploding into a flurry of curses, he gives Izumi a once-over and a curt nod as they watch the villain, restrained by Backdraft's water manipulation and being carted off into a police car. Both eyes are accounted for and fully functional... the same can't be said for his teeth.
"Planning on becoming a hero?" Kacchan asks, and she ducks her head, half to nod and half out of embarrassment. Not much use denying it after pulling those moves. Kacchan would figure her out immediately. "Good. I'll see you in UA. Don't fucking embarrass us, bag-girl," he warns, and she knows the implication: Don't fail the exam, on threat of death.
Then he walks away.
She blinks.
Oh no.
Worst case scenario.
They've met someone in both of their forms, and that someone has a separate opinion of each form. And that someone just happens to be Kacchan.
If he were anyone else, they'd just pull him to the side and spill the beans at the earliest opportunity. No use getting into some huge, sprawling misunderstanding and having to pick up the pieces afterwards. Once that kind of damage has been done, it's better to try and make an ally out of the situation rather than risking making an enemy.
But Kacchan? Tell him that the person who saved him, whom he's been forced to respect as an equal, is also the weak, defenseless Deku that he puts down on a weekly basis?
No way. Leave it a few years and he might forget about one of their forms. Or they could pass it off as a test of Kacchan's observation skills, or spout some nonsense about respecting him too much to feed him the information.
Yeah, that could work. If Kacchan starts to respect Izumi enough to hear her out without blowing her face off after the big reveal.
...
Okay, so maybe it couldn't work.
But with the only other option being to light the half-second fuse that is Bakugou Katsuki at point-blank range?
She'll take her chances.
It's amazing how long the time has stretched. Between meeting All Might, having him bow to them, fighting a villain (twice!), being alternately praised and berated by pro heroes, saving Kacchan and getting into a horrible tangle of relationships that they just know will come back to bite them in the worst possible way... it's only been about an hour.
That can't be right.
Izuku pulls his phone from the pocket dimension yet again, reads the time yet again, and vanishes it with a sigh when the first two digits are, yet again, 16.
There's no way it shouldn't be bedtime already. His mind's certainly ready for bed; it takes a conscious effort to carry on walking in the direction of home, rather than just curling up in the nearest tree and drifting off.
The relaxing drizzle of rain and the slight chill of droplets on his arms certainly aren't helping.
When he finally gets home, his mother is already serving a gigantic dinner. Thankfully it's a slow-cooked curry today, so it hasn't gone cold in his absence.
He chokes on the first mouthful when the news catches the attention of his sleepy brain:
Teenager Performs Brutal Rescue from Slime Villain!
The onscreen reporter is speaking, backed by an extraordinarily familiar, and mostly destroyed, alleyway. "...Villain attacks have been more common in recent years than ever before, but this is one attack that certainly didn't go as planned.
An unnamed young man was taken hostage here this afternoon, by a villain with a body made almost entirely of sludge - last seen fleeing from All Might himself in the early afternoon. What could have turned into a sad affair for many however, ended in a no-holds-barred beatdown courtesy of a young stranger with some devastating techniques!
The hostage situation had been going on for a few minutes, with nearby heroes's quirks being unsuited for the area or the hostage's powerful explosive quirk. That's when a young figure was seen sprinting from the gathered crowd into the alleyway where this all took place.
Only glimpses of the fight itself were seen, but the villain came out of the fray missing four teeth and an entire eye, which the kid apparently tore right from his head!
The villain has been detained and now has his eye back in place, and is receiving treatment from within a cozy jail cell for his missing teeth. Meanwhile, the stranger is unlikely to be identified due to conflicting reports as to their appearance. While eyewitness accounts from many bystanders describe the person as a well-built teenage boy, the teen that the heroes found involved in the fight was clearly a petite but otherwise plain girl with no defining features.
No matter who this mysterious person is though, the heroes on the scene had glowing praise for their quick actions, despite the apparently violent approach."
The wooden mask of Kamui Woods flashes onscreen, and Izuku automatically rubs the back of his head, flushed. First the No. 1 Hero bows to them, and now Kamui Woods is about to praise them live on air?
Forget the fights; if this is how heroes are treated, Izuku might just drop from a heart attack one day.
Kamui Woods hms at the camera. "Whoever this girl was, she showed incredible resourcefulness and cunning for someone her apparent age. Rather than fighting the villain head-on, she took him by surprise and struck fast, debilitating him by aiming for his weak-point, then most likely using that distraction to steal an eye and hold it ransom for the hostage's life.
It was a cold, calculated move and might seem more fitting of a vigilante than a hero, but it ensured that all parties left the commotion relatively safely, and for that she is to be commended. I, for one, am glad she intervened when she did, and I look forward to working with her if she decides to one day become a fully-fledged hero."
That heart attack might be coming sooner rather than later.
Finally remembering the bowl - sized for people with gigantification quirks - of slowly cooling curry, Izuku takes a spoon and wolfs half of it down, thankful that their mom's left the room as they switch to Izumi for the other half.
There are ten months until the UA entrance exams.
Izuku isn't worried about the written exams. From searching online, they can tell that it's mostly 'explain your reasoning' questions. After keeping a hero journal and analysing the quirks of heroes, that's the type they're best at! In fact, common to each year of the test is a series of questions involving the in-depth analysis of the user's own quirk, which for Izuku is essentially just free points!
They really have to thank Froppy properly for that last bit of info; she's apparently an aspiring hero herself - a rarity on the Trans forums, given that the job usually requires a certain level of positive body image - so she's been going up to heroes left and right, and bluntly asking them for advice.
According to her, over half the heroes with any good advice went through UA and recommend that she tries hard to do the same. And one of the more common instructions so far is to 'know your quirk, inside and out'.
So the written exams will be a cinch. Well, assuming they're not forced to give up the secret of Izumi. But since there's only one hero they know of with a quirk-identifying quirk, and she was still doing full-time hero work around the time of this year's exam (and they only know that because the Wild Wild Pussycats are a hot topic on the Trans forum, with Tiger as a member), Izuku has to assume that she won't be in UA next year either, and that their secret is safe.
No, what Izuku's worried about now is the practical.
Dagobah beach is almost entirely clear now, and while even more people came to dump their trash than usual as it became obvious that it would all be cleared out anyway, that's starting to peter out as it becomes more and more difficult to hide anything new in the few remaining heaps of scrap metal and plastic. Soon enough, Izuku will need to find a new way to train.
They can't afford proper training equipment, and they can't bear not clearing up the last specks on an otherwise stunning beach... but without either of those options, how can they grow stronger in time for the exams?
And then the problem solves itself when during his final cleanup session, hidden beneath a mustard-splattered but probably still functional microwave, is a wad of bills with a note on top:
'As thanks for a job well-done. We fixed up the stuff and sold it off, and this is some of what we got.'
He already feels tears welling up, scanning the beach and the nearby road but finding nobody. And, well, he's not going to take it for granted but he has to know how much there is here, right?
So he counts.
And counts.
300,000 Yen.
The tears fall from his face now, making new splotches on the still-damp sand below, but even so he's smiling. "Somebody noticed!" he realises, and it sounds dumb because he's been doing this for years so obviously someone noticed, but he'd never considered that somebody would notice and remember.
And multiple somebodies too, according to the note.
And now Izuku doesn't have to worry. This is plenty of money to buy whatever training equipment - proper training equipment - that their bodies might need.
Some weights, a... an arm-pulley-thing machine...
They don't know the first thing about training machines, they realise sheepishly.
"On second thought," he says to himself half in jest, "maybe finding a new dump would be easier."
