Note: I'm a day late on this. I blame the pandemic. On the plus side, this means you're getting a double update today.
Mina stood in the center of her dorm room, decked out in her pajamas with her phone in hand, contemplating making the worst decision of her life. The number was already punched in, staring back at her from the screen as if to taunt her into going through with it.
She honestly couldn't believe the circumstances that had brought her to this point. They were so outlandish that if she had read them in a book, she would have dismissed it immediately for being too unrealistic.
Just a few short months ago she had rocked up to UA, flushed with victory from completing the entrance exam. She'd done an absolutely awesome job, placing just high enough to land her in class 1A. The experience had been absolutely hellish, and she had spent the week afterward hoping against hope that her performance had been enough to sneak by.
Being able to parade her acceptance letter around had been entirely worth it though. No one could believe what an excellent job she had done in getting in, and she'd been insufferable in her victory for nearly a week afterwards. Her family had deserved it too, the bunch of doubters.
Then her first actual day at UA had arrived, and hit Mina like a ton of bricks. It was an experience unlike any she had been through before. Sure, she'd looked up photos and videos of the school beforehand, but it was so much different to actually stand on its grounds and look up at the towering main building. Sure, she'd seen it during the entrance exam, but she'd been far too preoccupied at the time to really take in the spectacle. Now she had the time to really be wowed, and she was taking full advantage.
The grounds were absolutely immaculate, the shrubbery perfectly trimmed and not a trace of trash to be seen anywhere. That was probably a side benefit of UA having a budget the size of a small prefecture. They could throw around money for a bit of spectacle.
That same spectacle had led to her meeting Izuku just before class had begun. She'd been in the midst of checking out a collage of famous UA alumni battling equally notorious villains, searching for anyone she knew, when he had crashed into her and sent them both sprawling.
Izuku had, predictably, apologized profusely for his mistake and offered to do anything to make it up to her. Mina had tried to brush it off as a simple mistake, but he had been so insistent that she had eventually agreed to let him buy her a drink. If he hadn't been so awkward and oblivious about the whole affair, she might have thought he had engineered the whole encounter in order to hit on her.
To her surprise, she'd actually enjoyed talking to him while they sipped on their drinks. Once he had gotten over his initial awkwardness, he'd proven to be incredibly enthusiastic about getting into UA and training to be a hero. Mina had been delighted to learn that he was in the same class as her, giving her a head start on getting to know the students she'd be training with. He'd practically keeled over when she had offered to be his friend and exchange numbers, which had actually made her giggle a little bit. He reminded her of a puppy, so eager to please that he was tripping over himself as he did so.
The rest of the day hadn't gone quite so well. Aizawa was exactly the kind of hardass that Mina hated, lording his power over the class for shits and giggles. She'd placed high enough that she didn't have to worry about getting eliminated, but watching him berate the lower scoring students had really ground her gears.
Especially when it came to Izuku. It was obvious to everyone that he was trying his best, but Aizawa seemed to have latched onto him in particular as a target. It was hard for Mina to keep up a smile as she watched him spiral lower and lower throughout the day.
Thankfully, he'd managed to stick it out in the end, and Aizawa had proved himself to be a hypocritical ass, calling himself a hero while lying and berating his students. Mina had to admit, seeing Izuku standing there with a broken finger while he smiled at Aizawa, flushed with victory had been awesome. She'd even cheered a bit, though not so loudly that she stood out from the crowd.
That moment of happiness for the boy, and the subsequent relief that he was staying in the class had stayed with her for the rest of the day, refusing to leave her alone. It was unlike her to get so attached so quickly to a person. Sure, she'd had friends in the past, and she had her family, but those relationships hadn't felt quite like this. Maybe it was because Midoriya was so open and honest that she couldn't imagine him having an ulterior motive in the slightest, and that made it all the easier to connect.
She'd made a few more friends in their class after that, commiserating with the rest of the girls over having to deal with Mineta's perverse actions and cracking jokes with Kaminari, but none of them had come as easily as the first.
And then the day of the USJ incident had come, and Mina had been tested. She couldn't hear what had been said in the main plaza, but she had been able to watch as Izuku came close to death at the hands of the Nomu, only to be saved at the last moment by All Might. As she watched the blond hero smash his way through the miscellaneous villains in an instant, Mina had noticed something. Before All Might's arrival, she had taken a single step forward, towards the plaza. That had shocked her on a level she couldn't even begin to describe. Her urge to protect the precious green boy had been so overwhelming that she had been willing to confront the League over it.
She couldn't reconcile it. She'd never been like this before. She'd met plenty of sweet, friendly people over the years, and none of them had made her feel so fiercely protective, so possessive.
Try as she might to quiet them, Mina's feelings had only grown stronger as time had gone on. She'd rooted for him in the sports festival, actually biting her nails during his battle with Todoroki, and when he had been injured during the attack on Hosu, she had rushed to his hospital room to check on him.
It had earned her some funny looks, but being able to see that he was safe had been an incredible weight off of her chest. Sure, he was laid up in a hospital bed, covered with bandages, but injuries could always be fixed. His life, on the other hand, couldn't be repaired.
It was then, staring at Izuku in his hospital bed, costume torn to shreds and stained with blood, that Mina knew this went beyond a simple friendship, or even just protective instincts. She cared for him, in a way that she hadn't realized she was capable of. And she was going to protect him, no matter what it took.
She'd pitched it as a mutual exchange. He would help her study for the end of term exams, and in exchange she would help him expand his fighting style with some more varied moves. A friendly exchange. He leapt at the chance to be a better hero, and to get to know her better.
She'd been so caught up in celebrating the success of her own clever idea that she completely missed the blush that dusted his cheeks as he said the last part.
The two months before their final exams flew by faster than she would have thought possible. But then maybe that was because she had something to look forward to after school now, instead of just lessons and training. She had someone she cared about, someone she trusted, someone she could talk to about all the things she had never dared speak, not even to herself.
She'd told him about feeling helpless and frustrated about the world around her, the way the bullies always seemed to win no matter if their victims stood up for themselves or not. She told him about trying to stand up to the bullies herself, only to be punished by the teachers for being a disruption. She even told him about her desire to change things, to make a better system where no child would have to suffer for being born weak.
Maybe she had wanted to share all of that, to let the poison she had been carrying for so long out, or maybe she just wanted to ease her sense of guilt for Izuku's injuries.
In exchange, he had told her about his childhood, about being one of the children crushed by the system. About watching his tormentor be praised for his skill and strength while Izuku was relegated to the class laughing stock. He told her about being labeled as Quirkless, since his Quirk had taken so long to come in.
Mina noticed that he still slipped up sometimes and called himself Quirkless when he wasn't paying close attention to his words, a fact that ripped at her heart. She couldn't imagine being labeled like that for so long, or how he still had the strength to stand up after it all, to keep going, to keep having faith in the heroes who by all rights had failed him.
She knew he didn't tell her everything, but she couldn't really blame him either. After all, she had her own secrets, though they were getting harder to keep by the day.
She hadn't bothered to hide her cheers during the final exams. Why should she? The entire class knew that they were friends at this point, though Hagakure liked to tease Mina about how much time she spent with Izuku. She didn't think her cheers actually did anything, considering the viewing room was at least a mile from the testing site, but it still felt right to her. And in the end, Izuku had come out victorious, despite Bakugou doing his best to bring them both down.
And then Mina didn't have any more time. Summer break was upon them, and their forthcoming training camp as well. She wasn't supposed to go along, she was supposed to remain at UA taking makeup exams with the rest of the 'dunce squad'. But Aizawa had pulled another of his 'logical ruses' and taken them all by surprise.
For Mina, however, it was more than a surprise. It was a source of worry that gnawed at her throughout the next day and into the weekend as their class prepared for the trip with a visit to the shopping mall. A visit that turned into an incident when Tomura turned up to threaten Izuku.
Mina had been paralyzed when she saw the hooded figure standing next to Izuku, hand around her friend's (could she even still call him a friend?) throat. Her instincts had warred with her logical mind, fighting for dominance.
And yet again, her heart had won out. She had taken a single step towards ruin before she had even realized what she was doing. There hadn't been an opportunity for a second step, though, before Tomura had walked away, leaving Izuku shaken but unharmed.
She had thought long and hard about what that step had meant that night. What it meant for her, what it meant for Izuku, for her class, for her teachers, for her family, for her future. And she had come to one, inescapable conclusion.
She wanted to stay at UA, to grow stronger along with the people who had become her friends. She wanted to make the world a better place, not by tearing down the system but by exemplifying what a hero should be. She wanted to stand in the light with everyone she cared about.
And she wanted to be able to tell Izuku about the feelings that she could no longer deny.
So Mina lifted her phone to her ear, and pressed the button that would forever change her world.
"This is Principal Nedzu," a crisp voice answered after only a single ring, "To what do I owe the pleasure of this late night call, Miss Ashido?"
She looked to the photo that sat on her desk, slightly askew in its frame from when she had taken it out to stare at it earlier that evening. She and Izuku were smiling broadly, arms around each other's shoulders as they celebrated Izuku perfecting his Full Cowling for battle. It was a reminder of how far they had come, and how far they still had left to go.
The League was a threat to him for as long as they existed, and Mina could no longer accept that. She had to take a stand, and do what she knew was right. For her classmates, for herself, and for Izuku.
"Because my birth name was Ashido. But for years, my name has been Mina Shiguraki, and I am a spy for the League of Villains."
Thank you very much for reading! Your enjoyment means the world to me. This is the opening story for my Izumina week stories. I plan to do all seven, so look forward to the rest as the week goes on. I hope you guys like what I've come up with!
Love IzuMina, MHA, or just anime in general? Come join the IzuMina discord server and meet some cool, if nutty, people! If you'd like an invite, send me a message on my Tumblr ( ) or on Discord at EvilMuffinLord#0583.