Wherein the production crew comes together and Izuku talks to a girl. Granted, it's on the internet, but still!
In other news, Tensei realizes Quirky really has grown on him.


'I found someone for the audio.'

Izuku opened his messages and blinked. What? Then his eyes widened. 'Really?' He typed with trembling fingers. 'asfcfhjnsdx'

He clicked send.

'Sorry. I accidentally key-smashed.'

The reply was quick. 'No worries, kid. I know people who do it intentionally.'

'So, you said you found an audio editor? How? Who are they? Are they willing to work with me? How much do they need me to pay them?'

'Woah, woah, woah. Calm down, quirky.'

Izuku blushed on his side of the screen. Daisuke continued typing.

'It's a kid, like you. I wasn't picky on the age. I was going for the whole older more experienced vibe, but most of the ppl who replied to my ad seemed like creeps. Haha.'

'So I picked out the only one who seemed actually interested in just editing sound.'

'Oh.'

'No need to worry. She seems chill. Her pen name's Kyo2, but she told me to call her Kyo. I told her your channel and she said she'd have a look. She'll contact you about the details in a bit.'

Izuku squirmed in his bed. Another person was watching his videos. Okay, granted, a lot of people had after Ingenium had posted his link on his social media, but every view seemed incredible to him. They liked his videos. A quirkless kid's creations.

He sighed. 'Thank you!' He typed in instantly. 'You've done so much for me, Daisuke-san, I don't know how to repay you.'

'Just do me a good analysis, sure? I want to become a cooler hero than Togata.'

'Okay! I'll work hard on it!'

'… You know I didn't mean right this instant, right?'

Izuku, who had scrambled up from his bed to grab his notebook, stilled.

'What am I going to do with you Quirky?'

'Daisuke-san!'

'Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I've got to get back to studies for now. Got a huge test coming up and Togata's eating my head about it. Send me the next video whenever, got it?'

'Okay.'

'Cool. See ya.'

Daisuke's indicator went red. Offline.

Izuku frowned. He'd just now realized. Daisuke-san was a hero-in-training too. Just like Mirio-san. So why had he volunteered to help Izuku? Surely he didn't have time?

His resolve hardened. Daisuke-san was giving up his free time to help him. Now he had an even bigger obligation. He was going to have to make sure he gave Daisuke-san the best analysis he had done in his life so he could become one of the best heroes in existence.

His phone pinged.

'Hey. This is Kyo2. That Daisuke guy said he'd tell you about me?'

She didn't wait for him to reply.

'So. I checked out your channel.' Izuku held his breath. 'The comments are right. The production quality could use improving. But I think you've got a bit of talent and strong base. And I like your choice of background music. I'll help you.'

Izuku shook himself out of his stupor as Kyo stopped typing. He pushed himself off the bed and began to pace the length of the room. 'That sounds incredible! Thank you, Kyo-san!'

'I mean, there's no need to say thank you… You'd be paying me, after all.'

There was a second before another message shot off.

'Prior warning; I'm not an adult. If that was your expectation, you're going to be seriously disappointed.'

'Oh, no. I don't mind, Kyo-san. I'm pretty young too, so…'

'I guessed that. You didn't hide your voice in your older videos that well.'

'Oh.'

'Hmm.'

'That said, I, uh, don't know how much money it takes…?'

'My ideal is a 1000 yen per hour.'

Izuku frowned, then shot up a question on the search engine, pulling up part-time salary statistics. The lower range? That didn't sound so bad. And even if Kyo spent two or three hours on one video, the total still wouldn't affect the earnings he had just gotten from Ingenium, LeMillion and the rest a lot.

'That sounds fine,' He answered. 'If you're sure.'

'Cool,' Kyo replied. 'DM me the vid files as soon as you're done making the raws.'

'Ah, I have to send them to Daisuke-san first. For graphic editing.'

'Yeah. Okay, send them to me after that then. Also, I suggest you buy a new mike and recorder. They'll cut off the white noise. It really distracts from what you want the audience to hear. I'll DM you the specifics of the best models in a bit if you want recs.' She logged off.

Izuku stared at the screen, his heart heaving.

Shoot. That had been nerve-wracking. He'd never talked to a girl before.

He shook his head. This was no time to spaz out. He had to find someone to make an analysis video on. He had been planning to make one on Rinazaki Hinaii, who the public had taken to calling Caper Queen. She'd recently pulled off a heist off a small time jewelry store, but the compilation of robberies she'd pulled off in the past year were staggering in comparison to the normal thief, and Izuku, like a lot of the online presence, thought there was an accomplice. But despite her robberies, her quirk, gymnast, was absolutely amazing, because it made her body fully flexible. She used body contortion to get into and out of the most impossible of places, and her mastery over her quirk was one of the reasons she always escaped the heroes. Well, that, and she mostly stayed in the areas where the heroes patrolling were incompatible to her capture.

He'd been thinking of doing an analysis on her, but now, with both Daisuke and Kyo working with him, he wanted to do something more. Something special.

He flopped down on the seat in front of his computer and began to type.


It had been a week and Tensei had not been contacted by Quirky.

He realized at that moment, stuck in the middle of handing over a criminal to the police, that it felt odd.

Quirky was a kid who he'd known for, what? Two months? Three? He frowned. "Damn it, the kid's grown on me."

NomNom peered over his shoulder at the criminal the police were processing. "Who's grown on you?"

Tensei jumped. "Nom!"

NomNom laughed. "Sorry, Engine. It's a habit."

"That you need to turn off."

His sidekick shrugged.

Tensei sighed and returned his attention to the policeman who had signed one of the forms and was pushing it his way. Smiling, he read over the piece of paper and wrote down the details required. "Let's go," He told NomNom, and the two strode out of the police station.

It was a slow night, characteristic of the lower rung criminals that were prowling the streets. They had already caught three on their way back to the agency, and few else were showing. Some of the other sidekicks that the Ingenium agency had recently taken on, working under MetalWork, were patrolling the rest of the areas.

"So?" His companion continued. "Who's grown on you? You didn't answer."

Tensei sighed. "This kid online. He posts analyses videos, and he did an analysis for me."

NomNom whistled. "You mean the one that gave you the idea for the really amazing new move you pulled off last week? Engine, you've been holding out."

Tensei laughed. "Funny. You always say you already know everything about your quirk."

"'Course I do. But Metal's new bestie doesn't."

"The new sidekick Robin?"

"Yeah. He and the rest of his crew are pretty unexperienced in quirk variations. Katsu High really did good on their basics, but not so much on variable fighting."

Tensei hummed. "That's true. I'll take it up with the guys when they get back." He shot a grateful look to his colleague. "Thanks, Nom."

The woman grinned, pulled out a chocolate bar from her pocket and inhaled it, cover and all.

Tensei's smile slipped. "I swear you only do that to annoy me."

She smirked.

The rest of the walk back to the agency was spent in similar bickering. It was apparent as they entered the agency that MetalWork's group hadn't returned.

Lorus sat at the entrance, golden eyes taking in everything. He had the best night vision out of the Ingenium Agency sidekicks, and therefore was almost always active at night.

Ingenium sent him a wave and pushed inside while NomNom stayed to chat.

His first stop was the breakroom where he made himself a cup of coffee – a latte, of course. Extra milk. Espressos were monsters – and grabbed a slice of pound cake that always sat there, courtesy of NomNom's baking habits. Ingenium was supremely grateful she had those habits, even though he knew the only reason she even went with pound cake was because he loved them. She certainly didn't.

With his gold in hand, he went to his office, put down everything on his table, and sat down to enjoy his rest.

Halfway through his downtime, he pulled out his phone to see four unread messages from the one kid he'd just been remembering, and one from his little brother. He opened the one from Tenya first, but sontrary to the [URGENT] typed in the header, it was just a reminder for tomorrow's family dinner.

Tensei snorted. As if he would forget. Okaa-sama had reminded him off it twice every day since it had been planned – Himari was coming over. She was the daughter of Okaa-sama's friend, and she'd come over before, wooing his mother with her charm and grace. Okaa-sama was intent on having her as a daughter-in-law, even if Tensei had told her he was going to focus only on hero work for a while.

He shook his head and swiped. Quirky's message, then.

'Ingenium-san, I'm sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to see if you could help me with something.'

'I'm going to improve my video production quality with the help of Daisuke-san and Kyo-san, and I wanted to do a special video to introduce their help. I thought of doing an analysis of the Caper Queen, but I already did one of a female villain already, and I think it had a lot of impact, but that also reduces the impact for this video, I think? So I thought of doing something different, and I came up with the silver age heroes! The ones who died in the line of duty, I mean. Analyzing their quirks won't really give them trouble, and I thought maybe this way I could also give people appreciation for them? Because I did a bit of research and not a lot of people know about them, only the archives and-

'Aah. Sorry. I rambled a lot… I was wondering if you could give me an opinion on this? If you're not too busy.'

'It's perfectly fine if you're busy, though! Please don't waste your time on this if you have plans. I'm sorry!'

Tensei chuckled. Quirky, as always, put too much importance on him. On any hero, he would guess.

He mulled over the content of the second message as he chewed on the last of his cake. Daisuke? Didn't Mirio mention a friend with that name? He shook his head. Wrong thing to focus on. He read the message again. Silver age heroes, huh? Not a lot of them were in the limelight, but Tensei's parents had told Tenya and him a bit about heroes from their time. They'd always seemed like a far-off tale, and there hadn't been many videos of them, to boot. So both of their interests had shifted to the new age heroes, especially All Might.

But those old-time heroes had paved the way for the ones that dazzled the society today, and Tensei was only now finding out the deep importance of a solid foundation.

'That sounds like a brilliant idea, Quirky. I hadn't thought about it, but the concept is sound. I'll be looking forward to the new video! And maybe you can continue to do it in-between villain episodes as a bonus episode? Perhaps every five or ten episodes?'

He shook his head. Quirky would go all out on this, and he got to watch from the front seat.


Alright. So. As of now, 1st and second options of the poll were winning (I'm including those who voted in my AO3 poll too), with [No OFA but still UA] winning with 18 votes, and [OFA and UA] lagging with 13. I edited the poll so only these two options are left - i discarded the last one as it had only 5 ish votes.

The link to the poll is in my Profile! But you guys can vote in the reviews too.

I'll leave this up until I actually get to the UA arc. As for now, I'm still one and a half, two years behind it.

Gosh, do i have plans.
I apologize in advance for any future tears.

.

Okay, I lie. I adore inciting sobbing. I am a devil :)

P.S. I am in love with everyone of my commentors and Kudos people. I AM AWED.