Chapter 15
.:. School Life: Start! .:.
"A successor?"
"Yup!" The schoolgirl leaned up against the bridge railing and lifted herself up, legs swinging back and forth and loose black hair fluttering in the wind. "You're getting old, All Might. Older than me, even. Don't you think it's time?"
He pulled his coat a little closer to protect against the cold and snow, and looked out over the grey water. "I don't think... I can't do that in good conscience. Not while that power still—"
"Toshi, Toshi," she chastised him gently. "That's exactly why. You beat All For One. You did what the rest of us couldn't. And now, his power's passed on, and it's time for One For All to do the same."
"And entrust Young Midoriya to whoever comes after me?" He shook his head. "I don't doubt him , he seems like a good boy. I know he's nothing like that man, even if they have the same power. But..." He frowned, fists clenching. "But even so, I can't help but worry as long as it exists."
By all accounts, Midoriya Izuku seemed to be a genuinely good person. Everyone said so, even Gran, and Toshinori had seen no hints of anything remotely malicious the few times they met. In fact, Toshinori had to admit that under other circumstances he likely would have even considered the boy as a potential candidate to eventually inherit One For All.
No, it was not Midoriya Izuku that Yagi Toshinori feared. It was the power he held.
"As long as he has it, he's a target," he whispered. "If he were somehow coerced, such as if someone got threatened. Or if one of All For One's followers found out about it... Or if someone found a way to subvert his control..." He shook his head again, grimacing at the mere thought.
Midoriya's heart was good, but Toshinori could recognize that was also his key weakness. If a villain were to threaten someone, even a total stranger, in order to force Midoriya to use All For One's power, he had no idea what the boy would choose. He might be able to resist the temptation to use that Quirk, choose to value the greater good, but if he did so and the hostage was killed...
The boy would break. His heart was just the kind that couldn't stand the guilt of being responsible for the loss of a life. Even if he didn't kill the hostage with his own hands, he would still place the blame at his own feet. While it would ultimately be the villain's fault, it was hard to fully accept that when the hostage would have been in that position purely to use against him.
And if Midoriya broke, Toshinori had no idea what would happen next.
"It's too much responsibility to place on someone else. He's only in this position because of me. If the worst comes to pass, then that responsibility still rests on my shoulders. And besides, even if none of that ever comes to pass, he'll still need someone to support him as he figures out a proper use for that power. I don't know if I can be that someone, and train a successor all at once."
The girl fell uncharacteristically quiet as he finished, thinking. "He'll be a handful, I'll give you that," she said softly after a moment. "Sort of like someone else I know." Oof. That comment was quite a bit more pointed. "He might not be trying to become the next pillar of society, but it wouldn't be the first time a Quirkless kid with a dream and more guts than sense got a power that strong. And by the look of things, that last time turned out pretty well."
She was older, now. More like the woman he remembered as she turned to him with a familiar grin and a soft punch to his chest. "Have some faith, Toshinori. Don't worry about the worst case so much, and focus on the present for a bit. You're right about one thing, though. He'll need someone to keep an eye on him as he grows." Her smile faded then, her mouth setting itself into a more serious line as her dark eyes bored into him.
"Don't place all of this on your own shoulders. You're not alone."
Toshinori wasn't entirely sure when he woke up that morning; it was the gradual sort of awakening that catches you off guard. Once he was fully aware of himself, he sat up in bed and rubbed his temples, trying to work through the dream while it was still fresh in his head.
"Seriously, again...?"
This marked the sixth time he'd dreamt of Nana since meeting Midoriya Izuku.
Ochako finished adjusting her tie and snapped a quick photo in the mirror. She already knew she'd never hear the end of it from her family if she didn't take plenty of pictures to send back. She did one last run through to make sure she had everything she'd need (thankfully not much, since it was only orientation day), hoisted on her backpack, and headed downstairs.
The first thing that greeted her was the smell of something sweet, followed by the sight of a few students hanging out in the common room. Rin and Awase had the TV on with the morning news, and Kendo was heading towards the front doors but stopped when she noticed Ochako.
"Oh, hey!" she called with a wave. "Glad I caught you before I headed out. Satou already left, but he left some cookies for everyone in the kitchen." She held up her own half-eaten cookie to illustrate the point, and Ochako perked up.
"Sweet! Thanks." In the two days since they'd arrived at the dorms, Satou had already baked a cake for everyone, as well as muffins for breakfast yesterday. If that was the baseline for his baking abilities, there was no way Ochako was going to miss out on more. She'd planned to grab a bagel for breakfast anyway since Inko-san had said she'd leave some out on a heated plate.
Sure enough, her detour to the kitchen was rewarded with two plates piled with warm chocolate chunk cookies besides the bagels. She grabbed one, considered for a moment, then slipped it in her mouth before grabbing another to take with her. She grabbed a bagel like planned, and then it was out the doors and to the main campus building.
She'd been wowed by the size of the campus when she first came to UA for the entrance exam (they had entire fake cities ), and the main building seemed determined to live up to her first impressions. Four huge glass towers connected in pairs so that the whole thing looked like a roman 'H' when you looked at it from the side. The sunlight's reflection on the glass made it look so dazzling, it was almost blinding.
She entered and made her way up several floors to the 1-A classroom, and woah that was a big door. Ochako stood and just stared at it for a moment, wondering if any of her new classmates would need a door that tall, before shaking herself out of her door-induced trance and pushing it open.
The inside was... pretty normal for a classroom, actually. It felt weird and underwhelming after the excessiveness of everything else. The desks were arranged in four columns of five facing the blackboard, and had a teacher's podium at the front of the room.
It looked like most, but not quite all, of her classmates were there already. A few of them she recognized from the dorms. Komori, Yudai and Satou took the last three desks of the second column, the girls chatting quietly while Satou talked to another boy from the next column over. She recognized Shinsou by the familiar shock of purple hair as he sat at the second desk of the third column with his head down, Todoroki directly next to him in the last column just waiting for class to start.
She noticed Deku seated second to last in the back corner, splitting his attention between talking to a girl with a floofy ponytail and frantically scribbling something down in his notebook. Standing next to them were a girl with her hair tied back in a cute bow shape, and— more importantly —Tsuburaba!
Ochako perked up as they made eye contact, watching him light up with a bright grin. She quickly slipped her backpack under her desk in the first column and slid over to that corner of the room. "Hey, looks like we all made it in the same class," he said as soon as they hit a lull in the conversation.
"Yeah, it's so great to see you!" she replied, matching his grin with one of her own. "I thought you'd be in the dorms for sure since you lived so far away!"
"Got a cousin with an apartment building out here, she's letting me stay there for free. Oh, and congrats on placing eighth!" He quickly high-fived her, Ochako careful not to use all five fingers for obvious reasons, and he turned to the other two girls. "Asu— Tsuyu-chan , Yaoyorozu-san, this is Uraraka. She helped Midoriya and me during the entrance exam."
They all made some quick introductions. Ochako noticed almost right away that Yaoyorozu Momo had that polished, upper-class air to her of a rich girl, though thankfully she didn't seem like the spoiled type. Asui ("Please call me Tsuyu, kero."), meanwhile, seemed a bit more down-to-earth and blunt. Once introductions were finished, Ochako happily joined the conversation.
"What do you guys think the entrance ceremony is gonna be like?" she asked, before quickly adding, "Ooh, who do you think our teacher is?"
"Not sure," Deku offered, eyes flicking up from his notebook. "I checked and the name on our schedule wasn't publicly registered to any heroes, but given hero confidentiality protection laws that's only kind of unusual. I asked mom, too, but she said whoever he is, he's been avoiding her for some reason."
"If you just came here to make friends, the door's right there," someone interjected from the front of the room.
Ochako looked at the speaker, then did a double-take because a large, yellow blob with a scruffy human face set in it was standing behind the teacher's podium.
"This is the hero course. If you've got the right class, then take your seats."
"Excuse me," Tsuyu said, and Ochako scrambled out of the way as both girls hurried to their seats on the other side of the room.
The man-blob waited for them to settle into their desks before speaking. "Okay, it took you all seventeen seconds to get settled. Time is importa—"
At that moment, Awase crashed through the door, gave a panicked look at everyone else in their seats, offered a few high-speed bows to the yellow blob, and took his seat two spots in front of Ochako. She had to bite down on her fist to keep from laughing at his frantic scramble, and even then she was pretty sure her shoulders shaking gave her away.
Mr. Blob took a few seconds to give them all a deadpan look, lingering on Awase in particular. "As I was saying, time is important," he resumed in a monotone. "If you waste it, you just aren't being rational. With that out of the way, I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Nice to meet you."
He unzipped his— ah! so it was a sleeping bag!— and shrugged it off before holding up a piece of blue, white, and red fabric. It only took a second to recognize it as a gym uniform like the one they'd received with their regular uniforms. "I know it's a bit sudden, but take these and get changed, then head out to the field. I'll explain further when you meet me out there."
Ochako exchanged curious looks with her classmates while Aizawa left, but grabbed the gym uniform out of her bag. She followed the crowd to the changing rooms, everyone hurrying to get dressed with little conversation before going to the field. Something told her Aizawa wouldn't like them wasting time on chit-chat in the locker room.
Fortunately a few of the dorm kids had taken a brief walk around campus yesterday, so they had a general idea of how to reach the field. Aizawa-sensei waited looking almost bored, hands stuffed in the pockets of his baggy black jumpsuit. "Today we'll be conducting a quirked physical assessment test," he announced once they all arrived, skipping any other pleasantries.
There were a few exclamations of surprise from the other students, Ochako included. "What about the entrance ceremony? The orientation?"
"What about them?" Aizawa-sensei retorted. "If you're going to become a hero, you won't have time for such leisurely events. UA's selling point is how unrestricted its curriculum is. That freedom extends to how teachers run their classes."
Ochako bobbed her head in understanding, shrinking back into the crowd slightly. That made sense, kind of... but geez, that didn't make it any less harsh. This guy must be really serious about his job.
She could respect that.
"You guys have been doing this sort of thing since junior high, right? Physical fitness tests where you weren't allowed to use your Quirks." He held up what looked like a pretty standard electronic measuring device for distances and times to help illustrate his point. "The country still uses averages taken from results from students not using their Quirks. It's irrational to do it that way since it prevents people from gaining a realistic perspective on their capabilities. But, since the Ministry of Education is dragging their feet, we're going to correct that issue ourselves here today."
He pulled out a softball. "Bakugou, you finished at the top in the entrance exam, right? What was your best result for the softball throw?"
A boy to her left straightened up with a cocky grin. "67 meters."
"Then try doing it with your Quirk. You can try whatever you want so long as you don't leave the circle."
Bakugou nodded and took the softball Aizawa-sensei handed off to him as he walked to the circle, stretched a few times, then...
"DIE!"
BOOM!
A flash of light sent the ball rocketing into the air, and Ochako could feel the heat of the explosion all the way from where she was standing. The ball covered a long arc as it streaked through the air like a meteor, then crashed into the ground and bounced a few times before rolling to a stop in the distance.
Aizawa-sensei held up the recording device to reveal Bakugou's score of just over seven hundred meters. Pretty much everyone broke out in surprised and excited shouts over that, their voices quickly overlapping.
"Actually, this might be kind of fun!" one of the other girls, who looked distinctly pink, said excitedly. Aizawa-sensei seemed to catch that comment in particular.
"'It looks fun,' huh?" he said, and a hush instantly fell over the class as a grin that showed way too much teeth slowly spread across his face. "You have three years to become a hero. Will you have an attitude like that the whole time?" The question hung in the air, and his smile faded in an instant, back to looking bored. "Alright. Whoever comes in last place overall in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential, and will be punished with expulsion."
" Huh?! " The class stared at him in shock.
"Like I said, us teachers are given a high degree of freedom to handle the circumstances of our students," he drawled. "Welcome to the UA hero course!"
"Wait, seriously?" Ochako yelped. "Even if this wasn't the first day of school, isn't that unfair?" Some corner in the back of her mind knew that talking back to the strict teacher who was already planning to expel someone was probably not the brightest idea, but come on.
Surprisingly enough, Aizawa-sensei turned serious and seemed to actually consider her question rather than just throwing her out on the spot. "Show of hands," he addressed the assembled students, "how many of you have been caught up in a dangerous situation where you needed to be rescued by a pro hero?"
About a third of the class raised their hands alongside Ochako, some faster than others. To her surprise, Deku was one of them, but maybe it shouldn't have caught her off guard. They'd only been friends for a few days, and that wasn't the sort of thing that you just brought up in casual conversation. She wasn't completely sure, but for a second there it looked like Tsuburaba was about to raise his hand, too. In the end though, it rested at his side, and she turned her attention back to Aizawa-sensei.
"When you were in that situation, were you more worried about how unfair it was, or being saved?" He let the question hang in the air for a moment as they all digested it. "Villain attacks, accidents, and natural disasters. Japan is covered in unfairness. Heroes are the ones who reverse those situations, or at least try to get them under control. That's what you're here to learn how to do, and over the next three years you'll be pushed to the edge to help you learn it. Go Beyond. Plus Ultra."
His grin returned, far too wide and eyes glittering with an almost malevolent glee. "Now, come at this with all you've got."
Woah. That took a turn.
As everyone lined up for the exercises, Ochako gravitated towards the people she already knew best, which in this case meant Tsuburaba, Deku, and Komori and Kodai from the dorms. Deku and Tsuburaba seemed to share her thoughts on Aizawa-sensei's speech—or well, Tsuburaba did.
"Wasn't that cool, Shinsou?" Deku babbled excitedly, apparently unfazed by the intimidating aura Aizawa's words left. "It really had that 'pro-hero' feel, didn't it?"
Even though she hadn't really gotten to know him beyond 'Deku's floormate,' Ochako could tell that Shinsou looked a little bit paler than usual. Actually, make that a lot paler. And maybe a little green. It didn't look that good with his hair.
"Easy for you to say," he muttered sourly before sighing and shaking his head. "Sorry, I just never did too great on these and I don't have a physical Quirk to give me a boost. I'm not really looking forward to it, considering..."
"Yeah," Komori agreed, face uncharacteristically sullen. Her bangs covered her eyes today, giving her a remarkably gloomy look compared to how she'd been over the weekend. "Mushrooms are great for fighting robots—heck, they're great for almost everything!—but how are they gonna help me in P.E.? What if one of us comes in last?"
"Ah," Deku said, face falling, but after a few seconds brightened again. "W-well, you both worked really hard to get here, and I'm sure Aizawa-sensei will see that! Just try your hardest, and we'll be cheering you on the whole time."
Shinsou didn't look convinced in the least, but at least he seemed less sick. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave what was either a smile or a grimace, and she was kinda leaning towards it being the latter. "Thanks. I'll... yeah."
" Oi, Deku! Get your ass over here, we're racing!"
Deku jumped a little bit and turned to face Bakugou, who watched them with a scowl near the dirt lane for running. "R-right, I'll be there in a sec, Kacchan!" he called back.
Ochako watched as he took his mark at the start line. As soon as Aizawa called "start" he went literally crashing past Bakugou, the blond propelling himself forward with explosions from his palms. Deku beat him by just under half a second, sending the other boy into a fit of yelling. The race happened too fast for Ochako to actually cheer for Deku, but she made sure to shout in support after he'd won.
She wasn't as worried as Shinsou and Komori, but she did agree with them on one thing for sure. This class, probably this entire school , was full of crazy powerful people. She was gonna have to work hard if she wanted to keep pace with them. It was like Aizawa-sensei said:
Go Beyond. Plus Ultra.
"Infinity?!" the rest of the class shouted in disbelief.
It turned out that being perfectly built to launch a softball into orbit is really good for your physical assessment scores.
Ochako returned to the group and exchanged high-fours with her friends while Aizawa-sensei grabbed another ball, seeing as the one she'd thrown should be turning into a satellite any second. Not that she felt bad about her earlier scores, but something like that should get her a good ranking for sure.
Kaminari went after her, and then they continued down the roster until they got to Shinsou. He slumped into the circle and stared at the ball in his hand until she began to wonder if he was going to throw it at all.
"You can do it Shinsou!" Deku called, and Ochako felt the need to offer her own encouragement.
"Yeah, just use everything you've got!"
Shinsou looked back at them, then at the ball, then seemed to make up his mind about something. "Hey, sensei. Anything's fair game as long as I don't leave the circle, right?" he asked. "As long as we use our Quirk?"
Aizawa-sensei grunted his confirmation.
"Cool." He glanced back at Ochako and called, "Hey Uraraka, mind if I borrow you for a second?"
"Me? I guess." She walked up to the pitch. "What's up?"
He lowered his voice so that she was pretty sure only she could hear him. "Sorry about this in advance. You seem pretty cool, but I need this class more than I need friends."
She startled at the statement, finding it more than a little ominous. "Huh? What are you talking abo—"
That was all she got out before everything went blank.
A second later she blinked in confusion because he was facing away and his hand was empty. What the? When did he move? I thought he said he didn't have a physical Quirk. "Infinity again?!" the class shouted behind her, and Ochako looked around in confusion. Shinsou stood for a moment, staring into the distance, then turned and started walking away.
"Thanks for the assist," he called over his shoulder, but it didn't sound like his heart was in it. She noticed that he went to a different spot than before, away from where he'd been standing with her, Deku and Tsuburaba.
Ochako took up her spot next to them again, still trying to piece together what on Earth was going on. "Uh, what just happened?" she asked feebly, and got a surprised look from Tsuburaba.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Deku asked.
"I mean I just walked up there to talk to Shinsou, and next thing I know he's matching my score. Did he have a speed Quirk or something?"
Tsuburaba cocked an eyebrow. "No? He said something to you, then you reached out and used your quirk on his softball, and then he did pretty much the same thing you did. You don't remember it at all?"
She shook her head with a frown.
"...Ooooooh," Deku said softly to himself. "So that's what that was."
"What?" she asked, desperate for answers.
"Oh!" he said, apparently returning to Earth. "I, uh, I think he might've used a Quirk. I couldn't tell you the specifics or anything, but from what you're describing I guess it'd have to be some sort of compulsion thing?"
"What, like mind control?" She frowned. "But why would he even need to use something like that? He could've just asked for help!"
Deku shrugged helplessly. "Maybe he thought it wouldn't count if he wasn't 'making' you do it somehow? I mean, it is a Quirk assessment test, so..."
"I guess..." She glanced over at Shinsou, now positioned on the other side of the crowd from them and very deliberately not looking at her. She definitely didn't like the idea of someone just taking control of her like that with no warning, especially since she couldn't even remember it, but she could at least understand why he did it.
Seriously though, why didn't he just ask? And why did he seem so sure they couldn't be friends?
"Okay, I'll quickly tell you the results. If you're really worried about the exact breakdown, we can go over that another time, but for the moment just know that your score takes into account your overall performance on all the tests."
Aizawa-sensei pulled up a holographic chart with all their scores. Ochako scanned for her name, aaaaaaaand— tenth place! Not too shabby! In fifteenth was Shinsou, so at least he'd made it even if he'd had to play dirty, and in last place was...
"By the way, I was lying about the expulsion," Aizawa-sensei mentioned nonchalantly. The Totoro smile was back as he added with way too much glee for a guy who spoke in monotone the rest of the time, "It was a logical ruse to help bring out your full potential."
The entire class exploded in a mixture of surprise and outrage. The only exceptions were Komori, who was too busy practically melting with relief after scoring last (turns out she really did not like physical exercise), and Yaoyorozu, who had apparently been expecting this outcome from the get-go.
"He wouldn't actually expel someone on the first day," she said. "It should have been obvious if you thought it through." Judging from the exasperated groans a few of the other kids around them made, it really wasn't.
After everyone calmed down a bit, Aizawa-sensei sent them all back to the classroom to pick up the handouts that would be their substitutes for the orientation, with one exception. "Midoriya, stay behind for a second."
She and Tsuburaba lingered a short distance away, wanting to wait for their friend. A hard glare from Aizawa-sensei had them scrambling away though. After changing back into their uniforms they still hung by the locker rooms to wait for Deku, so they got a front-row seat of his shellshocked look as he turned the corner.
As soon as he noticed them he quickly straightened up, looking at them in surprise. "Huh? Were you waiting for me?"
"Yeah, of course we were!" Tsuburaba said with a grin. "Dunno about you, but walking back to the classroom alone would be kinda scary on the first day."
"Yeah, I guess a little," he agreed with a small smile. He went to change and soon they were walking to the classroom as a trio.
"What did he want to talk about, anyway?" Ochako asked.
"Was he mad about the crater you left during the long jump?" Tsuburaba asked, flashing a brief grin. "Still can't believe you did that!"
"Huh? Uh, n-no, it wasn't that." Deku quickly shook his head. "It's just a, uh, medical thing to do with my Quirk. He just wanted me to know I could come to him or the nurse about it if I ever needed to."
Ochako got the feeling that that wasn't all it was, especially with that look on his face when he first came back, but she decided not to push.
Besides, she quickly forgot about it when they got back to the classroom to find Satou had somehow brought out more cookies for the rest of their classmates. Assessment test aside, this year was off to a very sweet start.
Before anything else, a moment of silence for Apple's laptop keyboard. F.
We broke 1,000 kudos since posting last chapter and we're really hyped about it! Thank you all for your support, and we hope that you continue to enjoy the story!
And yeah, classes are different! That was kind of a given since Shinsou and Yoarashi are both in the hero course, but we've scrambled things around a bit beyond that as well.
Anyway, I'm sure that there's no ominous hints at secret backstories or future events in this chapter. Nope. None at all. *tone-deaf whistling*
-Cocoa