Another day, Another chapter! Time for the boys to settle in, while Nezu plans in the background! And Naoki turns 16 (March 31). Honestly, I had a blast writing this chapter and I hope all readers enjoy it as well! The poll is still up![strawpoll .me/21039942] and it's Kinoko ahead with 2 points! who knows who will win the bug boy's heart! Though people have been suggesting a Poly relationship between Naoki, Kinoko, and Mina... I was against it at first.
But writing this, I'm slowly starting to see why people want it.
Anyway, enjoy the story and see you next chapter.
BHNA, D&D, and WH40k are all owned by their respected copyright holders and I have no ownership of anything.
Any songs used in this story are owned by their original songwriters and I have no ownership of anything.
Beta read by drakon0130
Chapter 7
Last day of freedom
The week till the start of the new school year had felt very long for not only Izuku but also Naoki. With the bonus of living on campus now, Izuku could spend more time training "One For All" without the need or worry to rush back home or the travel time between it and UA. The week was more focused on keeping his control over the "full cowling" state more than anything else, and by the end of the week, he was able to maintain the form almost indefinitely, thanks to the suggestion made by All-Might of all people.
"Come now, young Midoriya! You were doing very well earlier today, why are you slowing down now?" Asked the number one hero in his skeletal state, thankful that he was able to come and go as his alter ego "Yagi Toshinori" until the start of the new school year. He watched as his successor slowly panted and was heaving dryly. He had been trying to speed across Gym Gamma currently, which was a large area full of pipes and tight corridors. The point of today's training was for Izuku to speed along and maintain the boy's "cowl" state. The said boy merely rolled onto his back for air, as if he was breathing in his last breaths.
"I-it's hard … to keep powering up… too slow to do so... going from zero to 5 percent is … not easy." panted out the boy as he moved his arm over his eyes to block the intense light above the gym. Toshinori walked over and handed the boy a bottle of water, thinking about what his student was doing for over the last few hours that he had been watching him until he then got an idea.
"Young Midoriya, I have the answer to your conundrum!"
"Does it...involve me clenching my butt cheeks and shouting 'smash'?" questioned the young boy as he moved his arm away to drink, watching his mentor cough out some blood and then flick Izuku's head, while grumbling as his young student chuckled and coughed because he was drinking some water.
"Har har, little smartarse… you hang out with young Gensou too often."
"He's the only friend I got, so I had to pick it up from somewhere." replied the boy, chuckling some more before drinking out of the bottle again, Toshinori's eyes lost some sparkle after Izuku said that.
Let it be known that Toshinori was grateful for Naoki to be Izuku's friend, the obvious positivity between the two helping his successor be a little more confident then say if he was all alone, it was the fact that the one previous "friend" that he had turned out to be his tormentor, and who also was able to get into UA as well. While Izuku rarely talked about his experiences with this "Bakugo", Naoki had been more forthcoming when he had spoken to the other boy in private. Turns out that Naoki Gensou also picked up on some of the green-haired boy's habits, one of which was note-taking. He had been recording all the times that Bakugo had bullied the boys for the last eight or so years of their lives, or there were predictions on days that Bakugo may have targeted Mirdoriya when Naoki couldn't be around his friend. The real catalyst was the voice recorder that he gave to Toshinori during one of those meetups, this time with Nezu in the room for the boy to recount the experiences they had. Naoki explained that his mother had given it to Izuku during his week of "metamorphosis" so he could catch up on his lessons when he was finished changing into his "adult" body, he then played the fateful day of the slime villain incident and the words uttered by one Katsuki Bakugo in the classroom.
To say Toshinori was outraged that such a thing happened is an understatement, he had 'hero up' to his bulk form but before he could get up from his seat, Nezu held a paw out, he was still staring at the devil boy and reading his reaction to it. The principal then thanked Naoki for the information and sent him off back to the dorms to have dinner, leaving the recorder on the desk.
After a few moments had passed, Toshinori let go of his buffed state and looked to the Principal, "Sir, what are you planning?" he asked, seeing the glint in the chimera's eye as he kept watch of the door, before sighing and reaching for a cup of tea that had been placed there since the beginning of the meeting, taking a sip of the still-hot liquid.
"Well, first off, at the beginning of this year, Bakugo Katsuki will be moved to Class 1-B, if not for the safety of Midoriya and Gensou, but also his as well," he spoke solemnly, looking to the number one who looked perplexed.
"'His' safety?"
"Yes, I had a feeling something was off between the three after reviewing the footage from the practical exam explanations and watching Mr. Gensou's reaction to the suicide baiting just now confirmed it. I saw the exact hatred he has in his eyes like you do when the mention of "you-know-who" is involved." said Nezu as he watched the pro's eyes widen and then furrow, nodding and resting in his chair.
"You are worried that young Gensou would go too far in training and perhaps hurt Bakugo on purpose?"
"Oh, I have no belief that Mr. Gensou would do that, not intentionally," replied Nezu as he went into his desk and pulled out a very well used book, hardcover with what was old and faded but the title was still readable. Toshinori rose an eyebrow at this as he read out "Monster Manual" aloud.
"Mr. Gensou has been using the creatures from this book in his illusions, which normally would not be an issue if said illusions were nothing more than just that. But the fact they can interact with the "real" world is where the problem lies." Said Nezu as he slowly opened the book to the page of the "Empyrean", sliding it gently to Toshinori who slowly began to read it.
"This… creature… was the one that young Gensou used to destroy the zero-pointer from the recording I watched, correct?" asked the blonde pro, for which Nezu nodded solemnly, sipping his tea as he watched the blues eyes of Toshinori slowly opened wide before closing the book, "H.. he can conjure demigods?"
"Not just demigods, anything from that book, be it the lowliest worm to literal gods of annihilation, and when he has them interact with the real world, they are using one hundred percent of their full strength." spoke the chimera with a deadly tone in his voice, watching the reaction of the number one hero, "To put it simply, let's say he conjured an illusion of you, at your prime, at one hundred percent, and then had it punch Bakugo, what would happen?"
Nezu began to finish his cup of tea as he watched the face of All Might slowly begin to pale, quivering at the imagery the principal just placed in his head before shaking it to calm himself down, "I.. see what you mean, sir."
"I am not saying Mr. Gensou would do such a thing, but until he can fully test out every single creature within this book and its strength, it would be best to separate the three. Vlad King is an excellent teacher and demands respect, perhaps without Mr. Gensou and Mr. Midoriya, it could cool down the ego of Bakugo Katsuki, or at least put a leash on him for now." Nezu said as he poured himself another cup of tea, then passed one to Toshinori who took it, still quaking slightly."And without Bakugo to add further unneeded hostilities, it won't hinder the other boy's while dealing with Aizawa and his teaching methods." he sipped his tea as he sighed happily, "I have already spoken with Mr. Gensou and limited his usage of the various monsters and pro heroes he can conjure up until he gets more practice in control over his "time limit" for when they can exist in the real world. He can still call up anything, but only to allow them to "exist" when permitted by a Pro Hero." continued the chimera for which Toshinori sighed in relief, before suddenly getting shivers down his back at the next thing Nezu said."Scaring his opponents and his classmates in hero training though is allowed, so do be mindful of that."
Quickly regaining his train of thoughts from his memory of that meeting, Toshinori looked to his wide-eyed successor with a smirk as he proclaimed, "My suggestion is to be in that "full cowling" state you call at all times, but a very lower percentage, similar to how a dimmer switch works on a room light! When you need to have more power, just turn the dial, and when you need to hold back, turn it dial backward." Toshinori smiled, as Izuku looked at him even more wide-eyed, "This is a trick I used so that when I was doing grocery shopping in my younger days to not crush or break anything!" Toshinori smiled as Izuku beamed, nodding back, and started to practice, using that same dimmer switch in his mind.
It had worked great after the first day or so, now Izuku was using his full cowl every minute he was awake! (he tried to keep using full cowl while he was asleep the first night, and woke up with a broken leg, much to the annoyance of Recovery Girl and embarrassment of Izuku.) plus with his quirk still being powered on, it allowed his body to feel the changes of the foreign power and adapt, which allowed Izuku to push past his five percent limit to eight percent, while he could go further to fifteen percent it was only for a few moments as the pain would start to become too great for him.
Naoki also had made progress with his quirk, thanks to the addition of vocal lessons by Present Mic, along with following a new diet to strengthen his cords, the devil insect-like teen could push his illusions into reality for a solid ten seconds before his voice could give out. Though he had to make sure not to summon giant bugs around his new mentor as when Mic came into the studio to check up on the teen's progress one afternoon, he shrieked so loudly from the sight of the illusions that it sent Naoki through the studio wall by accident.
It was now Sunday, the last day before the start of the new school year and currently, Naoki was in his room, having woken up and opening the birthday present he had received from his mother and father, a customer special edition 'Mender' electric guitar that had a similar sheen of blue that had a texture to his body plates, he was looking over it slowly when a knock at the door was heard and got him out of the inspection of his new instrument. Placing it on his bed, he walked over and opened the door to see Izuku beaming at him, holding out a wrapped (All Might wrapping paper, of course) present for him, shouting a "Happy Birthday, Nao-Kun!"
"Dude, you didn't have to get me a gift!" Naoki smiled as he took the present, Izuku chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. Naoki carefully unwrapped the present as Izuku started to explain what he got him.
"I know, but it's your sixteenth birthday, you only get to be sixteen once… Plus it may help you with your quirk!" beamed the green-haired boy as that comment rose an eyebrow as Naoki took off the rest of the paper and both eyes went wide, Izuku started to speak again, "I know it's from a different game then where your Monster Manual is from, but while your illusions are pretty tough to figure out up close, and from what I saw, they can only use magic spells or primitive weaponry like bows and arrows, with illusions that can shoot more modern and advanced weaponry, you can lay down cover fire for other heroes to get close!" explained Izuku as Naoki was looking through the book, obviously pre-quirk but of decent quality compared to his monster manual, an obvious re-release but he closed it and rose an eyebrow, reading aloud the cover then looking to Izuku with a big smirk, which was matched by the green-eyed boy.
"'Codex: Space Marines' eh?... You are right Izuku, this will help out my quirk!"
After showing Izuku the new guitar, Naoki had said he would be down later before lunch as he wanted to "test" out his new instrument. Izuku nodded and went down to the common room to prepare in helping people find their rooms. He was given this task by Nezu as to help direct the flow of all the students that would be coming in, (as well as help his social skills a bit, which Nezu had forgotten to mention) and began to look over the various names listed for the Class 1-A revised list. It was curious as to why the list was revised, but Nezu had passed it off as some people dropping out of UA to look at different schools or shifts between the classes. The reasoning was fine by Izuku and didn't question it as he sat at the table in front of the main entrance outside.
The first to arrive was a boy about Izuku's age with hair that was one-half white, and one-half red. His expression was stoic and expressionless when he spoke his name to Izuku, he gave him the room key and a brief explanation of the dorm rules that were also within the booklet to be given out. Shoto nodded his head in thanks before walking to his room on the second floor on the boy's side of the dorms. The next person to arrive was a girl that made Izuku very flustered as she was very beautiful, with a ponytail that was wild behind her head, her sharp-looking black eyes looking to the green-haired boy with a tilt of her head as movers behind her waited patiently as Izuku sputtered out and asked for her name, which was Momo Yaoyorozu.
After giving her the keys to her room and explaining the rules, he panted out in relief as he had some time to recover before more people came. He could hear the music Naoki was playing loudly, though muffled from the outside. While the rooms were soundproof, the windows were still glass thus not fully soundproof, Izuku sighed and shook his head with a smirk, a pause from the music allowed him to hear more students walk up and Izuku smiled, regaining his confidence.
It was now a few hours later, many of the new students had gotten to the dorms and were already unpacked and mingling within the common room, Izuku looked back to see the various other people he had learned the names of, with the faces to match them. First, there was a group of boys on the couch playing a gaming console. They were Hanta Sero, Denki Kaminari, and Eijiro Kirishima, all three of whom were playing a fighting game with one Tenya Iida behind them, waving his arm back and forth like a robot to try and get the three other boys to not be quite so loud. Izuku smirked as he watched this, as the first time they had met, he was scared that the Iida boy would chew him out like at the entrance exam but was shocked that instead, the blue-haired boy bowed and how he acted, for which Izuku waved his hands back and forth, telling him there was no need and it was fine.
Past the couch, sitting at the kitchen table was a mixture of boys and girls, One of which was the already mentioned Momo Yaoyorozu, and beside her was the cool looking Kyoka Jiro who seemed to be in between listening to Momo and hearing the music from the boy's side of the dorm from the way her eyes looked up to the stairs, Izuku rose an eyebrow at this and was curious if it was because of her quirk.
His gaze continued to look at the girls at the table, one he could recognize as one of the ones Naoki had saved during the exam and that was Mina Ashindo, talking with what could be pair of floating clothes, but in reality, was Toru Hagakure, and she seemed just as bubbly as Mina was. Across from them were another few interesting people, the bird-headed boy named Fumikage Tokoyami, the large masked and many armed teen boy named Mezo Shoji, with Yuga Aoyama sitting beside the large boy who seemed to be sparkling when he emoted or talked, which was interrupted by the appearance of a thick-lipped teen named Rikido Sato, who was carrying out snacks for the group at the table and was followed by the large tailed boy Mashirao Ojiro. At the corner of the room sitting on a stool was a very short boy with balls on his head that Izuku remembered had accused him of "kill-stealing" during the practical exam after saving him from one of the robots. The way he was watching the girls of the classroom sent shivers down his side and would make a note to keep an eye on him.
Izuku turned around to face the front and await the last two people to join the dorms. He looked down at his open notebook that was labeled "Class 1-A Heroics Quirks Analysis" that laid beside the room list. He was also given the small assignment by Nezu to guess the quirks of his new dormmates as he met them as a way to test out the current level of his analysis skills. He had already filled a quarter of the book with his guesses and possible improvements to some of the more obvious quirks he identified. He was brought out of a mutter storm with a soft gasp of, "You're the green-haired boy!"
Izuku looked up and his eyes went wide as before his eyes were the brown-haired girl that saved him and then he saved her after, he smiled up at her and chuckled gently, his cheeks still a little rosy and he rubbed the back of his head, "And you are the gravity girl!" he said as she blushed and chuckled nervously back. After they both calmed down and smiled at each other, Izuku gave her the dorm key and the rules booklet, turning around and pointing to the stairs, he offered to carry her large boxes of things to the stairs for her, but she waved her hand and said she had it, touching the boxes with her quirk and making them super light. Izuku blinked and smiled, sitting down and immediately started to write about Ochaco's entry.
"You sure seem to like her quirk to suddenly start writing about it, Kero…" spoke a very familiar voice as Izuku slowly looked up from his notebook, his cheeks going red as standing before Izuku was the last student of class 1-A. The same long green-haired, shorter girl with the cute sounds of croaks that he finally deduced were frog-like. He was gasping gently as he could feel his heart rush at the sight of the girl he had met in the grocery store those many months ago, the same girl that saved him during the exam's when he was falling after punching the zero-pointer. He blinked a few times before speaking after a few moments of silence.
"A-a-ah, well I-I'm interested in e-e-everyone's quirk, t-they are very c-cool." He chuckled likely and rubbed the back of his head, the frog girl ribbiting in acknowledgment before Izuku cleared his throat, "N-Name please?"
"Asui Tsuyu, but you can call me Tsu, kero," she said politely, tilting her head in a very cute way with her tongue sticking out slightly that made Izuku's blush go even redder, he stuttered out the welcome and handed her the keys, where their fingers touched for a brief moment, making both teens retreat their hands quickly and now Tsuyu was sporting a blush on her cheeks, she bowed her head quickly then went inside of the dorms. Izuku watched her go and then sighed heavily, berating himself how he acted around the cute frog girl. He knew he had a crush on her, but he had no idea if Tsu would feel the same about him, all his positive experiences were between his Auntie Yuri and his mother after all. She may have saved him during the practical, but that could've been due to her wishing to be a hero, of course, that was the reason they were here for. To be heroes. With another heavy sigh, he began to pack his things up, clearly a little down from how his negative thoughts turned his mood a little sour.
A gasp came from behind him as he turned his head to see another girl before him. She was of shorter stature than him, but she was dressed up in what could be described as one of the "Lolita" outfits you'd see in some of the hero idol shops in Akihabara. Her cheeks were flush with a rose tint and she was holding what looked like a box wrapped up with wrapping paper covered in mushrooms. Izuku putting two and two together from what Naoki told him before and the mushrooms on the paper, he smiled. "Hello, you must be Komori, yes?" he asked and the girl nodded rapidly.
"Y-Yes, I am Komori K-Kinoko, C-Class 1-B… erm... I-is Gensou-Kun here? D-Did he make it into UA?" she said in a whisper, but Izuku had heard her easily enough and then looked up to Naoki's window which was still beating out the music, he turned to the shy girl.
"He did in fact, he's in his room at the moment, but I can have someone escort you up."
Komori blushed a deep red and started to sputter out how she didn't want to be a bother or to bug him. Izuku shook his head and smiled, telling her it was no trouble and he walked over to the door of the dorms and opened it, "Ashido! Could I get some help for a moment?"
Kinoko was blushing hard when she had left her dorms of 1-B. Despite these being her casual clothes, she had tried to leave without the notice of any of her new classmates, which sadly didn't work as she was soon caught by Setsuna Tokage, Itsuka Kendo, and Pony Tsunotori. She was adamant that she hadn't dressed up and the supposed "gift" was nothing more than a 'thank you' for the boy who saved her from the zero-pointer in the exam. Setsuna was relentless in her teasing that Kinoko was going to confess to her "crush" until Itsuka had enough, chopping her on her head before dragging the lizard teen away. Pony had smiled that ever bright smile of hers, and in broken Japanese, wished Komori "good luck".
Meeting the green-haired boy again so soon also didn't help, she had met him for the first time when he shared the medical recovery with Naoki, where there were two other girls, one with long green hair and one with short brown hair similar to her own in a way. After she, Mina, and the two other girls had to leave the room to go back to their homes, they had all exchanged numbers at the insistence of Mina, and now Kinoko would consider them decent friends at least during the time they awaited the exam results, they had continued to talk and spoke about how their exams went, also with how the four girls met the two boys from before. Tsu was rather blunt in her speech about the green-haired boy, admitting to her liking him but worried that he may not feel the same, despite when he called her cute at the grocery store. She wished she had Tsu's courage to admit her feelings for the insect devil boy, but she was worried that she was too shy around him and that may have given him the wrong impression. Plus there was Gensou-sensei, his mother, who she rather liked but could tell was protective of her son, often training him away from the others for some reason.
That reason being, from what she learned, was that his quirk, the ability to summon any creature or things using his vocal cords had scared a few students away in previous years and would often be trained alone at his request. She would have loved to hear him sing at least once before coming to UA, but... maybe…
Her thoughts halted when she saw the green-haired boy and Tsu meet up again in front of the dorms, watching the interaction and learning of his name, one Izuku Midoriya, the one who currently was the reason for her current predicament.
Mina was asking her about her dress, questions like 'where she got it, how hard is it to put on and wear?' and the odd request of 'did they come in a leopard pattern?'. She shook her head as both teen girls had finally stopped in front of the door with the heaviest sounding bass beats she could hear blasting behind it, she recognized the genre of music as either hard rock or heavy metal. She fidgeted as she stared at the door and Mina beside her nudging her gently in the arm, "Well? Are you going to knock?"
"B-but he shrooms b-b-busy, I-I don't wanna bug him with shroom-thing like this." Oh great, her speech into mushrooms was back, that's all she needed.
"Nah, it's fine Koko! Besides he's been in there apparently since he woke up and hasn't left, he must be hungry!" Mina exclaimed and went to knock on the door before Kinoko could stop her, with a good hit from one knock, the door slowly began to open and the sight that presented itself to both girls made them blush deep.
Naoki was on his last song, he was panting hard, shirtless, and was hungry, but he needed to finish one last song, thankfully it was one that started slowly at first and built up over time. He took a deep breath and hit play on his laptop, activating his quirk with his vocal cords, and after playing the opening guitar part with his quirk providing the backup instruments and voices, he began to sing.
Your cruel device
Your blood, like ice
One look, could kill
My pain, your thrill
I wanna love you, but I better not touch (don't touch)
I wanna hold you, but my senses tell me to stop
I wanna kiss you, but I want it too much (too much)
I wanna taste you, but your lips are venomous poison
You're poison running through my veins
You're poison
I don't wanna break these chains
He exhaled slowly, strumming the chords of his guitar to the beat that played around him, whipping his loose ebony hair over and around his head to get it out of his face as he opened his mouth to continue singing.
Your mouth, so hot
Your web, I'm caught
Your skin, so wet
Black lace, on sweat
I hear you calling and it's needles and pins (and pins)
I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name
Don't wanna touch you but you're under my skin (deep in)
I wanna kiss you but your lips are venomous poison
You're poison running through my veins
You're poison
I don't wanna break these chains
Poison
And now was the part he often had difficulty with, the guitar solo. It wasn't hard by any means, but after the songs he had been playing all day, his fingers were feeling a little raw surprisingly (given his fingertips were covered with his chitinous shell). This song was last on his list for practice because of its simplicity after running through the "gauntlet". His tail swished as he shifted his hips side to side, if anyone was behind him, they would get an unexpected show with how tight his shorts clung to his body, thankfully he had shut the door tight earlier. As the song started to pick up he began to sing again.
One look, (one look) could kill (could kill)
My pain, your thrill
I want to love you, but I better not touch (don't touch)
I wanna hold you, but my senses tell me to stop
I wanna kiss you, but I want it too much (too much)
I wanna taste you, but your lips are venomous poison
You're poison running through my veins
You're poison
I don't wanna break these chains
Poison (poison)
At this point, Naoki was so into the song he turned to face the other wat, lost in the moment, his eyes were closed before he turned as he felt the vibrations of his vocal cords guide his movements, sliding to his 'closed' door, singing his heart out.
I want to love you but I better not touch (don't touch)
I wanna hold you but my senses tell me to stop
I wanna kiss you but I want it too much (too much)
I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison
Yeah!
Well, I don't want to break these chains
Poison (poison) no
Runnin' deep inside my veins
Burnin' deep (poison) inside my brain
Poison (poison)
I don't want (poison) to break these chains
Poison (poison)
He panted as he let his breathing get under control, he could feel how hot his body was with the beads of sweat rolling down his body, he relaxed as he let out one final breath of relief, eyes still closed.
"Holy shit, that was hot."
That one sentence shattered whatever relief he had as he whipped his head up and opened his eyes, his iris' dilating into specks as a deep blueish purple blush radiated on his cheeks, for before him, standing in his OPEN door, was Kinoko and Mina, both who looked utterly stunned either at his current display, his proficient singing and guitar playing… or that they understood the song and he was hoping it was the two previous options.
His piece of mind shattered as Mina gave him a slow smile, biting her lip and her eyes shone with almost a predatory look. Kinoko's eyes looked glazed over, again the same sort of look Mina was giving him though she wasn't smiling. It was Mina who spoke first, "Well Well Well, who knew you could play 'those' type of songs, Nao-Kun…"