NOTE: Before reading this chapter, please go to YouTube in another tab or window and look up Yakety Sax and Spanish Flea. Play Yakety Sax after the first line break, and Spanish Flea when you reach the line "Still too slow, kid!". You will thank us later.
Chapter 17
.:. A Gran Ol' Time .:.
"So," Aizawa said to the class. "Midoriya is trapped in a cube, and the only key is currently held by him."
He hitched a thumb towards the old man currently wandering around the gym, calling out, "Toshi? Toshinori? Where are you?" Nineteen pairs of eyes stared at him, and then slowly turned back to Aizawa.
"Sir," Iida called hesitantly. "Who is that, exactly?"
"That is Gran Torino. He's a retired Pro Hero and used to be a homeroom teacher here in the past. The principal invited him to visit today, but it seems his mental state has deteriorated more than we realized."
Nineteen pairs of eyes turned back to Gran Torino, who currently squinted at a rocky mound. "Is that you, Nana? You look so gray..." Everyone stared a moment, and then once again turned back to Aizawa.
"Um, why does he have the key?" Yaoyorozu asked. "And why is Midoriya in a cube at all?"
"As part of the training exercise, I was going to use rescuing Midoriya as incentive and have half the class work on it while the other half observed. After rescuing him, it would repeat with another student from the first team as a 'victim,' and Midoriya and the other half attempting the rescue." Aizawa paused and added, "However, we did not realize that Gran had taken the key until we saw him with it around his neck."
"Why is it on a necklace, anyway?" Awase asked.
"To make it easier to carry during the exercise. First-year students don't always think to have pockets in their initial costume designs." That got some sheepish looks from a few of the students.
"So wait," Kirishima said. "Is Midoriya just stuck in there unless we get that key?"
"No, we have a remote to open it," Aizawa replied, and then after a beat, "But I also don't really feel like using it right now. So the objective remains the same: retrieve the key from Gran Torino." Nineteen pairs of eyes once again turned back to the old man, who seemed to have fallen asleep standing while talking to Nana the pile of rocks.
"So just get the key from an old man?" Bakugou asked. "Hah, that's gonna be way too easy!"
"I'm more concerned about getting out Midoriya, kero," Asui said, resting a finger against her chin while she craned her head back to study the cube. "That cube is very high, and I don't think I can jump that high. And we don't know if the bottom will fall and drop him if it opens, kero."
"Eh, that part will be easy," Tsuburaba dismissed with a wave. "Me and Uraraka can just use the combo we used at the entrance exam to get up there, no sweat!"
"I can reach it with my ice too," Todoroki added.
"So for now, we just need to focus on getting the key!" Kirishima said with a grin. "Awesome!"
"Let's just get Deku out so we can get on to a real exercise," Bakugou huffed. Everyone nodded, minds settled, and turned to look at Gran Torino.
Except he was gone.
"Uh, where'd he go?" Sero asked after a beat. No one had an answer.
"Toshinori?" a feeble old voice called, drifting down to them from a distance. "Nana? Hello?"
"Good luck," Aizawa told them flatly, and sat down against the wall in his sleeping bag. "Oh, and try not to harm him. He may have been a Pro Hero at one point, but he is also elderly and seems to be suffering from dementia. You should treat him with the care he deserves. If any of you do hurt him, you'll be expelled."
With that ominous warning he zipped up the sleeping bag and everyone turned to survey the bizarre cement landscape, wondering where to even start.
"I don't want to risk spoiling any surprises," All Might said. "I doubt I'd hear the end of it," he said. "A friend of mine teaches at UA," he said!
Izuku had been so star-struck he hadn't really taken the time to think those words through in the moment, but now he really wished he'd been given some sort of warning that All Might's "friend" was Gran Torino.
His initial horror at seeing his mentor and trainer had soon turned to irritation as he watched his classmates filter into the gym. This was the first hero class, and he couldn't even participate because Aizawa and Gran wanted to use Gran's "senile old man" routine! They didn't want Izuku to give it away, because of course he would while trying to catch him.
At least it seemed like there wasn't any ketchup or sausages handy this time around, so his classmates wouldn't be too traumatized.
Still, some of that irritation was at least tempered by amusement as he watched his classmates scramble after the old man. The cube, while annoying, gave Izuku a great view of the gym. Gran kept wandering just out of people's reach, using his Quirk to propel himself to high plateaus whenever he wasn't in their line of sight so they'd have to find a way up. He had to admit, as an outsider, the chase was kinda amusing.
The walkie-talkie crackled and Aizawa's voice came through. "Midoriya, how are you doing up there?" he asked, and Izuku sighed as he grabbed the device.
"Still kinda mad you guys left me up here. I can't even get a good look at everyone's costumes!"
"There's a pair of binoculars."
"I know, but it's hard to follow everyone when they're moving so fast!"
"Sorry kid. This will be a one-off. But got anything interesting to report? Reporting the situation counts as hero training too." Izuku huffed, picking up the binoculars to peer down at a few areas that had gotten his attention.
"Well, I think Komori filled one of the spike pits with mushrooms," he said, looking at a pit full of red and brown. "It's a good thing too, because Kirishima and Kaminari fell into it while trying to follow Gran. I think they thought they could jump across somehow if they took a running jump?"
"You mean the pits that are three meters wide?" Aizawa deadpanned, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.
"Yep," Izuku confirmed. "Also the mushrooms are pretty interesting. I can't see much and don't know much about mushrooms, but it looks like she can make a wide variety. Are they actual natural varieties, or are they unique to her Quirk? Can she choose the type she spawns? She can obviously choose the size, but—"
"Midoriya, focus."
"Oh, sorry!" Izuku squeaked, and moved the binoculars to look elsewhere. "Anyways, earlier Todoroki made an ice bridge over another pit which was helpful. He also made a slide at one point to help some people get down after Gran went down to the ground level. It's starting to melt though."
"Good. Anything else?"
"Oh, Sero just tried to swing across a pit with his tape and fell." Izuku perked up as he watched Tsuburaba quickly blow a puff of air towards Sero to make a platform. "Tsuburaba caught him—oh, his costume looks cool! That jacket looks like it could be modified really easily to have pockets and stuff! I wonder what's with the stuff on his shoes' soles? Is that for better grip—uh."
He stopped as he looked at another area, specifically one of Todoroki's newly formed ice bridges connecting two particularly high plateaus. Seeing it through the binoculars let him see the small ridges and details much more clearly, giving him a new appreciation for Todoroki's Quirk, but that's not what held his attention. "...Okay, so Ashido just tried to use her acid to slide across Todoroki's bridge."
"It melted a hole in it, didn't it?" Aizawa guessed.
"Yep," Izuku confirmed, watching as Ashido, Awase, Tokoyami and Kodai all bounced in one of the nets strung beneath the gap. "Maybe Gran could have waited to spring this until after everyone got some situational awareness training..."
"Definitely have our work cut out for us," Aizawa agreed.
While Izuku was safely above the chaos with a front-row seat, his classmates had no buffer against the insanity that was chasing a senile old man across a giant obstacle course.
"How did you not realize acid might melt ice?"
"I'm sorry, okay?!"
Ashido looked frustrated and ready to keep whining as Awase shot her a very judgmental look. Asui paid them little mind, using her tongue to wrap around Kodai's waist and pull her up to the plateau. "Thanks," the other girl said, and Asui nodded as her tongue reeled back into her mouth.
"No problem, kero. I don't think chasing him is working too well though." Even as she spoke they could hear multiple classmates shouting in frustration as Gran Torino no doubt wandered out of reach again. For an old man with apparent memory issues, he proved surprisingly spry. He kept traversing the various levels of plateaus and cliffs with surprising ease, always appearing on a new level when no one looked at him.
"What even is his Quirk?" Tokoyami murmured, eyes narrow as he watched the old man hobble along the top of a rock-covered wall.
"His shoes have holes in them, so probably something with that," Kodai commented.
"Whatever it is does give him a lot of mobility," Awase grumbled while Tsuyu used her tongue to help pull him up. "No way he climbed those rock walls. I don't think that guy's arms could even reach all the handholds!" The students all turned to look at the indents made for climbing, and silently conceded he had a point.
Elsewhere, the rest of their class had plenty of their own issues.
"WHERE DID HE EVEN GO?" Bakugou roared, swiveling his head with a scowl in search of their quarry. He'd been hot in pursuit of the old man, having spied him atop one of the many cliffs, but upon quickly scaling the rock wall he found the man already gone.
"He's over there!" Kirishima shouted, pointing to several pillar-like constructs that resembled stepping stones. Sure enough there was Gran Torino, standing on the furthest one and looking around with overly squinting eyes.
"Where am I?" he called in a raspy voice. "Huh, what's this?" Bakugou's gaze locked onto the man instantly, vision going red.
"DON'T YOU DARE MOVE, OLD MAN!" he screamed, launching himself across the stepping stones.
At that same moment on the lower tier, Kaminari had also spied Gran. "Guys, he's over there!" he hollered, and the nearby students sprung into action. Uraraka, Tsuburaba, and Shouji all raced forward, determination burning hot. Shouji reached the pillars first, his skin shifting and growing slightly tacky as he began swiftly scaling the wall closest to the pillar where Gran stood.
"Tsuburaba, go!" Uraraka shouted, slapping his back as he leaped into the air to carry him upwards towards the confused old man.
Unfortunately, in their hyper-focused state, neither Tsuburaba nor Bakugou noticed each other until they happened to enter each other's lines of sights. And doubly unfortunately, by that point they were both too close to stop their charges.
Uraraka, Kaminari and Kirishima all winced as they watched the two boys collide into each other and fall onto one of the other stepping stones, hissing sympathetically. Even Shouji flinched at the loud smack, shuddering. And as he shuddered, his skin's texture rippled to be more smooth, and he let out a rather undignified shout as he scrabbled to regain his grip before he slipped.
Gran Torino, for his part, simply turned and hopped onto the cliff with the aid of his Quirk and hobbled away. Given Kirishima was focused on pulling a furious Bakugou off of a still-dazed Tsuburaba, Uraraka and Kaminari were just watching that, and Shouji was busy trying not to fall, none of them noticed his departure.
(Up in the cube, Izuku smacked his forehead as he watched this. "I still can't tell if anyone's actually seen him use his Quirk yet."
"Hmm. May need to cut points for that later.")
As Gran hobbled along, he paused upon hearing loud talking from below and peered over the edge of the cliff. A rather flustered-looking Iida and Jirou hovered next to Komori, the mushroom-themed girl sitting firmly on the ground. "I'm done with this!" she declared in a near-wail. "I'm done with all this climbing and running and all of this! I already filled up all the spike pits, you guys can catch him!"
"Komori, while we are grateful for your help with the spikes, we can't stop!" Iida protested, chopping at the air as he spoke. "We need all the assistance we can get! Giving up now is absolutely un-herolike!"
"I don't care!" Komori whined, flopping onto her back. "My feet hurt WAY too much to do anymore running!"
"Yeah, those shoes don't look good for this kind of terrain," Jirou said with a sage nod. Komori, while wearing a rather sensible red dress with a white polka dot pattern and matching hat to mimic certain mushrooms, had gone for platform shoes. They were classic-looking mary janes save for the tall red-and-white polka dot platforms, easily two inches high, and had a mushroom decal on the toes.
"Ah, those... aren't practical, I suppose," Iida conceded almost sheepishly, before adding hastily, "But you should have accounted for strenuous activity when submitting your design!"
"Midnight walks with giant heels," Komori deadpanned. "Wild, Wild Pussycats wear boots with platform wedges. Uwabami wore pretty big heels too, have you seen her magazine spreads? There are all kinds of female Pros who wear high heels and platforms with no problem!"
Iida seemed at a loss for how to respond. "I-I, well... That is, er..." As he struggled for a response Jirou tilted back her head to look at Gran with a bland expression.
'I know you are there, but I know I cannot climb the wall and reach you before you're gone and it's not worth the effort,' her expression seemed to say. She then turned back with a tired sigh, and Gran withdrew from the cliffside to continue on his way.
He made it five steps when a voice stopped him. "Hey, old man!" He paused and turned to see Shinsou standing behind him. The boy looked rather tall in his black trench coat-like costume, his hair stuffed under a black ballcap as he stared at the man with a frown. He seemed to hesitate before calling out, "Do you need help?"
Gran stared at him blankly, eyes squinting at the teenager as he scrutinized him. Then he turned away and resumed his hobbling, calling, "Nana, can you hear me?" Shinsou couldn't see the man's smirk as he released a loud scream of frustration.
Not far away from there, some other students had taken a more strategic approach. "Okay, I can see him coming!" Yaoyorozu hissed as she peered around a cliffside, and quickly pulled back. "Get ready!"
"So you think this'll work?" Sero asked uncertainly. He and Yaoyorozu stood next to a web of tape spanning the gap between two cliffs.
"Hopefully," Yaoyorozu sighed as she ducked in the one small opening he'd left for her to walk through. Green sparkled around her torso as she pulled out a matryoshka doll. The yellow dress design greatly resembled her own costume, complete with the yellow to red gradient along the skirt. "Okay, I'm going to throw this, so put on the goggles I made you."
"Got it!" Sero agreed, pulling a pair of goggles over his eyes. Yaoyorozu did the same, and listened to the footsteps draw closer until she saw a shadow appear around the corner of the cliff. She threw the doll through a gap in the tape, and when it hit the ground white smoke burst and filled the area. The doll contained dry ice, creating a harmless mist that quickly obscured their vision.
A quick tap on the side of the goggles quickly activated them, her vision filling with blue and red as it switched into thermal imaging. For that reason, she saw a bright red and orange figure stumble into the cold mist and straight into the web of tape. "Yes!" she cheered, Sero whooping in celebration across from her. They'd caught him!
"Hey, let me out!" They both froze at hearing a distinctly young voice, the figure thrashing in the tape with a lot more vigor than a small old man would possess. Come to think of it, this figure was also much bigger than Gran Torino... "What even is this!?" Blinking, Yaoyorozu quickly produced a small fan and switched it on, blowing enough of the mist away to reveal...
"Satou?" she and Sero chorused incredulously. The yellow-costumed teen looked rather frustrated as he continued to thrash within the tape, his struggles making it cling to him almost like a cocoon.
"Let me out!" he cried. Oh. Oh, crap. They both raced over to try to help extract him from the mess, but soon found it harder than expected.
"Sero, is this double-sided?" Yaoyorozu yelped when her hands got stuck to one piece.
"I thought it'd be more useful that way!" the boy replied sheepishly, forcibly yanking his hand free of one particularly sticky piece of tape.
"Guys, just give me some of the sugar in the pouch," Satou sighed. "I'll just brute force my way out of it."
"On it!" Yaoyorozu replied, awkwardly reaching for one of the pouches to pull out a packet of sugar.
Izuku hoped the white powdery substance was sugar as he watched through the binoculars with a sigh. "So, Satou was trying to follow Gran, and he was being really sneaky about it..." In his opinion, it was actually pretty impressive that someone his size has managed to sneak along as well as he did.
"And then?" Aizawa asked.
"Then Yaoyorozu threw down a smoke bomb, and Gran used the cover to jump onto another tier, while Satou stumbled into the tape web Yaoyorozu and Sero made. And now I think he's kinda stuck, because they're trying to pull him out and are giving him sugar—oh. Oh no."
"Midoriya?"
"Uh, does his Quirk affect his intelligence or emotional state? Because now he's suddenly angry and thrashing around." He felt a bit sheepish as he watched the teen swing his arm wide, forcing Sero to dodge back with a yelp. "He managed to pull one hand free, which is great because I don't think they could get the tape off, but he pulled all the tape with it and... oh wow, is that double-sided? I can see rock dust and little pebbles clinging to it! These binoculars are amazing!"
"Midoriya," Aizawa-sensei said flatly, and he nodded.
"Right! Focus! Sorry. So Yaoyorozu and Sero are backing off, but I think Satou can get himself free from here."
"Good. What's Gran doing now?"
"Staring down Todoroki," Izuku reported dutifully.
On the highest plateau of all, Gran Torino and Todoroki Shouto stared each other down, one leaning forward on his cane and the other standing tall. For a moment neither spoke, the air thick with tension and the air chilly from more than just the ice coating the ground.
"Sir," Todoroki finally said, and Gran's head bobbed upwards in attention. "Give me the key, now." His voice rang with the exhaustion of a boy who had been chasing an old man all across a giant concrete jungle gym of an obstacle course. One who had been forced to create many ice bridges, many ice stairs, many ice constructs to more easily navigate the obnoxious manmade landscape. Though it made no significant dent on his stamina, it still grated on his nerves for all of his efforts to end up going nowhere.
Gran just blinked slowly, squinting at the boy. "No," he finally said, and then turned to step off the ledge. Todoroki shot forward in a panic, his right hand shooting forward to send a wave of ice to try to stop the man from hobbling off to his death.
In that moment, something unusual happened. After years of training, years of honing his Quirks, years of preparing to become a Pro Hero, Todoroki Shouto panicked.
Up until this point, most of his training had been geared more towards offensive situations. Even the theoretical lessons had been about villain apprehension, or relocating civilians to safety from an ongoing battle. As it turned out though, they had never talked about what to do when someone unknowingly walked to their own doom by stepping off a cliff.
Part of his training did kick in: remove the civilian from danger. And this part, he had practiced a few times, enough to have a reflexive response to "urgent removal" scenarios. Unfortunately for him though, those scenarios usually assumed that the civilian was dodging a threat, on land, and—again—not walking off a cliff.
The result meant a gust of air accompanied the motion to push the civilian away from the path of danger, making Shouto shout in shock and horror as he realized a second too late that his instincts had betrayed him.
The gust of air propelled Gran forward, the old man suddenly sailing through the air. All across the gym nineteen pairs of eyes lifted to follow the man's abrupt flight with varying degrees of horror. The ice Todoroki had created had made the ground lose its friction, making his launch even smoother and thus faster. All the students could see was a white and yellow blur zoom above their heads, a loud "wheeee!" whizzing through the air.
Above, Izuku watched the old man's flight with minimal concern, knowing his mentor was absolutely safe and instead taking amusement at the impending chaos.
Near the entrance of the gym Aizawa sat up straighter in his sleeping bag to watch the old man's flight. Not out of concern for his safety, he knew Gran would be fine. But regaining control of himself in midair would require exposing his fine control, at which point the students would pick up on the fact he wasn't exactly as "feeble" as he made himself out to be. And Aizawa would rather enjoy the chaos as long as possible.
Luckily, some of the students weren't blinded or paralyzed by panic. "Uraraka, throw me!" Shouji shouted. The girl nodded and slapped his back as he leaped upwards towards the flying man. Kaminari helpfully slammed his palms against the other boy's feet to propel him further, his trajectory a decent match for the human projectile.
Shouji shot his arms up and they began branching and spreading out to create a fleshy net-like structure with the webbing between the limbs, the skin rippling to become softer and more pink-tinted. Gran collided right into the center of the "net," the fleshy structure bouncing at the impact. The sudden weight and collision jarred Shouji's trajectory and sent him crashing downwards.
Fortunately for him, he was still under the influence of Uraraka's Quirk, keeping him from immediately crashing. The girl grunted as she felt the sudden shift in weight, nearly losing control of her Quirk. Once again though, they were not alone. Iida raced towards the group with Komori riding his back, the girl flinging a hand to send a wave of spores to the space below Shouji and Gran. The mushrooms rapidly blew up to an appropriate size to cushion their fall, just in time for Uraraka to release her control.
The result was a large cloud of spore dust as Shouji and Gran crashed into the mushroom, making everyone nearby cough and hack violently. "Um, just to check, is the dust from Komori's mushrooms harmful to inhale?" Izuku asked the radio worriedly.
"Not if they're already grown," Aizawa replied. "But the spores produced by her Quirk are harmful to inhale, and can make mushrooms grow on your lungs."
"...How... How did she even learn that?"
"Kid, first rule of Quirks: there are some questions you don't ask." A concept that was absolutely alien to Midoriya Izuku, but for now he decided to accept his teacher's words of wisdom.
As the dust settled and coated the ground in a thin layer of gold, more students quickly rushed over to the scene. "Yo dude, you okay?" Kirishima called.
"Sore," Shouji groaned. They couldn't see his face at the moment, his arms currently folded above his torso in a bulb-like shape.
"How about the old dude?" Tsuburaba asked. In response Shouji parted his arms like a very grotesque flower blooming, to reveal Gran Torino sitting on his chest. The old man blinked once, and then casually hopped off him, the mushroom releasing another puff of dust as he jumped on it.
"Where's my cane?" he asked, and everyone paused.
Meanwhile...
Tokoyami lay on the ground unconscious, a wooden stick next to his head and a comically large bruise forming. Ashido and Awase just stared at him blankly, neither really knowing what to do. "I'll grab his legs?" she suggested hesitantly.
"I don't think we're supposed to move someone with head trauma though?" Awase replied, just as uncertain, and they both looked at the fallen boy with a frown.
Back with everyone else...
"No idea," Kodai said. No one else had a chance to say anything before Bakugou was lunging at Gran, screeching with rage.
"GIVE ME THAT DAMN KEY ALREADY!" he roared. He barreled right past Gran as the old man smoothly side-stepped his lunge, giving a thoughtful hum.
"Eh, I don't need it anyway," he decided, and then to the absolute shock of everyone watching proceeded to deftly leap onto a nearby cliff with a jet of air from his feet. Jaws fell open and eyes bulged, and the only reason it wasn't perfectly silent was because of Bakugou's explosions.
Gran stepped out of their line of sight with a hum, leaning his head forward to squint. "Are you Nana?" he asked, scratching his head. Asui Tsuyu stood directly in front of him, the frog girl having leaped onto the higher cliff while en route to the crash site. She tilted her head at him, a single finger tapping her chin.
"Sir, forgive me if I am being rude," she said. "But you're not actually senile, are you, kero?" The old man gave low, rumbling hum at that, seeming to think.
"What?" he finally asked.
"You're just pretending," she declared bluntly. "Yaoyorozu told me she thought so before I went to help the others get out of a pit, and after all this, I agree."
"And if I am?" Gran asked.
"Can you please give me the key, kero?" Asui asked. "I don't think any of us will be able to actually catch you, and I would very much like to get my classmate out of that cube." Gran hummed once more, and then grinned, a savage expression that removed any pretenses of him being a confused old man.
"Heh, spend the past twenty minutes leading around these kids, and you're the first to actually ask," he said, tone much more gruff and gravelly compared to the feeble tones used before. He yanked the key off his neck and tossed it to her. "Go for it kid. Get the brat outta there, and we'll all talk by the entrance." With that he turned and jumped off the edge to rocket towards the entrance, making a loud chorus of frustrated screams and shouts ring anew as students tried to chase after him.
Asui just blinked down at the key, and then went to go grab Uraraka and Tsuburaba to release Midoriya from the cube.
Izuku had the sourest expression anyone in Class 1-A had seen on the boy as they all gathered by the entrance. While they hadn't known him long, it still felt oddly off-putting and out of place, even Bakugou looking wary at the expression. And the subject of that sour glower looked absolutely unbothered by it.
"So basically, the majority of you did an awful job," Gran Torino declared flatly, arms crossed over his chest. Gone was the confused old man who had no idea where he was, leaving a gruff Pro Hero jaded by years of experience. "Most of you failed to use your Quirks in the most efficient manner, a majority fell for simple tricks, some barely tried, many of you let your emotions get the better of you. And one of you actually blew me off a cliff. Accidentally, from what I can tell, not that that's much better."
He shot a pointed look at Todoroki at the last bit. To his credit the boy looked suitably sheepish and ashamed, frowning as he stared at the ground. Most of the kids looked equally chastised, knowing his other points applied to them. "You, blasty, were particularly bad," he added to Bakugou, making the blond grind his teeth. "Way too aggressive when dealing with a frail civilian. You're lucky I'm actually a Pro."
"Tch, it was obvious you were faking, old man!" Bakugou snapped irritably. "Anyone with eyes could tell that it was just an act!"
"I don't agree with Bakugou's use of force during the exercise, but it was obvious," Yaoyorozu said with a nod. "UA wouldn't allow someone with severe mental deterioration to wander around the school alone unattended. And I think anyone would realize you were highly aware given how easily you dodged all of us."
Given the sheepish looks most of the class sported, that was absolutely wrong. Sure, they might have figured out that somebody was tricking them, but they had thoroughly misguessed who. (A few sour looks directed towards their homeroom teacher, who ignored them all.)
"In any event, as I'm sure you've realized by now, this was your first training exercise," Aizawa said. "Yesterday I examined the physical limits of your Quirks in the assessment test, but today we wanted to test how you'd use them in a real scenario with no pre-defined parameters, as well as how you'd handle the situation in general.
"Most people only think of the flashier sides of heroics, like fighting villains or rescue work, but there's more to it than that. As a hero, not all situations you encounter will fit into some easily defined category like 'villain' or 'rescue.' And as such, you need to be able to think outside of the box. Force isn't always the right answer. Of the entire class, only Asui thought to ask for the key."
"I didn't use force though," Shinsou protested quietly, sounding more annoyed than anything.
"You only tried the one thing though," Gran countered. "That was the only time I saw you the whole exercise." The purple-haired boy frowned but didn't protest further.
"We wanted to gauge how you'd handle an unexpected situation, and also gauge your basic physical level, strategic thinking, and handling of civilians," Aizawa continued. He paused before adding, "And you're all very lucky this is an assessment exercise, and not subject to proper scoring."
"Oh, come on, how could you even see what we did!" Kaminari whined.
"Yeah, you never got out of your sleeping bag," Awase remarked with a nod. "I checked a couple times and you never moved."
"Me too," Kodai said, head tipped back to the ceiling. "And I don't see any security cameras." At that comment the smarter members of Class 1-A simultaneously realized something, all turning to look at Izuku. A very grumpy Izuku.
"Yeah, yeah, they had me reporting everything," he confirmed blandly, not even feeling a little awkward under all the sudden attention. He was too annoyed for that. "They lured me into the cube, and Aizawa-sensei just gave me a radio and binoculars. And I had no warning." He emphasized the last part, directing his dead stare at an unbothered Gran Torino.
"Why would you make Deku do that though?" Uraraka asked. "Isn't that unfair to make him sit out?"
"It'd be unfair for him to participate," Gran huffed, making several people murmur in confusion.
"We already know each other," Izuku informed them all flatly. "And I had no idea he would be teaching here. None. No warning. Nothing. He was just there." His eyes still looked exceptionally devoid of life as he gazed at his old mentor, his fear long dead and replaced with utter apathy and a quiet sense of loathing.
"If he joined in, he'd give away the act from the getgo," Gran said. "So we tossed him in the cube and made him bait for the rest of you!"
Izuku almost said "I hate you," but his loathing hadn't reached that level yet.
It had, however, reached just the right level for picking up their old game. "Yup," he agreed, stretching his arms up and behind his head, looking to all the world like he was lazily unwinding. "Though now that the exercise is over..." And with that, he activated Crash and flung himself directly at Gran, arm outstretched to catch him.
For his efforts, he was rewarded with a swift kick to the back and an all-you-can-eat concrete buffet. Even with as much as he'd improved Crash's shielding over the past year, he could already tell he was gonna feel that one in the morning.
"Still too slow, kid!" Gran taunted as he alighted on Izuku's shoulders.
"Huh, you guys must know each other pretty well," Kaminari said, and as Izuku lifted himself up out of the crater and to his knees, that gave him an idea. He might still not be quite fast enough to keep up with Gran physically... but there was nothing that said he couldn't tease him back, right?
"Yeah," Izuku agreed, wiping some of the dust off his face. He made sure to make direct eye contact with Gran to gauge his reaction. "Actually, Gran Torino's my grandpa."
Gran, to his credit, didn't blink. Instead he steadily met Izuku's gaze, considering for a few moments. And then he smiled.
"Welp, I wasn't gonna say anything, but I guess the cat's out of the bag!" He turned back towards the rest of the class and gestured to Izuku with his free hand. "I assume you've already met, but everyone, please allow me to introduce my grandson, Midoriya Izuku."
Wait, what?
"So your mom and your grandpa work here?" Uraraka asked. "That's so cool!"
What?
"Now that it's been pointed out, I suppose that your Quirks are quite similar," Iida mused from under his helmet.
WHAT? "G-guys, I was just kidding. He's not actually my grandpa."
"Nonsense, of course I am!" Gran said, clapping him on the back a few times. "What, don't tell me you're embarrassed to have people know you're related to this old man?"
"Th-that's not it at all and you know it!" Izuku denied, failing to realize that could be interpreted as not denying their relationship and instead trying to reassure the man he felt no shame.
"Anyway, now that that's out of the way, we'll start going over each of your performances individually. Zuzu-chan, get up so we can go over this stuff." Izuku got up the rest of the way with a groan, ignoring some of the stifled giggles behind him at the pet name. Gran absolutely did that to mess with him, the old coot never used pet names like that. He'd probably get a fresh wave of teasing for this.
Aside from Bakugou for once, who looked bewildered since he knew the truth. When Izuku turned to face his class the blond mouthed a silent "what the hell," but Izuku didn't bother acknowledging it. He was past the point of caring.
Fine then. "So, about all your Quirks," he said. "I was watching, and I noticed a lot of areas you could improve..."
Hours later after school ended, the dorms were largely quiet, everyone sitting in the common room with haunted looks on their faces. A platter of still-warm cookies sat on the coffee table courtesy of Satou, nearly depleted of the sugary goodness, but most of them just stared at their half-eaten treats with blank looks.
"...So, you guys got a lesson with Gran too, right?" Awase asked after a while, and the others from 1-B nodded.
"They locked up your homeroom teacher, I think," Kendou reported dully. "He was in a cube suspended above the gym."
"He looked like he needed more sleep than Shinsou," Rin commented. Whether he meant that as a general observation or an insult, Shinsou did not seem to care.
"You couldn't catch him?" Todoroki asked Yoarashi.
"Vlad-sensei said not to use my Quirk too much, and give my classmates a fair chance," the other boy replied, only slightly more subdued than usual. "He was concerned my Quirk's power could harm him given how... old and frail he was." His mouth twisted bitterly at the last part, clearly unimpressed with the explanation after discovering Gran's true nature.
"Vlad-sensei also said it was Aizawa's fault for 'being an idiot and getting himself into that mess, and he could wait a little longer to get freed,'" Yanagi quoted. "I do wonder whether that was for show, or if there is truly a grudge between them..."
Komori hummed, chewing on a cookie and swallowing as she turned to Izuku. "He's your grandpa, is he always like that?" she asked tiredly. Instantly nearly all of Class 1-B shot wide-eyed looks his way, Izuku wincing under their collective stare. Only Pony did not turn to look at him, looking largely confused until Kendou translated it for her in English. She reacted with a startled "EH!?" as she leaped to her feet.
"You're related!?" she shouted in English.
"What are you?" Mineta whispered, overly pale and shaking as he shrunk away from Izuku. Izuku just let his head fall forward with a groan as the questions began, knowing from dealing with his own class his protests wouldn't work.
I've made a terrible mistake.
They never stood a chance. Neither did Izuku. Long live Grandpa Torino.
...
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