Ingenious Ideas
"Schedule changes?" Izuku asked.
"Of course. With everything we're adding, we'll have to find ways to keep your load from becoming too overwhelming. It would be horrible if you suffered from burn out before you even finished school."
"I wouldn't burn out!" Izuku argued, the very idea seeming ridiculous.
"Whether that's true or not, we need to consider your personal limits."
"You really don't need to worry about me. I've always worked harder than everyone else. I'll figure out how to work through whatever I need to."
"Oh, I'm sure. But just because you would probably find a way to balance everything out doesn't mean that we should make you push yourself needlessly. Especially when we are going to require you to work harder, no matter how we set this up." He frowned. "But, for now, you have no need to worry about it; I will have to discuss the necessary arrangements with Aizawa and your other teachers in order to properly plan out the redistribution of your workload. In the meantime, how about I show you where you'll be keeping your books?"
Izuku could see that Nezu was now looking at his backpack. So, he unzipped it and started taking his journals out. He rested his hand on the thirteenth's burnt cover, so that it would stay closed despite several of its pages being warped by water of a koi pond over a year and a half ago, on the day everything changed. "Where are you going to put them?"
Nezu smiled and said, "I think you'll like this." He led the boy over to a set of shelves, clambering up one of the units to stop at a currently empty shelf. Reaching in, he pushed with his paw to reveal a false back by sliding it down to reveal a section that had to be recessed into the wall: a secret vault that had both a combination lock and a hand reader. "I would recommend a combination that you can easily remember but would be hard for others to guess. It's mainly for if you need to get in were the power to go out for some reason. Otherwise, using it while there's electricity will set off an alarm. The majority of the time, you'll be expected to just use the palm reader and eye scanner at the same time."
"Eye scanner?"
Nezu climbed up another level and pushed away a few books at on the shelf that was at eye level to reveal a lens staring out at Izuku. They took a few minutes for Izuku to get his handprint and eye registered in the machines. The principal then climbed back down to the floor in order to let Izuku set up his combo for the 'power outage access'.
Once that was done, Nezu had Izuku practice using the scanners a few times. Afterward, he gave Izuku a moment to set his notebooks into the safe before closing everything up and sliding the false back into place again. Maybe Izuku would decorate the shelves with some hero memorabilia so that he could move them out of the way easily and have something nice to make the room feel homier when he didn't need to get into the safe itself.
"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Nezu stated, making Izuku realize he had spoken his thoughts aloud again. The other continued by saying, "I'd offer to show you where all the security devices in the room are but I've heard your teacher is planning on working with Power Loader to set up a few lessons related to the topic and figured trying to find them will be a good way to test you, later."
Even as it made Izuku feel odd to hear about there being monitoring equipment in the room, part of him felt foolish for not immediately expecting that. He had been granted a space in a restricted area, where he was expected to work with sensitive information. Of course, he was going to be watched.
"To be fair, you're just being watched more closely, here. Most of the school has some sort of surveillance in place."
"Right," Izuku replied flatly, hardly surprised. He looked back out the window at Ground Beta below as he thought about the fight with Bakugou he'd had there last night and how the other boy had been startled this evening, not to mention the standoff with the third-year student—Mirio Togata—and how little the school's security had helped, then. Why even go through the trouble of building a whole new set of dorms along the road when…
"Something on your mind?"
"Umm, it's probably kind of silly."
"I doubt that. Please, feel free."
"Okay. I was thinking that…it seems like that even with your security, everything is spread so thin that stuff keeps happening…" He glanced back, worried that he might be offending the principal.
"and…" Nezu asked, seeming to be encouraging him to continue.
"Well, with all of these cityscapes, complete with utilities and a security system already in place that's been tested through the drills we do in them…Why not just…adjust one or two of them for dorm space rather than make a whole line of new buildings that spread kilometers down the road? I mean, it seems like it would make it easier for you to keep us safe, since you would have us all in one spot and it would faster for us to get to our classes."
Nezu suddenly started looking between the cityscape below and then toward the road, where they had a clear view of the first few dorm buildings. He cocked his head to the side as his eyes widened. "The rest of the staff would be appreciative, too. It would save them a lot of work for supervising you. I think I'm going to have to check on a few things."
"You're not upset?"
"Not at all!" He then said, "Sometimes, I get a little too focused on expanding my spaces and forget that reutilizing ones I already have might be a better solution to my problems. These last few days have already brought several issues with the current dorm system to my attention. Moving it all into one of the cityscapes would be far easier and more effective than putting in the effort of fortifying the security for the current buildings, as you pointed out.
"You really think it's a good idea?"
"Absolutely," Nezu replied. "Sometimes I get so focused on complex solutions to a problem that I miss the glaringly simple approaches." He smirked as he added, "No matter how smart you are, it benefits to have an outside perspective. Thank you."
Izuku blushed and looked away. "It's not a big deal."
"Something doesn't need to be a big deal to be worthy of recognition."
Izuku wasn't even given the time to try to compute the concept that a gesture needn't be big to be acknowledged before Nezu was moving on to another topic, "Of course, while I am happy to express gratitude for your idea, I feel I owe you something much more. I've been neglecting my duties to you in relation to One for All. Not once have I talked to you once about how you're adjusting nor have I checked on your progress at all. For that, I owe you an apology."
"You know about One for All?" Izuku asked, completely caught off guard.
"Of course," Nezu replied, surprised. "I specifically offered All Might a position as a teacher so that he could take time to get to know the students and considering them as options for his successor in the hopes of easing his search. He never told you?"
"He told me that he came here to find a successor but he never mentioned that was why you gave him a job. Still, I guess it makes sense. It would be kind of suspicious if one of the students suddenly developed a quirk and no one knew what was going on."
"Still, it bothers me that he didn't tell you anything. Who else has he told you knows about One for All?"
" Umm, Recovery Girl and Gran Torino…"
"Oh, that won't do! You should know who to turn to when dealing with One for All in various situations. You'll have to be introduced to the others."
"There are others?"
Nezu nodded. "Naosama Tsukauchi and Sir Nighteye, for starters."
"Sir Nighteye? Really?" Izuku asked surprised. "Why would All Might tell him when he hid it from David Shield?"
"From my understanding, Sir found something by using his quirk. I don't even think it was by using it on All Might himself but it was telling. All Might had to tell him the truth to clarify the situation. I'm not really sure of the exact details."
Izuku didn't know much about what Sir's quirk was but he'd been able to figure out that it was critical for information gathering. The most popular theory was some sort of tracking quirk that allowed him to look at the territory a person frequented but Izuku had never believed it. There were things he did that didn't quite fit with that. He wondered what type it could be, to expose something related to One for All like that.
"And Tsukauchi…I know that name."
"He's been one of the main officers in most of your cases."
"Oh…wait, he was the officer that came to Recovery Girls office after the USJ and the one who talked to me after Sh…after the mall, wasn't he " Izuku fought the almost reflexive urge to reach for his neck to remove the ghost of a dry, spidery hand or jerk away from the warm breath of a villain leaning to whisper into his ear.
Nezu nodded. "Yes, that's him."
Izuku focused on the policeman, forcing away the other thoughts as he asked, "He knew I had it this whole time?"
"Hopefully," Nezu replied, "but the fact that Yagi didn't tell you about the detective means that whether he informed him that you have it is also in question. I'll have to make sure, along with checking in with All Might to make sure that there aren't others he's failed to tell me about."
At that moment, the door creaked open and Aizawa greeted by asking, "What did he forget this time?"
"Ah, Aizawa, good to see you made it. He failed to inform Midoriya about everyone who knows about One for All."
Izuku's teacher sighed. "Of course, he didn't." He frowned and added, "It might just be for the best to set up a meeting so everyone can meet each other at least once and exchange information."
"I was thinking the same," Nezu replied. "Perhaps we can discuss it in greater detail when we meet with Midoriya's mother."
Aizawa gave a small nod. "I was also thinking that since I have some old connections that have been affected by what is most likely one of All for One's coworker's projects, maybe I could introduce them, just so they can be aware of possible allies. They'll understand not being told the reason for the heroes connection, as they aren't about to admit the exact nature of their experiences, either."
"If you are comfortable introducing them to some of your old contacts, then feel free to do so. We can hardly afford to pass up any edge we have on All for One's remaining forces," Nezu replied.
I'm not exactly sure when the idea of using the cityscapes popped into my head but once I noticed it there, it just seemed to make more and more sense, especially compared to the current set up. Most schools probably couldn't do something like this but most don't have entire multiple block simulations of a city already set up and at the ready.
The comment about Nezu thinking about building out instead of up is a reference to a scene I had earlier in this story where Nezu considers the difference in having so much space now to being limited to the walls of his lab. The idea is that part of the reason that UA is so big is that Nezu enjoys being able to test the limits of just how much space he can have. This could also explain why his first reaction, when building dorms, is to spread them out down the street even when it might not be actually be the best option available to him.
I've got several ideas for things that can go on with the cityscape space, too, feeling like having all the students occupy it opens up a lot of options for interesting interactions.
I can't imagine All Might just sharing his secret with Sir Nighteye when he was so focused on hiding it from David Shields. I think, with his quirk, skills and personality, it seems much more likely that Sir Nighteye stumbled across something and wouldn't leave it alone until All Might explained the situation to him.
And yeah, a lot of set up for chapters down the line, here.
Also, I've got a few chapters pretty much set up and ready to go so you won't have to wait very long for them.
