After Kan had gotten all the kids' orders, it wasn't long before the food arrived, and they started tucking in. Aizawa had entered the building at some point, grabbing a small container of fried rice and soup from the stack of delivered food, and he had pulled Ashido, Kaminari, Shinsou, and Midoriya aside to inform them that UA and the authorities have been alerted of what had just occurred, and that they were still in the midst of sorting things out, before he let them get back to their food.
Midoriya really wasn't too hungry, so he just shared some spaghetti with Shinsou, though it was a huge relief that he couldn't taste anything weird in the food, so he was able to enjoy it without worrying.
However, they now had another problem; they had far too much soda and snacks lying around.
If they had known that they would be ordering food from another store, instead of eating cafeteria food, they wouldn't have bought so much food, though in retrospect, if they didn't go to the vending machine, they wouldn't have fought Time Stop, which was the real reason why they were getting pizza.
The UA and Shiketsu students decided that they could spare some time for a short movie, but they had to finish clearing up everything and going back to their rooms by midnight, since it was their last night there. There wasn't too much space for all the students to sit, but with Kodai's quirk, they managed to drag enough mattresses out into the common room to make it work.
Midoriya let out a small yawn, and leaned against the taller boy, feeling the taller boy press his hand against his back, pulling him in closer. He wasn't too interested in the movie, and he wanted to just go to sleep, but his classmates seemed to have fun chatting about the contents of the film with the students from the other schools, and he wasn't about to ruin their fun.
Reiko was settled down comfortably on his lap, with Ryuto huddled down by his neck, already fast asleep, his wing feathers brushing lightly against his collar and neck as the avian breathed.
The small greenette just turned his head, his cheek pressing up against Shinsou's collar bone, feeling the lavender haired boy gently reaching up, running his fingers through his hair.
Everything seemed so perfect.
He wished he could spend the rest of his life like this, completely relaxed, without having to worry about getting killed every single day.
Midoriya knew that wasn't possible, though.
But he could dream, couldn't he?
Midoriya sat down at the cafeteria, gently setting down his glass of Gatorade. His old classmates hadn't spoken to him all day, whether it be mocking him or pushing him down the stairs. In fact, they seemed to just ignore Midoriya outright.
The greenette was perfectly content with that. He could live without them in his life, and the less they bothered him, the better.
He was about to take a sip of his drink when a familiar figure appeared right in front of him, on the other side of the table.
"Hey, loser!" Hareda mocked, sticking his tongue out at the quirkless boy, with Nagai snickering behind him, but before either of them could say anything else, Kaminari instantly whipped out his phone.
"Please do something!"
"Why would we do anything? You were the ones that challenged him."
"You were literally asking to be beaten up. Unless you forfeit, I'm not ending the fight."
That was more than enough to send Hareda and Nagai scrambling back to their own tables, and Ashido slammed her palm onto the table, before reaching her other hand out towards Sero, "Ha! I win! You owe me ten bucks!"
"You made a bet?!" Shinsou asked incredulously, taking a bit out of his udon, and Sero sighed, taking out his wallet, "Yeah. I thought that they would be too embarrassed by what happened yesterday to even try and bother Mido, but Ashido felt that they are far too prideful and stuck-up, and would definitely try to aggravate Midoriya again."
"You are UA students! You shouldn't be engaging in such illicit activities!" Iida shot to his feet, chopping his arms through the air, "You should be ashamed of yourselves!
"It's just a couple of dollars, fam." Utsushimi sighed, "You're totally like, overreacting, man! Relax, Okay?"
"Camie! Gambling is bad, regardless of the amount!" Shishikura stood up.
"It's just a small bet!" Ashido whined, "Why are you making such a big deal out of it!?"
"Don't you know that the risks would never outweigh the potential gain of such an act!" Iida replied, as Todoroki leaned back to avoid a potentially deadly arm chop, "Are you out of your mind!?"
"Tenya should go take karate or taekwondo or something." Uraraka muttered, trying to eat her own lunch, "He seems good at it. And he can use it while fighting villains in conjunction with his quirk."
Midoriya just watched as his friends, as well as Utsushimi and Shishikura, arguing, turning his head left and right, as if he were watching an interesting tennis match. He took a small sip of his drink, before he gently took the pair of chopsticks that Shinsou offered, and ate a bit of his udon.
The chime of a bell rang out, and Yaoyorozu raised his head, "The bell rang. We should get going back to class!"
Shinsou placed his tray back on the tray return rack, before he called out to Midoriya, "Hey, Zuku! Come on!"
Midoriya nodded, standing up from his seat and running to the taller boy's side, reaching out and clinging to his arm. Even though he knew that the woman was already gone, he really didn't like staying in Ketsubutsu Academy longer than he had to. It wasn't like the school was bad... he just didn't have any good memories in that school, from his old classmates making fun of him, to him getting poisoned, to being targeted by a villain purely due to his quirklessness.
He really wanted to just go home.
"Hey, it'll be alright." Shinsou stated, "Today's the last day we'll be here. We're going back to UA tomorrow."
Midoriya's face instantly lit up, and Shinsou let out a small smile, gently ruffling the smaller boy's hair as they made their way back to the classroom.
Midoriya lay down on the bed, running his fingers through Ryuto's soft feathers.
The torturous week outside of UA had finally ended, and he was eager to get back to his home.
He had pretty much packed his entire bag the day prior, just leaving out his toothbrush, toothpaste, as well as several of the essential items he used at night, like his stationery, phone, and notebook.
Shinsou dug around in his bag, trying to make sure he had all his stuff, before he looked around the room, "Did I leave anything behind?"
Midoriya sat up on the bed, and peered at the table, then back on the bed, "I don't... this so..."
"I'll check the bathroom again, then we can bring our stuff downstairs and give the keys back to Ms Joke." Shinsou muttered, standing up, and Midoriya hopped off the bed, checking through his bag again, before fishing out his phone.
Midoriya opened up the joint group chat between 1-A and 1-B, only to find his classmates sending all sorts of messages, from Bakugou's swearing, to Iida trying to tell the class to check and make sure that they brought all their belongings, to Monoma mocking 1-A, to Yaoyorozu and Kendo reminding the students to clean up after themselves and to make sure that the rooms were neat and tidy before they left.
Shinsou popped out of the bathroom, "Yeah, I think everything is cleared."
The greenette nodded, and he stood up, slinging his bag onto his back, as Reiko sat by his feet, grooming herself, with Ryuto nuzzled beside her. Midoriya scooped up the two animals, cradling them in his arms gently, watching as Shinsou grabbed his own bag, before he picked up the keys to the room and put it in his pocket.
"Alright. Let's go."
Aizawa settled down into a chair, and let out a small sigh. The second he and Kan had gotten back to UA, Nezu had set up a meeting to discuss what had happened in Ketsubutsu Academy, and how they could use that to see if they needed to make any changes to their own security.
Most of the other teachers had already gathered, and they had been waiting for Aizawa and Kan before they could start the meeting.
Kan let out a yawn, and Kayama slid over a cold can of soda to the Blood Hero, before turning to Aizawa, "Shouta, want coffee?"
"Yes, please." The Erasure Hero passed Nezu a binder of his research, before he leaned back into his chair, letting out a small groan.
He had spent the night trying to use his contacts to find out as much as possible about an underground drug that targets quirkless people, and while he could find out more information about these sorts of drugs, he couldn't really find a motive behind the development of these drugs besides from the basic reasoning of "killing off the quirkless".
Kayama popped some coins into the vending machine, grabbing a can of black coffee, and tossed it over to Aizawa, who caught the can. He opened it, and took a large swig of the caffeinated drink.
"So..." Nezu flipped through the copy of the police report that he had been given, "Izuku's fine, right?"
"For the most part, yes." Shuzenji nodded, "He just needs to wait it out for a few days to completely flush everything out of his body."
"I... have a question, if I may?" Ectoplasm asked, and Nezu nodded at the teacher, "Yes? What question do you have, Ectoplasm?"
"You said that the drug supposedly worked on quirkless people... right?" Ectoplasm asked, and Aizawa nodded, "Yes."
"If I remember correctly, Midoriya used to have a quirk, right? Trauma-induced or not... a quirk is still a quirk." Ectoplasm stated, "Why would the drug work on him?"
The entire meeting room was filled with silence, as Nezu and Aizawa just stared blankly at Ectoplasm.
Somehow, it had completely slipped their minds that while Midoriya was officially quirkless on all of his medical records... he has still manifested some kind of quirk that had saved his life during the second attack of UA, as well as during the Kamino Incident, even though that quirk was subsequently taken away from him during the raid on the Eight Precepts of Death.
"Recovery Girl, do you still remember that other paper that we came across? That paper that quirkless people potentially had quirks that were much more powerful than usual, and they were only suppressed to prevent the user from killing themselves?" Nezu piped up.
"Wait, hold up, what?" Snipe leaned forward, "What paper!? Why haven't we heard of this before?!"
"It was written by the same person who wrote the paper on the Paranormal Singularity Theory." Nezu stated, digging around in the files of his laptop to try and find the file, "The intern of another hero found it while looking through an old database... found it. I've just sent you guys a copy."
The teachers all scrambled to get their phones, tablets, and laptops, trying to read the document that Nezu had sent them. The room was filled with silence, until Yamada, who was the first to finish reading through the document, raised his head slowly, "Sir, this is... something that seems very important, especially with regards to Midoriya... Why weren't we alerted of this earlier?"
"I'm sorry." Nezu's ears and tail drooped, "I was originally going to tell you, but I've been bombarded with assignments from the Hero Commission, and then there was that joint training session at Ketsubutsu, so it completely slipped my mind."
"Things have been really hectic lately." Aizawa crossed his arms, sighing. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, before he gazed at the other teachers, "But based off what I can garner... quirkless people and quirked people have different genes that the drug could affect. I'm not going to touch on the topic of whether or not quirkless people have potentially more powerful quirks... that's a whole new can of worms that I don't think we should consider at the moment."
"Well... in the past, when quirks first started appearing, there were significant differences between the biology of quirked people and quirkless people due to mutations. As time goes by, these differences would gradually decrease, so theoretically, the effectiveness of such a drug would decrease as well, as the possible differences in the base sequences between genes that the drug can effect would decrease." Shuzenji replied, "Maybe it's something to do with the gene that causes the pinky toe joint... but the effect on Midoriya would obviously be much weaker."
"But I don't see any reason why they would need something to get rid of quirkless people." Snipe stated, "Even if Midoriya is capable of defying social norms, and villains have started targeting him... there had to be some reason why this drug was developed in the first place. Why are they even killing off quirkless people in the first place? Can't they just... leave them be? They're not hurting anyone."
Nezu looked down at the floor, "I... might have some sort of insight or explanation for this, but I don't think it's something that you would like."
"Any ideas would be good." Aizawa grumbled, "Sir?"
"Well... in the past, people with quirks might have been seen as more prestigious than the quirkless. If you look at how bad discrimination had gotten now... I wouldn't be surprised." Nezu sighed, "Having a quirkless child might have been seen as an embarrassment to the parents, and while they wouldn't pose a direct, physical threat, the parents might feel that a quirkless child might endanger their position or status in society. However, putting a child up for adoption would bring too much attention to that very fact."
"So... poison." Kayama gritted her teeth in frustration, "A silent, effective way of killing a child by disguising it as something as trivial as food poisoning."
"Of course, the government might have heard about it... but they wouldn't do anything to stop it." Nezu growled, "Maybe they couldn't locate the base of operations... but it is also very possible that they just let it happen. In a world where everyone is dependent on quirks, the Hero Commission hold the reins to our society, purely due to the abundance of quirks. They can control us simply because of the laws they've created regarding quirk usage. In a quirkless society... they might as well ban people from using their arms or legs without a license."
The entire room fell silent, as the teachers tried to digest the reality of the situation. As much as they wanted to say that Nezu's idea was too cruel... it made sense. The current stigma of quirkless people had been passed down from generation after generation, despite statistics depicting that the number of quirkless people being born was decreasing exponentially. There wasn't really any other reason why such a drug would be developed.
"That's the reason why the Hero Commission thinks that Midoriya poses such a huge threat to them; because he isn't reliant on a quirk, so the Hero Commission has much less control of him than everyone else." Ectoplasm murmured under his breath.
"Aizawa, when lessons start up tomorrow... feel free to fill the students in on what happened in Ketsubutsu." Nezu raised his head, "But leave out everything that we mentioned here. Izuku has enough on his plate, and is already insecure about himself as it is, we don't need to burden him even more."
The Erasure Hero nodded, "Understood."
