I still don't own anything MHA related. It's really a shame.
Chapter 4 – Lashing out
Izuku was no stranger to pain. Physical or otherwise. Throughout the years he had been beaten, kicked, scratched at and burned to a degree, that he should have been a permanent resident of a hospital. That being said, he had a very high tolerance for pain. Even before he was able to 'tune it out' with his quirk. But when he regained consciousness he felt like he had been hit by a truck. Repeatedly. And then been thrown off a bridge. And a tall one at that. Every single part of his body was hurting. And it felt like he had been drained of every last bit of energy.
The first thing his pain addled mind was able to perceive were the muted voices that silently echoed in the air around him. He was not able to make out any specific words, but recognised his mothers voice. And if his ears did not betray him, which they very well might, she appeared to be quite angry. He was not quite sure with whom or why, though.
He managed to slowly open his eyes for a few brief seconds before the bright light forced him to close them again. Izuku was tempted to let the darkness embrace him again, when someone suddenly started to speak from right next to him.
"Ah. Finally awake, are you? You gave us quite the fright.", said a brittle and old sounding voice.
Izuku opened his mouth and tried to talk, but all he was able to accomplish was a hoarse sounding groan.
"Here, drink this first. Then try to talk again." Izuku felt something cold touch his lips and took a few painful gulps of whatever the voice directed him to drink.
"Good. Give it a few moments, before you try to talk again, boy. You put your body under quite a bit of stress. And my quirk really did not help the matter." When the mysterious voice said the last part, it almost sounded apologetic.
Izuku slowly opened his eyes again and while the light did send another jolt of pain through his brain, he still managed to keep them open and with a lot of willpower he managed to face the direction the voice came from.
Right next to the bed he was laying on stood a short, elderly woman with grey hair styled into a bun. She wore a white lab coat and a dress with red and yellow stripes at either side. She was currently leaning on a syringe styled walking stick and seemed to look at Izuku with a very stern look.
"H-how's the girl? She safe?" Izuku's voice sounded hoarse and brittle to his own ears.
The elderly woman's gaze softened and her lips formed into a slight smile.
"If you mean Miss Uraraka, then yes. She had a few broken bones, but that is nothing that could not be fixed with a quick kiss."
The bit about the kiss was confusing, but Izuku could not help but be relieved. The girl was fine. He had managed to save her.
"She actually just left a couple of hours ago. The girl seemed quite determined to stick around and thank you. But you steadfastly refused to wake up."
"That is alright. No need to thank me anyway. Where are we? How long was I unconscious?" With every word it seemed to be a bit easier for Izuku to talk and his voice slowly returned to the way it normally sounded.
"And is that my mother yelling out there?", Izuku added with a glance to the door.
"You are still at U.A. Specifically inside U.A.'s hospital-ward. And you have been unconscious for close to seven hours. And yes, your mother is currently… talking… with Principal Nezu and All Might."
Izuku frowned and his eyes narrowed at the last part. What exactly was All Might doing here? And what was he doing outside of his hospital room? And how had they managed to get his mother to yell at them? Scratch that. It probably had to do with All Might being there.
"Mrs. Midoriya, I do understand that you are upset abou-", Principal Nezu tried to placate the furious woman in front of him, but was interrupted before he could even finish the sentence.
The petite woman looked at the principal and the other man with narrowed eyes.
"Upset? I'm not upset in the slightest about your failure to keep the participants of your entrance exam save. Or the fact, that you rely on said participants to literally save each others life. I am absolutely livid!", came the hissed interruption of Inko Midoriya.
"And you still have not told me what that… man… is doing here. Or why he wants to see my son so badly." Inko could barely hold back the contempt when she pointed that out.
Both Principal Nezu and All Might had both been slightly taken aback when they had been faced with the thinly concealed hostility. The tiny woman in front of them seemed to downright loath the Nr. 1 Hero.
"All Might is here because he has a quirk quite similar to your sons own quirk, and expressed his willingness to help."
Nezu could see, based on the raised eyebrows, that his attempt to explain why All Might wanted to see her son, was not well received.
"All Mights quirk let's him transform into pure electricity?", Inko asked without hiding her disbelieve.
"Uhm, not quite, you see it's more like-"
"So his quirk let's him transform into another kind of element, then?" Inko was close to laugh in the tiny principals face. For some reason they refused to tell her the truth about why they were here, and that, combined with the fact that her son was at the moment lying unconscious in the room behind her, severely grated on her nerves.
Her voice was deceptively quiet when she addressed them once again.
"Since his quirk seems to have absolutely no resemblance to my sons quirk at all and you seem to be unwilling to explain to me why he seems to so desperately want to get into a room with my son, I see no reason to let him in. And that is my final decision." Inko folded her arms in front of her and looked at the principal with a raised eyebrow, as if challenging him to defy her. When neither of the two men said anything, she turned around, aiming to open the door to her sons hospital room. "Are you coming Principal Nezu, or were you only saying you had to talk to my son in order to get him inside the room?"
She saw him throw an intrigued look to the tall man next to him before he answered her. "Yes, I indeed would like to talk to the hero of the hour when he wakes up."
The door in front of her opened and the Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl stood in front of her.
"When you are finished putting these two idiots in their place, I think you would like to see your son. He woke up a couple of minutes ago."
Inko looked over to the bed her son had been lying in for the last seven hours. She felt her eyes begin to grow wet as she ran over to him and enveloped him into a tight hug. She felt her sons arms slowly envelope her in a loose embrace.
Inko let herself enjoy the sound of Izukus beating heart for a few seconds and fought back the tears that now threatened to spill from her eyes. She leaned back and took a closer look at him. He still looked way too pale and worn out. And according to the slight wince when she moved back he was still in a lot of pain. But he was alive. And that was what counted in the end.
Inko smiled up at him. "I am so proud of you Izuku. You are not even enrolled in a Hero Academy yet and you already saved a life! You already are a great hero!" She saw how small bolts of lightning inside her sons eyes began to make them shine a little brighter. And as soon as she saw them, Inko knew that her son would be alright. From the moment she had seen the signs of his quirk being active again she noticed how his movements had become fluid once more and the pained winces she had seen before when he had moved to hug her had vanished. He looked at her with slightly shining eyes and hugged her a little bit tighter.
"Thank you, mom. Thanks for saying that." She felt him once again slightly tighten the hug before releasing her when she heard the Principals voice address her son.
Izuku looked at the tiny mouse...dog….bear… who had introduced himself as principal Nezu, before proceeding to congratulate him on his performance in the entrance exam and his confrontation with the Zero Pointer. And then further explained that the girl, Uraraka if he remembered correctly, had never been in any real danger to begin with, and that it had been a test to see how the hero hopefuls would react.
Izukus remained calm on the outside, but he was secretly seething.
"So, you are telling me that you had absolute control over everything that happened in the exam and could have turned off every single robot there if needed? And you therefore believe that no one was ever in any real danger?" His voice was calm, if a bit strained, but that could have been associated with his beaten up state.
"Yes, exactly! But we were all very impressed with how you handled the situation. Well done indeed!" Nezus voice and face were cheerful as he talked to him. But the small animals expression had soon turned into a frown and his eyes had widened when Izuku had asked his next questions.
"What would have happened if the piece of wall had been flung half a meter higher? Are you telling me that you controlled how the rubble of the destroyed houses was thrown around? Because if you did and you intentionally threw half a fucking wall at that girl to severely injure her just to make a point and entice others to help her, then you are fucking mental."
The principal looked at him with wide eyes and a half open mouth. But Izuku was not done yet.
"And if you were not in control of that, then she could have very well died if she had been half a meter closer to the Zero pointer or if the piece of rubble had been flung half a meter higher. It would have crushed her upper body instead of her legs! So which one is it?" Izuku was glad he had no energy left, because if he had, he was sure that the room around him would have been filled with electricity. But as it was, he could barely sustain his pain suppression as he kept talking.
"And all this talk about secret 'Rescue Points'. That just seems counterproductive. By not announcing the fact that there are multiple ways of gaining points and passing the exam, those with quirks not geared towards fighting or destroying things will never have the time to do anything else but focus even harder on fighting since they are already at a disadvantage. They would barely have time to go out of their way to help others when they are already struggle to get enough points themselves. Hero works does not solely consist of fighting others. And with this kind of exam you are limiting yourself to only quirks with combat applications."
The small creature in front of Izuku seemed shocked and a little angry at himself and bowed in apology when he answered. "That… that is something we did not take into account. It seems in our attempt to make the exam harder and more challenging, we failed to think about everything you just pointed out. I am really sorry for having put you in this situation."
"It's not me who you should apologize to. At least not only me."
"Yes, you are quite right. We will have to apologize to Miss Uraraka as well."
Izuku nodded. The state of Hero society had to be worse than he already thought, if the Pro Heroes and state officials had not been able to see the obvious problems with the exam.
U.A.'s principal shook himself before he presented Izuku with a large envelope.
"We normally do not announce who passed until a week before the term starts, but I think it would be alright to make an exception here."
Izuku looked at the folded piece of paper in his hands.
"As the highest ranked participant in this years entrance exam we happily accept you into U.A Academy!"
Izuku walked up to U.A.'s entrance gate and followed the path to the study hall where most of his regular classes and his home-room class would be. It was the second week of April and the official beginning of his first term in the hero course at U.A. High School.
The weeks following the entrance exam had been filled with resting and recuperating as much of his strength as possible. It had taken him a little over a week of resting and refraining from training to regenerate enough energy to be able to enter his elemental state again. Apparently burning through most of his energy at the exam and then being subjected to a healing quirk that used the recipients life force to heal the body had left him so exhausted, that he did not have enough energy to activate most of his quirk.
He walked down the hall towards the floor where most of the first year classes were situated and made his way towards the room with a big 1A written next to it. He could already hear muted voices from down the hall and the closer he got, the louder and more recognizable they became. He opened the door and was faced with a bunch of students standing at the far left of the classroom in a semi-circle around a pair of arguing students.
"You can not put your feet atop the table! This is not a respectable way to behave at such a great and prestigious school as U.A. Academy! You have to honour and respect all the great heroes who came before us and used them to further their education and become the great people that they did!"
Izuku cursed his luck. The annoying pretender who had accused him of besmirching U.A.'s reputation at the entrance exam presentation appeared to be in his class. Great. Just great! Next up is probably Bakug-…
"You are kidding me, right? Your old school put a stick up your ass? Where'd you go before this? Some fancy schmancy private school?"
And there he was. That one was on him. He really did jinx himself with that train of thought.
"Let's start over. I am Tenya Iida from the Somey Private Academy-"
"Yeah, knew it. Some rich kid who's too good for the rest of us, hm? Get lost Glases!"
Izuku groaned and resigned himself to at least three years of having to deal with those two idiots. He started to move to an empty chair at the other side of the room, when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him and envelop him in a hug. He was about to take a hold of them and twist his way out of the unfamiliar arms, when the person embracing him started to quite loudly and enthusiastically talk into his back.
"It's you, isn't it? The guy who faced down the Zero Pointer? Thank you so much for what you did for me! Thank you! I will never forget it. I swear!" She released him from her embrace and walked around him until she was facing him. "That was so cool how you fought the giant robot! You were all like Boom Bang and the robot was like Argh Meep! And you just melted it's head off!"
"It's alright. There really is no need to thank me. I just did what everyone should have done, and as it turned out, there never really was any real danger from the robot. Well, at least after you were already hit by that wall." Izuku slowly raked his right hand through his hair. "And thank you for, uhm, complimenting my fighting style?"
"Oh! But you were the only one to actually try and help! So I really need to thank you for that! And-"
"Ah! It's you! The boy with the green hair from the entrance exam! You figured out that there were Rescue Points and that there was no real danger from the Zero Pointer, didn't you? That's why you charged in there! You must indeed be quite intelligent! I shall strive to one day see through these illusions myself!"
Izuku just stared at the pompous boy in front of him. Did he hear that right? That pretender ignored his own selfishness and cowardice and accused him to only have taken the risk because he already knew that there would be nothing to fear?
Arcs of lightning shot through Izukus eyes and they had a noticeable shine to them as the air around him charged itself from the excess electricity that poured out of his body. The other discussions around the three of them had stopped and all eyes were on them.
"First of all, it does not matter what the circumstances are. When you see someone who needs help, you help them. That is what heroes are for." Izukus voice was laced with anger and barely suppressed power as he narrowed his eyes. "Second of all, are you implying that I am a pretender such as yourself, who walks around and talks about being a hero, but at the first sign of trouble abandons the people in need? Because for all you knew, there was a girl in need of help who was about to be trampled to death by a giant fucking robot. And you ran away! Do not try to justify your own cowardice and unheroic behaviour with flimsy logic that an eight year old could see through." The tall black haired teen looked at him in shock. His eyes wide and his mouth open.
"If it were up to me, you would not be here. Since you clearly do not understand what being a hero is all about. You are just another pretender. Now if you would be so kind to leave me to the talk I had with Miss Uraraka here, before you so rudely butted into our conversation!"
The room was void of any sound when Izuku had stopped talking. Everyone was staring at the three of them with wide eyes and shock written all over their faces. They were startled out of their silent state of shock when a gruff voice from behind them broke the tense atmosphere.
"OK, everyone. We are going to skip the orientation and we will be doing a quirk apprehension test instead! So everyone go grab their sport attire and head out to the P.E. Grounds!"
AN: Hey everyone! I'm really sorry about the long delay. The last couple of weeks were quite stressful for me and I barely had time for anything. And when I did get in contact with fan fiction, it was reading it instead of writing it.
I also had some trouble writing this chapter, and I was not sure if I managed to convey everything I wanted to. But I am somewhat happy with it now.
And last but not least: Thanks to everyone who leaves a comment, messages me or adds the story to his or her favourites. It really does make me happy to see that you guys seem to enjoy the story so far and are with me for the ride!