As Izuku finally left his room he feared what would happen next. Would he get in trouble for assault? Would Kachan get in trouble for what he'd done? Would nothing change at all?
He had no idea what he even wanted to happen. Maybe some consequences would be good for Kachan, but they might also stop him from being a hero, and that's not what Izuku wanted.
Wait. Was he also in trouble? Assault was definitely against the law, and throwing people after punching them felt like it counted as assault. Oh no, was he going to jail?!
"Jesus christ kid, you're not going to jail over punching some little bitch ass bully. Also, stop mumbling so much, it makes you look crazy and we ain't got time to waste going back to mental hospitals. So get your ass over there and talk to yo momma."
He sat down at the table where his mom was waiting for him with two cups of tea.
"So, I don't really know how to talk about what happened, but I think it's clear we really need to."
Izuku simply nodded in response, he was more than happy to let her lead this conversation. He didn't really feel like sharing, so he'd just say as little as possible to satisfy her concerns.
"I'll get right to it then. Was Katsuki bullying you?"
He nodded again. He supposed that was pretty obvious at this point, given what Tanaka had been shouting,
"And from what you said he used his quirk on you, and for quite a while now too?"
Another nod that led to both of them being on the verge of tears, he should really work on crying so much if he wanted to be a hero.
She sighed and wiped her eyes. "Well, if that's the case, I can't get too mad at you for attacking him. But I expect you to use your words in the future instead of throwing people across the dang house like a maniac."
Izuku looked down at the floor, it was easy to forget that to an outside observer there was zero difference between him and the slime inside of him. Although his quirk registry does note that the slime is sentient in order to give an explanation for the slime not acting like a normal quirk. But even sentient quirks tended to be based off of that person's personality and legally are considered one person.
So maybe he did look like a maniac when he threw Kachan out, but that was more a representation of the killer in his chest cavity than him. He never wanted to hurt people, but Tanaka did make a good point that he probably would have let Kachan walk all over him.
"Oi, stop zoning out into mumble town and talk to your mom before she has a panic attack over your blank stare."
"S-sorry mom. I was just lost in thought. Um, yeah. I don't plan on doing any more of that throwing people thing."
"Good. Now, the other question is what you want to do about Katsuki."
"Huh? What do you mean, I thought all you wanted me to do was not violence?"
Oh boy, he can hear himself getting more flustered and nervous as they talk about this.
"I meant whether or not you wanted to press charges."
Tanaka chimed in with a helpful, "Boooo, no one likes a snitch."
"Oh, um no. We don't need to do that."
She nodded, "I figured you would say that. But I thought it would be good to make sure anyway." She gave him a wry smile. "Besides, you got him back pretty good. My little boy is all grown up, giving bullies black eyes."
"Mom!"
Tanaka laughed from inside his ear. "Heh, I like your mom already. I feel like she was a baddass when she was younger. I could totally see her being part of the mob or something."
"Now, that being said. If he gives you any more trouble then I expect you to tell me right away."
He nodded, feeling like saying something would do more than just worry his mom now. Maybe there was an upside to his mom being suddenly overprotective.
"Good. Now you better go to bed soon since you've got school tomorrow."
"Thanks mom."
She gave him a big hug, "I love you so much and I can't bear to come that close to losing you ever again."
"I love you too mom." He wondered how often she thought about that. Did she think he was always on the verge of jumping again? Just one bad day away from dying? It was not exactly pleasant to think about how badly he had hurt his mother. In the moment he hadn't really worried about it since he planned on surviving and assumed his mom would be fine since he didn't actually die from his attempt.
He felt a little bad about it, but her being so upset and shaken by past events actually made him feel a little better. It was proof that she truly did love and care for him, that she would've been heartbroken if he had died that day.
Izuku put on his new uniform, since his old one was thrown out after being soaked in blood. He was definitely a bit anxious about what things would look like now at school. Would people be nice to him, ignore him, or still be cruel?
"Let's go get that education. I wonder if I remember literally anything from my middle school days. Probably not."
"Hey, I just realized I never once asked you a probably important question."
"What's up my tiny meat sack?"
"First off, don't call me that. Secondly, how old are you?"
"Oh shit, did I really not say that out loud at any point? What if I was an old dude with only five years to live? You'd be totally fucked if we weren't close to the same age."
"...So?"
"Maybe I'll keep to myself now, maintain the suspense."
"You're the absolute worst. Are you really not gonna tell me?"
"I'm just messin with you. I'm 19, which I guess means you probably shaved off 5 years of your life in terms of dying of old age. Because I've heard having all of your organs fail simultaneously is bad for your health."
"Yeah, but statistically it balances out since the quirkless have a mortality rate with all the suicides and hate crimes."
"Gross, don't make me think about anything that contains the word 'statistically'. Any math stuff is all on you. I know who I am, and it's not someone who does that smart shit."
"Well on that note, we need to leave soon to get there on time."
"Also gross. I vote we give up on school and rob a bank instead."
Izuku put at least some effort into taming his hair. "That's literally what got you into this mess. No more complaining, I'll be handling anything school related anyways."
"Great, you do the thinking and I'll do the punching. The perfect balance of brain and bronze."
Izuku sighed deeply. "It's 'brawn', not 'bronze'. I can't even tell if you were trying to be ironic or if you're just being yourself."
Not much later the two of them walked into a classroom that was familiar to Izuku, but he'd never once heard it so silent.
Most of the class was there and everyone was staring at him. Let it be known that Izuku did not love attention of any sort and this was definitely not pleasant.
The first person to speak up was Tsubasa, a chubby teenager with red dragon wings who he hadn't spoken to in years. "Uh… so you're not dead?"
That was not what he was expecting at all. "What?"
"Oh, um, well everyone thought you died. But I guess that video of you falling off the room and exploding into a pile of guts was faked."
Another classmate with water for hair elbowed him.
"What?! That's what it looked like, a big guts explosion."
"It wasn't faked. That did happen."
"Oh, so you're a ghost?"
Tsubasa was definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he wasn't actually that bad of a person.
"Um. Did none of the teachers tell you what happened?"
"Nah man, most of those old dudes are outta here. After you… uh… did that thing, the police showed up and checked a bunch of cameras and talked to people and the school got in a bunch of trouble. Turns out it's super illegal to discriminate against your students until they kill themselves." He paused for a moment. "Wait a second. You didn't say no to the 'are you a ghost question'. Does that mean you are a ghost, here to haunt the school for eternity as punishment for treating you badly?"
"What? No. I didn't die. Well, I don't technically have a heartbeat anymore. But uh that's for a different reason."
Another classmate jumped out of his seat, his eyeballs falling out in surprise. "Holy shit! He's a zombie!"
"Also not a zombie. I just got a forced activated quirk that replaced all of my internal organs with a semi-sentient slime, allowing me to survive just about anything short of destroying my head."
"Sounds pretty suspicious, is immortal except for headshots, probably a zombie." He wasn't sure who said that, but he definitely heard it muttered.
Tsubasa scratched his head. "Wait, if you're all indestructible now and probably not dead, how come you were gone for a month?"
"Oh, um. My quirk doesn't affect my bones, so I was at the hospital." He decidedly didn't want to talk about his mental health with a bunch of middle schoolers who thought he could be a zombie.
"Now wait a second, remember when Tsubasa tried to fly too fast that one time and broke his leg, he was only out for a day not a month."
Without a second thought he just blurted out the excuse of, "I broke all my bones."
"Damnnnn, that would do it."
Holy shit, they bought that.
Tanaka laughed a little "Y'know what, I feel way less subconscious about my intelligence now. I feel pretty confident that all middle schoolers are pretty dumb."
Izuku wished he wasn't around people for the sole purpose of being able to correct Tanaka using 'sub-conscious' instead of 'self-conscious'. But he had to let it be and deal with his classmates thinking he could be a zombie/ghost.
Tsubasa smiled at him, clearly trying to be nice after everyone saw a video of his assumed death. (He still needed to process that there was a video of his death floating around.)
"So, can your quirk do other stuff, or does it just make you hard to kill?"
"Oh, um, well since I can control the slime I can either move some of it outside my body or I can use it to make myself stronger. When I tested it I could bend steel and stuff like that."
Everyone went silent again.
"By any random chance, would you say it increases your punching strength?"
"Uh, yeah?" He cocked his head in curiosity, not sure why that would be a question. Of course it would. Then he realized that everyone was looking behind him. Specifically at Bakugou, who was standing in the room with a very prominent black eye, along with other smaller scrapes and bruises across his body from being thrown.
To top it all off, he quietly walked around Izuku and sat down in his seat without any sort of altercation or even looking at him.
It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together to gain a general idea of what happened. The kid who was being bullied suddenly gets a powerful quirk and the same day he comes back to school, the strongest and meanest bully in the school is beat to shit. Clearly said kid had enough and got into a fight in some sort of revenge.
Now, there was one question on everyone's mind, knowing that they had either been unkind to Izuku, or at least ignored his suffering to protect themselves, 'am I next?'. Because if he could beat up Bakugou of all people, there wasn't anyone in the class that could stop him.
He could almost feel the shift in the class go from feeling a little anxious but happy he was ok to being afraid of him falling into the 'quiet kid who snapped' category.
After word travelled around school that he wasn't dead and that he had a quirk now, that's when the apologies started.
One after another, people he barely knew came up to him to apologize for either making fun of him or for not getting involved on his behalf. But they were skittish, it felt less like genuine apologies and more like paying tribute.
Izuku had voiced his confusion as he walked down an empty street after the very odd day of school.
"It's basic street logic kid. This Bakugou kid was the top dog at school, so everyone followed and respected him. But now that you've beat his ass that makes you the top dog and now they need to get on your good side."
"That's so dumb."
"Maybe, but following the strongest person you see is not just a middle school thing. Think of it like this, All Might wouldn't be popular if he was all justice and no power. Hell, Endeavor doesn't give a shit about saving people and he's number 2 just because he's powerful."
"Is that really all there is to being respected? Just being strong?"
"Nah, think of it like the Yakuza-"
"Is this from experience?"
"What? Me? Do crime? Never. Anyways, as I was saying, imagine a Yakuza group."
Izuku simply nodded, unsure of where this was going.
"You'll never find a Yakuza leader who isn't strong. It's a necessity, no one will take you seriously and listen if they can easily beat you in a fight. But! Here's the important part, the ones that last aren't the absolute strongest, it's the ones that are strong and take care of their own people. Sure, you need the strength to get started, but having allies and friends will make you even better."
"You know I'm going to be a hero not a Yakuza head, right?"
"Well duh, but I've never been part of a hero group and I'm sure they're pretty similar anyways. But you better get my point. It's why we're a good team. I'm good at kicking ass and you're good at being nice to people and getting them to trust you."
"Yeah! We will be a great team. We're gonna be amazing heroes!"
"Hell yeah, now, onward to trash beach my steed."
"W-what?! I'm not your steed!"
"You most certainly are. Unless my feet touch the ground, you are acting as my steed."
"You don't have feet though!"
"Exactly! Now onward!"
With a heavy sigh Izuku made his way to Dagoba beach where they could start actually training and preparing for the entrance exams.
It only took a few minutes to realize that any level of success was going to take a lot of effort and cooperation.
Izuku had begun with moving smaller things just to make some space for them to work when they came upon a fridge that was in their way.
"Alright, if we move together we should be able to get this up to the dumpster no problem."
Tanaka agreed so he walked up to it, crouched down and lifted the heavy appliance with only minor difficulty, feeling the power of his companion forcing his limbs to apply much more force than he should be able to.
But not a moment later, as he started to turn around in order to carry the fridge to the dumpster a lot of things happened at once and none of them were good.
Firstly, his upper body froze in place with the added effect of being in an immense amount of pain, feeling like he was being ripped apart.
Secondly, the fridge was dropped, which wasn't great, but he got lucky that it didn't land on him or his feet.
And finally, both of his legs stepped backwards at the same time, causing him to fall forward and hit his forehead on the large appliance.
"AHH! What was that?! Why couldn't I move? Also why the pain?"
"I don't know man, we picked the thing up, I started turning to the right, then we stopped moving. I'll be honest, it stung like a bitch for me too."
"Wait, you turned to the right?"
"Uh… yeah, that's what I said."
"I was turning to the left. And since we were moving in different directions it cancelled out and we couldn't move at all. Which basically means if we want to do anything we'll need to do it perfectly in sync. Which was easy when we did tests and stuff, but in practice that's gonna be tricky."
"Well, we knew that this setup was going to take a lot of teamwork bullshit, so I guess we should have seen this coming."
He sighed in response. "Yeah, I guess so. For now, we can call out every action we do until we get more used to this."
"Sounds good to me, my favorite meatsack, maybe let's put a hold on the big stuff until getting crushed is less likely."
"That's a good Idea… Ok, let's walk over to that pile of tires to practice moving together."
The first few steps had so much power in it they were basically leaping across the sand. Then, on the fourth step he felt Tanaka start moving their right leg before he'd shifted his weight onto his left leg, causing them to fall on their ass.
That was how they found out that Tanaka's natural walking pace was slightly faster than Izuku's, a minor sounding problem that would plague them everytime one of them wasn't paying full attention to the other's walking rythme.
"Hey Tanaka, not to be rude, but how do you even know how to walk so well? Since you don't have legs to walk around on."
"Do you really want to know?"
"Uh… Yeah?"
"I got a ton of practice from walking around in the bodies, well, corpses that I stole in order to use them as camouflage."
"Oh. Um. It takes a lot of time to learn how to walk to the point it's ingrained. Are you like a mass murderer or something?"
"Wow, a bit late in the game to ask that if it's a deal breaker, don'tcha think? But nah, most the bodies I used were stolen from morges and stuff. It made my life easier if they were already embalmed since they didn't smell bad as fast."
"Great to know that murder was less convenient for you."
"Don't use that tone with me, I don't exactly get off on murder or anything, I just got used to doing whatever I needed to in order to survive. It's a different world living on the streets with villains popping up on every street corner and no heroes to protect people like me. I took my first life at twelve when I was stealing food and it went wrong. You get desensitized to that shit and just do what you gotta. And if some other poor fucker tries to kill me because that's what they need to do to make it in this shit world, then I won't blame them, but I won't make it easy for 'em either."
Izuku was already crying and gave himself a hug, hoping it would transfer to the man in his chest. "I'm so sorry you had to do that. I bet I seem stupid for complaining about my life now."
"Hey! There's no trauma contest. Me having bullshit doesn't make your bullshit any less shitty. That ain't how it works, alright?"
Izuku nodded.
"Good, now let's head back home and eat some delicious food because your mom is a damn good cook."