Thanking the doctor who had given them the lollypops, Niseko sat down next to Eri as the both of them ate them. Eri had gotten an apple-flavored one, and Niseko had actually managed to find a root beer flavored one, so that was nice. Dr. Ujiko had been nicer than any of the other doctors Niseko had ever met, and even after Niseko had said that he was Quirkless, he was just as nice as he'd started out as.
As he and Eri made their way out, meeting up with the man who had introduced himself as Eri's grandpa, Niseko found himself wondering what was going to happen to him.
"I'm glad to see that you're both all right," the old man said, reaching down to pat the both of them on the head.
Something had happened to him, something bad if the way no one seemed to want to talk about it in front of them was any real clue, but Sensei – who had been wearing a different version of the costume that everyone had seen him in; one that showed his face instead of the helmet he'd always worn whenever Niseko had seen him before – had helped him and healed him up, according to everything that Niseko had heard.
"Come on, I'll help you both get settled back into your new home," the old man said, reaching out for Niseko's hand.
There was a nice, gentle smile on his face, but Niseko didn't quite know how he would react when he found out that Niseko was Quirkless; he didn't know if the old man would treat him like everyone else in Deika city, or if he would end up treating him the way that Chisaki-san had. Like he was some kind of doll; like he was just some kind of toy that Chisaki-san had bought for himself to play with. He didn't like being treated either way, but he really couldn't leave the old man in the dark about something like that.
The old man would find out sooner or later, and it wouldn't be good if he found out from someone else; or if he found out through some kind of Quirk testing, like a lot of people in Deika city did.
"I'm Quirkless," he said, bracing himself even as he looked down at the floor between his shoes.
"I know," the old man said, and Niseko saw him kneeling down next to where he was standing, and then reaching out to gently tilt his chin back up. "All Might told me about what had happened to you, and I'm sorry for everything that Kai did to you."
~MHA~
As all of them were gathered up together in front of Gang Orca – him, Purple Pieman, Airhead, and the rest of the extras that hadn't managed to make the cut during the Provisional License Exam – Katsuki found himself growing all the more curious about what was going to be happening, now that they were all finally standing shoulder-to-shoulder. He also wondered what was going to happen to him, since he was really just going along for his own curiosity.
After all, he'd passed the Exam, with only the suggestion that he attend the remedial course to help him come to grips with – or at least to mitigate – the gallows humor and casual swearing that whoever had been evaluating him had taken some kind of an exception to. Though if they thought he was bad about that kind of thing, Katsuki could only wonder how in the hell any of them would react to meeting his mom. The old battleaxe would probably eat them alive, in that case.
Raising an eyebrow as he heard Gang Orca berating the rest of the class, Katsuki chuckled under his breath.
"And, as for you," the huge, badass looking Pro said, looking down at him with a look that… Honestly, Katsuki couldn't really interpret it, both because Gang Orca was tall enough that he couldn't get the best view of his face, and because not many of his features were easy to read; it was like trying to tell what Sis was thinking when she wasn't in the mood to talk. "What could you possibly find amusing about being in a situation like this?"
"I was just thinking that if your guys thought I was bad, they should meet my mom," he said, chuckling.
"Are you having trouble at home?" Gang Orca asked, his town low enough that Katsuki didn't think that anyone would try to overhear him.
That kind of thing would have been rude as fuck, but there were still people who would do that kind of thing.
"No, nothing like that, Mom just has pretty much no filter," he said, shrugging as Gang Orca looked down at him with what Katsuki thought might have been a worried sort of curiosity. "That's pretty much where I got it," he continued, since it seemed as though Gang Orca wanted a bit more information than he'd already given out.
He still couldn't really read Gang Orca's expression, at least not any better than he'd ever managed to interpret the expressions on Sis's face, but the Pro did turn away, back to all of the other students; the kids who'd come here because they had to, rather than just because they were curious about just what in the hell was actually going to go on around there.
Catching sight of one of a smaller figure, riding on the back of some blond guy in a dull, grayish brown suit, Katsuki made his way over to where the pair of them were standing. The both of them seemed to be talking with Gang Orca, but when Katsuki realized just who it was that the Pro was actually talking to, he found himself more than a little surprised at the people he was looking at.
"Ichiro? Thought you were working with that weird magnet guy back on I-Island," he said, making his way over to the tinier, chubbier, cuter version of Zuzu; the one who hadn't grown anything but older, and still looked like a live version of all the pictures that Uncle 'Sashi and Auntie Inko had taken of Zuzu when he was just four years old.
"That was just a summer job, Katsu," Ichiro said. "Kagemaru and Nimaru work with that guy a lot, for distraction and stuff, but I don't think I'm going to be going back."
"Too much excitement for you, Mini?" he asked, grinning up at the kid riding on Old Man Cloney's back.
"Some of us actually enjoy having a quiet life, bombs-for-brains," the Mini said, giving him a superior look.
"It seems you two really do know each other," Gang Orca said, looking between the three of them.
"Yeah, I've met more than a few of the Minis, but if you really want to know about them, you can either ask Zuzu or Old Man Cloney, here," he said.
"Watch your mouth, bombs-for-brains," Old Man Cloney's weird, second personality – the one who seemed to have come from his Quirk; the one that Zuzu's big, blond, teddy bear of an uncle seemed to be trying to help him out with – said, sounding more than a little annoyed. "Sorry, kid. He gets like that around people we don't really know."
Nodding, as Gang Orca called all of their attention back to him, Katsuki folded his arms and watched as a bunch of kids – little kids, though they did seem to be older than Minichiro looked – came stampeding into the room, raising an eyebrow as he heard the both of Old Man Cloney calling out to them.
"Try not to cause too much trouble. Give 'em hell, kids!"
Well, this is going to be fun, Katsuki found himself musing, looking down at all the tykes with all their Quirks moving to surround all of them. Finding his attention drawn to one of the kids, one with a Mutation-Quirk that was almost as pronounced as Sis' – though his was a bird-type one where Sis was a cat-type – Katsuki raised an eyebrow.
"What? What're you looking at Takato for, bomb-man?!" one of the other half-pints demanded, all of them glaring at him.
"His Quirk reminds me of my friend's sister's, half-pint," he said, giving the gaggle of midgets all around him an unimpressed look.
~MHA~
Looking over at Hisashi, the pair of them having been invited for the dual reasons that they were both teachers at U.A. as well as close friends with young Bakugo, Toshinori leaned over slightly.
"I've been meaning to ask you, but what's been on your mind these last few days?" he asked, having noticed the preoccupied – and somewhat annoyed – expression on Hisashi's face, ever since the Hassaikai raid had concluded and they had all been able to settle back into U.A. to get what rest they could when they weren't teaching their respective classes.
"Rikiya-chan has invited my family and some friends of ours to spend time with him in Deika city," Hisashi said, and Toshinori struggled not to make a face.
Giving Hisashi's phrasing, all of their family had been invited to Deika city, and dealing with Rikiya Yotsubashi… The man was overbearing, Quirk obsessed, a complete fanatic, and given how many people knew Toshinori Shimura as being Quirkless, he personally had always found the man more than a little condescending. Dealing with him for some indeterminate amount of time… well, it was certainly going to be an experience.
Annoying, but nothing less than an experience, all the same.
~MHA~
"You looked like you knew that bomb guy pretty well," he said, looking over at the guy he was talking about – he was flipping around in the air, one after another of his classmates riding on bomb guy's back as he jumped around, firing off blasts from his Quirk to keep himself in the air – and then back to Ichiro.
The both of them had bonded quickly, though at first it had been because he'd thought that Ichiro Bubaigawara was the same kind of prodigy as he was, but then he'd found of what Ichiro – and the rest of his "brothers", who he hadn't even known about when the both of them had met for the first time – really was, and the both of them had grown closer. Really, Ichiro and the rest of his six "brothers" were… Well, they seemed stranger than anyone he'd ever met before, but Ichiro in particular had seemed lonely in the same kind of way that he had been, back in school.
Finding out that Ichiro had been Mr. Bubaigawara's teaching assistant had been strange, but then again Mr. Bubaigawara was pretty strange, himself; his Quirk made it like there were two of him, and the one that Ichiro had called Mr. Twice was weirder, but a lot more fun than Mr. Bubaigawara. Still, Ichiro was still the closest thing he had to an equal; the closest thing he had to a friend.
"He's a friend of my original," Ichiro said, turning to look briefly at him, before turning his attention back to where the bomb guy was still kind of playing with the rest of his classmates. "You remember me telling you about Izuku, right?"
"Yeah," he said, nodding. "You said he was training to become another of those Heroes we've been hearing about all the time," he said, leaning back against the wall, glancing over to see a purple-haired guy stomping over to where bomb guy had just landed. "Didn't you say his dad was a Hero, too?"
"Yeah, Izuku wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps, and since his dad was a Pro Hero, Izuku would of course want to be a Pro Hero, too."
"So, who is the bomb guy, anyway?" he asked, turning to look at Ichiro, as the pair of them leaned against the far wall together.
~MHA~
Purple Pieman was starting to piss him off again; really, that seemed to be the only thing he was good at, and probably why he'd failed the Provisional License Exam in the first place.
"Fuck off, Pieman, I don't have time for you," he said, turning to glance back at the annoying bastard whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to annoy him, before turning his attention right back to the kids he was trying to make some kind of connection with.
"Yeah, fuck off, Pieman!"
"Watch your fucking language, tyke," he said, turning briefly to look at one of the kids gathered around him, before returning his attention to Purple Pieman. "You know, this was probably what ended up getting you shit-canned during the License Exam," he said, folding his arms and glaring at Purple Pieman.
Pieman was clearly going to say something or other, but then one of the other kids – this one whose Quirk seemed to be either generating, summoning, or just controlling toothy, chompy balls – snapped at Pieman's legs, driving him off as the other tykes all around them laughed. Coughing into his right fist to hide a laugh – since it'd hardly calm the tykes down if they knew he thought they were funny – Katsuki reached down to ruffle up the tyke's hair.
He didn't think anyone would be really impressed if he slapped one of the tykes, or grabbed their ears, the way Uncle 'Sashi'd done when he'd been getting too rambunctious for even him to deal with.
~MHA~
Raising an eyebrow as he received a message from Yoarashi-san, Shoto found that – aside from the remedial classes being over – Bakugo-san had managed to come through with only a request to meet his parents from Gang Orca. Yoarashi-san's classmate Shishikura-san, however, seemed to have been held back for either another year or until the next Provisional License Exam; Shoto was having around the usual amount of trouble parsing Yoarashi-san's excited rambling.
Looking up, at the sound of what seemed to be an excited gathering, Shoto paused to watch for a moment as Ashido-san danced for a group of his fellow students, Shoto smiled softly as he turned his attention back to the message Yoarashi-san had sent him.
Shoto: It looks like the rest of my class is having some kind of dance party.
Gale Force: That's great! They're all probably celebrating for Bakugo! Are you going to be joining them, Snowcone?
Shoto: No, I don't think so. He texted back, glancing over at where the more excitable members of class 1-A had all gathered to watch whatever kind of dance Ashido-san was doing.
Yoarashi-san knew him well enough not to push him for anything else, and their conversation had soon turned to other things. It was only a few days before October began, and Shoto found his thoughts almost naturally turning toward the subject of the School Festival, and just what it was that the rest of class 1-A was going to think of doing to celebrate it. Being homeschooled for most of his life, spending so much time working under the supervision of the tutors that Father would bring in to teach him hadn't given Shoto much of a chance to experience festivals and those kinds of things.
He wondered if Midoriya had had more of those kinds of experiences; he thought he might have, given what a kind person Midoriya's father had proven himself to be.
Putting his phone away, Shoto settled more comfortably on the chair he'd claimed for himself, watching as what had seemed to be some kind of a dance party broke up and the group of his fellow students all went their separate ways.
~MHA~
The sound of someone familiar – though distinctly not Izu – calling the name that only three people around here actually used drew her attention, and Bombalurina turned her head in the same direction that her left ear had reflexively turned at the sound of that voice.
/What is it, Monoma?/ she asked, wondering for a moment if this was going to be a normal request, or if it was going to end up being something to do with that never-ending, one-man feud he seemed to have with every other member of Izu's class except Izu himself.
"Here, sis!" Monoma exclaimed, holding something small and bright orange out to her. "Copy your three favorite movies onto this flash drive, and then give it back to me after class!"
/Okay…/ she said, feeling more than a bit confused.
She didn't know just what it was that Monoma was going to do with Apollo 13, The Last Unicorn, and The Cat From Outer Space – three of her favorite movies, and so the very things that Monoma had asked her for, not that he knew that specifically – but it was getting closer to U.A.'s School Festival, so there was that. She still couldn't quite figure out just what it was that Monoma was planning, but it was more than likely to be something having to do with that.
As she and the rest of class 1-C all went about their day, Bombalurina found her attention drawn to Hitoshi in particular, since he seemed more eager than anyone else for class to end.
/Is something special happening today, Hitoshi?/ she asked, in the lull between classes when they had a moment to actually speak.
"Your brother's homeroom teacher made me an offer," Hitoshi said, keeping his voice low, and looking around as though he didn't want anyone else to overhear.
As much as Hitoshi didn't take an interest in any of their other classmates – with Bombalurina herself being a notable exception, and even that was because she'd pretty much forced the issue to begin with – he'd always seemed to think they were paying more attention to what he was doing than they actually were. Really, the rest of them seemed to be just as put-off by his standoffishness as Hitoshi wanted them to be.
/Really? Well, I guess you're going to be seeing a lot more of Izu-chan than me, for awhile,/ she said, as their next class of the day began, with the arrival of their next teacher.
"I guess I am," Hitoshi muttered, his tone flat enough that Bombalurina wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
~MHA~
When they all met up for class the next day, Izuku found himself all the more settled by watching Tenko-nii dragging Aizawa-sensei into the classroom in his sleeping bag. He hadn't seen Tenko-nii in their classroom for such a long time, and Izuku hadn't quite appreciated how normal that had made him feel until he hadn't had it for those long – a subjective eternity – days that he'd been without his and Bambaa-chan's brother.
"All right, scrubs," Tenko-nii said, holding out the usual clipboard that he'd had since the first day that Izuku had encountered him; it was just one more sign that things had returned to normal again.
If nothing else, Izuku could be happy about that.
Once Tenko-nii had called roll, and Aizawa-sensei had woken up and climbed out of his sleeping bag, their class was called on to discuss what they were going to do for their part of the School Festival. As all of his fellow students began shouting out their suggestions for what they wanted to do, each of them seeming to be trying to talk over the other in their efforts to get their point across, Izuku whistled sharply.
"All right! I'm sure you guys all have really great ideas, but let's see if we can get them all organized!" he called, trying not to yell, while at the same time trying to talk loud enough so that everyone in class could understand what he was saying.
Iida-san was the first one to volunteer to take notes, the way he'd pretty much been expecting from one of the most enthusiastic members of class 1-A. Once they had managed to get all of the class' ideas up on the board – all except for Mineta-san's since he hadn't managed to think of anything that was either coherent or appropriate – he and Momo-san started discussing just which one of them would be the one they used for their part of the festival. All the while, Izuku found himself thinking about the invitation to Deika city that had been extended to him, Dad, and the rest of their family.
It was for after the School Festival, so they couldn't have really refused because it conflicted with anything U.A. was doing, so that was kind of annoying; none of them were particularly fond of anyone in Deika city, and Rikiya Yotsubashi, the de-facto leader of the city…
Well, no one in their family was actually fond of the man – not even Mom, and she tried to get along with everyone – and now, with the invitation to Deika hanging over them… Izuku sighed, shuffling the papers he'd written down while he and the rest of class 1-A had all been brainstorming what they were going to do for their part of the School Festival.
"Is something wrong, Deku?"
"Ochako-san," he said, looking up at his classmate as she leaned over him. "Hey. Did you need anything?" he asked, after the pair of them had spent a moment just studying each other.
"You looked kind of down, Deku," she said. "Did something go wrong?"
"No, it's nothing like that," he said, wondering for a moment if he should try to explain the strange, almost adversarial relationship that he and Dad in particular, and the rest of their family by extension, had with the CEO of Detnerat. After all, Detnerat was one of the largest suppliers of support gear in Japan, and Rikiya-san had the kind of reputation to match. "It's just… Rikiya Yotsubashi invited Dad and the rest of our family to stay with him in Deika city."
"Wow, that's great, Deku!" Ochako-san exclaimed, looking a lot more happy than Izuku had found himself at the prospect, and he couldn't quite manage to stop himself from chuckling. "What's so funny?"
"It's just, I've been there a lot," he said, smiling up at Ochako-san as the pair of them spoke with each other. "Yotsubashi-san is a friend of Dad's, so we have kind of a standing invitation to Deika."
"Wow, that's really neat, Deku."
"It's not as great as you think it is, Round Face."
"Kacchan, don't startle me like that," he said, jumping in his seat as he found his old friend standing over the pair of them.
"Pay more attention to your surroundings, then, nerd," Kacchan said, grinning down at him, then leaning against the table as he turned to Ochako-san. "Yotsubashi's a Quirk-obsessed bastard, and anyone who lives in Deika all follow along with him, so it's a pain in the ass to stay there. That's why the nerd wasn't so happy. Hell, I wouldn't be happy to head back there, and I'm not the one all those crazies keep trying to stuff with doctored food."
"What do you mean?" Ochako-san asked, looking from him to Kacchan and then back again.
"Well, you know how my Quirk works," he said, pausing for a moment to let Ochako-san nod for him to go on. "So, a bunch of people in Deika try to feed my food with bits of blood, or hair, or eyelashes whenever I visit."
"It's pretty gross," Kacchan said, the same kind of annoyed look on his face that he always had when someone brought up the subject of Deika and all the people who lived there. "What makes it even worse is how good all of the damn food is."
"Yeah, that does kind of make it worse," he muttered, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.
~MHA~
Given the kind of things that Eri's Quirk could do, and the power of his own Quirk to negate that kind of thing, her grandfather had ended up bringing her to U.A. He'd also brought the other kid – the Quirkless kid from Deika, Niseko Sezu – along with him, and Aizawa found himself keeping an eye on Niseko while he was working with Eri to get a hold on her Quirk. Being born in Deika, being born Quirkless…
He could see the clear signs of the kind of emotional damage that being thrown out by his own family had caused him, as well as the damage that being treated as a prop or a toy by Chisaki had only served to deepen, and so Aizawa was determined to support Niseko in any way he could. Still, his work with Eri had to come first. Still, Eri and Niseko seemed to have formed at least some kind of a friendship, during the time they had both spent under the control of Chisaki and the Shie Hassaikai.
At least, as much as either of them had been able to, given that Chisaki had apparently been determined to keep the pair of them separated, given his views on both Quirks and the Quirkless. Both Niseko and Eri seemed to be coping as well as they possibly could since the pair of them had been freed, and Aizawa was glad to see that they both seemed to be at least beginning to recover. He knew that that kind of thing would take time, of course.
Oboro had been quick to volunteer to stay with Niseko while Aizawa himself worked with Eri, and when he'd looked over at the pair of them, he'd seen Oboro helping Niseko up onto one of his clouds. However, the one thing he hadn't seen either of the children that had been rescued from the Shie Hassaikai do was smile. However, given the circumstances of their respective childhoods, Aizawa could fully understand.
Growing up in Deika and being thrown out by his parents, or growing up under the control of Kai Chisaki and spending nearly all of her life being basically vivisected by the Villain… Aizawa shook his head slightly, turning back to the lesson he was working through with Eri.