Izuku and Ochaco burst through the doors of the UA Class 1-A dorms, gasping for air as sweat drenched every part of their bodies. The two collapsed to the ground as the evening sunlight blazed into the common room.
"We... did... it..." Ochaco gasped as she rolled over onto her back, her chest rising and falling. Izuku pushed himself up into a sitting position against the doorframe as he stared down at the pavement, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Hey, Midoriya and Uraraka are back!" a voice called from the common room. Izuku and Ochaco looked up tiredly to see Mina and Kirishima heading towards them. Mina bent down to help Ochaco up with Kirishima offering a hand to Izuku.
"Extra laps from Aizawa?" Kirishima asked with a sharp smile as he heaved Izuku off the ground. Izuku grinned guiltily.
"Yeah. We were late to his office by his standards..." Izuku said, rubbing the back of his head. Suddenly, Izuku's eyes turned from tired to scared as he began darting around the common room of the Class 1-A dorm.
"Wait! My mom isn't here is she?" Izuku asked nervously as he took a few steps forward to look down the hall. Kirishima laughed as he patted Izuku on the back.
"Not today man, you know they moved all the parents into another building. It's actually pretty amazing that UA can build stuff like that so quickly, making dorm buildings so fast..."
"We can thank Cementoss for that..." Izuku said with a sigh of relief. Izuku's mother, along with the other parents of the UA Students, had been transferred to school campus living due to the oncoming threat of the Liberation War.
"Why doesn't Midoriya want his mother here?" Mina asked, closing the dorm entrance behind them. Ochaco giggled as she turned to Mina.
"She keeps babying him, visiting the dorms and making sure he's okay with everything that happens. Izu is embarrassed. I don't think he wants to be pampered by his mother in front of his girlfriend, but I think it's kinda cute..."
"I'm glad one of us does," Izuku said, now walking towards the kitchen to grab a water from the refrigerator. Ochaco and Mina giggled as Izuku pouted in embarrassment as he walked away. The moment Izuku was out of earshot, however, Mina and Kirishima's faces lost their smile. Ochaco, noticing their sudden change in attitude, furrowed her eyebrows just a bit. She took a breath as she prepared herself for the incoming barrage of questions.
"Uraraka, when are we going to get an explanation?" Kirishima asked uncharacteristically sternly. "Before we assumed that the Liberation and the League were after Midoriya because he was strong, but we know there's more to it..."
"Yea... We were all there in that doctors lab... We heard the term One for All," Mina said worriedly. "We tried to look past it, but there's something odd going on. Midoriya and All Might having the same sounding quirk, he has that black stuff going on with him, and sometimes he can fly..."
"He just... It seems like he has a connection to that All for One guy," Kirishima summed up. "And it doesn't help with that Shinso guy is asking around about it. He keeps asking if anyone knows anything about One for All..."
"And isn't Midoriya going on some separate mission than the rest of us?" Mina asked.
"Guys!" Ochaco said in a harsh whisper. "Stop!"
Kirishima and Mina both instantly shut their mouths, guiltiness covering both of their faces. Ochaco sighed as she ran her fingers through her thick brown hair.
"Sorry..." Mina said quietly. "It's just... We're worried about him. Midoriya and yourself."
"Yea... You're more than just classmates to us, you know?" Kirishima said, cracking his knuckles, not knowing what else to do with his hands. "We want to be there to help..."
"Look, guys I get it," Ochaco said, waving her hands in front of her chest. '"But... I just can't. Not right now at least. You guys need to focus on the Liberation mission coming up. I swear this will all make sense at some point but right now..."
Ochaco looked back at Izuku, who was a distance away in the kitchen chugging a bottle of water, before turning back towards the other couple in front of her.
"Please just... Not right now, okay?" Ochaco pleaded. Kirishima and Mina looked between themselves before nodding and walking off towards the couches. Ochaco looked on sadly as she watched her friends walk off. She felt bad, keeping such a huge secret from them. Is this how Izuku felt this entire time? Many of the Class 1-A students had come to question her about Izuku and his quirk, along with other questions that Ochaco simply didn't have an answer for.
However, the brunette kept defending the emerald haired boy, keeping the class from bugging him any further. Izuku had much more to worry about than how his classmates felt about keeping secrets.
"What was that about?" Izuku asked his girlfriend, returning to her side with an almost empty bottle of water in one hand, and a full unopened one in the other. Izuku held out the bottle of unopened water to Ochaco as she sighed, trying to come up with some kind of excuse.
"You know how Mina can be, teasing me to know end about my undying love for you," Ochaco lied with a fake smile. Izuku raised a confused eyebrow.
"Arent Kirishima and Ashido a couple now?" Izuku asked as the two began walking towards Izuku's dorm. "Can't you tease her back?"
"I've tried!" Ochaco whined, now actually getting into the topic. "But she's too clever! She always knows how to switch it back up on me..."
"Mmm, she is pretty smart when it comes to stuff like that..." Izuku said thoughtfully. Ochaco, not liking the idea of Izuku praising Mina's art of teasing, puffed her cheeks out.
"I'm tired!" Ochaco suddenly called out, abruptly stopping in her tracks. Izuku turned in confusion to look back at his lover. "Carry me!"
"Ocha, I really-"
"Carry me!" Ochaco said again, her cheeks puffing out even more. Izuku sighed with a smile as he turned back. In a flash Ochaco was in his arms bridal style.
"W-W-Wait, Izuku, I thought you would place me on your back or something!" Ochaco said, burning red just a bit. Izuku chuckled.
"I mean, I can place you down if you'd like..." Izuku said, trying not to allow his own burn to show. he had gotten much better at hiding his nerves when he did stuff like this, however that didn't mean they had all but vanished, even after half a year of dating.
Ochaco, however, took Izuku's words as a challenge. Still a bit red, she wrapped her arms around the muscular boys neck as she dug her face deep into his neck.
"Don't you dare put me down..." Ochaco muttered. Izuku shivered a bit at the warm breath that crawled up his neck. He smiled, though he could help but be afraid at what Ochaco would do to him if he had truly placed her down.
Izuku kicked the door open to his room, setting Ochaco down on his bed as she rolled over. Izuku chuckled to himself as he watched the girl unconsciously get comfortable under the sheets of the bed.
I guess she really was tired, Izuku thought to himself as he sat on the bedside next to her, gently caressing her hair. Izuku gave a small smile before his face became stone cold. He knew Kirishima and Mina were bothering Ochaco about the truth of One for All, along with the rest of Class 1-A. Shinso's words had vaguely stayed on repeat inside Izuku's mind as the days had passed since their last encounter"
You have some explaining to do. Shinso's voice echoed in Izuku's mind. We know what One for All is. You aren't getting away that easy.
If you know what it is, then why bother the other classmates about it... Izuku wondered as he stood, moving towards his desk. Izuku sat in his chair as he dug up the papers Aizawa had given him a few days prior, detailing Izuku's part of the plan, though they had to be updated now that Ochaco was coming along.
Shigaraki was in one of two places: Jaku Hospital or the Mountain the housed the Base of the Liberation Front. Izuku closed his eyes, allowing One for All to take hold of his senses... Jaku City. Izuku felt it, the power of All for One growing day by day in the abyss of Jaku City, most likely near or inside of the hospital the Pro's repeatedly kept mentioning. Izuku, while confident that Shigaraki was there, couldn't help but feel like it was too... Easy.
Would All for One really allow One for All to sense where he was? Or was that the goal? Did All for One simply want Izuku to dash towards Shigaraki, the current holder of the All for One quirk? And if that was the case, could All for One sense where Izuku was at all times? If so, why hadn't All for One made a move yet? Something else was in the works... But what?
Izuku bit his lip, turning back towards the sleeping brunette in his bed. She was constantly in danger if All for One could sense where One for All was at all times. Izuku still didn't like the idea of Ochaco coming along, especially since she had already put herself in so much danger for him beforehand. The only reason Izuku had accepted Ochaco coming along was due to his belief that if he tried to leave her behind, she would simply follow without him knowing, only putting her in more danger.
Izuku ran his fingers through his wild green hair, turning back towards the plans, now reading the notes listed under the locations of the buildings. There were two main groups, each designated to one of the two locations on the paper. A large, almost uncountable list of heroes and students were listed to assist with a surprise raid on the mountain base. The second, a much smaller group consisting of more of the elite and top heroes, besides the number two hero Hawks, were deemed to head towards Jaku Hospital in order to secure the doctor in charge of the Nomu Operations.
While these were the basic plans, off to the side were written notes from Aizawa himself. Izuku, Bakugo, and a few others (Soon to include Ochaco) were set off to the side for an undescribed mission that Izuku had yet to hear the full details of. Izuku couldn't help but frown.
These plans were the old versions.
This all was supposed to take place in a single day, though now that more information had leaked thanks to Ochaco and her team's efforts in previous missions the mission had changed. The Pro's had yet to give them the updated missions. This grand scale mission was supposed to take more than a week, and yet Izuku and the rest still didn't have any idea of what they would be getting into...
Izuku sighed. It was possible that the Pro's were keeping the new plan to themselves, not wanting to spread it around casually. If anything, keeping the old information public to the rest of the heroes was the best course of action, in case there were any left over traitorous heroes. However, Izuku couldn't help but feel relentless. What was the plan? What was his plan? How was he supposed to stop Shigaraki?
Izuku brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose, allowing his frustration to consume him. What was he supposed to do? The only thing that pulled Izuku out of his thoughts were the sudden vibrations going of in his pocket. Izuku reached in to pull the phone out before reading the text message.
It was from All Might.
...