Returning to UA after the attack on the USJ and the subsequent rapid overhaul in security was painful. Izuku knew that they had worked miracles to be able to bring the students back the following Monday, and he knew that Principal Nezu probably wouldn't have allowed such a thing if he weren't certain that they would be able to manage whatever came next. But he wasn't going to be able to forget what had happened anytime soon, and being back on campus would be a bit of an adjustment after everything. The extended weekend had been spent healing, looking up possible therapists with his mother, and talking with the other members of the class in the group chat.
The group chat, because it was frequented by such chaotic minds as Kaminari and Ashido, was inundated with memes. Kaminari especially was a connoisseur of pre-quirk and early-quirk era memes. Any links he sent to the chat were immediately suspect, though Sero was the one who had to explain the significance of the Rick Astley song to Iida, who had clicked on it because Kaminari managed to hide it under a bullshit facade about study aids. It was slightly less of a joke when Iida decided he liked the song.
Bakugou wasn't particularly active in the chat. He forgot to turn his account to invisible, so everyone who bothered to check the group list could tell that he was lurking, but he rarely added anything to the conversation. The silence was familiar, but slightly nerve-wracking, especially as he hadn't complained about the near constant swarm of notifications from the app about the chat. Izuku couldn't shake the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The biggest topic of conversation in the chat was the fact that an email had arrived in their inboxes saying that they would all need to attend at least once session with Hound Dog or a similarly qualified mental health professional before they were allowed to take part in internships following the Sports Festival. It was also where they learned that the school was moving ahead with the Sports Festival in spite of the recent security breech. There were assurances that the school would be better defended when the event arrived, and not just because most of the country's top heroes were in attendance to submit internship invitations. While they were unwilling to go into detail about the new precautions they were putting in place, they also intended to assign several more heroes to actively patrol the grounds during the Sports Festival itself, as well as a few added to the staff on a more permanent basis to serve as teaching assistants and added security.
Honestly, it seemed like more of his fellow students were concerned about the mandatory therapy than the Sports Festival. Izuku himself was a bit concerned about it, especially since he and his mom had made the decision for him to see someone who wasn't at UA for the sake of maintaining the illusion of his quirk. It was also going to be more of a long-term commitment for him, so it was better to find the therapist he worked well with now than try to deal with the various struggles he was facing under the stress of possibly sharing his secret with multiple people.
At the same time, he had known growing up that therapy would be part of his life. He had imagined it further in the future, after he had already managed his dream of becoming a hero and had been involved in several things that had messed with his mind. It was only at that point he could imagine opening up about what it was like to grow up without a quirk. This was too soon, too uncontrolled, too unexpected for him to be comfortable with it. The decision to make the capture scarf his quirk on paper was a little hasty, but he had imagined it as part of his future from the moment he found it, so it wasn't a step too far beyond what he'd already been planning.
He didn't have a contingency plan for this. He didn't know what to do if this went wrong. Of all of the plans he had made in the ten months since he registered the scarf as his quirk, none of them had covered what to do about talking about it in therapy. He had waited until the literal last second before telling his mother about it; he wasn't sure how he was supposed to even talk about something like that with a complete stranger. Therapy, from what he'd read online, was supposed to be a safe place, but Izuku couldn't remember a single day he'd felt safe since a quirk specialist loomed over him and told him to give up on all of his big dreams.
Paradoxically, he took some measure of security in the lack of safety in his life. He had existed on a low-level alertness for more than ten years now, long enough that he couldn't remember what it was like before he was diagnosed because all of the memories from before and after became jumbled over time. He knew that Kacchan was a bittersweet memory of a friend he used to have and Bakugou had taken his place at some point, but even knowing the exact date Bakugou had been told he was quirkless didn't help with finding that divide.
There were times he remembered feeling hurt that the others wouldn't let him play as anything other than the helpless civilian hostage, and he knew that some of these days were before it was confirmed that he would never get a quirk. He was starting to wonder if the other kids had just known there was something wrong with him when they looked at him. He wondered if there was something written on his face in something only someone with a quirk would see. Except, no, Bakugou seemed to believe that he had a quirk now, just like everyone else at Aldera. At the very least, he hadn't accused Izuku of being quirkless since then. He didn't think it amounted to the same thing exactly, but it was enough for him. Bakugou's silence on the matter meant Izuku was actually capable of making friends this time.
Was that something he had to mention to the therapist? Even knowing that it wasn't exactly his fault that no one wanted to be around the quirkless kid, he still felt ashamed of the emptiness in his life, of how pathetic his ability to socialize looked next to other people. He'd been lucky that he shared the drive and desire to become a hero with Uraraka and Iida, otherwise he wouldn't know how to talk to either of them. Even so, most of the conversations he'd had with them were about heroes or school, usually both. Surely there were other things friends were supposed to talk about, right?
Izuku paused at the door of the classroom and hesitated. He hadn't been entirely aware of his surroundings while he'd been walking, and his feet had still led him where he needed to go. Through the narrow window built into the door, he could see Iida already in his seat, as well as several others mingling around. Ashido, Kirishima, and Denki were all huddled around Kirishima's desk, and Sero had turned in his chair to face them as well. Bakugou was in his seat and the group was occasionally turning to include him in the conversation, but it didn't seem to be working very well. The group seemed reasonably persistent, and not for the usual reasons since none of them looked at all afraid of what Bakugou might do to them, so Izuku figured that only time would tell which would break first, the group's resolve to befriend Bakugou or Bakugou's determination to be a loner.
Hagakure was leaning against Ojiro's desk, and he was looking up at where her face would approximately be. He couldn't hear any of the conversations through the door, but the way her shoulders seemed unnaturally tense and Ojiro was acting a bit like he was trying to approach a feral cat made Izuku think that she wasn't doing well.
Deciding that he should probably stop lurking before someone else arrived, Izuku slipped into the room and around to his seat, using all of the methods he had learned at Aldera to go unnoticed as he went. It helped that most people were distracted and Uraraka, whose desk he needed to pass on the way to his seat around the back of the classroom, wasn't there yet. There would be plenty of time to talk at lunch, but he really didn't want to draw attention to himself after everything. Even though his classmates had asked every version of 'are you okay' in the group chat, he didn't doubt several of them would want to verify that fact in person.
He had never been more glad that his plainness and learned quietness meant that people overlooked him. It would be useful now and in the future once he became an underground hero. Uraraka arrived not long after he had, and she looked like she wanted nothing more than to come and check him over for herself, but there wasn't enough time before class started. Aizawa appeared almost as soon as she sat down in her seat, not a second wasted from the moment homeroom was supposed to start.
It was the first time Izuku had gotten to see Aizawa since the USJ—the first time any of them had seen him really—and it was clear that he was still recovering a bit. He hadn't been terribly wounded, but the shot Shigaraki had managed to get in before he escaped was considerable. Izuku remembered watching the blood soak into the capture scarf. It was also the first time Izuku had seen him use the scarf as anything more than a weapon, which was more shocking than it should have been. It wasn't as though he didn't know how versatile the capture scarf was. He had trained with his own for a long time, and Aizawa-sensei had been using his own for much, much longer. Most of the uses he had derived from the scarf were based entirely on things he had heard or seen Eraserhead do.
Aizawa's capture scarf had eaten the blood. Or Aizawa had washed it, but Izuku was pretty sure the scarf would have gotten to the ready supply of organic chemicals it could break down before the man had a chance to wash it considering how quickly his own scarf had eaten the hospital cart and his hero costume.
"Welcome back," Aizawa-sensei said, addressing the class. "You should have all received an email detailing how things are going to go in the immediate future. For those of you who failed to check or read your school emails, the Sports Festival is going to proceed as planned. If you want to know the reasons for it, read the email." He sighed. "On a related note, you and your parents have also been informed that you are expected to meet with either Hound Dog or a licensed mental health professional following the events at the USJ last Thursday before any of you will be allowed to participate in internships following the Sports Festival. This is standard procedure for villain encounters and would have come up following your internships and work-study assignments next term if not for the attack. Please take it seriously as your mental health is not something you should mess around with as a hero. There will be plenty of people in the world willing to do that for you without sabotaging yourself on accident or on purpose. As there is more than a month and a half between now and the Sports Festival, you should have plenty of time to attend a session or two as needed without it affecting your training."
A quiet murmuring filled the room. Most everyone had known about that stipulation because of how much it had been talked about in the chat, but Izuku couldn't recall whether the email had said they might be barred from internships if they didn't attend the mandatory therapy or if that was new information. It might have been a logical ruse like Aizawa had used during the Quirk Apprehension tests, but Izuku doubted it. He just didn't think therapy was something their teacher would lie about, especially since he's made the point of discussing the possibility of Izuku attending sessions long-term with his mother. He wasn't sure why Aizawa-sensei was adamant about therapy, but there was probably a reason for it, one that none of them should bother to question.
"One of the things you need to be aware of after everything that's happened is that more people will have their eyes on you. This can be both good and bad. The USJ attack and the subsequent media coverage has effectively placed a target on your backs, and some of your fellow classmates will be aiming for it in the Sports Festival. This is partly because they are trying to get some of the recognition you have received having lived through an attack while barely trained, and partly because they resent the spotlight you've been given for something they see as requiring no effort on your end. As they weren't there, they don't recognize that survival in the face of the odds against you is more effort than has been required of any of them yet. This unfortunately means that you will probably be challenged in the halls several times between now and the Sports Festival, and people will be paying attention to your reactions. I can't tell you how to react to that, just warn you that your response will be judged by everyone who hears about it. Try to keep that in mind when you receive your fourth declaration of war on the way to lunch."
Izuku wished he could say he was surprised, but there was part of him that knew he'd never leave some things behind. Being part of an ostracized group was just one of those things that would never leave him, and not just because he would always be quirkless. No, there was more to it than that. No matter what he did, Izuku always felt this deep sense of otherness around people, the knowledge that he didn't exactly slot into place neatly with them. He'd seen tight-knit friendships and hero groups, people who seemed able to read each other's minds, who meshed well with one another, and even now he couldn't imagine himself being in that position. Uraraka and Iida were his friends, but there was still something that separated him from them. They had bonded over past bullying and heroic ideals, but he still couldn't be sure that he could fully trust them. They had only known him with a quirk. He didn't want to test what it would be like if they found out he'd been lying the whole time.
"The last thing I want to discuss in the wake of this attack is whether or not any of you want to continue in the hero course." Aizawa, who had never stopped speaking in a serious tone, sounded abruptly more grim now. "Normally, your first encounter with a villain would have happened during internships at the earliest, after you'd been better trained and prepared for the things you're meant to face. However, as this incident so clearly illustrated, villains don't fight fair. They don't wait for you to be prepared or trained for whatever you're supposed to do. Despite how it's depicted for the cameras, the truth of the matter is hardly glamorous, even for spotlight heroes. For every fight that gets recorded, there's at least another three that don't. This is either because they are too dangerous for civilians to be close enough to record, or because the story gets buried for the well-being of the general public. You may have noticed that the coverage on the USJ attack is remarkably slim. This isn't because the footage doesn't exist but because that is one such fight that's better to avoid telling the general public about as much as possible."
His gaze swept across the room, landing on each of them in turn. "If this is something you don't think you'll be able to handle moving forward, you are perfectly welcome to transfer out of the Hero Course. I will personally ensure that you are placed somewhere more comfortable, whether that's in another program here at UA or at another school. Your safety and security are one of my top priorities both as your teacher and as a pro-hero. If that's something you want to discuss, feel free to talk to me after class." He paused. "And before I forget, Midoriya, Principal Nezu would like to speak to you and has asked that I excuse you from homeroom to go meet with him."
Izuku felt the eyes of the entire room alight on him, the skittering sensation of anxiety welling up in his gut as he tried to think of what he might have done to bring the principal's attention to him after only a week.
This isn't because the footage doesn't exist, Aizawa had said. Meaning they had the local video feed for everything that happened in the USJ. He must have given himself away somehow, must have made it clear to the being with the strongest intelligence quirk on record—so strong it could almost masquerade as a minor foresight quirk—to tell that he was a fraud.
The weight of his classmates' attention was suffocating as he made his way toward the door. It felt like a death march, like he was back in middle school and facing the threat of expulsion again for something he hadn't done. At least this time no one was jeering about it. When he dared to glance back at the faces of his classmates once he reached the door, he saw more confusion and worry than gloating, and a tiny curl of warmth settled in the pit of his stomach. They may not know he's quirkless, but he's not worthless to them yet. They actually care.
Now he just needed to survive this meeting and get back to them.
The walk to Principal Nezu's office was both longer and shorter than Izuku wanted it to be. He had so much time to try and figure out what he had done wrong that he was ending up here in the second week of school, but it wasn't nearly long enough for him to definitively answer it. How exactly would someone measure the precise distance that would induce guilt with no time to come to terms with it? Because someone had managed it.
The main office of UA was strange mostly because it didn't have anyone else in it that he could see. There were strategically place cameras covering the area, almost well-hidden enough that Izuku didn't notice them, but he always tried to make sure he knew whether or not he was being recorded. Once he'd made other people aware of the cameras, they tended to back off in a hurry.
Here, they seemed to serve a bit of a different purpose, because as soon as he noticed the security cameras, the door to Principal Nezu's office swung open.
"Come in, Midoriya-kun," the principal called. "We have much to discuss."
Izuku tried to ignore the sudden flare of panic in his gut as he stepped into the large office. "Good morning," he greeted quietly, hoping that manners would make the whole meeting that much less painful. Principal Nezu didn't sound upset with him, but that didn't mean anything. Gyuudai-sensei had never sounded angry when he'd sent Izuku to the office, but the dark enthusiasm was a warning all its own.
"Please do sit down," Nezu said. "I don't bite, I promise. Would you like some tea?"
"No, thank you." The way his stomach was churning, Izuku didn't think he could ingest anything without it and his breakfast coming right back up. He sat down in one of the plush chairs in front of Principal Nezu's desk and tried not to think about how it felt like the chair was swallowing him.
His scarf suddenly tightened around his chest, and he felt a tiny burst of composure settle over him. Whatever happened here, he would deal with it. He and his mother would be able to manage it.
"To be completely transparent, I've been looking forward to meeting you since the Entrance exams. It's not often prospective students turn around and face the zero-pointer, but they normally have more destructive quirks suited to stopping or slowing it." Nezu offered him something that was probably supposed to be a smile. "Bakugou Katsuki was one such student, as I'm sure you guessed, and I'm sure you noticed that his score was absent any rescue points. Any of his fellow examinees he saved with his actions were clearly incidental and would have been negated by the number of times he put them in danger with his actions. You, however, turned to face the zero-pointer specifically to help Uraraka Ochako, who had become trapped by debris. Any student who stops to help another in the exams is noticed, of course, but few do so at the risk of their own place in the Hero Course. You didn't even stop to think about it."
There was a point to this, Izuku was certain. He had used the capture scarf heavily in the exam, more than he had used it any other time except at the USJ, and Nezu was one of the smartest beings in the world. But if he knew then that Izuku was a fraud, why wouldn't he just reveal him? Why let him into the Hero Course in the first place? Thinking back to what his whole mindset was during the exams, he nodded. "There wasn't really time to think. My feet just moved."
"An admirable quality in a hero student, especially since it gives us the time to refine and hone it in a controlled environment." It felt like a reproach coated in sugar, and Izuku barely kept himself from looking around to check and make sure the principal was talking to him and not someone else in the room. "Running into danger is better done with a bit of a plan, but that instinct, that bone-deep desire to help, isn't something we can teach students. What stood out to me was that the moment you started running, you didn't have a plan, but you had formulated several by the time you reached Uraraka-kun." Nezu paused and sipped his tea before adding, "Unless I miss my guess, attacking the zero-pointer directly was the last and most desperate of your plans when the others wouldn't work."
Izuku nodded faintly, uncomfortably seen despite the fact that his fake quirk hadn't yet come up. As much as he didn't want to tempt fate, he couldn't understand why that hadn't been mentioned yet.
As if he could read Izuku's mind, Nezu added, "I must say it's refreshing to see someone who has taken the time to train their mind as well as their quirk. And the fact that you've requested some basic support classes in addition to your hero training seems like you want to continue that trend. I have a copy of your new schedule here."
Izuku reached for the paperwork Principal Nezu had slid across his desk, glancing through it to cover the shock. '...as well as their quirk.' The phrase implied that Nezu believed the lie. He had somehow fooled the smartest known being in the world into thinking the capture scarf was a quirk.
The new schedule Nezu had given him replaced his regular math class with an advanced physics class, and there was an open period on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday where he was free to use the fabrication labs under the supervision of Powerloader or a senior Support Course student. There was also a list of possible or recommended online class blocks he could work his way through during study hall, and the first one that caught his attention was rather blatantly referred to as Introduction to Hacking and Coding. Izuku wasn't sure why hacking was listed first in the course title, but he'd probably find out when he went through the lessons.
The more he looked through the new schedule, the more excited he got. For the first time in his educational career, Izuku forgot that he was sitting in a principal's office momentarily. He forgot that he should be worried about his future in the Hero Course and at UA in general because someone had gone to the trouble of creating a special schedule for him based on his interests and the focus he wanted to pursue. For the first time, he didn't have to defend his dreams to people, and the moment felt that much more special for it. It was only a small packet of papers, but it was evidence that life was just a little bit better than it had been before.
The niggling voice in the back of his head reminded him that this only happened because they all thought he had a quirk, but Izuku didn't care. It was the first time he held proof that the things he asked for were achievable.
"I must confess there was another reason I wanted to meet you, Midoriya-kun," Nezu admitted, cutting into Izuku's thoughts. "Your insights into the attack on the USJ were quite useful. We will keep them in mind moving forward, and I wanted to apologize that a lack of security on our part placed you in harm's way, but I cannot help but think that your observations and perspective on the villains and the situation will be invaluable. You were, of course, the only one who truly had any significant contact with Shigaraki, Noumu, and Kurogiri. Without your recollections and statement, we would be far worse off than we are now."
There was a pause and Izuku ducked his head in thanks, still unsure how he was supposed to react to such positive things directed at him. Not many teachers had bothered to notice he was there, and those that had used his presence to turn his classmates more firmly against him. After he presented a 'quirk', they still largely ignored him, though he thought it was because they were trying to avoid drawing his attention to them. If he were a more vindictive person, he could have sued the school for discrimination. It wasn't like the security footage simply disappeared into the void. There was more than enough evidence of how poorly they had treated him before that it would have spelled the end of several careers among the faculty and staff.
It was more bewildering to receive such compliments than it was to figure out how the capture scarf worked.
"As I said before, UA is a place where we the teachers attempt to hone students' skills. You quite clearly have a prodigious number to address, and that is a wonderful thing. You have shown a dedication to the furthering of your education, and I just wanted to make you aware of some of your options moving forward." The principal took another sip of his tea before continuing. "You will eventually finish all of the online classes you are interested in. Or perhaps you'll find that you want to work on some of your observation skills. When or if that happens, I would like you to consider spending one study period a week with me developing your talent for observation and on-the-spot planning." Nezu chuckled. "I have been told that much more exposure to me than that can be detrimental to world security, but I haven't taken over the world yet."
"You want me to be your student?" Izuku asked, trying not to choke on the words because he had to be misunderstanding something here.
"In essence, yes. Not right away because it's the beginning of the year, you need time to prepare for the Sports Festival in a few weeks, and you will also need time to acclimate to your new class schedule. But this is not an offer I am going to take back."
Izuku couldn't help but wonder if that assertion would change if Nezu knew he didn't actually have a quirk. Every opportunity he had been given was built on this lie, and everything would fall apart if that came out. "Thank you," he whispered. "I think I'd like that."
"Before you go, Midoriya, I'm curious." Izuku felt something in his gut freeze up as he looked back up from his new schedule. "Why did you come to the conclusions you did about Shigaraki and the others? What made you think there was someone else behind the scenes?"
"He said Noumu was made. Not born, not trained, made. He didn't seem like the sort of person who could do that, and Kurogiri always deferred to him, so he might or might not know how. It just made sense that there was someone else involved, someone we weren't seeing. As much as Shigaraki made it seem like he was in charge he didn't..." Izuku paused, looking for a kinder way of phrasing things. "He didn't seem like he was entirely stable. With all the video game terms he kept using, it's like he thought he was the main character and only real person acting in a game. And maybe that's just how he interacts with the world, but it gives the impression that he's partially or completely disconnected from reality."
A thought occurred to him. "Maybe it's because he can't really touch things? He has a five-point disintegration quirk of some kind, which means he always has to be careful of how he touches everything around him. If he isn't, it goes away, like it was never real in the first place." Looking back down at his schedule again, Izuku could feel his nose scrunching up. "That's sort of messed up when you think about it. If I'm right, there's someone manipulating him, making all of that worse, because becoming a villain and trying to kill All Might wouldn't be the first thing people think of to do if reality doesn't feel real. Anyone who honestly wanted to help would find a way to ground him, wouldn't they?"
"One would hope so," Nezu said, "but there are many unscrupulous people in the world willing to take advantage of vulnerable minds. What's worse is when they decide to masquerade as people on the side of the angels."
That scared Izuku, the thought that people who were supposed to be safe weren't. He knew it happened, often even when he was around and people knew he was quirkless, but he got the impression that Nezu was talking about people who would hurt anyone if given half a chance, simply for the power it would give them. He remembered the adage about power and corruption. He had written it over and over in the margins of Bakugou's pages in Volume 6 of his Hero Analysis journals, back when he was first starting to resent the pain Kacchan was putting him through. He was still Kacchan then, and Izuku had still considered him a friend, even if he was being a bad one. But Bakugou was really just a very small part of a very big world, and there was no way he was as bad as the people Nezu was thinking of.
"Well," Nezu said after a moment, clapping his paws together. "I should let you go back to class. Don't worry about your new schedule for today. It would be rude to give you less than two hours after you received it before you were thrown into the first session of your new class. Everything will be arranged for you to begin tomorrow. Is that acceptable?" Izuku nodded. "Excellent. Go ahead and go back to class. It was lovely to meet you, Midoriya-kun."
"It was nice to meet you too, Nezu-sensei." Izuku bowed and left the room, his mind reminding him that this was the easiest he had ever left a principal's office before. He wasn't suffering under the threat of expulsion, nor had he walked away with enough detentions to carry through to the end of the semester.
He was tentatively looking forward to those analysis lessons Nezu promised. Izuku didn't dare think of his notebooks as good. He had been writing them since childhood, so as much as his observations had developed and become more serious, he could never escape the feeling that he was somehow doing something childish and silly. But with someone as intelligent as Nezu to teach him, he was sure that everything he'd been working on by himself would be that much better after he received some instruction.
Of course, he would need to finish all of those online courses first. And that coding class was first on his list.
It's still Wednesday as I'm prepping to publish this chapter, but it may be a tiny bit late in actually posting it. I don't really have an excuse, except that I was deliberating about whether to add more all day.