The admiration their host had for the warrior called All Might was something that bordered on religious devotion. In the early days, Venom had assumed that the enormous blonde man with the ridiculous upwards hair, was actually the God-king of this society.
Why not? Their host had a private room that was in many ways a mixture between a sleeping quarter and what for all intents and purposes was a shrine dedicated to this man.
Paper tapestries on the wall, small figurines that showcased the man in his more Iconic poses, even things such as the clock on the wall was themed after him.
So was on a lot of Izuku's clothing as well, and his bedsheets.
Other than the contraption of vehicle tires in one corner of the room, it all seemed like the standard, regular worship of a powered individual they had seen countless times before.
And the society was no different, selling charms, tapestries, and clothing based on the man.
Of course, Venom hadn't understood at first. That this society was actually so full of super-powered individuals that not having any was actually rare, regarded as a throwback to an earlier stage of evolution.
Once they had realized that, everything fell into place. The man called All Might was simply the highest-ranking member of the warrior caste of this planet, simply called Hero.
One day, he would die, and he would be replaced by someone else, who would become the next number one Hero.
Adoration of the strong was simply the natural way of things for this society, and All Might was STRONG even by the measure of all the many super-powered individual's Venom had seen across space.
Still, even with that context in mind, his host's adoration was a bit insane.
"If this is how you react to a message from him personally, we don't wish to see your reaction to him in the flesh."
"I will cherish this recording until I die…!" Fuck, Izuku had actual tears of joy in his eyes.
"...Right… Not creepy at all."
They had gotten a late-night delivery, with a small holographic device that had a recording of All Might pop up, and inform them that yes, they did indeed make it into. Yuei.
Hah, as if that were in any doubt! Other than the girl with the powers of gravity and lightning, none there had compared to their might and power.
"Anyway, you wanted to continue documenting our powers right?"
Izuku clutched the device to his chest as if it was made of pure gold, but he did answer.
"Yesss…" He sounded like he had just gotten a present from above, not a small recording device informing him he made it into school.
As if him fawning over that sadist Present Mic. wasn't bad enough.
"Are you seriously going to react like this every time we meet a pro Hero?"
I
After making their way out of the car(Along with a final good luck and hug from Inko), Izuku and Venom walked through the corridors of Yuei, towards the room that they had been told would be class 1-A's designated classroom.
With only 36 total contestants passing, there would be two practical classes for this year's batch.
Finally after a bit of searching, they found their room.
…And Izuku stood, nervously outside, hand on the door.
-You're not seriously gonna make this a repeat of the exam day are you? Standing outside for 5 minutes shaking all the while?-
"No, I'm just… I'm kinda hoping I don't share class with Katsuki or the tall guy with glasses. Logically my chances are that I have to share class with at least 1 of them."
-Actually, both of them are inside this room.-
Damnit!
"Of course they are…" It was the worst possible combination after all.
He steeled himself, then he opened the door… To the sight of both of them arguing.
Katsuki was eating while having one of his feet slung across the desk, while the tall guy was standing over him and berating him while motioning with his hands.
"Don't put your legs on the desk! Don't you think that's disrespectful towards your classmates and Yuei's grand history?"
Katsuki Bakugou, was pretty agitated as he answered.
"No, as a matter of fact I DON'T think so, you damn extra!"
"Not to mention your necktie! It is your duty to wear one!"
"Will you shut your mouth and leave me the FUCK alone already!"
The tall boy then bent down on one knee and picked up a breadcrumb, like he was an old school detective finding a clue.
"AND to think you would drop breadcrumbs in a place like this! You should already have had breakfast before now anyway!"
"GO AWAY, FOUR-EYES!"
-You know, this is way more entertaining when it's against someone else.-
"WHAT GODDAMNED MIDDLE SCHOOL ARE YOU FROM ANYWAY, YOU FUCKING EXTRA!?"
Not realizing that Katsuki really didn't actually care about the answer, the boy answered.
"A private schoo-Ahem. I'm from Soumei Junior Highschool. The Name's Iida Tenya."
"Soumei…! Well, aren't you elite! Seems I got a reason to end you after all!"
The boy flinched back with an exaggerated motion, and expression of pure horror.
"A reason to END ME? What nerve! You, want to be a Hero!?"
-Holy shit, this guy's an even bigger loser than you Izuku!-
"...Thanks Venom."
-Eh, it's alright. We'll make something much better out of you soon enough.-
Izuku's words though, made both the two of them notice him, and both turned to look at him.
Katsuki's eyes burned with rage at the sight, but it was the tall boy who stepped up to him first.
"Hello, I'm Iida Tenya from Soumei-"
Izuku flinched back a bit before answering.
"Yeah… I, I overheard. Umm… I'm Midoriya, nice to meet you Iida…"
The boy suddenly got a grave expression on his face.
"Midoriya, I must hand it to you…"
He turned his head away with a dramatic flourish.
"Despite your quirk's harsh words, you divined the actual purpose of the exam, while I… I remained blind to it!"
"I… I completely misread you! I hate to admit it, but you truly were the better man!"
-Wow, he lost that stick up his ass real quick.-
Izuku couldn't do anything else than just keep his mouth shut. He hadn't realized the secondary test reason either, but it seemed a very bad idea to admit that when apparently he had won this guy's respect through it.
In the background sat Katsuki absolutely staring daggers at Izuku, but Izuku's focus instead turned backward, as a cheerful voice rang out from behind him.
"Ah, it's you! The spider guy!"
Izuku turned around, and it was the lightning girl.
"I'm glad we're in the same class together."
She reached forth her hand.
Venom, currently occupying his undershirt forced his arm upwards, to where Uraraka grabbed it. All while Izuku desperately tried to hide away his face with the other hand.
"We didn't introduce ourselves yesterday! My Name's Urara Ochako!"
"I-I-I'm Izuku… Mi-Midoriya!"
Holy crap he was actually shaking hands with a girl! Had he been less out of it, he might have noticed the awkward way her hand closed around his, with the tips of her fingers not touching his hand at all.
As Izuku stammered out his name, and shook her hand, to the snide remarks from Venom, the sounds of the bell rang.
"Anyway, do you think the first day is the ceremony, or is it the guidance counselor stuff today?"
Izuku, now with both hands-free, was covering his face in embarrassment with both limbs as Uraraka talked, desperately trying to say something.
She was talking about how she wondered what sort of teacher they would have when a voice came from the floor behind her.
"If you're gonna look for buddies, do it elsewhere."
Izuku, Iida, and Uraraka all turned their heads to look at the source of the voice.
The source, was yellow caterpillar with a mane of black hair and a human face.
What?
The caterpillar followed this up by putting a small juice box to his lips before continuing.
"This is the department…" Slurp. "Of heroics."
Why was this guy?
After finishing his juice box, the caterpillar jumped up, so it stood on the end of it's bottom body, before finally shedding it's skin, revealing that despite looking like he would eventually become a butterfly, the yellow "hide" was just a sleeping bag.
The actual man inside the bag was about as far from looking like either a caterpillar or a butterfly as they came. Tall, lanky, with a coal-black mane and a scraggly scruff of unkempt beard. His face was equally unkempt, with dark rings under his eyes, telling of a lack of sleep.
He was dressed in a bog-standard black shirt and equally black pants, with a bunch of what looked like a thick tape made out of cloth wrapped around his neck.
He had a somewhat unusual belt with cylinders, which reminded Izuku of the one the Batman Beyond batsuit had, but that was about as much as he stood out.
As he exited the sleeping bag, he began to walk into the room, Izuku and Uraraka backed into the room to let him enter.
"Hmmm… It took you lot 8 seconds to pipe down. Life is short Kids, you're all lacking in common sense."
His voice could basically be summed up in one word. Unenthusiastic.
"I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Pleasure meeting you."
The way he said it, he might as well have been from a dead fish, with how lifeless it was.
So this guy was their teacher Izuku mused. He could not place the name Aizawa Shouta, and he didn't really recognize his costume either. But if he was a teacher at Yuei… That meant he had to be a pro Hero right?
Aizawa rummaged through his sleeping bag and pulled out a uniform Izuku recognized as Yuei gym uniforms.
"Put on these on. Immediately. Then shove off to the P.E grounds."
Then he just turned around and walked out without another word.
Well that was… Not what he had expected.
I
After everyone had changed into their gym uniforms they all got themselves over to the P.E grounds, where Aizawa was waiting for them with the same bored, lifeless expression.
Their purpose for coming here was revealed shortly.
A quirk apprehension test.
Uraraka was the only one to actually put the question everyone had to words.
"What about the ceremony? And the guidance counselor meetings?"
Aizawa was rather blunt and unsympathetic.
"If you want to be heroes, we don't have time for frilly niceties."
"I assume you all understand this school's famous reputation freedom on campus?"
"Well, that "Freedom" goes for us senseis too."
The man walked over to some markings on the ground, picking up a baseball, or something that had the shape of a baseball at least.
"Softball pitch. Long Jump. 50 meter dash. Endurance Running. Grip Strength Test. Sustained sideways jumps. Upper body exercises. Seated toe touch."
"These are exercises you all know from middle school. Physical tests where you were barred from using your quirks."
"Japan still hasn't gotten around to standardizing those kinds of records or standardizing the average result. Well, that's a problem on the part of the MEXT, not us."
As he called Katsuki over to the circle end of the markings and told him to throw it as far as he could using his quirk, Izuku realized this was basically just his regular old training regiment, with some exercises removed or added.
With a scream of "DIIIIEEEEE!", Katsuki sent it flying with an enormous explosion. Izuku and Venom both winced from a short burst of pain from the sound of said massive explosion.
"Before anything else, one must know what they are capable of. This will be the basis of your "Hero Foundation"." Aizawa held up his phone showcasing that the distance Katsuki had sent flying was 705.2 Meters.
-Only 700 meters? What a weakling. If we used our web for a sling to throw it, we could send it over ten times that.-
Izuku didn't know how to use a sling, but this honestly didn't sound too bad. It really was just his regular training regiment.
The rest of the class let out sounds of excitement, the prospect of getting to use their quirks to their fullest bringing out feelings of excitement.
Someone, somewhere said, "Looks like fun!"
"It looks… Like fun, you say?"
This time there were actual emotions in his words. Anger to be specific.
"So you were planning on spending your three years here… Planning on having a good time? What happened to becoming heroes?"
He made a motion covering his face with his hand like he was face-palming from their reaction.
"Alright then. New rule. Whoever gets the least total points will be judged hopeless, and instantly expelled."
Izuku's heart stopped a beat, panic flooding his head… until he realized there was no way in hell he'd end up on the bottom of that list.
Still, he shared the opinion of his shocked classmates. Holy shit, it was an incredibly cruel thing to drop on them, much less on the first day and the first exercise.
Aizawa pulled his hand up to push up his hair and gave a sadistic smile.
"Our "freedom" means we dispense with students as we please! Welcome to… The departments of heroics!"
Once again it was Uraraka who put the class feelings into words.
"The kid who ranks last… Gets expelled?! This is our first day here! But even if it weren't… That's WAY too unreasonable!"
Aizawa took being questioned in stride and as he let his hair down he went back to his previous way of speaking.
"Natural disasters... Massive accidents… Ego-Mad Villains… All kinds of calamities can happen when we least expect them. At the moment, Japan is for all intents and purposes drenched in unreasonable."
"If you were counting on a friendly chat after school at the local McDonald's, too bad. From now on, and for the next three years… All you can expect from your life at Yuei, is one hardship after another."
"This is "Plus Ultra". I expect you to overcome these trials and rise to the top."
He gave another grin, though this time without sadism, as he motioned with his finger upwards to the sky.
"Well, that sounds easy enough." Venom said suddenly and without warning, interrupting Aizawa as he was about to. Say something more.
Izuku froze completely as everyone's eyes turned to him and Venom(who was currently on his left shoulder). Bakugou was positioned so he couldn't get a good look at Izuku, but he frowned at the deeper voice.
Aizawa looked at first at Venom, then Izuku, then back to Venom again.
"You're that spider guy Vlad wanted so much… So, you think rising to the top will be easy, do you?"
Izuku stammered. "No-I…"
"Alright, second and third rule. Midoriya, since you think being number one will be easy, if you don't score as the overall number one, you'll also be expelled. Also, if anyone decides to hold back to let Izuku achieve that, they'll also be expelled."
Izuku almost shut down completely, and could only gape and stare at Aizawa, as he divided them up into pairs to do the exercises.
-Well… Shit.-
I
"How did you DO THAT by just OPENING YOUR MOUTH?!"
-Well, how were we supposed to know the guy was so unstable he picks on anyone with any confidence? And anyway, this shouldn't be too hard to do. Other than Uraraka, none here is a challenge to us."
Izuku bit his lip. Holy shit this had turned into a nightmare quickly!
"It doesn't matter if it's only one who's better than us! If we don't make it to the damn top, we'll be expelled!"
-Then just beat her then. It's not too complicated. Plus Ultra or whatever that nonsense was.-
He said that as I'd it was just the easier thing in the world.
Beating Uraraka in ball throwing, proved impossible anyway, as using whatever the gravity part of her was, she got an infinity on the ball throw.
Izuku could just stare in numbed shock as he realized he had already lost one contest to Uraraka.
Finally as it was his turn, Iida put his hand on his shoulder. "Do not worry Midoriya! You'll do just fine, I have no doubts!"
"Thanks…" Nice to see someone else had confidence in him.
As he went up to the circle, he muttered one short question out loud.
"How do we do this?"
-Just a regular throw. You don't know how to use a sling and the circle is too short for us to teach you on the spot. So just throw it regularly.-
Right. He couldn't achieve number one in this trial, but he could damn well make sure he came second place. Easy.
As he walked, he could feel both the second skin attach spread out under his gym clothes and the sleeves of his uniform being pulled up.
Picking up the ball, he took deep breaths to steel himself. Easy, you got this Izuku.
He thought back to the beach, and how he'd once thrown a microwave from one side of the beach to the other. He was much stronger now. He could do this.
He could feel his muscles tense, as he put all his muscles to use as he pulled his arm back before the throw.
The actual throw produced a small Shockwave, though nowhere near as loud, large, or flashy as Katsuki's bigass explosion had.
More like a sniper rifle than any bomb.
He stared after it, off into the distance before it left even his capacity to see it any more against the blue sky.
A sound from Aizawa's phone finally signaled it had hit the ground.
Izuku turned anxiously to look, but he heard his classmates squee over the answer before he saw it.
"WOW! Over 4 kilometers!"
The actual distance was 4027 meters. That was good… great even! Let's see someone else top that!
Someone who wasn't impressed was Katsuki.
Izuku instinctual recognized Katsuki's scream, even if he didn't process the words at that moment.
Anger burned through his body, as every sinew of muscle, and every bone he had prepared for combat, as he snapped around, prepared for battle, Venom's black liquid encasing his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes.
He would crush Katsuki, he would-
As Katsuki was launching himself at Izuku with his explosions, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks as his hands suddenly stopped producing explosions, and a bunch of white bands wrapped around his body, preventing him from advancing any further.
Izuku blinked at the sight of the bands, then turned to look at the source, which was Aizawa.
"It's my special "capturing weapon", a steel wire alloy woven with carbon nanofibers. As for my quirk-"
"Oh my god!" Izuku exclaimed loudly, a light going off in his head. Under Aizawa's bands which had been wrapped around his neck, was a rather distinct set of goggles.
"With those goggles and that weapon, you must be Eraserhead! The erasing hero, whose quirk is Erasure! You're the famous underground hero who can shut down any quirk by just looking at them! Born on November 8, in Tokyo, you are 30 years old, 183 cm tall, your blood type's B, you are famous for picking up stray cats and you had a romantic relationship with fellow pro Hero Ms. Joke, real name-" "That's enough." Aizawa shut him down coldly. He paused for a second or two before he added. "Also the last part was wrong."
-Thanks for the exposition dump Izuku. Anything more to add?- Venom asked in a tone mixing sarcasm, praise, and genuine curiousness.
Izuku almost answered him, until he realized his sensei had told him to shut up.
"Anyway… Yeah, my quirk is Erasure. I can cancel out any quirks you guys have. Don't make me use too much though, I have dry eye."
"Anyhow…" He released Katsuki and retracted his cloth.
"We're wasting time. Get back in line Bakugou. I won't tolerate a second outburst from you today."
It wasn't before Katsuki was forced to go back in line, Izuku realized his body was still tense as hell, fully expecting a battle with Katsuki at any moment.
-Don't worry. We'll settle the score ONCE AND FOR ALL eventually.-
Yeah. They would. It felt so strange to embrace the rage openly. He clenched his fist. Back in middle school, he had pretended this rage wasn't there, he had kept quiet and hoped desperately he wouldn't have to fight him.
Hell, he'd even made sure not to arrive at his middle school to pick up his graduation papers until Katsuki had left, fully accepting the angry words he got for being late. All so he wouldn't have to actually confront Katsuki.
Now…
Now he felt actual disappointment that he DIDN'T get to fight and crush Katsuki.
He was still dealing with, and trying to make sense of those feelings, when his test partner Momo created an artillery cannon and blew his 4 Kilometers out of the water, with 28 kilometers.
Izuku just stared as he realized he suddenly was third place.
I
Izuku felt panic, sheer, horrible sweep into his mind.
He lost the 50 meters sprint, though thankfully not to Momo or Uraraka, but instead to Iida. The tall boy had a quirk which made it so that his legs essentially had race car engines sticking out of them.
Not too surprisingly, he was fast.
He took the 50 meters dash in 3.04 seconds, compared to Izuku's 4.03 seconds that he cleared with a jump.
Uraraka made it in 5 seconds flat, making her 5th after Mina, a girl with pink skin and long pink hair who took the 50 meters in 4.12, and Katsuki who did it in 4.13.
He was doing well, but he wasn't at number 1. Shit!
Uraraka jumped while making herself weightless. Though it lasted only for a second, her momentum, and the distance she cleared in that second, still sent her 45 meters.
Okay. He just had to do 50 then. Time to see how far he'd go.
Before he and Venom had finalized their bond, he had been able to make a 10-meter jump.
He was way stronger than just 5 times what he had been… Right?
On his side he felt, more than saw Momo preparing a jumping staff.
Ignore her, focus more only on jumping!
He tensed, his muscles ready, waiting only for the sound to go.
It came, he sprung forward, only 4 meters before the sand, not as much as he had usually used when he did these kinds of jumps. He reached the end.
He bent down his legs, and prepared them for the bound, like a catapult.
Like the log so long ago, the ground broke beneath his feet as he jumped, but it didn't prevent him from leaping into the air.
Izuku soared, for the first time since he bonded with Venom, he felt at true ease. He felt like he had back in the woods, running, so long ago now.
This was what he was born to do. Motion, energy, momentum. All in the simple act of moving at great speeds. He was free when he did this, free from the world, free from worries, free from everything that worried him.
-It's amazing isn't it?-
"Yeah." Izuku said softly, his words taken by the wind. Venom understood it, he knew how this felt. Was this how all those who bonded with symbiote felt?
Finally, after what felt like a small eternity for Izuku, the ground came up to meet him. This time, he didn't fall flat on his face or crash in the ground into a roll. Instead he landed on his feet, and instantly fastened himself to the ground.
He turned around. Then repeatedly blinked. Had he really gone that far? He had cleared the sandbox a bit back.
-78th meters.-
"Not… Not bad. That's almost twice as far as Uraraka."
He smiled. Then it faded and he melancholically added. "That's how far we're ever gonna go isn't it?"
-We might push it a few more meters with training so you become better at it, but yeah, you're not going to become stronger no.-
"And there really isn't any way to increase our powers?"
-For you? No. We do become temporarily stronger for a period, in the time leading up to when we will spawn another of our kind, but that is not going to happen in your life.-
"Right… You mentioned that when you talked with my mom."
He'd gone on about that for quite a while in fact, as Inko questioned him about the idea he might create an alien takeover since his kind reproduced asexually.
Symbiotes built up energy over the period of multiple hosts' lifetime, which would eventually be enough to allow them to spawn another of their kind.
All well and good, except the usual time span between each new spawn was about 4 hosts, and generally a time period of 2 centuries.
Needless to say, he would not be alive to see it. And even if the symbiotes did achieve a large number on earth, by the time that happened, humanity would have taken to the stars.
Or at least that was what Venom said.
As he walked back, he heard shouts from his fellow students.
"OVER 70 METERS? Wow, that's amazing!" Mina, the cheerful pink girl, exclaimed loudly! Several of the rest of the class muttered similar opinions.
Izuku, still neither familiar nor comfortable with contact with the opposite sex, nor used to compliments in general, blushed like a fire hydrant from the praise.
"Indeed! It's as I said earlier, you'll do. Fine Midoriya!"
"You… Really have that much faith in me?"
"Of course! I was there during the exam. While it is true that Uraraka Ochako's full power dwarfs everyone else here, she is also not capable of using said power at it's maximum without injuring herself. That is not the case with you however!"
"I… I guess so…"
He looked around for said girl and she was off to the side of the building where their next text was.
"Anyway…. Thank you for the support."
I
Izuku had quickly realized that while his many classmates here were capable of doing one or two of the tests really, really well, when it came down to it, the overall number one spot would be either him, Uraraka, or Momo.
The tall, black-haired beauty did not possess the sheer brute power of him or Uraraka, but it was incredibly versatile.
As she proved when she conjured up a cranked winch to score 1.2 Tons in the grip strength test.
It was an incredibly high score, or so Izuku would have thought.
If not for the fact Uraraka scored 2.3 Ton before them.
Sweat began to trickle down his skin.
-Man, you worry way too fucking much. We'll beat both those no problem."
Izuku picked up the grip as it finally became his turn.
He took deep breaths, and desperately tried to calm himself. Only one try. If he screwed up, he was fucked. Don't think about that, just… Grip it. Grip it hard.
CRUNCH
Izuku blinked at the unexpected sound, and looked down. He had, unintentionally, crushed the device in his hand as he had tried to measure his grip strength.
A blonde boy with a streak of black whistled, at the sight. "Impressive."
He turned to Aizawa.
"Sensei, I… I broke the device…"
Aizawa just looked at him stoically.
"You only get one try Midoriya."
Then he walked off to the next students, leaving Izuku to gape after him in panic.
-That would either make us number 1 in this, or we just became last place.-
Shit, Shit, SHIT!
I
The following exercises ended up going all over the place. He beat Uraraka in endurance running, lost to her in upper body strength, he and her both performed only relatively well in sustained sideways jumping(Frankly the only members of the class who did that well was a dwarf kid named Mineta, Iida and Mina in that order.) and he had beaten her in seated toe touch in, losing only to a girl named Tsuyu.
Now he shook in terror, waiting for Aizawa to read up the results, and either doom him or praise him.
He had no idea how he'd rank in this. Was it the best overall? Or was all sums just added up, so if you did exceedingly well in one it could elevate your score completely above your other ones? If it was that latter, he was fucked, given Uraraka had gotten an infinity.
"Time to present the result."
"The total score is just the aggregate sum of each of your scores. Since it'd take forever to go ever each score individually I'll just disclose all of them at once."
He raised his phone, preparing to make it show a hologram of all the tests.
The moment of truth.
"Oh, and by the way, that whole expulsion thing was all a lie."
Silence.
Aizawa grinned, but unlike his previous attempt at a sadistic smile, which had been completely natural, this one could best be described as the smile of a lazy man who had only ever been heard of sadistic smiles in stories.
"It was a logical ruse to pull out your best performances."
"WHAAAAAAAT!?"
Izuku was not the only one screaming that, but he and Venom were the loudest.
The only one not shocked was the raven-haired Momo. "C'mon guys, use your brains. That was obvious from the start."
Venom disagreed.
-BULLSHIT! He WAS planning to expel someone when he gave the threat earlier, we could FEEL IT! That fickle asshole just changed his mind on the spot!-
Izuku didn't know how true that was, but at the moment he just stood there, breathing in relief.
Aizawa let things quiet down a bit before he continued.
"Anyway… With that first day's over. Your curriculum sheets are in the classroom. Make sure you give them a thrice over before you go home."
Holy shit that was an abrupt end of the first day. It was only 11.36.
"Oh, and Midoriya…"
-Ah, here it comes.-
What? What was coming? The hell was Venom talking about?"
"A cording your sheet, your quirk is an emitter type. That's wrong. Go get it's classification changed to a mutant type quirk."
Izuku just stared. After a moment he was about to ask, why? Only for Aizawa to turn and leave before he could do so.
-What a fucking asshole.-
"Why, what'd he do now?"
Was Venom really so pissed about him leaving before he could question him?
-Nothing.- Venom said in an annoyed tone, then he pushed down Izuku's sleeves almost as an afterthought. -Anyway, let's just go home already.-
I
Despite the short runtime of day 1, Izuku felt drained in a way he hadn't felt since that final training day, though this time there was less pain involved.
Also, this time he had another presence at his side talking.
"I had never thought before that a teacher could encourage his students to excel through deception before now, but I must say that Aizawa sensei opened my eyes on the subject!"
Izuku had thought Iida was scary during the exam. Venom had thought him an annoying loser. The truth though, as Izuku now saw, was simply that Iida was just an honest, diligent, and passionate guy.
"You have a rather positive image of that guy, more than he deserves we'd say."
Iida did not flinch away from Venom just popping up into the conversation.
"Indeed. As he said, it was a logical ruse to pull out our best efforts today. Logically speaking, this is the best time to do it. We were not familiar with Aizawa-sensei yet, and thus this bluff seemed fully believable. It's kind of thing you can't really pull twice, so one should make sure that one time reaches it's maximum potential."
"... We weren't really talking about his damned training methods, more the fact that he is a-" "Hey, wait up you two!"
All three of them turned their heads to the person who spoke, which was Uraraka Ochako, running up to them.
"You two heading for the station?"
"Indeed," Iida answered. "Or, I am at least, I don't know about Midoriya."
"Yeah… I am, too."
"Splendid! Then the three of us may go. Together!" Iida exclaimed. He then turned to Uraraka and held out a hand.
"We have not been formally introduced, so far. My name is Iida Tenya."
"Uraraka Ochako!" Uraraka replied with a smile, though she didn't take his hand.
"I don't really do handshakes I'm sorry to say… I kinda turn everything I touch with my hands weightless."
"Ah." Iida retracted his hand. "The pink bumps I assume?"
Izuku blinked, then looked at her hands. Each of her fingers had a pink bump near the tip, something Izuku had completely missed amongst the many scars her hands had.
"Yeah."
Something struck Izuku and he just asked it, without considering the person he asked.
"Your gravitation quirk doesn't seem to have any relation to your strength quirk, is that right?"
Uraraka froze, her face turning pale.
Izuku, realizing he had just asked a question to a pretty girl, suddenly got flushed cheeks.
"...Yeah… It's… A fused quirk from my parents."
"Like Todoroki Shouto's quirk?" Iida asked.
"Who?"
"The son of the number 2 Hero Endeavour, he is in our class."
"EEEHHHH! HE IS?" Uraraka and Izuku both exclaimed.
Izuku kicked himself mentally. Now that he thought about it, it seemed obvious. Of course he was, with that name. He had been so damned afraid of getting expelled today, he'd completely failed to really analyze most of his classmates, completely opposite of his usual self.
He'd have to do something about that tomorrow.
"Anyway, yeah my… My parents have two different quirks, and I inherited both of them."
"WOW… That's really cool!"
Uraraka blushed and scratched the back of her head in bashfulness from the praise.
"It's… A pretty good quirk yeah."
"Indeed! Strong as Midoriya's quirk is, in terms of brute strength potential, it doesn't compare! You truly were lucky to inherit such a powerful quirk!"
Uraraka's smile and nervousness faded, as a more melancholic expression came to her face.
"Yeah… Lucky…"
"Not that this isn't fun to watch, but mayhap we should get a move on, rather than just standing around and talking. I say we should go to the local McDonald's. We have more than enough time today, given the circumstances."
Uraraka jumped back in shock, and just stared as Venom talked.
Then, she had a face of realization.
"He was the guy you were talking to back there, right? Back during the Exam?"
"Indeed, that was us."
"Wow, he looks cool. Anyway… Thanks for the offer, but I don't really have that much cash on me right now so-"
"That is not a problem! I can easily pay for all 3… 4 of us! Or do you not eat Mr…" He looked at Venom.
"Venom. And no, we feast upon the glory that is Adrenaline, not the flesh of pasture animals."
"Alright, the 3 of us then. I can pay no problem."
And just like that, it was settled. They went to McDonald's.
It wasn't before they were heading to the fast food shop that Izuku really realized what was going on.
He was hanging out with a couple of friends. Friends. Actual real friends.
Holy shit, he hadn't realized how much he had missed this feeling. How long had it been since the last time he hung out with someone who wasn't an adult with a family connection, or an alien from outer space?
A literal decade.
For a brief moment, anger at Katsuki welled up inside him, but it was quickly forgotten as Izuku embraced this feeling.
God he had missed this.