Chapter 1

Izuku was feeling anxious. His first week in high school had been far more chaotic and nerve-wracking than he ever could have imagined. First his teacher had threatened him with expulsion on the first day, then Kacchan had nearly killed him during the battle trial and then a few days ago his whole class had been attacked by villains! Real villains!

Not to mention the other countless moments which had turned his life upside down lately. Like the fact that he had actual friends now or that he talked with a girl on daily basis! His mother had been so proud. And All Might had given him his quirk! The best and most awesome quirk there was! Honestly, he often asked himself what he had done to deserve all this luck. All Might had told him that he earned his new power though his own effort, but still...

Was he really worthy?

He shook his head. Enough of those gloomy thoughts! Even if he was not worthy now, he would give his best and slowly over time prove to his mother and his friends that he deserved to be a hero! Izuku would save everyone he could with a smile on his lips, just like his mentor.

"I am here!" he whispered to himself and grinned.

The smile on his face froze when he looked at his watch and realized that he would need to hurry if he wanted to be punctual for the start of class. Aizawa didn´t tolerate tardiness in the slightest and he had no desire to be expelled in his second week here at UA high school! Thank you very much!

Izuku sprinted through the mostly empty school corridors (which would probably displease Iida) and hastily ripped open the monstrous door to his class room. His eyes scanned the room for his teacher's signature sleeping bag.

"Huh... He isn´t here yet." he breathed out relieved.

"Midoriya! Are you alright?" asked Iida. Many others followed suit, most notably Uraraka who even hugged him! A girl had voluntarily hugged him! What should he do? What should he-

Mina snickered as she saw his completely flushed face.

Eventually he relaxed into the hug, although he was not brave enough to reciprocate it. It was nice to have friends who cared about his well-being.

His blissful mood was shattered by the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him.

Instinctively he turned around and looked up only to find nothing. Slowly his gaze travelled lower until came face to face with a person even smaller than himself. That was not something that happened often, considering he was already rather diminutive, but the little, blond girl in front of him was half a head shorter than him!

"Would you all please move out of the way and get to your seats? Class is about to begin."

Nervously he scurried over to his desk and sat down along the rest of his classmates. Well, all except for one...

"What the fuck is a little girl doing here? Has one of those stupid teachers lost their kid or what?" sneered Bakugou.

"No, Mr. Bakugou. This is not the case and I would advise you to show more respect to your superiors in the future. Now sit."

As she spoke the last part a silvery shimmer appeared to envelop the boy before he was slammed down into his seat. Hard.

Izuku perked up. He knew that twinkling energy field! The blond girl was a pr hero! She was...

"Greetings class A-1. I am Tanya von Degurechaff also known under the hero alias Argent."

"The Eleventh Goddess!" he loudly proclaimed. Too loud maybe as the hero in question shot him an annoyed look, but he was so excited that he just couldn´t control himself.

Even though she was not in his top five hero list, she had quickly earned her place as the number seven in his heart after her flawless debut and comet-like ascend up the rating board. There wasn´t much public information about her personal life as she was very secretive in her interviews, but he knew that she was barely 19 years old. Despite her young age that should have allowed her next to null practical experience she was one of the most effective heroes on the field!

Of course her monthly capture rates paled in comparison to All Might or even Endeavour, but she had a near hundred percent success rate. An incredible feat that was an unachievable dream for most professionals in the industry. Furthermore, in contrast to Endeavour or other "high capacity" heroes with powerful quirks she could claim to possess a very low property damage and injury register. All her missions were executed flawlessly and with the utmost professionalism and speed. A model hero in Izuku´s opinion!

This impressive work ethic awarded her the spot of place eleven on the national leader boards merely one year after her debut in Tokyo. A record that even eclipsed that of Hawks who had achieved the spot of number three after two years of hard work.

Only two months ago an anonymous user on social media had posted a picture which showed Degurechaff carrying multiple injured civilians out of a burning building on her silver barriers. The backdrop of the low evening sun had given her the illusion of a halo while the eponymous argent shields had appeared like shining wings. (Izuku had immediately saved the picture in his folder "coolest hero pics of all time", because it was so epic.)

Another user had had jokingly commented: "Looks like a goddess descending from the heavens lol. Our Number eleven is awesome 3"

Since then the term "Eleventh Goddess" had become an affectionate nickname in the online community for the cute and devastatingly powerful heroine.

"I knew it!" he heard Uraraka say.

That she was interested into Ms. Degurechaff came as no surprise to Izuku. She was a rescue hero enthusiast of similar calibre to him after all. Now that he thought about it the gravity quirk user could probably learn much from Argent...

"You are most likely asking yourself what I am doing here right now instead of your home room teacher Mr. Aizawa. The answer is that I will take over his lessons as well as Mr. All Might´s lessons in Foundational Heroics for the foreseeable future. Both of them have been wounded to various degrees and need to take care of other business at the moment so the Hero Commission has assigned me as a temporary replacement."

"Yay! I am saved!" cried Mineta. He probably believed that without Eraserhead present he would be unlikelier to be expelled.

"I do not know how Mr. Aizawa has handled your education so far, but let me assure you that I take my new position very seriously. I will not tolerate misbehaviour or disobedience of any kind. When I ask you a question I expect it to be answered immediately. Furthermore you may only address me as 'Ms. Degurechaff' or if German is too difficult to pronounce for you 'Ms. Argent'. Is that understood?"

"Yes Ms. Argent?" mumbled half the class. Most sounded so unsure that it seemed more like a question.

"I asked if I was understood." she said more forcefully this time, her eyes blazing blue.

"YES MS. ARGENT!" shouted everyone more energetically.

"Hmph... We will need to work on that."

Izuku let out a small sigh of relief when the cerulean light in her eyes dimmed. The small woman had for a moment appeared even scarier than Aizawa. How was that possible?

"Now, before we begin do you have any questions for me?"

Izuku slowly raised his hand while looking around to make sure he did inconvenience anybody else who wanted to ask her something. His other hand wandered to his notebook to immediately jot down her answers.

"Yes Midoriya?"

"Would you call yourself rather a rescue focused hero or a combat focused hero?"

"I meant questions of administrative nature, but I guess I was unclear on that."

What a shame. He would have loved to interview her more about her quirk! It was so interesting!

"I would call myself neither, for I see both these aspects as intrinsic to my job as a pro hero. You cannot save somebody without neutralizing potentially harmful elements first and you cannot fight someone without saving the mission objective or else you will have failed. I do what I can wherever I am available to the best of my abilities as should every pro hero with a versatile skill set. Does that answer your question?"

He nodded.

"So manly..." whispered Kirishima somewhere in the background.

What an interesting person. Izuku idly wondered how someone so young could already possess so much maturity and experience. How could have Argent grown up to become the way she was today?

~[#҈#]~

Nedzu was intrigued. That did not happen often when he possessed such startling intelligence that he could predict entire conversations before somebody even opened their mouth.

Tanya von Degurechaff however was a mystery with many confusing solutions...

The hero Commission had obviously tried to gain a foothold in his school by sending one of their most loyal agents here. Their sheer ruthlessness and determination to gain more influence over his domain was as astounding as it was pathetic. Normally, he would have suppressed such attempts with his far-reaching influence, but this time they had used the USJ incident to cry out for more safety measures and everybody believed them. Like the wretched fools they were, supplied the part of his brain that still had not forgiven humanity for what they did to him.

Although, if he was honest with himself he was kind of glad that they succeeded with their ploy. For as much as the Hero Commission could learn about him through Tanya, he could learn as much about them as well.

And maybe even gain insight into mind of the Argent Hero, or the mystery girl as he privately called her.

Because Nedzu had known the little blond girl before the Hero Commission had sunk their claws into her. Before her immigrant parents had died under suspicious circumstances and she had been transferred to the public orphanage for a single night. Before all that.

They had met only a single time, but he would never forget the look of cold apathy as she watched a man getting torn in half. He thought himself a good judge of character, (humans were predictable animals after all) and yet he was unsure if the tiredness he perceived from the small child back then had been real or just his imagination.

It had been a weariness resulting not from a lack of sleep or rest which would have been normal for a child her age, but one of purely psychological origin. The kind of fatigue he saw sometimes when he looked in the mirror or the one many pro-heroes had lat in their career. An expression only those were familiar with who had seen the world burn far too many times to cry anymore for the innocents that got swallowed up in its flames. When you had accepted deep down that there was no hope for things to ever truly change, because the cycles of history, big and small, would repeat themselves forever.

That resigned hopelessness was not something a child should understand.

But young Tanya had.

And he couldn´t figure out how.