'Thinking'

"Talking"

"SHOUTING"

"I AM HERE! ALSO LOUD NOISES"

Reviews:

Dean: Thanks a lot, I really appreciate the encouragement :)

Fencer29: Oh yes, the staff has definitely learned not to question their rodent overlord at this point, and Toshinori might not be there yet but he's learning quickly.

I definitely agree that Nezu's reaction was a bit OOC for him, but at the same time, I found it hilarious in an ironic sort of way with him being on the backfoot so I kept it in. Also, I would like to say how much I appreciate the issues you mentioned in your review, while the dorms were intentional, I did not actually realize that I had written Bakugo as sitting behind Midoriya (despite having that goddamn seating chart in a separate tab, which I now know is in alphabetical order for the Japanese alphabet), and it should now be fixed. (My excuse is that I'm a bit of a gremlin and finished that chapter at 3:00 in the morning.) If pirate ships are too outdated for you would you prefer a duel on a Space X shuttle?

I own nothing, zilch, nada… except Aiko I guess. This story does contain some spoilers for the manga, you have been warned.

Chapter 8: Introductions & Declarations

10 years ago/ 15 years from now

Aiko lay exhausted in the shade of the large willow tree in the backyard of her family estate, sitting up a few meters to her left was Ishi, both breathing hard as they recovered. After 5 years of begging they had finally gotten permission to start training their quirks, her father in particular had been against it, but just a week ago he had finally caved.

Speaking of her father, he was currently watching from the other end of the destroyed field they had been using, as was Ishi's mother, Mina Ashido, A.K.A. the pro hero Pinky. "Hey, sweetie! Are you ready to go again?" Said woman called from across the field.

Ishi gave a shaky grin and leaped to his feet. "Yeah!" He said, clearly still tired but too excited to care. Pushing out his hands he began to shoot out a liquid that then hardened in midair into a shield of sorts. This was Ishi's quirk, he had named it Insta-Hard, despite Aiko's protests about how lame that was. He could shoot out a liquid from any part of his body that he could turn solid or back to liquid on command, it was an extremely versatile quirk, and was excellent for combat, capture, and rescue, as the toughness of the hardened material matched that of his Dad's 'Unbreakable Mode'. His main weakness at the moment was his output. If he used too much he became dehydrated and if he pushed it out with too much force it tore the skin off where he shot it from. This is why he was training against his Mom, who could melt through his shields and force him to make more, faster. It was effective, but it required frequent breaks to prevent dehydration.

As Ishi and Mina got to work, Shoto locked eyes with Aiko. "Are you ready?"

She nodded.

"Let me know if it gets too much, okay?" Aiko twitched in annoyance at the perceived insult to her abilities, and nodded sharply. They walked towards each other, and then crossed so her father's back was now facing the willow tree. "Start with ice." She nodded again and took a deep breath.

She lifted her foot slightly towards Todoroki and a massive stream of ice erupted forwards, threatening to completely encase both him and the tree behind him. Her father just raised his left hand and met it with a blast of fire, which melted Aiko's ice on contact forcing her to increase her output to match.

"Try decreasing the temperature of the ice rather than increasing the amount." Her father called over to her.

She growled irritably but complied, being pleasantly surprised that it worked out better than just increasing the amount of ice, but now she was getting colder faster, which her father noticed.

"Now switch to fire!" He called as he launched a stream of ice easily twice the size of Aiko's own. Switching modes was never something that was easy for Aiko to do, using ice required her to be calm, while fire required emotion and passion, making it hard to switch at a moment's notice, and that was the true purpose of this training, to make it easier to switch whenever she needed to.

Her father had suggested that she focus on her dream of becoming a Hero to draw out the passion required, and that worked fine. But right now, there was a much easier emotion to draw on, her frustration and anger at how her father babied her during their training, as though she was made of glass.

For once, the switch was instant, one second she was using ice, and the next she switched to 'red mode' and she was using fire, by far it was the fastest switch she had ever done, but something was wrong. As she tried to counter her dad's ice, she felt energy building up within her, she tried to hold it in and suppress it, but that only seemed to make it grow faster and hotter.

Suddenly, the dam burst, and there was a massive surge in power. The fire she was emitting turned blinding white and tripled in size, engulfing her father and everything around him in flames. "DAD!" She cried, struggling to rein in the flames, but it just kept coming, and then suddenly, it didn't. She fell forward like a puppet with its strings cut, barely catching herself on her hands and knees before her face hit the dirt. She looked up, towards the destruction she caused. For easily half a kilometer there was a 20-meter wide dip in the earth carved by pure heat, the remains still smoldering and glowing red hot.

"Aiko are you okay!?" Ishi called from where he had been training.

"What happened!?" Yelled his mother.

She dashed forward into the crevice, ignoring the shouts of concern from Ishi and Mina, she dashed to where he had been standing, ignoring the burning sensation in her feet as she ran over the charred and smoking ground, but there was no sign of her father.

'Di-did I kill him?' She thought to herself, beginning to sob, but her misery was interrupted by a call from above.

"Aiko!"

She looked up to see her father, flying in the air about 50 meters up with his fire. He rapidly descended towards her.

"Aiko, are you okay? What happened?"

"Y-you're okay." She realized, a feeling of pure relief washing over her. The adrenaline faded and her exhaustion swept over her. She stumbled and fell, in her fading vision, she saw her father lunging to catch her, eyes full of concern. The feeling of his arms wrapping around her was the last thing she felt as she faded into unconsciousness.

"-CK DO YOU MEAN SHE'S A STUDENT!?" Bakugo yelled.

"I mean exactly what I said Bakugo, now quiet down, I'm about to start class. Aiko, the empty seat at the back between Sato and Todoroki is for you." He gestured towards the out-of-place desk down the middle row.

"Yes, Sensei." Aiko shuffled over to her seat, trying to ignore the strange looks she was getting from her new classmates as she passed them. The people in this room were some of the greatest heroes of her time, they were people she admired, respected, and strived to become, but right now they were students, just like her… okay maybe not just like her, she doubted any of them were time travelers here to prevent an apocalypse only they and a talking rodent knew was coming.

As she walked to her seat, the cold glare she received from Todoroki as she walked to her seat pierced her soul. She wanted to believe that it was just that he didn't trust her yet, but as she met his eyes she saw something deeper, this wasn't just her, he was treating everyone in a cold and dismissive way. She didn't know what was going on, but to be looked at like that by your own father, even a teenage version of him, it hurt. More than she thought it would, the dad she knew never looked like that.

"Sometime today, Aiko." Groaned her teacher from behind her. She blushed, realizing she had been staring back at Todoroki.

Aiko rushed to her seat, sitting down as quickly as possible in a hope of stopping the various stares directed at her.

"Well, now that everything's in order, do we have any rational questions?" Aizawa asked, calling everyone's attention back to him. Almost every hand in the class was raised. He pointed to Tsuyu Asui, the frog girl who Aizawa and Midoriya had saved at the USJ.

"Is it really safe for us to have the festival so soon after a villain attack?" The girl questioned, a finger cutely poking the side of her mouth.

"The UA staff believe that it will show our strength, in that we are not frightened by a couple of villains." He paused to allow the class to digest the information. "That being said, security will be 5 times as tight as previous years, and given how many pro heroes attend the games, a villain would have to be crazy to try it."

Some members of the class sighed with relief, and most hands went down, with one still angrily waving in the air.

Aizawa sighed. "I know I'm going to regret this." He muttered to himself. "Yes, Bakugo?"

"WHY THE HELL IS THE ALBINO BITCH IN OUR CLASS!?"

"First, language." He scowled at the blonde. "Second, according to the principal she was already going to be joining us, and the USJ was supposed to be her first class." He glanced over to Aiko, "And he elected to not inform me because he wanted to 'see how I dealt with an unknown variable'. Essentially, he was just messing with me."

"WHYYYY?!" Bakugo responded

Aizawa just shrugged "The rat would've stepped in before it got too out of hand, but given that villains attacked and cut off communications…" he let the sentence hang.

Most of the class seemed satisfied by the answer, except for Bakugo, who was taking after Deku and muttering about how he had to deal with another stupid extra.

"Anyway, if that's everything, I'm going to go take a nap, get acquainted with your new classmates Aiko, and everyone think about your training for the sports festival, you have two weeks." With that the mummified teacher +shuffled out of the room, leaving Aiko to fend for herself against the 19 stares leveled her way by her new classmates. (Kirishima was still doing his best not to look at her)

"Ummm… Hi?" She squeaked out, trying to break the ice.

A tall student with blue hair and glasses approached her, who she recognized as the future hero, Ingenium.

"Hello!" He exclaimed, chopping his arm robotically towards her. "I am Tenya Iida, 1-A's class representative! I would like to thank you for your assistance at the USJ, and apologize for my initial mistrust! To be fooled once again by this prestigious academy, truly UA is always one step ahead!"

"That's... okay?" Aiko replied in confusion, looking at her new classmates to gauge if this was normal for him, judging by the resigned acceptance on their faces, it was.

"I propose that we go around and introduce ourselves and our quirks!" Iida continued, undeterred. "We shall do it in seat order, Aoyama, you first!

A blonde boy who Aiko didn't really recognize stood up, sparkles forming around his face from seemingly nowhere. "My name is Yuuga Aoyama mon Cher, and my quirk is the dazzling naval laser, it shoots a laser from my belly button!" He exclaimed, thrusting out his hips at the mention of his quirk.

A pink-skinned girl stood up next, the horns and black sclera a familiar sight as Aiko recognized her as the pro hero Pinky, and the mother of her best friend. "Hi! My name's Mina Ashido! My quirk is called Acid, and it lets me produce acid from anywhere on my body! Also can I just say that your hero costume is really cool, what company made it?" She asked energetically.

"Oh, thanks! It was made by a friend of my mentor." Aiko responded with a smile.

"Cool!" The alien girl exclaimed.

"I'm next, my name's Tsuyu Asui, but just call me Tsu." The frog girl said. "My quirk is pretty self explanatory, it's called frog and I can do anything a frog can do, ribbit."

Up next was Iida "My name's Tenya Iida!"

"I know, you told me already."

"...So I did! My quirk is called Engine, it's a mutation type that gives me engines in my calves!" He continued.

"My name is Ochako Uraraka!" Called a bubbly voice, Aiko froze briefly when she heard the name. It was just a brief instant as Aiko recovered quickly, but a pair of mismatched eyes caught it, and scowled with both confusion and irritation.

She looked to her right to see the short girl with a permanent blush smiling over at her. "My quirk is called Zero Gravity, anything I touch with all five of my finger pads loses its gravity."

"My name is Mashirao Ojiro and my quirk is called Tail." Said a plain-looking blonde boy with a very oddly muscular tail.

"Denki Kaminari is the name, and me and my quirk, Electrification, are both shockingly cool." A long silence followed his terrible pun. "Oh come on guys, that was good!"

"No, it wasn't dude," Kirishima said. He forced himself to look over at Aiko for the first time since she'd walked in the room. "Y-you already, uh, k-k-know this, but my name's Eijirou K-k-kirishima and my quirk is Hardening… please don't kill me." He stuttered out, whispering the last bit to himself as a prayer, getting a strange look from Jirou and Shoji as they heard.

Both Aiko and Kirishima were red in both face and hair, much to the confusion of the class. Mina watched the two and felt a strange pull in her chest, 'Wonder what that's about?' She thought.

Aiko was spared any further embarrassment by a piece of paper being placed on her desk by a shy boy with a rock-like head. It read;

My name is Kouji Koda, and my quirk is called Anivoice, it lets me talk to and control animals. I don't like to talk very much, sorry.

Aiko looked up at the shy boy who was pressing his fingers together and gave him a nod and a smile, which he returned before shuffling back to his desk.

The large dude with big lips sitting to her right spoke next. "My name's Rikidou Satou, and my quirk is called Sugar Rush, I get stronger and dumber when I eat sugar."

The tall mask-wearing guy with six arms connected by a strange skin-like membrane was next. A mouth formed on the end of one of his arms and spoke. "My name is Mezou Shouji, and my quirk is called Dupli-Arms, it allows me to make extra body parts like mouths, ears, and eyes using these arms."

"My name is Kyoka Jirou," Another freeze from Aiko, once again only noticed by Todoroki, who was still staring intently. Kyoko twirled one of her earphones in her fingers. "And my quirk is called Earphone Jack, it lets me hear through walls and stuff… oh and I can use them to output my heartbeat, which causes destructive sound waves."

"Hey, my name's Hanta Sero, and my quirk is called Tape," Said a black-haired boy with a wide grin and weird elbows, "I shoot tape out of these dispensers on my elbows."

"Fumikage Tokoyami and my quirk is-" The bird-headed boy was interrupted as a shadow-like bird demon sprung forth from his abdomen.

"His quirk is me, Dark Shadow!"

"Return to your lair at once Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami yelled, recalling his quirk. "I apologize, he gets… out of hand sometimes."

Aiko smiled at him "It's okay, I know someone else with a sentient quirk, it's honestly really cool." She says, thinking of the previous wielders.

The crow-headed student gave her a nod and sat back down in his seat.

"Todoroki Shoto, my quirk is Ice." The heterochromatic teen stated in a monotone voice, his eyes and face showed no emotion. He looked away from the new girl and focused back on his training regimen for the sports festival, deciding she was no longer worth his time. He didn't see the hurt and confused look that crossed her face.

'That's not right…' Aiko thought

"My name's Tooru Hagakure!" Yelled a set of floating clothes. "My quirk is Invisibility!" She yelled happily.

"Katsuki Bakugo, Explosion. Now fuck off!" The angry pomeranian shouted.

"Kacchan you can't say things like that!" Midoriya begged. "Sorry, my name's Izuku Midoriya, and my quirk is Super Strength."

Aiko tilted her head slightly in confusion, 'Does he not have any of the previous users' quirks yet?'

Before she could ponder further she was interrupted by a short grape-haired student. "Hi there, my name's Minoru Mineta, and my quirk is called pop off, what's your cup size?!"

Absolute silence reigned after that question. Most of the boys were all shocked and disappointed, all the girls were disgusted. Bakugo was both angry at the purple perverts' words, and impressed at his audacity… mostly pissed though. Midoriya was blushing madly from the secondhand embarrassment, and Todoroki felt an inexplicable and strange urge to freeze the boy solid. Aiko sat perfectly still, her hair and eyes flickering from red to white and back again, mouth agape in a state of shock, embarrassment, and indignation.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Before anyone could react Mineta suddenly let out a shrill scream, as a jack jabbed into his eye. "YOU PERVERTED GRAPE!" Yelled Kyoka, her cheeks blushing madly and her eyes narrowed at her target.

"Ow! I'm sorry! What did I do?!" Yelled Mineta, covering his face to fend off the furious assault, he stood from his seat and ran from the classroom, being jabbed by Jirou's ear jacks all the while until he escaped through the door and into the hall.

"Umm…" The tall spiky ponytailed girl at the back of class said. "I'm not sure how to follow that, but my name is Momo Yaoyorozu, and my quirk is called Creation." She finished, everyone remaining turned to Aiko expectantly, who hadn't really been paying attention since Mineta ran from the room.

'...I was not prepared for today…' Aiko thought, staring straight ahead blankly. She shook her head and noticed everyone's staring at her again, and figured it was her turn to make an introduction and gathered her thoughts. "Well nice to meet you all, my name is Aiko, and my quirk is called Self-Telekinesis, I have incredibly powerful telekinesis that I can only use on myself, it makes me super strong, fast, and lets me fly." She lied.

Uraraka tilted her head, "What's your family name?"

"I don't have one, I'm an orphan." A couple of pitying looks were sent her way, mostly from the girls of the class. All of that was put on hold as Midoriya suddenly appeared directly in front of her, notebook in hand.

"You said your quirk was Self-Telekinesis?! That's really cool and versatile! How fast can you move, how much can you carry, can you fly forever! What's the drawback to your quirk, why do your hair and eyes change colour?!" He questioned.

"Pfft!" Aiko began laughing, drawing a confused look from Midoriya, which quickly changed to embarrassment as he realized he was basically nose to nose with her. 'Well, he's still the same Deku I knew that's for sure.' She thought, giggling.

"Aah! I'm sorry I didn't mean to be nosy with all those questions, it's just thatIreallylikequirksandIwantedtoknoweverythingaboutyourscauseitsoundssocoolandI'mreallysorrypleaseforgiveme!" He rambled.

"No no. It's okay, I'm sorry for laughing, it was just kinda funny." Aiko placated the distressed teen. "Let's see here…" She noticed that the whole class was paying rapt attention as she went to talk about her quirk. "I can move faster than most people can see, and I can hit hard enough to cause air pressure attacks, I don't know precisely how much I can carry, but I caught a 10 story building once, my hair and eyes change color when I'm passionate or emotional about something, which we think is because of a dormant quirk gene, and my drawback is if I hit harder or move faster than my body can handle my bones break."

Midoriya's eyes widened at that last part, but before he could comment on their similarities the door to the classroom slid open once more to reveal Aizawa, back again in all his mummified glory.

"Please tell me I misheard and I don't have another bone-breaking problem child here." He begged.

"Well I haven't broken my bones in like, 3 years so does it still count?" Aiko asked.

He let out a sigh, "I'll take what I can get... Alright, brats, you have training ground beta available to train, so get moving." With that he slid the door shut and could be heard shuffling away once more.

Most of the male students stood up and left until it was just the girls plus Midoriya and Kirishima remaining, the latter of whom was finally managing to get his blush under control.

"...Sooooo… wanna go train together?" Aiko ventured.

"Sure!"

"Yeah!"

"Sounds good!"

"I don't see why not."

"I'd like that, kero."

"It would certainly be productive to have a group."

"It's manly to help your friends!"

"T-thank you, I wanted to ask you about that anyways."

The impromptu group began to file out of the classroom before a menacing aura filled the classroom behind them.

"Deku…" They turned around to see Uraraka, a menacing look on her face. "I'm going to do my best!" She chanted, punching the air.

"Y-yeah?" The group said in response, more startled than motivated by the sudden mood switch of the normally bubbly girl.

"YOU HEAR ME, I'M GONNA DO MY BEST!" She chanted louder

"YEAH!" They yelled, trying to match her enthusiasm, all the while looking at each other in confusion.

'This is so wrong…' Aiko thought the novelty of training her mentor was causing an odd feeling. "So, what did you want help with?" Aiko asked. The group had arrived at Training ground beta and had separated over a city block into smaller training groups, Midoriya stood near the entrance with Aiko

"W-well, it's about my quirk, I've got a similar backlash to you, if I use too much power, I break my bones. Anyway, what I wanted to know is if you had any ideas?" Midoriya asked

"Show me," Aiko ordered, crossing her arms under her chest.

"Oh, uh, okay!" He said.

Midoriya stuck out his arm and concentrated. Five seconds passed with nothing happening, when suddenly a faint smell of ozone filled the area. As Aiko watched she saw red lines of energy crisscross over his arm, and green electricity began sparking over it.

"STOP!" Aiko yelled, Midoriya looked at her in shock, his concentration broken causing the power to dissipate. "I think I see the problem."

"Wait, already?!" Midoriya questioned.

"I used to have a similar problem." Aiko explained. "When I concentrated too much energy in one spot I would break my bones a lot more than I do now."

"Oh… well what did you do?"

"Well first, I had to find my limit, the amount of energy I could handle before my body started to break, do you know yours?."

"I… Ummm. No." Midoriya admitted

'All Might what the FUCK!' Aiko internally screamed. One of the first things Deku had taught her in the future was how to find her limit, and how to spread it across her body instead of using it in one spot. 'Does this mean that he had to figure that out on his own?!'

"... How many times have you broken your bones?"

"Only four."

'THAT'S NOT NORMAL! DON'T SAY "ONLY FOUR" LIKE IT'S NORMAL! I ONLY BROKE MY BONES ONCE BEFORE YOU TAUGHT ME, AND YOU'VE BROKEN YOUR BONES FOUR FUCKING TIMES AND STILL HAVE NO CLUE!?' She continued to scream inside, externally she just sighed. 'All Might, I swear to any deity out there, I'm going to find an excuse to knee you in the balls.'

"... Aiko?"

"Okay, let's try this." She looked at Midoriya seriously. "Try and visualize your power, I visualize a dam, representing my body, holding back a reservoir of water which represents power, when I use my quirk I let some water through a hole in the dam."

Down the street from Aiko and Midoriya

Jirou giggled, her Jack's plugged into the ground listening to find Hagakure. "She got a dam hole in her dam dam.'

Hagakure looked at her in confusion. "What?"

Jirou waved at her dismissively "Nothing, you wouldn't get it." She said, returning to training.

"But, if I let too much through at once, the dam bursts, and I break my body. Do you get it?"

"Ummm, yeah, I think so."

"Good, now what do you got? A magnifying glass and a piece of tinder? A hydraulic press on a pane of glass? A-"

"An egg in a microwave!" He exclaimed.

Aiko sweatdropped "...okay that works…"

"Wha-why'd you hesitate?"

"It's nothing…" She lied.

"It doesn't sound like nothing!"

"It's just… that's kind of lame dek-...dude." She corrected her slip of almost calling him Deku, thankfully he was too engrossed in his quirk to notice.

"... oh… okay, lemme think of something else," Midoriya said dejectedly.

"Nonono, that's fine, it's more important that you can visualize it easily than whatever it is you're actually visualizing, okay?"

"Yeah… I guess."

"Alright good, now why don't you give it a shot. Just use as little power in the microwave as possible, and slowly increase it until you find your safe limit." Aiko explained, taking a couple of steps back in case this went wildly wrong.

"Okay, here goes nothing!" He got into the same stance as before and closed his eyes. His hand started to glow as green electricity crackled around it once more. He slowly and carefully raised his power, concentrating as he tried to find his limit. A full minute later he reached 6% and began to feel an uncomfortable pressure on his bones, so he pushed it back down to 5% and opened his eyes. "I think I found it!" He called, asking for his

"Alright! What is it?" Aiko asked.

"I can use 5% before it starts to hurt!"

'Damn, I could only use 3% at the start.' Aiko thought, before calling out to him. "Okay, now for the second thing, can you hold it at that level?! Try to memorize the setting for your microwave and keep it there."

"Okay… I think I got it!"

"Great! Now, what I want you to do is, instead of keeping the power just in your hand like that, try spreading it across your entire body."

Midoriya stopped staring at his hand and whipped his head to look at her, shock written on his face. "... WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!?" He screamed out.

Aiko just laughed, "Don't worry about it dude, I didn't figure it out on my own either, I just…" She paused, staring at the boy in front of her. "I had a really good teacher."

"Oh, really? Do you think I could meet them, for more training obviously?"

Aiko just smiled sadly, "I'm sure you will, one day… Now back to work!"

"Yes ma'am!" He said, returning his focus to the task at hand. He took a neutral stance, feet shoulder-width apart, and grabbed hold of power he felt in his hand, and pulled it to reach the rest of his body too. He felt it flow through his arm, followed by his torso, legs, and even his head. For the first time, he felt truly powerful, no longer a glass cannon. He smiled wide and looked at Aiko, who was in red mode and had a similar smile on her face. "I did it!"

"Can you move?" She asked, switching back to white.

He dashed towards her in response, closing the distance quickly. "Yeah, I can!"

"Great, now let's spar!" Aiko grinned.

"Yea-... wait, what?" He asked in fear.

"Well we gotta test your new limits, you just learned this after all."

"I-I mean yeah… b-b-but we shouldn't get too hasty!" He tried to wiggle out of it, but Aiko just got into a fighting stance and prepared to lunge. "Wait! No! Please! I yield! I yield!

"DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR!" She screamed as she pounced.

"Nonononono AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

His screams called out over the cityscape. The whole training group gazed towards the source of the sound in confusion, except Jirou, who was too busy laughing her ass off, as she heard the whole thing.

Aiko lay in her bed that night with an ear-splitting grin on her face. Despite the awkward start to the day, training with Deku again was something she didn't know she had missed so much, even if the roles were reversed, and seeing some of her favorite heroes as students just like her was pretty strange. But it was comforting that he still really was the same Deku she knew, just younger and in need of a confidence boost, something the sports festival would hopefully provide. An image of a chilling stare still lurked at the back of her mind.

"Dad… I don't know what happened to you, but this time I'll save you, I promise."

And another chapter in the books… or the website? ...archives? Whatever, sorry this chapter took so long, I was on vacation. The next chapter will be the start of the sports festival and may or may not arrive faster than this one, I can't say for sure. In any case, if you enjoy my work please follow or favorite, I really appreciate it, and as always any comments, questions, reviews, and challenges to duel to the death via human cannonball jousting are welcome.