"U.A. Japan's premier hero school for their most promising students. Those that make it into U.A are surefire to have promising futures."
The words echoed through Hayato's head as his instructor began to lecture his classmates on the importance of their style or some other garbage. He needed a smoke.
Sure, U.A was great for the people who deserved it, but Hayato didn't. He knew he didn't, and that was pissing him off more than this shitty lecture on proper costume style. He didn't show it though, as it was something his privileged childhood had imparted on him. Having an attitude meant a hassle, and a hassle usually amounted to someone babbling about the power of "positivity" or giving him a tearful speech on not giving up. He watched the clock, anxious to sneak a cigarette in the bathroom after this last period ended.
"-and class, since we're five minutes from the bell, I have some news to inform you on." Mrs. Miki or as his fellow classmates had dubbed her "The Mouse" for her unusually squeaky voice, cut into his thoughts again as he turned his eyes to pay attention.
"There's been an opening in B classes active Hero positions. Now, sign-ups are voluntary, but you don't necessarily need to-" she was drowned out as about 60% of her students tackled the front desk to sign. Hayato hung back, intent on signing after they finished their little frenzy.
"Not like they'd favor the first name on the list...idiots."
Though he wasn't really a hundred percent sure. U.A, much like every single Japanese institution Hayato had ever been a part of, was brutally cutthroat in competition to the point that some would have mental breakdowns. It wasn't really fair either, Hayato himself a testament to that. His father's position in the government had ensured that the right wheels were greased for Hayato's acceptance, despite the fact his grades were shit compared to the hundreds of other hopefuls that could've sat in his seat right now. He listened to people anxiously whisper on how they were planning to win their spot in the limelight. He rose up from his seat and approached the desk.
His second year at high school could've been going worse to be honest. He'd only been caught once with cigarettes, the dog-nosed weirdo sniffing them off of him before the school festival. He took another drag near the vent at the top of the stall. He stopped thinking about the indignity of it all for just a moment. He didn't deserve to be here. He deserved to be in a convenience store packing shelves or something more mundane than what he had now. It was always the same, violin lessons, advanced chess, football, nothing ever stuck. His parents had pushed him in so many directions that he'd just started wandering at some point, and hadn't stopped. Heroism was just another attempt for his family to salvage their pride over him. Wouldn't work either. He sucked at being a hero too, on and off the battlefield.
A slam of the door prompted him to toss the cigarette butt into the toilet, the smoke too small to make it past the rim.
"You see that, B class trash couldn't hack it! Now's our chance to shine!" He let out an invisible sigh as the class clowns (or at least clowns to him) Gore and Lash walked in. He hadn't really bothered to remember their names, his revolving door of prestigious schools responsible for that habit. He could tell from the voices though.
"Yeah even that airhead loser is gonna try to get in, crazy huh?" He raised an eyebrow at was apparently shit talk behind his back. He didn't really make any friends, not that he really cared to. Though that was just an excuse of itself, as most people knew he was in his class because of nepotism. The accusatory looks were hard to stifle when you'd fought tooth and nail to get to where you were as opposed to being bought. He listened as they continued.
"Don't know why he would bother. He sucks at everything he does. Every class, every test, it's like he WANTS to fail out."
Not entirely UNtrue.
"Psh, who cares. Stepping stones are stepping stones. Whether he tries or not doesn't matter. Our victory is assured."
He said it with a flourish. Hayato flushed the toilet and opened the door. The pair had spun around in response to the noise to see who had listened in.
"There's only one spot though." He said it as the water stopped.
"Excuse me?" The dude narrowed his eyes as his partner shifted their stance. The pair were as different as night and day, one short and slim, the other tall and pudgy. Wacky matching hairstyles that so many took to nowadays highlighted their browlines, giving them a sort of permanent glare. He shrugged and walked past them.
"You said OUR victory. There's one spot. So unless your boy there is a quirk projection or something, one of you is out of luck." He scratched his head and kicked open the door to the hallway. He stopped outside the door.
"Hmph. What an asshole."
There was a pause. Then-
"Well, the spot's as good as mine anyways." That would be Gore, the tall one.
"Wha-you said that-" Lash's voice tilted slightly as he said it. Hayato closed his eyes.
"What? Who're you kidding? I'm better at this. It's just how it is!" He sounded smug.
"You-you said that we were gonna be on a team together…" Betrayal. Hayato pursed his lips.
He didn't want to stay for what was next, but he did. It was familiar emotions that he needed to reconnect with after the last few months of nothing. He waited.
"What? Oh, of course. You are always welcome to design my costume for me when you make it big in the design department!" A laugh. He shivered, remembering.
"You-well SCREW YOU Takeda! Screw you, and the high horse you rode in on! I can't believe I was friends with you. You're so-so poisonous to everyone all the time, and I just-just FUCK YOU!" The explosion had attracted a member of the staff, and Hayato nodded at them as they went to intervene. He walked off.
He walked slowly to his dorm room as he thought back on those old times. He frowned. So many fake friends. That was the real tragedy of this messed up system. Everyone scrabbling to get above each other, even in heroics. No friends. No trust. All business. He scowled and flopped onto his bed. The dull buzzing of his quirk tugged at his consciousness, and he breathed out.
He stood in his temporary costume, the bodysuit slightly chafing as the hopefuls lined up to prepare for their test. One of twenty all together in the training center of USJ, modified to look like a cityscape, sprawling in every direction. Lash, he noted, stood very far from Gore, the determination just enough to mask the hurt as the instructors outlined the test. No matching hairstyle either, he'd shaved it to utilitarian style.
"Today's test will be on a few things. It will serve several goals, for both your classes, and our more prominent teams." Midnight eyed up the students, stern despite her costume. Hayato looked at his watch. He hadn't even taken it off, and the teachers had noticed. They knew that the watch breaking or somehow hurting his wrist mid-fight would be more of a lesson, but that was only if it actually happened. He looked over at the so-called first years' "A team". Goofy looking. Every one of them. He could've sneered if it wasn't for the cute girl there on the left. He felt a bit flustered at the thought, and buried it by thinking of something else. He settled on the stupid grenade arms that the Scowls there had. A person to avoid.
"You'll be split into teams of three or four, and each team member will be given a headband. The goal is to be the team with the most headbands by the end of the contest. Use everything available to you to defeat your fellow classmates and take their headbands.
"Re-purposing the Sports Festival's games? Very clever Ms. Midnight!"
"More like unoriginal." Hayato thought. But he would act out. Not worth it, never was. Lash had a real convincing fake smile as he said it too. The lady hero smiled back all the same.
"The goal of this is to show and improve power synergy, teamwork, and to improve reactions to scenarios against multiple aggressors. It's also why we're having the most promising first years take part. Keep that in mind as you help each other on the battlefield, second-years. When I call your name, step forward."
"Kitagawa Hayato!"
He was first up. He walked forward and took hold of the strip of green cloth. It was probably burn or acid-proof, or durable enough to resist a majority of quirks. He gripped it.
"Can I hide it, or do I have to show it on my body?"
"Keep it on your person."
He nodded and stood over to the side.
"Izuku Midoriya!"
The boy in the green suit walked over, took his green cloth, and walked over to Hayato. He had a nervous, wobbly smile as he stood next to him. They were soon joined by a mutant guy with a third arm, a member of the second-years B-team. He looked excited. Hayato watched as the groups split up to talk strategy.
"N-Nice to meet you. I'm Midoriya." He said the words nervously and held out his hand to Hayato. He shook it.
"I know, I heard them call your name." He responded. Then he glanced over at the mutant guy.
"Oh! Since we're introducing ourselves, you can call me Maraki! Hope you aren't intimidated by your seniors there, Deku!" He practically laughed the words out. Hayato was taken aback by the sudden insult, but the kid in green started to blush. Then it connected.
"You made your hero name Useless?" He confusedly asked. The boy nodded.
"W-well-"
"Aw, don't tease the boy there Kitagawa!" He felt the guy clap him on the back before putting them in a group huddle.
"So. Any ideas on a plan? We've got three groups I know the powers on, lot of terrain control. Any thoughts?"
Hayato paused for a moment. "My power is pretty good against people like that. I can deny them those advantages if they try to fight at range." He felt the tug again, synapses focusing on the Quirk making the hum grow louder at the back of his skull.
"Deku- Oh wait." He looked over.
"You got a hero name, Kitagawa? It'd be better to use on the fly."
For some reason, the green kid looked excited at that idea. So he thought for a moment. Hero names were supposed to be important. Something that defined you to the core. Or you know, something goofy. He didn't really like goofy though. The thoughts brought him back to the old days. He didn't like it, but it fit what he thought of all this.
"Status Quo." He answered.
Him and Deku sat under the eaves of a faux hotel, listening out for sounds of fighting. Saga, the mutant with the arm, had stated that his power was for scouting, and that he'd send them a signal when trouble approached, the "awareness field" of his power as he called it would give them a nudge. It was quiet.
He tapped on his leg as the kid muttered to himself. He could catch words like "quirk" or "advantage" as he droned, a seemingly endless supply of words spilling into the quiet. Somewhere far, an explosion rang out, the first of the fighting.
"Hey kid?"
Mumbling was the response he got. He sighed and said it with a bit of force.
"Hey kid!"
The bewilderment was raw on his face as Deku snapped out of his haze. "Y-yes!?"
"Do you think that the teachers are watching us right now?"
Deku frowned and glanced around. "I don't see any cameras nearby, but-"
Hayato took out a cigarette and lighter from his suit compartment. It was a need bad enough to warrant him risking a lecture. As fire touched the edge of the paper, the cigarette vanished. He looked up to see the kid standing over him with the cancer stick in hand, a determined gaze meeting his annoyed one.
"You aren't supposed to smoke." His eyes were unflinching as he spoke. Turned on a dime from the muttering weirdo he was before. Hayato frowned and took out another.
"It's ok if you snitch." He said it casually as the kid watched him light it. "You'll probably get points with the staff if you do."
"Wha-No. I mean, you're a minor too, where'd you get-" He looked concerned now, more of a reaction to the idea of "snitching".
Hayato shrugged again. "Tell you the truth, I'm only here because it got me out of my shitty costume design class. Not really cut out to be a hero. Never was." He puffed out smoke. The buzz softened in his head. "Don't worry though. I'll still fight. I just- I don't really think there's a point to this."
Deku looked at him with concern.
"You can do it." He suddenly blurted out.
Hayato took a deep drag. Blowing the smoke away he responded with, "Do what?"
"Be a hero."
He paused. Throwing the cigarette butt on the ground and stamping it out, he looked at the guy. He was taller than him.
"I don't WANT to be a hero."
"Then why are you trying?"
"I just told you, to avoid my design class."
"No, I meant why are you still at this school?"
He thought on that. He didn't want to answer with the ugly truth though, so instead he said "I'm here to get through high school and stack boxes in some store somewhere. That's all."
"Don't you want to be more?" He was being put on the spot now.
"Every time I try is just another reminder that someone deserves it more than me." He looked over towards a line of smoke in the distance. The noise was growing as more brawls broke out.
"Then prove yourself wrong." Deku flexed his glove and followed his gaze.
"I was always told that I couldn't be what I wanted. No one believed in me. But I'm here, doing what I want. So I'm telling you to do the same. Because I believe in you." Deku said it so matter-of-factly that it caught Hayato off-guard.
"What would you know? You never had to make the decisions I did." He thought about snapping at the guy, but his voice caught in his throat. He framed it as a cough.
"Real anime of you, giving a speech about believing in others." He let out a hmph* before sitting back down.
"At any rate-"
"Heads up, on the left!" The voice cut in around them. It was Saga's power to throw his voice at a range. Came with echolocation too. Deku faced the direction, two people in masks running forward, the third missing. Both had blue headbands around their wrists.
Suddenly, the concrete sank beneath them like it was liquid. Deku went to jump up onto the hotel wall. Hayato was left stuck in the ground as the now swamp-like power washed over him. He reached out and pointed at the girl on the left. All at once, the power alleviated, slowly re-solidifying the ground as he pulled himself out. The guy on the right wrapped some sort of tape around the girl on the left and flung her away from the now metallic ground. Hayato felt the buzz roar as he let his power discharge into the environment.
His Quirk, Metallicize, allowed him to apply a metallic surface to his surroundings. It usually cancelled out other similar powers too, the oil slick colored metal seeming to not adhere to standard rules of physics. It was slippery too, though not enough to trip people up, he found. It wasn't that fast either after a certain point, the expansion of it more localized to a disk shape of about 3 meters. He could still do it multiple times though.
"Sero!" Deku yelled at the right guy and dove forward. The third guy revealed themselves then, and Deku abruptly changed direction in the air before crashing into a stumbled landing on another growing metal surface. Hayato hung back, the attention of the aggressors more on Deku than himself as he adopted a fighting stance.
The ground had started to waver again. Where there wasn't Hayato's metal sheets, waves seemed to ripple out of the concrete like a low tide, stemming from the girl who stood back, same as him. Hayato created the metal sheets like buoys, giving him somewhere to stand. He noted that the girl's teammates didn't have the same issues, walking across the ground like it was still normal ground. Deku seemed to notice this too, because he shifted his attention between the girl and the other guy who'd just emerged. That was when the buzz of a tape dispenser hit his ears.
He immediately leapt to the ground, and the line of tape whizzed over his head as he rolled to the side, his left foot splashing into the mud-concrete. That Sero guy or whoever was after him now. He stumbled up and ran.
Hayato created buoys as he dodged the strikes of the tape. He noted that the tape didn't vanish, cutting off his path back towards his teammates. Figuring out that he was trying to separate him, he rolled up against the building wall, creating a string of metal plates as he did. The tape wasn't sticking so good to the metal as it slid to the bottom of the now black metal hotel wall. He ran further, intent on sticking close to Deku as-
With a smack, he swung backwards through the air. The tape had hit his shoulder, and he was sent flying towards the third guy of the enemies' group. He was rubbing his hands together, and stepped forward to-
To do nothing, because Saga jumped on top of him before he could get his bearings. Hayato shoulder-checked the ground as he skidded to a stop, rising unsteadily as he created another buoy in case the swamp effect stretched over this way. Saga had the guy pinned, but that ended when another tape line snagged him too, pulling him off his feet and snaring him as he suddenly spun like a top.
The third guy's ability was to somehow make people spin.
It was a clever strategy. Snag someone and send them over to the guy to wrap them up. Hayato dodged another streamer as Saga went prone, trying to limit the parts of his body that were sticking to the tape. The Spin Doctor (he had a doctor coat as part of his costume) started to get up and Hayato booted him in the face, a sudden 180 spin as his shoe met the guys nose sending him sprawling as it connected. He kept getting knocked down. He rose again, wary at what was going on.
Deku was having a rough time. He was wrapped in tape like it was chains, the sludge waist deep as he sent mini-shockwaves after the Swamp girl, aim askew. Hayato willed the metal into place and felt one of the disks he made earlier vanish. He'd have to remember that he'd hit his limit. Deku yelled back at him "Thanks! Help Saga!" before tearing at the streamers on his body, his footing secured.
"Don't tell me what to do!" He yelled back, leaning down to pull the tape off his teammate. The sudden zing of the tape came at him and he fell back as Saga was thrown far from him, still prone as he sank about an inch into pavement. He could've cursed at the sheer amount of control these guys were getting. He looked back to see Deku jump forward, only to spin away slightly as he vaulted off a wall, getting closer to his target. Hayato, seeing the Spin Doctor rising back up, went low, tackling his legs this time while spawning another disk. Atop Hayato's metal sheet, they spun like a top, the speed making him want to throw up. He held out though, and the other guy gave up as they slid to a stop. Sure enough, the use of his own power had caused him to pass out at the suddenness of the motion. A rule of thumb for quirks was that there was always a drawback, and with people specializing in movement it was usually some sort of motion sickness. He staggered to his feet, the world still spinning as he saw Deku jump up into the air. As he crashed back down, the ground solidified, cracking to pieces and surprising him. He'd wanted to cause the ground to splash most likely, but the girl was quick and in control. Tape jumped out to snare him, and he shot another shockwave to carry him back. As he touched down close by, Hayato created a sheet to catch him.
"Saga's out of action. So's he." He said, panting from the exertion. The little green weirdo wasn't even winded as he took a quick glance at the Spin Doctor. They stood back as the two opponents exchanged words. Wouldn't be long before they picked the fighting back up.
"Status. I have a plan."
"So?"
"It involves you."
"Sure."
Deku jumped back into the fray, the ground suddenly turning into a wave to catch him. He bounded upwards as Hayato put a disk smack dab in the middle of the wave, stifling the effect. Over the top of the wave, Deku used a shockwave to dive down at Sero, who flung himself backward to avoid. It did little to help though, as the second Deku hit the plate growing beneath his feet he sprang forward. Sero was grabbed in a Judo throw, and sailed close by his teammate, landing on the line of plates Hayato had put against the wall. The tape snicked out to stop his momentum, the girl surprised at his maneuver.
"Now!" Deku yelled as he sprang towards them.
Hayato knew what the guy wanted him to do. But he didn't do it.
Deku hit the mud pavement, and staggered. Sero took it as an opportunity to snag as much tape as he could to him, the struggling fight against the ground turning to a losing one. He looked over to see Hayato sitting down, cigarette in mouth, as he sank.
Hayato wasn't a hero. He was sure of that. For this whole fight, he'd forgotten that he wasn't supposed to try, the immediacy of the scenario not giving him an opportune moment to surrender. When Deku outlined his plan, he knew that it would be a chance to teach the guy a lesson on top of it. All that stupid naivety had gotten him in a bad mood, and it called to reinforce his prior convictions. Kid had to learn that camaraderie and trust wasn't something this country was good with-
All at once, black tendrils shot out of Deku's arms, practically exploding the tape off his body, giving him enough wiggle room to jump up again.
He looked over at Hayato. And without a single iota of betrayal in his eyes said, "Now!"
Without thinking, Hayato activated his power. Sero was caught off guard as he sank into the pavement, the metal sheet dissipating into nothing as five more sprang up. The girl yelled out, "Sorry!" but her control was still limited as Sero struggled to free himself. At the same time, Deku repeated the motion, falling down onto one of the newly spawned plates before sending the whips out to snag both opponents. He drew them in, and with a well placed double-punch sent them sprawling. Just like that, the fighting stopped.
Hayato stood up. The girl was knocked out, and the ground was back to normal. He walked over to Deku, who was using leftover tape to bind the two.
"Why?" he stated it more like a fact than a question.
Deku looked back at him. "Why what? Good job back there." He nodded to himself as he checked over their injuries.
It was quiet all of a sudden. Hayato was still waiting for an answer when-
"Uh...guys?" Saga stated a good ways away.
"Oh my gosh, sorry!" Deku ran over to untangle his teammate. Hayato just stood there, a sudden rage growing in his head. The hum roared along with him.