It was the day after the Quirk Apprehension test and the class was just dismissed from their regular lessons. Even though the lessons were taught by heroes, Haruto still thought they were boring, having never been the most studious of persons. Haruto had just grabbed food from the pro hero and was looking around the cafeteria for a spot to sit.
He saw Izuku, Iida, and Uraraka sitting together and talking animatedly, no doubt discussing the upcoming heroics class. He was about to go join them when something else caught his attention, by one of the windows in the lunch room a ray of sunlight was cast on a table and at the table was none other than Shoko Todoroki. She was leant over her tray facing away from Haruto looking out the window alone, the tables around her empty. Looking back to Izuku and back towards the girl he made a quick decision and steered himself towards the sunbathed table.
"Do you mind if I sit here?" Haruto asked the quiet girl and had to resist the urge to laugh when she looked up at him and she still had some of her soba hanging from her mouth. Her eyes searched his for a moment and then she shrugged. He sat across from her the sunlight from the window relaxing his body and brought a pleasant smile to his face.
Haruto started to eat, his eyes wandered the room taking in the diverse populace of UA and searching out his classmates noting where they sat and who they were with. He nodded to himself and brought his attention back to his food and his silent companion. When he brought his eyes up he saw that Shoko was staring at him, her face showing nothing but curiosity.
"What?" Haruto asked after swallowing his food.
"Why did you sit with me?" Shoko asked, her voice soft.
"Do I need a reason?" Haruto answered her question with another and to his surprise she nodded. Her eyes narrowed slightly when Haruto chuckled. "What if I told you I only sat here because the sun shined perfectly on this spot and it just happened to be in front of you?"
"I wouldn't believe you," Shoko said and this made Haruto laugh, his eyes shining.
"You caught me," Haruto said, a bright grin on his face. "You helped me yesterday. So I wanted to know more about you and maybe be friends."
"Friends?" Shoko asked, furrowing her brow. Haruto nodded, surprised by the girl's confusion. A girl like her was sure to have plenty of friends being related to the Number Two hero.
"What's wrong? Don't you have any?" Haruto asked and almost immediately regretted it when Shoko looked down at her nearly empty bowl of soba and stirred it around with her chopsticks. "Hey, I'm sorry. That was kinda crappy of me to say huh?" Haruto apologized, with a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck.
Shoko looked up at him staring with a blank face. "It's okay," she said in a quiet tone.
"So, friends?" Haruto asked with a hopeful face. She looked at him for a moment, making him sweat. She nodded. Haruto grinned happily, having gained a new friend.
"Awesome then you can call me Haruto or whatever you want really and is it ok if I call you Shoko?" Haruto asked. She gave another nod a small smile on her face, her eyes not as lifeless as they were before.
Haruto was grinning at Shoko and was about to ask her something else when the bell rang signaling that it was time to return to class. They both quickly put away their trays and headed towards their classroom both excited for the heroic course and curious what it would be about.
Haruto was leaning back in his chair, hands laced behind his head, eyes closed, relaxing in the sunlight when the door to the classroom slid open.
"I am entering the class like a normal person!" Haruto sweat dropped and the rest of the class was excited to see that the teacher for the foundational heroics course would be All Might. All Might looked around the class, his usual smile plastered to his face. Haruto noticed that his eyes rested on Izuku for a moment longer than all the others. Haruto glanced beside him and saw that Shoko was looking between All Might and Izuku. She must have noticed something as well.
"I teach Foundational Heroics. It is a course you will train in different ways to learn the basics of being a hero. For your first class we'll be jumping into the heat of things with Combat Training."
Haruto saw to no surprise that Bakugo was raring to go at the chance to fight and Izuku seemed decidedly worried. Haruto on the other hand was ready to see what the rest of his classmates were made of. These would be the people he would be relying on in the future if they all became heroes.
"And for training we have these," All might said slamming on the wall making spots pop out revealing twenty briefcases. "Costume based on your Quirk registration and your requests you sent before school started. Go get dressed and we'll meet at the battle center." Haruto grinned and waited for the others to take their costumes before going and taking the case labeled one.
Haruto was tightening his black combat boots over his black combat pants when he heard a voice calling to him distracting him from his work.
"Hey Namikaze-san, how'd you get that manly scar?" Haruto looked up from what he was doing and saw it was the boy with red spiky hair who had spoken. Kirishima, if he remembered right.
Haruto touched the scar over his eye and had to admit that he would be wondering too if his classmate had a scar like his. And he wanted to know how Shoko got her own scar, but knew not to ask. Haruto looked back to Kirishima who just had a look of honest curiosity that Haruto just couldn't be mad at.
Haruto rubbed at the scar and just muttered, "Villain." Kirishima started to apologize, the excited grin having fallen from his face, but Haruto waved it away saying there was nothing to forgive.
He turned around and grabbed the blue three quarter sleeve shirt made from a similar material to Aizawa-sensei's capture scarf pulling it over his head. Next was the item he was most proud of and most excited about. It was a black flak vest and on the back large and in the center was the kanji for hope in white. Haruto grinned, it was perfect. He slipped his arms through and zipped it up. He looked himself over in the mirror happy with the costume and went to meet the rest of his class.
Haruto was one of the first to make it outside and seeing as he had some time to kill Haruto made a light platform and lay down. He was staring up at the clouds watching them pass by, he was thinking what each one was shaped like when a face was suddenly staring down at him making him jump.
Calming his beating heart he got a better look at the person who scared him and saw that it was Shoko in her hero costume easily recognizable despite the ice covering the left side of her face and the rest of that side of her body. Her costume fit her nicely, not as tight as the other girls in the class but it comfortably hugged her curves in a way that showed them off but was still easy to move around in.
"Looking good, Shoko. And was there a reason you decided to scare the daylights out of me?" Haruto asked. Shoko snorted at the pun eyeing his light platform. "You wanna sit?" She looked like she was about to refuse before she shook herself and gingerly took a seat beside him. "No need to be nervous. These babies are sturdy as can be and I haven't accidentally dissipated one in years," Haruto said with a grin, trying to put the girl at ease. He received a quiet nod from her and she returned her attention to All Might, who looked ready to get started.
"Now shall we begin, you zygotes?" All Might questioned the gathered students. Before he could continue speaking Iida raised his hand to ask his own question.
"This is the same place where we took our practical entrance exam. Will we be fighting faux villains again?"
"No, Young Iida. This time we will be practicing indoor fighting. Intelligent villains are known for operating in the shadows and it's a hero's job to root out that evil. Today you all will be participating in 2v2 battles with one team chosen to represent the heroes while the other are going to play the heroes."
"Without basic training?" Haruto looked over and saw it was Tsuyu who had spoken up.
"This is a battle to learn those basics. This time its not dumb robots you can just destroy." The students around Haruto started to bombard the hero with questions, this made Haruto let out a breath kicking his feet in the air as he waited for the questioning to end. He looked over to Shoko and could see that she looked as bored by the questioning as he felt.
All Might was finally able to return a bit of order to class and began to explain how they would be split and what their objective would be...from a script. Haruto sweatdropped, he really isn't good at this teaching thing is he. To simulate how they would work with random heroes as pros they would be drawing lots to determine their team and they needed as the heroes catch the villains or capture the bomb located somewhere in the building.
Haruto saw that he would be teamed up with the girl that had audio jacks connected to her ear lobes. Shoko was teamed up with the large boy with all the arms. Haruto was slightly worried when he saw that Izuku would be going up against Bakugo in the first match, but also he was kinda excited to see how far Izuku had come from the boy shaking on the floor in middle school.
Haruto was sitting with Shoko on another of his light platforms in the observation room watching the teams of Izuku and Uraraka along with Bakugo and Iida prepared themselves for their match.
All Might was standing in front of them all watching the screens notepad in hand ready to take notes on all the students' performances. "Pay attention everyone and think about what you will be doing in this test." All Might ordered them all pencil at the ready.
This match was bound to be a shit show from the start, Haruto thought, taking in all the destruction on screen. He was annoyed. Not only did Bakugo let off a blast indoors that could have the building crashing down but Izuku broke himself again.
"Thoughts on the battle, anyone? Who performed the best overall and what could be improved?" All Might addressed the observation room and Momo raised her hand and went into a long winded explanation of why Iida was the best performer.
And that's how class went the pairs would face off against each other and the more time went on the less impressed Haruto felt. The only one to do anything remotely interesting after the battle between Bakugo and Izuku was Shoko completely freezing the building, capturing both Kaminari and Hagakure in one fell swoop.
When she returned most of the class was looking at her like she was scary or they had this look of awe on their face like they couldn't believe they were in the same room as her. She turned with her usual blank face to Haruto who was standing and getting ready for his match.
Haruto turned to Shoko and gave her his trademark grin. "You sure are strong, Shoko. You must have worked pretty hard to do something like that." He looked at her and saw that her eyes had widened a little more than they usually would and internally he frowned. Why would she react like that? "Anyway, wish me luck. Not that I'm gonna need it though," Haruto said grinning over his shoulder as he followed Jirou out the door who was shaking her head audio jacks flopping about.
Behind him Haruto could have sworn he heard a whispered "luck" and that just made his typical grin widen.
"So Jirou-san your Quirk is those little jacks coming out of your ears? What can they do?" Haruto asked as they were standing outside the building waiting for the signal to start and face their villains Sero the tape guy and Kirishima who was able to make his body hard.
Jirou huffed at his words, poking him with one of her jacks. "Don't underestimate me," she grunted before relenting and continuing to explain her Quirk. "I can stick them into objects and hear the vibrations going through them. For instance I should be able to stick one in and locate the villains in this building." This made Haruto grin, that was one major problem down. "Also with these boots I had the support company make I can amplify the sound of my heart beat to cause damage."
They were interrupted when over their ear pieces they were given the signal to start. "Lead the way, headphone girl," Haruto said and raised his hands defensively, seeing the girl's annoyed look.
Jirou walked forward and jabbed her jacks into the building to listen for the telltale vibrations of the other team's footsteps. "They are in the center of the third floor walking back and forth talking. I can't hear exactly what they're saying, but they don't seem like they are going to leave the room."
"Excellent," Haruto said, forming a platform. "Now hop on these will be over in a moment." Jirou hesitated before carefully stepping onto the light. "Don't worry it's perfectly safe. I'll go slower so there's no need to be so scared."
"I'm not scared!" The girl shouted but the death grip she had on the back of his vest told Haruto a very different story.
"Whatever you say Jirou," he said, guiding the platform up and through a window on the third floor as close to the center as he could get. Now which room are they in? There was a hall of tape in one direction and he was about to guide them that way when Jirou stopped him and told him that the villain team and the bomb were in the opposite direction.
Haruto gave a thumbs up over his shoulder and brought the light board to a stop in front of the door she had pointed out to him. "When I tell you to close your eyes do it," Haruto ordered Jirou and she looked like she was about to protest before it seemed like something occurred to her and she grinned nodding. Haruto grinned and dismissed the light board, dropping them quietly to the floor.
He looked at Jirou and gave a nod before opening the door and stepping inside. He saw that the bomb was surrounded in a web of tape protecting it from him just walking up and touching it. He turned and saw that both of the other boys were watching him confused by his unbothered grin.
"What's up guys? You both ready for a fight?" Harutos words made Kirishima give a determined look and harden while Sero raised his elbows ready to fire.. Haruto just kept smiling, edging around them forcing them to look away from the door. This allowed for Jirou to slip inside behind them unnoticed.
"This is so manly. You just walked up and challenged us to a fight," Kirishima said, preparing himself for a charge.
"It's too bad it won't be any fun though," Haruto said, his smile changing to have a fierce gleam. "Now close your eyes." The pretend villains were confused by his words but Haruto didn't give them time to think about it.
The room burst with bright light blinding the two boys. "Now Jirou!" The boys were then assaulted by loud noises making them cover their ears and nearly fall to the ground. Haruto grinned and quickly crossed the room wrapping them in capture tape.
Jirou revealed herself from behind a pillar with a victorious smile on her face. "Now that's a win," she said, closing in on Haruto. Haruto shrugged, an easy smile on his face, offering her his fist which Jirou bumped with her own.
With the last of the matches done with the class gathered in front of the tunnel they had entered the battle center from.
"Good job everyone, this was a very productive lesson and with the exception of Young Midoriya no one was hurt. Aizawa will be going over the results of the exercise with you tomorrow. Now I'm off to check on your classmate." With that All Might took off down the tunnel a dust cloud in his wake.
The class dispersed and were all heading towards the changing rooms when Haruto felt a tug at his vest. He looked over and saw that it was Shoko who had stopped him. "What is it, Shoko?"
"You held back. Why?" She asked, her head tilted to one side, a curious look on her face.
"Because if I didn't, that fight or whatever you want to call it would have been even more boring," Haruto said with a smile on his face. "Plus it was the simplest way to win."
"You're lazy aren't you?" Shoko asked, her face deadpan.
"No, just selective in the use of my energy. And an exercise like this is definitely a waste," Haruto said, stretching his arms as they walked together down the tunnel.
Shoko sighed looking over at him, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "Lazy," she said, and Haruto grabbed at his heart as if struck. This made Shoko let out a soft chuckle and her face was a mask of surprise at herself. This was the first time he had ever heard her laugh and he had to say he liked the sound.
AN: Another chapter down. Hope you are liking the fic. Feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think so far.