Midoriya yawned as he finished writing down some notes in his notebook when the bell rang to signify the end of the school day. Once the boy had left his mentor the odd mood swings had finally started to die down, with one or two odd exceptions.
For some reason after he had returned to his friends Hagakure and Jirou seemed to be staring at him more than he was pretty sure was normal but he hadn't gotten the chance to ask why.
He pulled up his bag and started putting his stuff away, preparing to ask when yet another unexplainable feeling, one of curiosity and boredom, spread throughout him.
"Ahh, why are you all here?!" He heard Uraraka call out in surprise, and when he looked up he saw surprised to see a massive crowd had gathered outside their class. Bakugou growled as he made his way past while Iida went up to address the situation.
"Do you all some sort of business with us? We do need these exits to be usable." Iida said, tone and expression neutral. Bakugou took a decidedly different approach.
"Move it. They're just a bunch of losers trying to gauge the competition." He said as he stalked towards the group, glaring harshly. The rest of 1-A could only groan in response to the blonde's hostilities. Midoriya felt his own annoyance increase as the blond continued. "Move it extra's. Now you know what the only student with what it takes to be a pro looks like, you can fucking scram."
"Pro jackass material maybe." Midoriya spoke up before he could stop himself and the entire class turned to look at him like he was crazy. Considering what he had just said, he would probably do the same. 'Why the hell did I say that?! Oh god i'm dead now.'
"THE FUCK DID YOU SAY DEKU?!" The blonde screeched as he set off an explosion in his hand, making the greenette flinch hard. Enough that nobody missed it and quickly moves between the two. "IM GOING TO FUCKING KILL YO-"
Boredom, amusement, disgust, anger. Those feelings kept cycling through the marked boy when a newcomer came.
"THIS is class 1-A?!" A bored voice, not to dissimilar from their home room teachers spoke up and they turned to see a boy who even resembled Aizawa in looks, with purple poofy hair, looking at them all unimpressed. "I was told you were impressive, and yet I'm just seeing some squabbling children with inflated ego's. I'll make this quick."
He looked around the room before scratching the back of his head smiling, it proved to be very unsettling. "I wanted to be in the hero course, and so did a lot of the people you see right now. Of course, for one reason or another, we didn't make it."
"Boo-fucking-hoo." Muttered Bakugou and the anger Midoriya felt spiked a lot, too much.
"You really are an ass. I may not have cut it the first time around, but I have another chance. If anyone from a different department makes it far enough in the sports festival, they can transfer us into the her course." The boy's grin then became just a little bit more malicious. "And too make room, they'll need to transfer people out. I'll let you stew on that."
As he said that, the purple haired boy turned and left and the others made way for him to pass. Midoriya and his classmates looked between each other confused while Bakugou just started stalking forward again.
"Any of you other losers got some stupid speech or are you going to get the hell out of my way now?" He asked, setting off a small spark. The crowd quickly made way but all glared at him. Midoriya sighed, ready to leave himself when it happened.
His eyes set on the crowd properly and nothing but overwhelming anger and annoyance swirled within, so much anger that it hurt. He clutched his head with one hand as he leaned against the wall, not noticing the attention it gathered.
Anger, so much anger and annoyance and….
"AHHHHH-"
Blackness.
Midoriya's vision was blurry as he slowly opened his eyes. He closed them again and gave them a moment to focus, before he looked around once more and realized he was in what had become his home away from home, the infirmary. Both Ectoplasm and the nurse were present, looking over some notes.
"Apologies. I should of seen the signs. Empathy. It's empathy."
'Huh? Outsider? What the…'
"Ah good, you're awake." He heard the annoyed tone of the elderly nurse and he couldn't help the tiniest grin on his face at what she said next. "Honestly, should just reserve one of these beds for you at this rate."
"What happened?" The teen asked, his last memory being of the purple haired boy's weird confrontation.
"You passed out in class. Screaming." Recovery girl said as if it was the most common thing in the world. "Honestly you may of scared your classmates more in a few seconds than they were through the entire USJ incident considered how panicked those girls were when they brought you here."
"Girls?" He asked, confused. 'Uraraka?'
"Hagakure and Yaoyorozu I believe. The invisible girl was especially concerned, we had to practically force her out." The woman explained before she pointed at Ectoplasm. "As for what happened, we were hoping you could tell us. He thinks it might be power related but other than that, we are completely in the dark."
"Hm…" The boy scratched tge back of his marked hand as he tried to remember what happened. But all he could recall was emotion. "I don't really remember what physically happened, but I was….so angry. Like a scary amount of anger and….it's like it wasn't mine…..wait….Empathy…."
It hit the boy what the outsiders random message had meant. Groaning he placed his hand on his head and massaged it.
"Interesting…." Ectoplasm murmured as he placed a hand to his chin in thought. "And have there been any other moments of this?"
"Actually….yeah. On the train here today and in class…and….oh god It must of started in the abbey building." Midoriya felt sick as he realized the pain that had shot through his shoulder back then was Harkuki's pain. "What….what now?"
"Well, it would be best if you avoid large crowds of people until we figure this out but…." His trainer looked up with a sigh. "You may have to withdraw from the sports festival."
"…." Midoriya just remained silent, unsure how to respond.
"By the way, before the Yaoyorozu girl left, she made something for you. It's at your bedside." Recovery girl mentioned as she wrote down some notes. Turning to the end table beside him he was surprised to see a stress ball with a little note beside.
'Midoriya
Hope you are ok. Sorry so much has happened to you.
- Yaoyorozu'
He couldn't help but smile a little at that, picking up the ball and rolling it in his hands. "So what now?"
"Well, for now you recover. If you're fine then we'll send you home tor now and tomorrow at lunch we'll do the usual: Emergency training session." Ectoplasm explained as Midoriya squeezed the ball, nodding in understanding. "Don't be completely discouraged though, if we can find a way to control it you can take part."
Midoriya just sighed as he laid back in the bed.
Midoriya ultimately got to go home at seven, and when he returned been fretted over by his mother who had heard the news. To his surprise there had been no visit from the outsider when he had drifted to sleep, instead just waking up the next day from a dreamless sleep.
He got ready fast enough and made his way out the door after more fussing from his mom. The train ride to school wasn't all that different from the day before, just he now knew why he was having odd feelings.
It was weird, a part of him felt like he was breaching people's privacy which made the whole thing even more weird.
Once he finally arrived at class, things got even more odd. He walked in and the rest of the class all looked up to see him, though they did it oddly slow, as if trying not to spook him. He could feel both happiness and concern, which he supposed was fair all things considered.
Sitting down, he heard some quiet mutterings welcoming him back but everyone seemed surprisingly subdued. Even Aizawa had taken on a tiny bit of a softer approach to the boy, which meant a lot coming from the man. 'Guess they know about my new power."
The greenette set his head down and got to work but he had no idea what was going on, the only one who still acted normally was Bakugou and really that was anything but a blessing.
Break finally rolled around and everyone moved about to talk to each other, his usual group of friends coming over to him. He almost groaned when they were all obviously being carful as if he was made of glass.
"So are you feeling better, Deku?" Uraraka asked while obviously trying to suppress some emotion and Midoriya just sighed.
"Please stop that. I'm fine Urachan, and i'm not going to shatter if you just be yourself." He said loudly enough for everyone to hear. "It took like a hundred people all feeling the same emotion, i'll be fine. You guys don't need to suppress yourselves or anything."
"Are you sure? We don't want to do anything that might negatively effect your new abilities." Iida said though clearly he had loosened up a little as had the others.
"I'm sure. I'll be fine ok, honestly acting different will probably just stress me out." The boy said before his eyes lit up, remembering something. "Excuse me a moment."
He made his way to the back where Yaoyorozu sat al9ne, reading over something in one of her textbooks. "Hey, Yaoyorozu?"
"Hm?" The black haired girl looked up, and was surprised when she saw the greenette before. "oh, yes Midoriya? Is everything all right?"
"Yeah, i'm fine. I just wanted to say thanks." The boy explained as he pulled out the stress ball and her eyes lit up in recognition as a small smile passed by her face.
"You're welcome, but I felt like you needed something after everything that's happened. Its not much." She said as she tried to wave it away, but Midoriya gave her his best smile regardless.
"Still, I appreciate it." He said before turning going back to his friends. Now he just had to see what lunch would hold.
"So how exactly are we training with this power? It's not exactly physical…" Midoriya asked as he looked at the three Ectoplasm clones before him in gym Beta.
"Well, we still need to understand the fundamentals. First, what are these clones feeling?" Ectoplasm asked from behind him, where he was observing.
"Well, two of them are happy and one is annoyed. How do you even make them have different feelings anyways?"
"Practice, lots of it." The teacher explained. "Now can you pinpoint who exactly is feeling what emotion?"
The greenette focused on the feelings of happiness and felt a pull teo the two clones on the outside, and when he focused on the feeling of annoyance he felt a pull to the one in the middle. "Middle is annoyed, the others are happy."
"Correct." The teacher confirmed and, after the boy closed his eyes, created a new set of clones. "Keep your eyes closed. They are beside you, can you still feel emotion?"
"Yeah, they're all happy." The boy said and he heard a nlise of confirmation and the scuffling of feet.
"They are now as far away as can be, do you feel anything?"
"No."
"Open your eyes." The boy complied and looked off to see the clones incredibly far away, though one was closer than the others.
"Can you feel anything if you look at them?"
"Well, the closest guy is annoyed but the others….they're too far away." Midoriya explained and Ectoplasm hummed in surprise.
"That mean there is a range limit, and that seeing them can help increase that range but only so far. So you're only in trouble if you are actually next to a massive crowd." Ectoplasm explained as he wandered into sight and Midoriya sighed.
"Like I would be at the sports festival."
"I presume you have already tried turning it off?" Ectoplasm questioned and the greenette nodded.
"As far as I can tell, it doesn't turn off."
"Your right, it doesn't." A cold, familiar voice said and Midoriya shot his head up in surprise. He wasn't in the void he didn't think but the world was frozen and a see through visage of the outsider stood leaning against a wall. "A more tiring form of visiting the world, even for a god. Better saved for short visits like this. I will be gone In a moment but I felt I should explain your second set of powers and how they differ from the first."
"Second? Wait are you saying i'm getting more soon?" Midoriya asked with a quirked eyebrow and the outsider almost seemed to chuckle.
"You were always getting more. That is not what I mean when I refer to you having two different sets of powers. You have always had two, a set of 'active' powers and a set of 'passive powers'" The deity said as he stood up straight. "Your Far Reach, Dark Vision and Domino all follow the same basic rule: You can summon them at any time simply by tapping into your magic. If a power is like that, it's an active power."
"Wait…then what's my passive set? My natural enhancements?" Midoriya questioned and the black-eyed god nodded.
"If they are either constantly active like your strength, speed, agility etcetera, then it is a passive power. Also, if it requires a certain set of conditions to be met before it can be used, it is also considered a passive power. This is a dark example but related to your empathy. Do you remember Daud?"
The boy looked down at his feet and that was seemingly all the answer he needed.
"As he was a killer for hire, one of his special passive powers granted him the ability to turn those he killed to ash as they died." He explained and Midoriya shivered. "Of course, someone like you would have no use for such a power, so it ended up being replaced. This is the very first power no marked before you has possessed, empathy is truly your power alone."
"Well….That's….really, really cool honestly." Midoriya said with a small smile that quickly disappeared. "But if I can't turn it off, how do I deal with crowds or that?!"
"Easy. You deal with them." The outsider said and the boy just cocked his head confused. "Just because you cannot turn it off, does not mean it can't be suppressed. As for how, i'm afraid you'll just have to practice hard. "
And with that, the god disappeared in a cloud of smoke and the world returned to motion.
"If it doesn't turn off then this really is problematic." Ectoplasm remarked, none the wiser. Midoriya shooke his head and turned to the man.
"Maybe if we just keep putting me through my paces….maybe I could work up a tolerance to it?" The greenette suggested and the teacher seemed to hesitate. "Please sir? If I can work up a tolerance, that will help me for a lot more than just the sports festival."
"…Ok, but if I think its getting to be too much I will end the session. Is there anything else before we continue?" The cloning pro asked and the marked teen remembered the outsiders words, what he had wanted to talk to the man before him yesterday for.
"A friend told me something that got me thinking, he said 'Sometimes you have to run before you can walk'. If I can weaken Far Rach to change…do you think it's possible to go in the other direction and supercharge it?" He asked and the pro considered it, seemingly surprised by the suggestion.
"Well, I doubt it would hurt to try. I would assume it would be more difficult than brining down the power though." The man remarked and Midoriya smirked. 'Well magic makes no sense so maybe we'll be fine.' "Turn around and close your eyes."
Doing as he was told, the boy got ready. A moment later he was allowed to open them to see an ectoplasm clone in front of him.
"And, go!"
He focused on the raging fire of his magic as he summoned Far Reach and did his best to stoke that fire and turn it into a raging inferno as the power shot out.
Both student and teacher were caught by surprise when the manifested tentacle twisted and contorted, going rigid. The top sharpened into a fine point and where a strong tendril would once be, a sharp lance now took its place in the greenette's hand.
A small smirk passed his face as he ran a hand over it, Ectoplasm looking on with a worried but proud smile. "Now this is a good new power.. "