Titanium Soul

[CHAPTER 7]: Ex Cathedra

[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which Mei And Izuku Get Mail From A Rat

Ex Cathedra (adj): from the seat of authority; with authority.


The Yaoyoromobile screeched to a stop in front of a large building, leaving tracks of torn grass and scattered dirt behind it.

Mei cackled like a lunatic. "That was amazing, Miracle Girl! Remind me to start designing you a custom vehicle once you get your license!"

"Reminder set."

Izuku untied his makeshift seat belt and slid off the backseat. "You, uh, you sure it's okay to do that to your lawn?"

Momo tied her goggles around the steering wheel and turned back to survey the wake of their high-velocity journey. "Eh, one of the gardeners has a Quirk that can handle that easily."

The door to the training facility swung open and out walked a man who was unmistakably Momo's father. His onyx eyes sparkled as the sunlight threw his chiseled jawline into sharp relief. His eyebrows rose as he noticed the three of them, and a blindingly bright smile spread across his undeniably handsome face. "Ah, didn't expect to run into you here, Momo. These are your friends, Hatsume and… Midoriya, right?"

Mei grinned and flashed a thumbs up. "Yep! So are you Mr. Yaoyorozu?"

Momo frowned. "So she does know my name," she mumbled to herself.

Mr. Yaoyorozu nodded. "Yep, that's me!" He turned back to Momo. "Did you tell your mother you were having them over today?"

Momo made a face. "I would've, but we have things we actually wanted to get done today."

He laughed and reached over to ruffle her hair. "At least stay for dinner, alright? We don't really get to see you all that often these days, what with you moving to the other estate to be closer to UA. Your friends are welcome to join us too!"

Mei gave a jaunty salute. "Sure thing, Mr. Yaoyorozu!"

He replied with a pearly white grin. "Well, kids, I'd love to stay and chat but I have a meeting at the Hero Commission that I really can't afford to miss!"

And with that, he hopped on the other, much tamer looking golf cart parked nearby and zoomed off at a far more reasonable speed than what the three of them had gone at to get there.

Izuku frowned. "Is it just me, or was he, uh…"

Mei tilted her head. "Criminally attractive?"

Izuku considered that for a moment. "I was gonna say 'unrealistically photogenic' but basically, yeah. Momo, is your dad's Quirk 'Adonis' or something?"

Momo blinked. "No, he's just like that."

He set his face to his best 'dubious' expression. "I'm gonna research your family tree, that has to be some sort of minor mutation."

She shrugged. "Make sure you send me the results then. Moving on… Welcome to the Yaoyorozu training facility!"

She walked up to the door, which promptly scanned her eyeball. Fancy. With a pleasant 'ding', the doors slid open, revealing the most disgustingly well-furnished gym Izuku had ever even heard of in his life.

Mei grinned wildly and cracked her fingers. "Then let's get to work."


Momo pressed the button on the stopwatch as Izuku passed the finish line. "That's 1:44.2 for 1 km… Works out to 9.6 m/s, so 34.5 km/h or 21.4 mph in imperial units."

She jotted that down on her clipboard and hummed thoughtfully. "That's around the top of the line for a normal human, even though you're a lot heavier than one."

Mei cheered. "That's my baby!"

Izuku patted her head absently. "Yes, Mei, we know. So, what's my rating?"

Momo frowned and bit the end of her pen. "You're still at Quirk Magnitude 1, but at the upper end."

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Right. It'll probably go up if we manage to raise the overload threshold though."

"That is correct. As of right now, if you were to push past the overload limit and operate at peak performance, I estimate your capabilities will improve by a factor of 2 to 2.5 for about 45 seconds before core ejection becomes necessary."

Mei whistled, impressed. "That's… pretty damn good. I guess I should get on that, then."

Izuku nodded. "Yeah, you're the only person here that understands how that thing works."

Momo frowned. "Just thinking about it gives me headaches."

Mei smirked. "Oh, sweetie, you think I know how it works? I've just been throwing everything I have at the wall and hoping it sticks."

Izuku looked down to stare at his chest. "I mean, that's kind of impressive on multiple levels but it doesn't make me feel any better about being powered by it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying you want to switch back to battery tech? I'm sure you'll work great for the five minutes that'll last."

He winced. "Point taken. Continue as you were."

"I hate to interrupt, but I have just been made aware that your UA letter has arrived."

The group of three froze and stared at each other.

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. "To the Yaoyoromobile?"

Mei slapped his back and started running for the door. "Zuzu, you just read my mind!"

He shrugged and followed her. "Great minds think alike, I suppose."

The three of them piled back into the Yaoyoromobile and sped off back towards the main estate.


Hitoshi Shinsou lay spread-eagle on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

He… he'd definitely failed the entrance exam, right? He hadn't even gotten a single point.

But Present Mic had said they were going to change the entire admissions process due to… whatever it was those people had done, right?

But still, he hadn't even gotten a single point. He'd been incapacitated by a single one pointer dying on him! It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to see them turning him down for being useless on top of having a villain's Quirk, would it?

"Hitoshi! The UA letter is here!"

He jumped out of his bed, scrambling out the door to where his mom was. "Coming!"

She tossed him the letter- Oh, that was pretty hefty, huh? - and smirked. "Good luck!"

He smiled nervously back. "Thanks, Ma."

Hitoshi wandered back up to his room, holding the envelope gingerly.

Was this a rejection letter? Or did he still have a chance? He wouldn't lie to himself; there was no chance this was an acceptance to the hero course, but that didn't mean that was the end of the line. He could still get into General Education and use the Sports Festival to claw his way into the Hero Course.

So what was it going to be? A straight shot, or the long way around?

He took a deep breath and tore open the letter.

A metallic disk clattered to his desk.

Huh?

With a low hum, the hologram projector started up.


Izuku, Mei, and Momo stared at the envelope on the workbench in front of them.

"So," began Izuku, "this is it, huh?"

Mei sighed and shoved him to the side. "If we were going to wait for you to work up the nerve, we'd be here all day. Besides, it's technically my letter anyways!"

There was a tearing of paper and the clatter of metal on the workbench, followed by a low hum and a soft blue glow.

"Hello! It's me, Principal Nezu! Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear? Who knows? More importantly, I am the principal of UA!"

What?

Izuku scrambled back up to see the holographic projection of Principal Nezu, who was indeed probably a dog or mouse or bear, waving cheerfully at them.

"Firstly, I would like to thank you for demonstrating the flaws in our entrance exam by shamelessly exploiting them! I've been waiting for someone to do that."

Izuku blinked. He'd been waiting for someone to break the entrance exam?

Nezu continued speaking. "Now, due to the unfortunate consequences of such actions, namely depriving everyone else in your testing arena of robots to fight and gain points from, we've been forced to alter our admissions system to give all our applicants a fair chance. We will be conducting interviews of everyone from that testing arena while we work on designing a new system for next year!"

Yeah, that made sense.

"Normally we would just accept you no questions asked since you followed the instructions to the letter and certainly passed the required threshold... However, there are certain… circumstances… concerning your admittance that we would like to discuss. The date and time for your interview can be found in the envelope this hologram player was in."

Mei picked up the envelope and pulled out a set of papers.

Holo-Nezu paused and leaned closer. "Oh, and do bring Mr. Midoriya, or the android that bears his face; that determination shall be made at a later date."

Izuku shivered. That was certainly ominous.

The holographic rat-man straightened up and returned to his cheerful smile. "That is all! I look forward to our conversation!"

The projector shut off.

Mei began flipping through the papers. "Alright let's see… cover letter, map to UA— as if we didn't have to get there to take the test in the first place— a written version of the message in case I'm deaf, aaaand details. Our interview is the day after tomorrow, 3:00 PM. You get that, HERoS?"

"Calendar updated: UA Interview at 3:00 PM in two days."

She flashed a thumbs up at the computer unit sitting in the corner. "Thanks."

With a clap of her hands, she turned to Izuku. "Hey, Zuzu, have you ever done an interview before?"

He blinked. "No?"

She frowned. "That's a shame. No time like the present, I guess?"

He tilted his head. "But, we passed. He said we passed. We just need to clear some stuff up, right?"

Momo tsked disappointedly. "Oh, Izuku, I thought you were smarter than that. This interview probably holds two purposes: to determine if you're actually a person or just a robot convinced it's a person, and to determine whether or not Mei is psychologically stable."

He blinked again. "But I am and she isn't."

Mei laughed. "Yeah, well, they don't know that, do they?"

He stroked his chin in exaggerated contemplation. "But, isn't going in with no idea what you're doing technically a more human reaction than proactively preparing for it?"

Momo pursed her lips. "I suppose, but that's not really the point is it? You're trying to make a good impression."

"But not too good," Mei chimed in. "Or else they'll think you're a robot."

Izuku raised a hand. "Doesn't Principal Nezu have, like, a very powerful intelligence Quirk? If his concern is whether I'm an actual person, can't we just trust that he'll arrive at the correct answer without us doing anything weird about it?"

Momo sighed. "And not preparing for an interview with the literal top school in the country, Hero or not, very distinctly deviates from the norm."

He snapped his fingers and sighed dramatically. "Well, I guess you've got me there. C'mon, Mei, let's learn how to get interviewed."

Mei slammed her fist on the workbench. "I already know how to handle an interview! I walk in, toss 'em a few of my babies, and I'm in!"

Momo sighed and put her hand to her forehead. "I guess I'm coaching both of you, then."


Izuku stared up at the imposing UA Gate, feeling vaguely out of place wearing a button-up, slacks, and a blazer over his robot chassis. "I'm getting the feeling I should say something dramatic right about now, but I got nothing."

Mei, who somehow managed to sneak past Momo in her normal outfit, rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, dragging him in through the Gate. "C'mon Zuzu, we don't have all day! We have a rodent to impress!"

"Hey," he admonished. "That's rude."

She tilted her head curiously. "But it's true. He is literally a rodent."

"He might be a rodent. He also might be a dog, bear, or some combination thereof, so the safest bet is to just say mammal."

Mei frowned. "We have a mammal to impress? See, it doesn't really have the same flair, you know? I'm a mammal. Most people are mammals! It's not something out of the ordinary to be a mammal. Rodents, however, usually aren't individuals you set out to impress."

He sighed. "Let's just focus on the task at hand."

She shrugged and pushed open the glass doors of the main building. She wolf-whistled at the size of the room. "Wow, they really weren't kidding when they put 'Plus Ultra' as the school motto, huh."

Izuku shrugged and looked around. "I mean, this is a Hero school, I wouldn't be surprised if this was at least partially for the purposes of Quirk-related accessibility."

He paused. Was that—

It was.

The Clone Hero: Ectoplasm was sitting behind the receptionist's desk, playing a game on his phone.

Izuku cursed himself for not bringing his notebook. Sure, he'd digitized the whole series and could update them on the fly with nobody noticing, but he couldn't collect pro hero signatures when he didn't have a touchpad built into him! He'd have to make sure a notebook compartment was included in the next iteration of Corpus Primus.

Ectoplasm looked up from his phone. "Oh, are you here for the interview? Can I have your names?"

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. "Izuku Midoriya and Mei Hatsume? It's probably down as Mei, but it was requested that I show up as well."

He typed into his keyboard and peered at the screen. "Yeah, that was noted down here as well. You're the 3:00 slot, right? Just head straight down that way and get in the elevator at the end of the hallway, you literally cannot miss it."

He grinned and nodded. "Thank you, sir!"

Mei wandered up behind him. "Wow, I expected to have to drag you away from every pro hero we ran into along the way. I'm impressed."

"Eh, we're on a schedule. Not to mention," Izuku smirked as he headed down the hallway, "he'll still be there when we leave. I have no plans to let this opportunity go to waste."

She grinned and bumped shoulders with him. "Heh, just wait 'till we actually get in! I'm pretty sure the faculty is all pro heroes, along with at least a third of the staff."

He grinned back. "Yeah, don't they have Thirteen on staff? I have a lot of questions about her Quirk in particular."

He stopped, staring at the absurdly large and shiny doors of what Izuku assumed was the elevator in question. The doors slid open with a pleasant ding, revealing an equally large interior.

Mei grabbed his arm once more, pulling him into the elevator. "Yes, yes, big shiny door, we can gape at it later."

Izuku frowned as the doors slid shut behind them. "I wasn't gaping at it. I just think the situation calls for more reverence than you're really capable of displaying."

She shrugged dismissively. "Reverence schmeverence, you need a hell of a lot more than a spatially inefficient interior to get my respect. I mean seriously, there's Quirked accessibility and then there's UA."

"Plus Ultra," mumbled Izuku.

She nodded sagely. "Yeah, that'd do it."

With a second ding, the elevator doors slid open.

Mei winced. "Yikes."

The room before them held around a dozen Hero Course applicants scattered throughout, each in various states of nervousness and despair. The silhouette of a boy lay draped across two chairs as if awaiting his death sentence. A very rectangular looking boy with glasses sat ramrod straight in his chair, staring directly forwards but seeing nothing. A brown-haired girl was frantically re-reading her resume in an attempt to burn the information into her brain.

"How could they give us just one week to prepare? There wasn't even supposed to be an interview!"

The rectangle boy nodded decisively and made very enthusiastic hand-chops. "Indeed! A hero must be prepared for unexpected situations, but interviews require careful preparation and forethought!" He paused for a moment. "However! Regardless of extenuating circumstances, none of us collected enough points to pass normally. This is a generous second chance that this institution has granted us! The faculty are taking the time out of their undoubtedly busy days to ensure that everyone has an if not equal, then fair opportunity for their skills and efforts to be recognized!"

The silhouette raised a hand lazily. "Yeah, well, it's not our fault we got put in the same arena as whatever maniac managed to kill 'em all in six minutes."

Izuku winced. On second thought, hacking into the robots and instantly killing all of them would make it rather difficult for anyone else to pass.

Mei grinned and flounced into the room. "Hey! You're the kid with engines in his legs!"

The engine kid's eyes bulged as Mei entered the room. "You! You're the woman who propositioned me and asked me to help you make babies!"

Oh no. Thinking back, Mei had been unsupervised and in the same room as normal people for about half a day before the practical portion of the exam started. Izuku should have known better.

He ran in after Mei. "Mei, what did I tell you about asking people to make babies-" he turned to the very understandably indignant boy. "She loves making inventions and she calls them her babies, she wasn't propositioning you, I'm so, so sorry!"

The rectangle boy blinked and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Ah. So it was a misunderstanding! I deeply apologize for interpreting your words in such an unbecoming manner!" He dropped into a deep bow.

Izuku blinked before waving his hands frantically. "No, no, It's okay! I've been trying to get her to stop saying that stuff myself, but she just keeps doing it! I'm sorry!"

The boy bowed even deeper. "No, no, it was my mistake! I mistook her genuine curiosity and ingenuity as something unsavory and branded her a degenerate- the fault is mine!"

Mei smirked and sidled up to him. "Well, if you really wanna make it up to me… you can always let me take a look at your legs! I've taken engines apart before, you won't feel a thing!"

He looked down at his legs sadly. "I apologize, but I cannot allow that to happen. Whatever debt I owe you for my uncouth behavior is still greatly overshadowed by the legacy I must uphold."

Legacy? Izuku's eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. "That's who you reminded me of! Are you related to the Pro Hero Ingenium?"

He nodded proudly. "He is my older brother. Ah! I forgot to introduce myself! I am Tenya Iida, pleased to make your acquaintance!"

Izuku nodded back. "Izuku Midoriya, and this is Mei Hatsume. Likewise."

Iida smiled pleasantly. "Excellent! While all of us here may be victims of circumstance, having been put in a position where we were unable to score any points, I am glad that this has at least provided an opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding!"

"Oh," began Mei, "We scored plenty of points."

And every head in the room turned to stare at them. Izuku's heart sank.

Iida's eyebrows rose. "Ah! You will surely be great heroes if you were able to score enough points to pass in such little time! Truly commendable!"

Izuku forced a smile and put his arm around Mei. "Alright, Mei, let's just-"

Mei waved him off. "Nah, we're the ones that shut em all off."

Izuku put his hand against his face. Great. Glares burned into them from all corners of the room, but Iida seemed… impressed?

"Incredible! There were over 900 robots in that arena, if you managed to defeat all of them in less than six minutes then you must be the best of the best! I do find myself wondering what kind of Quirks were used to get that kind of result?"

Mei grinned dangerously. "I can magnify my vision and he's straight-up a robot. We just hacked into one and went from there; nothin' but raw brainpower over here!"

Iida opened his mouth to reply, but the door to the interview room swung open. A very miserable-looking boy with a brick for a head walked out of the door, followed by… was that The R-Rated Heroine: Midnight? She was holding a clipboard and looked out across the room with predatory eyes. "Alright, do we have a Mei Hatsume and Izuku Midoriya here?"

Mei waved to Iida and bounded up towards Midnight. "Yep!"

Izuku smiled apologetically at Iida and hurried after Mei, eager to escape the glares of the other applicants. "Yes, ma'am!"

Midnight's eyebrows rose. "Ooh, this one's polite. I could just eat you up."

Izuku blinked his eyescreens as he passed by her. "Please don't, this hardware is expensive."

She laughed and closed the door behind them.

Izuku looked around the room; they were high up, at least four stories, with a massive wall-length window on the far side of the room. There was a semicircular table pointed at them, populated by various Pro Heroes (including All Might, whom he could call All Might because he was in his All Might form), with a strange egg-shaped object at the head of the table.

The egg-shaped object rotated, revealing that it was actually a swivel chair containing one dog or mouse or bear, Principal Nezu himself.

"Ah, Miss Hatsume. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. We have much to discuss."


[EXTRA #1]: Grapevine

A/N: This, along with all upcoming Extras, is canon to Titanium Soul.

Ibara Shiozaki and Minoru Mineta stood side by side, looking up at an empty office building.

"You asked me what made me believe in God."

Mineta nodded quietly.

Shiozaki swallowed, closed her eyes, and spoke. "Seven years ago, my father worked here. Seven years ago, it burned down. I watched it on TV."

He stayed silent.

"I wasn't particularly devout, but I was still raised Christian. So I prayed. I asked the Lord, please, send someone, anyone, to save my father."

She turned to him. "And then All Might arrived. With his wide smile and cheesy lines, with his indomitable strength, he saved everyone. And that's when I knew, in my heart of hearts, that that man was the Hand of God."

She turned back to the building. "And I knew that if I were to take up the mantle of hero, if I were to stand beside that man, that I too could do the Lord's work. Does that answer your question, Minoru Mineta?"

Mineta nodded slowly, deep in thought. "I… I think it does."

She sighed. "If it helps, I don't think it matters what religion you join. It matters not in what form you find God, so long as you do find Him. Don't feel pressured to be Christian just because I am."

"Oh, okay. Thank you, miss…?"

She smiled. "Ibara Shiozaki. I hope to see you at UA, Mineta." She extended her hand to him.

Mineta smiled softly and took it. "Likewise."


A/N: [PIXELKIND] And there's the chapter! Originally, the interview was gonna be included but I ended up running the word count way up. Iida is actually surprisingly fun to write!

My current goal is to post a chapter of something monthly, so split between this, NGA, and a future project this fic will probably update between every other month and every third month.