"And I was lying, no one's going home."

Izuku nearly passed out from the shock. His name was on the bottom of the list, right below Mineta, who he learned was the short, purple-haired pervert from earlier. He had been scared to death about being kicked out. Sensai and tou-nii would have been furious.

Mr. Aizawa continued after a moment, a sadistic smile crossing his face, "That was just a rational deception to make sure you gave it your all."

Everyone paused for a moment before freaking out. Yaoyorozu looked at us in surprise before saying, "You guys didn't realize? I'm sorry, I guess I should have said something." We just looked at her, all thinking the same thing.

Yeah, you should have.

Mr. Aizawa then turned around and headed back towards the school, "That's it, we're done for the day. Grab a syllabus on your way back to the classroom. Read it over by tomorrow morning."

The students just stared at their teachers retreating back before his words caught up to them. "What?! He lied to us!" Uraraka exclaimed. His friends nodded in agreement, some voicing their displeasure while others just looked relieved that none of them were being kicked out.

Izuku himself was just happy he wasn't going to go home a failure. Actually, he was just happy that the day was over. Don't get him wrong, he enjoyed his new friends, but he was mentally and emotionally exhausted from how much talking he'd had to do today. Not to mention the temporary breakdown he had during the test. He was just looking forward to sleeping if he was honest.

His classmates started disbanding, some heading out alone while most others left in groups. It seemed that the injustice of today was being forgotten in favor of hanging out with friends.

"Hey Guys! Why don't we head out to the mall or something! It'll be fun!" Hagakure said excitedly. If he had been able to see her face, he would've bet it was brighter than the sun as she bounced up and down excitedly.

The rest of his friends quickly agreed and it wasn't long before everyone was staring at him, waiting for his answer. He wanted so desperately to go and hang out with them, even if he was more tired then he's been in a long time, he didn't want to disappoint his new friends.

If he was being honest with himself, he was terrified that they would leave him.

But he couldn't. He wasn't allowed to go and hang out. It was against the rules that let him even see the light of day in the first place.

Lowering his head, he regretfully declined, "I'm sorry guys. My-" he nearly chocked on the words, "parents, don't like me staying out."

The disappointment was clear as day on their faces. Especially Uraraka's and Iida's.

Kirishima grinned at him, "Don't worry dude! That's alright. We understand, right guys?"

The rest of his friends quickly nodded, smiles breaking out on their faces again. Uraraka stepped forward and placed her hand on his shoulder, "Yeah! Like Kirishima said, it's okay! Maybe you can talk to your parents and convince them to let you join us next time."

Izuku blushed at the sudden physical contact. He was unused to comforting gestures, in fact, he was unused to physical contact of any sort. The people he grew up around weren't really the touchy-feely type of people.

"Y-yeah, I-I'll talk t-to them about I-it," he managed to stutter out.

Apparently his friends found this cute, as they suddenly started cooing over him.

Snap!

His head shot up as he heard the sound of a camera. He saw Hagakure trying to hid her phone from him by quickly shoving it behind her back. A squeak escaped his mouth as he quickly turned around and started power walking back to the classroom. His bangs fell down in front of his, effectively hiding his tomato red face.

He could hear his friends calling out to him in a teasing tone, but he refused to turn around. They would just make fun of him more.

Embarrassment crawled up his spine, heating up his face more and stinging his eyes. The tears wouldn't fall though, he made sure of that.

Before he knew it, he was in front of the 1-a classroom once more. The scene almost identical to this morning. The only difference being the other students that were now entering the classroom as well.

Taking a deep breath, he walked through the door. Embarrassment still twisted in his stomach like a snake, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before.

Inside the classroom, there were more of his classmates gathered around, talking in little groups as the grabbed their things. He spotted his things on the desk he had chosen earlier. He walked over and grabbed all of his things, slipping his backpack onto his shoulders, and turned towards Mr. Aizawa's desk. There was a stack of papers on the desk, facing outwards. He could only guess that this was the syllabus that they were supposed to read. Grabbing one, he stuffed it into his backpack before leaving.

As he was walking out the door, he suddenly felt himself run into someone, almost causing both of them to fall over.

Luckily, he caught himself and groaned, rubbing his forehead. He had hit his head pretty hard with the other person's.

Other person...

Oh crap!

He quickly regained his posture, though his head remained lowered. Izuku couldn't stand to look the other person in the eye, "I-I'm s-so s-sorry! I wa-wasn't looking w-where I was g-going. Again, I-I'm sorry!"

He heard a grunt from the person, though he couldn't tell if it was from pain or annoyance.

"It's okay. I should have been watching where I was going as well." The person's voice was somewhat deep, and it was soft with understanding.

Izuku felt his eyes widen. He had expected the other to at least be a little angry. "A-are you sure? I did run into you after all..." his voice trailed off at the end, shame closing up his throat.

A thought suddenly entered his mind and his eyes shot up to the other as he said, "O-oh! Are you hurt or-"

He couldn't speak. In front of him stood one of his classmates. But it wasn't just any of them, it was him.

Oh shit.

A flustered feeling burst into his chest as green met grey and blue. Izuku could feeling his face get warmer, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from those eyes.

"I'm fine. Though I should really be asking you that. You hit your head pretty hard." Izuku suddenly had to focus as his classmate started talking again. He just blinked for a moment before his mind finally registered what he had said. His face burned as he quickly turned his head to the side, trying to hid behind his hair, "O-oh, I'm just fine! Th-though it was your head that I hit it on, so I'm j-just glad you aren't hurt or anything."

His classmate just stared at him for a moment, as if gaging I'd he was really telling the truth, before nodding, "That's good. You're Izuku Midoriya, right?" Izuku nodded sheepishly, "I'm Shouto Todoroki." He extended his right hand and Izuku shakily took it.

"Hey idiots!" Both of them jumped at the sudden loud voice. Both of them turned to see Bakugou standing behind them, an ever present scowl on his face. "Some of us want to go inside," a growl accompanied the statement, making Izuku flinch and shuffle his feet.

He was about to apologize when Todoroki beat him to it, "Of course, my apologies, Bakugou." He then stepped to the side and Izuku scrambled to follow suit. Bakugou stormed past them, muttering profanities the whole way.

Izuku sighed once Bakugou passed him, releasing a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.

"I should probably be going now."

He looked back over to where Todoroki stood checking his phone. Izuku quickly nodded and moved to let him pass through the door as well, "S-so, I guess I'll see you t-tomorrow then?" He asked quietly, nervous about his answer.

To his relief, Todoroki simply nodded, "Yeah."

And with that, Todoroki entered the classroom, leaving him to just stand there. He would have stayed there too, if he hadn't heard the familiar voices of his friends coming from the hallway. Images of Hagakure taking pictures of him flashed through his mind were enough to get him moving again, his encounter with Todoroki momentarily forgotten as he focused on avoiding his friends. It's not that he didn't want to see them again, he just didn't think he could handle the embarrassment of being called cute again.

Izuku finally exited the classroom and turned in the opposite direction of where the voices were coming from. He still didn't know the layout of the building, but he was sure that there was another exit.

After successfully avoiding his friends and being temporarily lost, he found himself walking out the gates of Yueei. He spared a moment to look glade behind him to the building. It had always been his dream to attend this very school, and now that he was he thought he would have been overjoyed. And while still felt awe and pride when he thought about having made it, he couldn't help but notice the hole where his happiness should have been. He had made it, yes, but not under the circumstances he wanted to. This felt fake. It felt disgusting. Like he was betraying all of his morals by doing this.

Shaking off his thoughts, he turned and started in the direction of the base.

He had made it about halfway down the street when a familiar anger-filled voice called out behind him, "Hey broccoli head!"

He barely had time to turn around when he was suddenly grabbed by the collar and shoved against the wall. All he could see was Bakugou's fiery eyes as he was forced to look at him. "You should have been fucking kicked out; you're too weak to be here. I saw how you did on the tests. You failed every single fucking test, so it makes no sense that you're still here!" Izuku flinched as Bakugo ouches the area of wall right next to his head.

"The teacher made a mistake letting you stay." He suddenly smirked, "You're just a worthless Deku. Remember that. Compared to me, you're nothing."

Bakugou then let go of his collar and walked in the opposite direction as if none of that had happened.

Izuku was thrown off slightly by the sudden change in mood, but he soon became overwhelmed with relief. For a second there, he had thought that Bakugo was going to blow his head off.

After taking a moment to calm himself, he slowly got up and dusted himself off. Bakugou was long gone now, leaving him to stand all by himself in the middle of the sidewalk. Izuku glanced around once more, making sure that no one else was approaching him. Down the street where he came from, he could still see students filtering out the gates, but none of them seemed to be heading in his direction. Sighing with relief, he turned and continued down the street.

It took a bit of time, and he had to ride the train, but he eventually made his way into the part of the city where the base was. It was one of the more run down parts of the city, and was pretty shady, but he made do.

As he made his way down a dark street, he failed to notice the shadows move as they passed him. He was just passing by one of the alleyways when a dark figure suddenly leapt out and dragged him into the shadows. His yelp was quickly muffled by a black hand covering his mouth, not that it would have helped. The street was barren, no one walked these streets if they could help it.

He felt the hand release his mouth, only to return with a knife to his throat.

"Alright kid, you look like you could spare some money. Hand it over and no one gets hurt," the shadowy figure said. Izuku couldn't make out anything from the figure as they seemed to blend almost impeccably into the darkness. Must have been something to do with his quirk.

He gulped, he had some money on him, sure, but he knew the person wouldn't be satisfied with what little he had. Getting out of this peacefully wasn't an option.

Scanning his surroundings, he was disappointed to see nothing of use in the alley. At most there was a dumpster and a few trash bags. Other than that, there was nothing.

He returned his gaze to the thug, who was clearly getting impatient. His mind wandered to what he had on his person and an idea suddenly popped into his mind.

Quickly, he put on a scared face and pretended to comply with his demands. "O-ok, can I get it out of my pocket?"

The thug looked at him for a moment before nodding, "Alright, just don't try anything funny, got it?"

Izuku nodded, internally smiling. This guy was obviously new to these sorts of things. He slowly reached behind him and into his back pocket to where his money was. Slowly pulling it out, he presented the two crumpled bills to the man.

He looked at it and grunted, "Is this all ya got? Only 2,000 yen? Come on, that can't be all ya-"

The money sudden exploded into two large lions, forcing the man away from him and onto the ground. Growling could be heard as the paper lions stood protectively infront of Izuku.

"Wh-what are those?!" The man yelped, scrambling backwards. Izuku didn't respond, panting from the effort of turning money into lions. Money was made of special paper, so it was very hard to command. He hadn't even been completely sure it would work.

A long moment passed, the only sounds being Izuku's panting and the lions growling. The thug suddenly scrambled to his feet and ran out of the alley, feet hitting the ground hard.

Izuku, for the second time that day, nearly fainted from relief. Seriously, people needed to stop scaring him so much. It surely wasn't healthy.

The lions turned to look at him, one of them leaning close to sniff at his neck. It was then that he realized that there was a small cut on his neck that faintly stung. He raised a hand and lightly touched it, but drew it back with a wince. He looked at his hand and saw a bit of red on his fingers. Groaning, he reached into his other back pocket and brought out some paper folded into little squares. He grabbed a green one and put the others back. The lions continued to keep watch as he summoned a small bunny. It was one of the most simple ones he could do, and in this state, he couldn't do much else.

The bunny looked up at him before hopping it's way up his neck and onto his shoulder, where it then continued on to put its tiny little nose on the cut. The stinging went away and with its job complete, the bunny unfurled itself, turning back into the square of paper it had been before.

Grabbing the green paper, he put it back into his back pocket before dismissing the lions. They bowed their heads and turned back into two bills. Izuku picked the bills up from where they now lay on the ground. Stuffing the back into his pocket, he quickly left the alley. The thug was nowhere to be seen and there was still no one else on the street.

After double checking to make sure he wouldn't get jumped again, he continued on his way. The base wasn't too far away, and he didn't think he'd get jumped again in such a short distance. Then again, today hadn't been his day, so he kept his guard up.

It wasn't long before he was standing in front of an abandoned looking building, front door missing and almost every window broken. Sighing, he stepped inside, careful to avoid broken glass and nails. At a passing glance, it would appear that the building had absolutely nothing worth while inside. But he knew better.

The front was just a ruse to keep people from entering the building. In fact, right behind the entrance was a sturdy door. A lock was present as to keep any homeless people from wandering in, but other than that, one could enter without a problem.

Stepping up to the door, he gave a knock on the door and then stepped back. A minute passed and nothing happened. Izuku fidgeted and was about to knock again when the door swung open.

He looked up and locked eyes with the person inside. He cracked a nervous smile,

"I-I'm back, Tou-nii."