Chapter 18

.:. A Sweet School Life .:.

Life at UA continued peacefully enough after that chaotic first heroics class. Moste classes continued to prove shockingly mundane, even with Pro Heroes for teachers. A few proved more... interesting, like Midnight's lectures on art history. Or the time Ectoplasm had his clones invade one of Present Mic's classes to get back at him for interrupting one of his classes. Needless to say, they hadn't finished the English lecture that day.

Outside of that, another important school event happened though: the election of a class representative. Following Iida's suggestion they agreed to put it to a vote. After some light discussion they also decided to have students nominate the candidates at Kodai's suggestion. And after some further commentary from Bakugo, it was decided that self-nominations would not be allowed.

"I nominate Yaoyorozu," Sero started. "She came up with that tape web strategy, even if it didn't work."

"Asui deserves some credit too," Komori declared. "She totally won that exercise yesterday by asking for the key!"

"Shouji saved Gran, even if we didn't know he didn't actually need saving yet," Kirishima said. "That was super manly!"

"I nominate Midoriya," Kaminari said with a tight and nervous-looking smile, very pointedly not looking at Izuku as he did so.

"Why do I feel like you're saying that under duress?" Izuku asked.

"...Because I'm mildly terrified of how your grandpa will react if he hears you're not nominated?"

Izuku's face promptly met his desk. "Not my actual grandfather," he grumbled, but went ignored.

"I nominate Satou." Everyone turned to look at Todoroki in surprise, Satou included.

"Why me?" he asked.

"Because of your cookies," Todoroki replied bluntly, and the dorm kids all nodded in understanding. Perfectly valid reasoning.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Asui came in first with seven votes. After essentially "winning" the exercise yesterday, as well as her blunt but friendly nature, Izuku found it only natural to vote for her.

Second place, meanwhile, went to Satou.

"How?" he whispered, looking absolutely bewildered by the "5" written on the board.

"Cookies," chorused Uraraka, Komori, Awase, Todoroki and Shinsou.

"I am conflicted on whether this counts as bribing voters or not," Iida murmured. "I know it was not intentional, but..." He trailed off, looking lost. The rest of the candidates hadn't gotten nearly as many votes. Shouji and Yaoyorozu both got three, while Izuku had gotten two. He suspected those were both more out of fear of his supposed relation to Gran Torino than any genuine admiration.

"Well, what's done is done," Ashido declared. "Long live Class Rep Tsuyu!" There was a chorus of cheers and chants of "All hail Tsuyu" while the frog girl bashfully ducked her head.

"You brats better not start a cult," Aizawa muttered before calling the class to order.

Aside from that, the week really proved uneventful. Even their heroics class proved to be closer to glorified PE classes, at least when they didn't just stay in the classroom going over theoretical lectures. Gran Torino and Aizawa served as co-teachers, but they didn't play another "logical ruse" like that first session. The main highlight proved to be wearing their costumes again—or in Izuku's case, for the first time.

"Huh, so that's what it looks like," Tsuburaba remarked once Izuku finished changing. "Very... green."

"Yeah, it's kinda my thing," Izuku said with a sheepish laugh. He'd based the costume's design on his old childhood sketches, with some tweaks courtesy of Gran Torino. The old man's main point of input: lose the hood with the "bunny ears," as he called them. Izuku had taken great offense at the insult to his homage to All Might's hair, but he'd let it slide.

The design now had a hooded t-shirt, long-sleeved black undershirt, and black pants rather than just being a single-piece costume. He'd still managed to keep the homage to All Might in the hood by having a kind of widow's-peak on the front, telling himself it at least kind of resembled the "V" made by his bangs. For now Izuku kept the hood down though, which let him highlight the other major change to his childhood design: a black domino mask, in homage to Gran Torino.

An homage he was now regretting, given the murmurs of "the family resemblance is real" that he heard from the other boys.

Aside from wearing the costumes, the classes proved to be mostly basic training so far, just simple drills and games just with Quirks added. The main purpose seemed to be to just get them used to doing the exercises and moving around in costume, which suited Izuku fine. It also allowed him to observe his classmates' Quirks in even more detail.

Kodai, for example, could shrink and grow objects she touched. It wasn't useful for jogging or climbing walls, but it made her a force to be reckoned with when Gran had them all play dodgeball. On the other hand, Kirishima's Hardening made him awful at the game since he had the instinctive reaction to just harden his skin instead of, well, dodge.

They had to suspend the game when one oversized dodgeball hit one of Komori's mushrooms, sending a giant cloud of spores throughout the field. Izuku then learned Shinsou's mask had a built-in air filter, which turned out to be very useful since he could retrieve Kaminari. Why the blond thought electrifying dodgeballs was a good idea, Izuku didn't know, especially since he'd used enough electricity to fry his brain.

"Honestly, I'm just surprised more people didn't end up at the infirmary," Kirishima commented in the locker room after the exercise ended. "Some of those balls left craters!"

"Indeed, I suspect I would have broken my wrist had I tried to catch that one ball with my own hands instead of Dark Shadow," Tokoyami mused with a small shudder.

"You still didn't catch it," Sero remarked with a grin, getting a dark glare from the other boy.

"It was powered by Bakugou's Quirk," Awase commented. "Hell, I'm surprised the teachers didn't call you out of the game then. You almost took off my head!"

"Can it, you're the one who kept throwing franken-balls at everyone!" the blond growled. "Those stupid things were almost as bad as Poker Face's giant ones!"

"Mine weren't powered by explosions though. Even if you got hit by them, they wouldn't just blow straight through your body."

"You fused a fucking rock to one!"

"I'm with Awase," Tsuburaba declared, emerging from a stall as he pulled on his uniform blazer. "You almost took off my leg! It totally shattered my barrier!"

"Your stupid air walls are weak anyway," Bakugou scoffed. Izuku just listened to them bicker in silence, carefully folding his costume to stow away. Quirk dodgeball had definitely proved more hazardous than he'd expected. He'd created a crater of his own when he reflexively used Crash to dive out of the way of one of Satou's stronger throws, which ended up creating a hole in the wall behind Izuku. That had been mildly terrifying and Satou had voluntarily left the game after that.

He felt like they got lucky Shinsou managed to goad Bakugou into responding to him and made him walk into the path of another ball not even five minutes into the game. He'd toned down his explosions after the one Tokoyami mentioned, but they'd still been pretty powerful. It was probably good Shinsou volunteered to take Kaminari to the infirmary, since if looks could kill... Well, he should probably be careful.

They all finished changing and returned to the classroom, the rest of the day passing pretty uneventfully. As Izuku expected Bakugou sent a murderous glare at Shinsou when the purple-haired boy arrived, but thankfully he didn't try to confront him about the game. While Bakugou hated losing, he at least tended to accept defeat more gracefully since his rivalry with Hachinose.

When the final bell rang Izuku prepared to leave only for Uraraka to almost teleport in front of his desk, slamming her hands on it. "Tomorrow's Saturday," she declared, an almost vicious gleam in her eyes that had him shrinking back.

"Um, y-yeah...?" he replied hesitantly, feeling suddenly wary.

"School gets out early on Saturdays."

"I... know?" Like many Japanese high schools UA followed a six-day week, with Saturdays ending an hour earlier than the other days. Something about Uraraka's smile made him feel weirdly wary about this knowledge though.

It seemed Tsuburaba was equally wary, because Izuku saw him discreetly try to slip away from his desk in the neighboring row and leave through the other aisle. He failed to escape though, as Uraraka's hand shot out to slap his arm across the desk separating the two aisles, making him yelp as he began floating. She didn't look away from Izuku as she yanked him over Sero's (thankfully unoccupied) desk, still floating and looking understandably alarmed.

"You promised me and Tsuburaba you'd show us all the best places to go!" she declared. "And we still need to celebrate getting into UA!"

"I'm not objecting, but can you please let me down?" Tsuburaba asked, trying to orient himself in the air. She released her grip and pressed her hands together to release her Quirk, causing him to plummet to the floor with a yelp. Some of their lingering classmates winced sympathetically as he lost his footing upon the abrupt landing, arms catching onto a desk to steady himself.

To her credit Uraraka flinched, helping him up. "Sorry, Tsuburaba-kun."

"Why couldn't you just ask me to come over like a normal person?" he muttered, and she paused. Then she shrugged, clearly having no real explanation.

"Um, I'm not against that either," Izuku replied. "In fact, there's a couple places I really wanted to try with you guys!" While he didn't eat out often, he'd heard his old classmates talk about a few cafés and shops they'd visit after school that he'd always been curious about. Visiting them alone felt weird though; they were the kind of places to go with friends, and, well, he didn't really have many.

"If it's to celebrate our admission, then it has to be cake, right?" Tsuburaba asked with a grin. "I can get behind that!" Izuku and Uraraka both hesitated though. While it sounded good, Satou had already basically baked a celebration cake when they all moved into the dorms. The idea just didn't feel as special anymore, though neither of them really wanted to say as much in the face of Tsuburaba's enthusiasm.

"Well, tomorrow's supposed to be kinda warm, right?" Uraraka pointed out. "So how about ice cream? And then we can walk around while we eat it, too!"

Izuku's face lit up at the suggestion, mainly because he instantly had a place in mind. "Yeah, I know a great ice cream place! And there's some stores and restaurants nearby that you guys might like too!"

"Alright, sounds good to me," Tsuburaba agreed, and then crossed his arms with a thoughtful look. "Hey, if we're gonna walk around a lot and it's supposed to be warm, should we change out of our uniforms then?"

"Oh yeah, definitely!" Uraraka said. "I kinda figured that was a given? I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I usually need to wash my uniforms at the end of every week. I only have the one, so." She shrugged.

"That sounds good to me," Izuku agreed, and that was that.

"Cool, so should we just meet at the ice cream place?" Tsuburaba asked.

"Why would we do that?" Uraraka asked, seeming genuinely confused. "Deku and I can just change at the dorms, and we can all head to your place together!"

Tsuburaba paused. "Wait, what?"

That was how they found themselves at Tsuburaba's apartment the next afternoon after a quick stop at the dorms. His apartment building turned out to be surprisingly close to UA, only two stops away by train. "Uh, make yourselves at home?" he said sheepishly as he unlocked the door. Izuku and Uraraka filed in after him, looking around curiously.

It wasn't a particularly large apartment, a two-room affair with the main room being a combined living and dining area with a kitchenette. He had posters for a bunch of old tokusatsu films and shows, most of them sentai-style shows with teams of costumed heroes like the Ultra Series or Kamen Rider. There were also some kaiju models on a shelf by the television.

"Ooh, this stuff is really cool!" Uraraka said, walking over to examine a moth of some kind. "This is Mothra, right? I remember my grandpa really liked these movies!"

"Yeah, Mothra is cool," Tsuburaba agreed, voice oddly strained and high-pitched. Izuku glanced at him to see him looking oddly nervous as he eyed Uraraka, which left him confused. The other boy coughed awkwardly. "I'm, uh, gonna go change. I-I'll see you in a few minutes." He all but fled to his bedroom, leaving Izuku and Uraraka mildly confused.

"Um, do you think he's okay?" Uraraka asked, and he shrugged.

"I don't know?"

"I didn't say anything weird, did I?" she wondered. "Wait, do you think he got embarrassed because I mentioned my grandpa liked Mothra and it made him feel old or something?"

"I... Maybe?" Izuku frowned. Tsuburaba had left pretty fast, and he looked kind of... flustered... Oh.

Uraraka was a classmate and new friend looking at Tsuburaba's very obviously geeky merchandise, and she was also a girl visiting his home. Either one might be enough to get some people flustered. Izuku only had to imagine his classmates seeing his room in all its All Might-themed glory, and he could absolutely understand why Tsuburaba got suddenly awkward and nervous. It probably hadn't occurred to him when they'd made the plans.

(Oh sweet merciful All Might, what was he going to do if they ever did dorm tours?)

Uraraka seemed to realize it too, because her eyes suddenly went wide. "Oh," she whispered, and now they both lapsed into awkward silence. It was only broken when the bedroom door opened and Tsuburaba stepped out, now wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

"Okay, I'm ready to go when you are," he declared. They turned to face him a little too fast, ready for the awkwardness to continue, only for something to catch their eyes. This marked the first time Izuku had seen Tsuburaba's legs, as the boy always changed in a stall in the locker room.

So he'd never noticed that his left leg was a prosthetic from the knee down.

It looked fairly sturdy and, well, leg-shaped, made of a silvery-white material that had become dulled from long exposure to the elements. He had a compression band wrapped around his knee, covering where it attached to his leg, but it still stood out.

Izuku's mind admittedly short-circuited for a second because what was he supposed to do? Staring was obviously rude, but so was commenting on it! Should he just pretend he didn't notice? That would be polite, right? But wait, he'd already been staring for the past few seconds, was it too late?

"Oh right, you guys haven't seen my leg yet, have you?" Tsuburaba mused, cutting into his panicked thoughts. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, didn't mean to surprise you. But yeah, I got a prosthetic. If you guys got questions, you can get them out of the way now, I guess?" He shrugged, smiling but also looking just a little nervous. Izuku couldn't really blame him.

"Do you use that one for hero training?" Uraraka asked with a frown. "That one's good for everyday use, but it's not meant for heavy wear and tear like we'd have for hero training." Now Izuku looked at her in surprise, and so did Tsuburaba. Izuku thought it looked pretty sturdy, but... maybe it wasn't?

"Um, yeah, I'm actually getting a new one on Monday from the support department," Tsuburaba said after a moment. "They said prosthetics take a little longer to make than regular support gear since, well, it's a limb. Can't really have it break in the field if there's a design flaw. They had me wearing all these wires and stuff under my costume this week to get some data to make sure it'd fit with my activity style or something like that. But you're uh, really knowledgeable, huh?"

"I, uh, did some research on them a while ago," Uraraka mumbled, face growing a bit pink. "A friend had to get one. I remember she looked at a model just like that, I think it might've even been the same... brand, I guess?" She shrugged, not looking at either of them. "I don't remember all the terms and stuff. I was already planning to be a hero, so that was kinda on my mind when she showed me the specs."

"Yeah, this one definitely isn't cut out for heavy-duty hero stuff," Tsuburaba agreed. "It's good enough for the entrance exam, but it won't last long if it's constantly up against stuff like that dodgeball game yesterday." Something suddenly clicked in Izuku's brain.

"Kacchan almost literally blew off your leg," he whispered, and Uraraka looked at him in confusion while Tsuburaba burst out laughing.

"Hell yeah he did!" he confirmed with a grin. "You saw how strong his throws were, they would've obliterated this leg. I mean, they'd probably obliterate any leg," he added, becoming more subdued and thoughtful. "Okay seriously, why didn't they pull him out of the game or tell him to stop using his Quirk?"

"Well, Aizawa-sensei did tell him to dial it back after the first one," Izuku pointed out with a shrug. "And, well, he did. That first one he threw at Tokoyami was really strong, but I think that was because he didn't expect it to be that strong. It's kinda hard to figure out how much force is 'too much' right off the bat when you've never had to do it before."

"Yeah, Satou did make a hole in the wall with that one throw," Uraraka said with a nod. "He looked pretty freaked out." Izuku couldn't blame him, and fully sympathized with the shock of unintentionally leaving a hole in a wall.

"Anyways, enough standing around here talking," Tsuburaba declared. "We can keep talking about it after we get ice cream!" Izuku and Uraraka both perked up at the reminder of their original purpose for meeting, and the trio quickly headed out. Once Tsuburaba locked the door he turned to Izuku and gestured towards the hall with a flourish. "Midoriya, lead the way!"

"Right, let's go!" Izuku agreed, eager to get to the store. In a lucky twist of fate the ice cream shop he had in mind wasn't too far away from Tsuburaba's apartment, only taking about ten minutes to reach by foot. It was a family-owned place called Mitsuba Ice, established way back before Quirks and somehow surviving all the related turmoil, even if it had to temporarily close up shop and move buildings a few times.

Despite being a Saturday afternoon it thankfully wasn't too busy, and it only took about five minutes before they exited with ice cream cones in hand. Uraraka gasped as she licked her green matcha cone, face lighting up. "This is so good!" she exclaimed. "I thought this one place back home was the best, but this is even better!"

Tsuburaba directly bit into his chocolate scoop and nodded. "Wow, it really is," he said, and then paused as he noticed Izuku and Uraraka staring at him in absolute horror. "What?"

"How did you do that?" Izuku whispered.

"Do what?"

"You... you just bit it," Uraraka whispered. "With your teeth."

"Um, yeah, you kinda use teeth to bite stuff. What else would I use, my lips?"

"It was your front teeth!" she exclaimed. "Sane people use their back teeth to bite ice cream because it's cold! How are you not in severe pain?"

"I dunno." Tsuburaba just shrugged and took another bite, and Izuku winced as he felt a phantom chill on his own front teeth. He felt a bit more tentative when he went to lick his vanilla cone, but once the flavor washed over his tongue he felt himself relax. It was hard to be horrified by the realization he'd befriended an abominable force of nature when eating Mitsuba-made ice cream.

"My dad says this place has the best ice cream in the world," he commented with a smile, a warm rush of nostalgia washing over him. "He works overseas and doesn't get to come home too often, so whenever he's back in Musutafu we always make it a point to visit this place at least once a week."

Every time his dad came back to Japan he'd drag Izuku to the ice cream shop at some point, and every time without fail he'd declare, "Yep, still haven't found a better place than Mitsuba's!" It had always made Izuku feel so special and giddy that despite traveling all over the world, the best ice cream shop was in his own hometown. Sometimes he wondered if his dad was exaggerating, but he liked to think it was sincere.

He felt a pang of regret that they couldn't tell him about Graft yet. Not because they didn't want to, but everyone was worried about discussing it over a long-distance phone or video call. It admittedly wasn't too likely someone would try to hack the connection, but given Graft's capabilities, anyone who did learn about it through such illicit methods would be dangerous. They'd decided it would be safer to tell him the full details in person, but they had no idea when that would be.

His shoulders sagged at the thought, feeling a brief pang of longing for his dad. Unseen by him Uraraka and Tsuburaba exchanged small frowns, and then nodded before turning back to him.

"Hey Midoriya, we should take a picture by the window," Tsuburaba suggested, snapping Izuku out of his thoughts.

"H-huh?"

"Yeah!" Urararaka agreed with a vigorous head bob. "You can send it to your dad and tell him that Mitsuba Ice has two new fans! We're celebrating getting into UA so we should totally take tons of pictures anyway!" The idea had Izuku standing a bit straighter, a sudden warmth filling him. Sending a picture to his dad?

"Y-yeah, that sounds great," he declared, and Uraraka quickly called out to a nearby pedestrian to ask them to take a group photo. Soon enough the trio crowded by the front window of Mitsuba Ice, the shop's name plastered on the glass behind them as they held up their cones with big grins.

When they got the phone back and Izuku saw the picture, his smile appeared so fast and instantly he didn't even notice it at first. Seeing himself and his two friends grinning at the camera really hammered in that this was real. He had two amazing friends, and potentially even more waiting back at UA. Just a year ago this would have been unthinkable, but now, his life really had changed.

(If he teared up a bit while texting the photo to his dad, the others didn't say anything.)

BONUS: Inside Tsuburaba's Bedroom

Kosei all but slammed his bedroom door and leaned against it, sliding down to the floor with wide eyes. There was a girl. A girl in his apartment. His apartment, full of all his geeky tokusatsu posters and action figures. He thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal, he knew Uraraka was a girl, but the reality proved so much different from what he'd imagined.

"This is like all those anime but so much worse," he whispered to himself, thinking back to all the anime his friend had shown him as kids. They'd seemed so silly and stupid back then, but now the awkward shenanigans was all he could think about. He felt his face burn as he remembered how many of those ended up even more embarrassing, groaning at some of the more ridiculous shenanigans.

"Dammit Ryouta!" Kosei hissed with a small cringe. Why the hell did he have to be into ecchi anime of all things!? He pressed his palms to his face and took a deep breath. "Okay, just change so we can get out of here as fast as possible. No need to panic!"

With a firm nod he got up and hurried to find clothes so he could get them out of there.

(On the plus side, it made him forget to be nervous about how his new friends would react to the prosthetic leg, so... hooray for that? Maybe?)

(...Yeah, no, he was still gonna rip Ryouta a new one for his taste in anime later.)

Wall Casualty Tally: 6

Did you guys think we'd stop with just changing Izuku's backstory?

Pretty busy chapter! Class election happened, Satou unintentionally bribes his way to second place with cookies and Tsuyu begins amassing a cult, dodgeball is played and legs are almost blown off, ice cream is eaten and Tsuburaba's true inhuman nature is revealed... Yep, good start to the school year!

Also, finally debuting Izuku's costume! It's actually not too different from canon. The design of the hoodie is similar, just with short sleeves and no ears. The pants meanwhile are just separate pants instead of being directly connected to the top. Still has the knee pads!

And a minor change: we added some stalls to the locker room. It was an accommodation requested by a previous student that they never bothered removing; there's only two per room and not many people actually use them though. Tsuburaba used it to avoid questions about his leg, and also all the wires and nodes under his costume. (On a related note, if you're curious about the class schedule: there's time blocked out for the heroics classes every day, they just alternate between physical and lectures/theories each day. Gives extra flexibility for the teachers to plan!)

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