Disclaimer: I do not own anything of My Hero Academia (Boku No Hiro Academia), manga or anime, or it's character therein. I do not have any rights to Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine or am I partnered with Kohei Horikoshi so in no way do I make any form of profit of off this. I do this on my own dime and time.
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Author's Note: May have used the first chapters/episode of the series in a weird way for the start of this story but if you think about, fans of the series pretty much know the start of it probably by heart or can easily recite it from memory. Now things begin to take a different route than what has happened in canon.
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Chapter 3: New Allies, Old Allies
Izuku Midoriya had thought that the kind of training he had put himself through was difficult. It wasn't that he didn't have adequate reading and instruction materials or means of equipment but keeping to a strict and rather rigid exercises training regime definitely required a focused mind just to start.
That was what he thought was always the hardest part until three weeks ago.
When All Might told him that he was deemed worthy of inheriting a power, a quirk that he said could be transferred from person to person, Izuku had no idea what was in store for him nor the difference from being chosen worthy of a gift to being made ready to accept said gift.
For the last three weeks at Dagoba Municipal Beach Park, All Might had Izuku cleaning up a rather large section of the beach as a means of training his body. While it was difficult, Izuku quickly learned several things about what All Might wanted him to do.
The primary goal was to use time before the entrance exam to U.A. High to get in much better physical shape than he was now. All Might said that he had expected Izuku to be a skinny fanboy but maybe it would work in his favor since he was more athletic than a typical junior high school student was. He detailed his plan as "Aim To Pass American Dream Plan" to push Izuku further in his training that even the teenager thought was possible.
The secondary goal seemed to be a reminder of sorts. In cleaning up the beach, All Might wanted to instill the lesson that being a Pro-Hero wasn't always about catching flashy villains. He said that in the early days of being a Pro-Hero, there was times that they would do work for the community. Most considered the work to be too beneath them but All Might said that being a hero also carried the dangers of allowing the celebrity status to go their heads. He said he had seen too many promising Pro-Heroes fully commit themselves to being just that but after a few victories or celebrated accomplishments did they adopt the thinking that they were a better tier of Pro-Heroes than others.
Izuku understood that premise but the one thing he had constantly on his mind each time he came out to the beach to start working on removing the trash was how some of the items actually made here. Izuku knew that the current of the ocean tended to carry some garbage to this from time to time but even he knew there was no way the ocean washed up things like oil drums, multiple shoe lockers, and a two-person delivery vehicle!
The teenager was starting to suspect that All Might was bringing in some extra items when he wasn't looking. This beach may have been turned into some kind of unofficial dumping site but no way would some of these items that Izuku moved wouldn't get the notice of the police. Garbage was one thing to find at the beach like used food containers and the like but there were whole appliances he was moving.
Seriously, how did anyone not notice?
After pushing that thought out of his mind, a kind of morning ritual of sorts before started his efforts to clean up the beach, Izuku noticed that All Might was surrounded by some fans despite the fact that sun hadn't even begun to rise in the distance. That wasn't too surprising since it was the weekend and usually All Might spent more time with Izuku on the weekend in supervising the efforts of his training. It was rather inevitable that some of the people that walked by would notice a certain famous person had been spending more time in one location and get the idea said famous person would show up again.
Izuku decided against asking All Might on what he wanted to start off with on the beach as part of his training. The teenager had figured out beforehand that when moving things it was best to use what he could carry with one arm first. Any more than that and he knew he burn through his stamina too fast and it make the rest of the exercise more challenging than it should be.
'Alright, time to get started!' Izuku thought to himself, an extra bit of encouragement in handling another long day of training/garbage removal.
The first pieces of garbage that Izuku moved were, unsurprisingly in his view, were several tires. They looked about the same size as all the ones he had moved over the last three weeks and he wanted to gauge the progression of his strength overall since he had a clear memory of how much strength he used in the beginning.
Izuku wasn't trying to show off or anything by when he able to carry two tires at once, it was a clear sign that he had been getting stronger which did help his confidence since he did have a nagging thought that maybe all this hard work wasn't having positive results after three weeks. Izuku wasn't expecting to have a muscular form like All Might after all this time. He just wanted to know if this was proving to be worth it and it was.
After retrieving another set of tires and carrying both of them to the pick-up site, Izuku was actually starting to feel little more positive in regards the such hellish training.
"Hello?! I know you're out there! Can I get a little help?!"
That got Izuku's attention the moment he heard it. He looked around to see who might've been calling for help but there was no one near him. Izuku could see that All Might was still conversing with his fans. That gave Izuku the thought that if All Might heard it then he would have immediately moved to answer the call for help. The teenager did consider maybe he heard it wrong, like one of the fans yelled it out to get a video recording of All Might saying it catchphrase and showing his smile.
But that thought was destroyed when he heard pounding coming from one of the bigger appliances. It looked like it was a fridge, maybe for a large home or maybe even for a restaurant. Regardless, Izuku could see the door showing signs of impacts being made against it and judging from the sounds and sight, it was being hit from the inside.
"Um, Hello? Someone in there?" Izuku said while walking up to the appliance.
"Yes! I'm in here! I'm stuck!" the voice, though faint, called back while banging more intently on the door from the inside.
Hearing that someone was in side got Izuku to act. He first tried the handle of the door but it broke off after he put in more effort than it was designed to handle. He then tried to wedge his fingertips in enough to help at least crack the door open enough but that didn't work either. That was when he knew he needed a tool and saw some debris to the side that looked to be like metal pipes. Izuku had to basically rip one metal pipe out of the pile in order to use it but he was glad to see that one of the ends was shaped like the tip of a crowbar.
"Hang on! Gonna try something!" Izuku yelled out to give reassurance to the person trapped inside.
"Please hurry! Been in here too long already!"
It took three strikes with the metal pole but Izuku managed to wedge it just right so it created a crack within the door seal. Using it like a lever did Izuku push down on the metal pipe with all of this strength. It took a moment but it was enough to cause the door to fling open loudly and for Izuku to fall flat on his back since he didn't brace his footing properly to keep such a thing from happening. But he got back on his feet as quickly as he could and checked to see if the person that was inside the appliance needed any more help.
The person that came out had one thing that distinctly stood out about them. Izuku had seen people with pink hair before but seeing this shade of pink was rather new to him. Not only that, and after recognizing that it was a girl who looked to about his age, she had eyes that were definitely unique to saw the least. She also had a pair of rather odd yet intricate looking goggles on her head.
"Whew, thanks! Don't know how much longer I would have lasted in there." the girl said after getting out of the refrigerator. "Guess it's true about the old saying of playing: don't play around in junkyards or the junkyard will eat you."
"Huh?" Izuku wasn't sure if the girl was being serious or just making light of her previous situation. Besides, he never heard of that saying in his life before.
"Oh, just something my dad told me. Since I tend to go scrounging for parts, he always warned me that I was too carefree and didn't keep an eye on my surroundings." the pink-haired girl replied while dusting herself off and checking to see if she had any injuries or her clothes were torn anywhere. "I always thought he was trying to be ironic when he said that but now I can't say that anymore."
Izuku was glad that the girl before him seemed to be safe but he was slightly confused at the moment too. All Might had said that no one came to this beach for some time because of all the garbage and if they did come, it certainly wasn't for the garbage or at least that's what he thought.
After she finished checking herself over and dusting herself off, the girl turned her attention to the one that saved her. Nothing about him seemed to stick out in her view. Not his messy greenish black hair or the light freckles on his face. But his eyes which were a shade of green she rarely saw. At least as a person's iris color.
"My name's Mei Hatsume. And whose the name of the one who got me out of that refrigerator trap?"
"Um...Midoriya. Izuku Midoriya." He couldn't help his voice from having a hint of nervousness in it. This was, to his memory, the first time he was actually talking to a girl.
"Hmm….." Mei gave Izuku a once-over, looking up and down his physical features. There was just something about him that she could swear screamed 'unique' but at the same time he was about as plain and average as he looked. Even with her quirk that allowed her to see several kilometers into the distance was giving her the same contradictory information.
While Mei was examining Izuku, he was doing so in return. The girl's eyes and head gear did stand out but what create some more questions for him was when he saw what looked like a tool belt around her waist, Surely she didn't come here to repair some of these items, did she?
"...Well, thanks again for the save. Wouldn't have happened if the fridge didn't slide on me." Mei said while returning her attention back to the appliance that she was recently trapped inside.
"Um, slide? How did it…." Izuku hadn't really talked to a girl before so it was only through his curiosity that he was making conversation.
"I was trying to get the motor that this fridge uses to keep things inside cool. One look at it and I knew right away that the motor was in good shape! But how this fridge was built made it so that the motor itself was in and out of the main unit." Mei answered while making her way up to the top of the tilted over refrigerator and began removing the screws that held the motor on top in place. "I undid the parts that were connecting from inside. I must have shifted the weight around too much and made the door slam shut on me."
Izuku watched as the pink-haired teenage girl worked fast in removing the last of the bolts and screws that held the motor in place. He watched as she placed both hands on each side of the motor and began to pull on it. Her first couple of tries ended in failure but her third try which had her fully standing on top of the tilted refrigerator was a success. So much so that Mei lost her balance once the motor was freed from the appliance and she fell backwards while letting out a surprise yelp.
It would have been bad since the garbage behind her had a lot of solid shapes to them and some of said shapes had some points as well. She definitely was going to injure herself the moment she landed on her back.
But the hero that saved her from being imprisoned in the refrigerator managed to save her again by catching in time.
Mei was confused that the pain she was expecting didn't happen when she felt herself no longer falling. Even more confused that she was now being carried in a bridal fashion with the motor still in her hands. She looked at the boy that caught her and realized that he was able to hold her and the motor's combined weight. His overall physique wasn't the kind that said he was strong but the fact he was carrying her and the motor without much issue clearly said otherwise.
"You alright?" Izuku asked before moving from the spot on the debris pile to a safe spot on the beach with the girl in his arms. When he was sure that they were clear from anything sharp or troublesome objects, Izuku set her down in a manner so that her feet touched the ground first.
"Um, yeah…." Mei wasn't completely shocked at what happened. More like she finally figured out what it was about this person in front of her that seemed to tell her there was more to him than anyone would see at first glance. "Gotta say, you are definitely stronger than you look."
Izuku couldn't help but rub the back of his head and give a rather sheepish looking smile for his initial response. "Well….that's because….well….because I've been training to get stronger….and part of my training has been….well, I'm training at the same time I'm helping to clean up this beach."
Hearing that answered a question that Mei had for some time. "Oh, so you're doing it. I come here from time to time to see if there's any parts worth salvaging and I've seen some of the debris being moved around or gone. I was wondering who was behind it all."
But that's when another question entered Mei's mind as she took the backpack she had with her off and put the salvaged motor into it. The kind of question that she felt the need to ask. "Wait! You're telling me you're the only one doing it? If you said you're helping to clean, why don't I see anyone else helping you now?"
Mei used her quirk to look up and down the beach and saw no one else actually doing anything that could be called the act of removing the debris. It wasn't completely out of reason that one person was doing all of this. But Mei remembered seeing some things that would require at least two people to move and if she had to guess, the person who saved her twice was probably no older than she herself was.
"Do you have like some kind of super strength or matter changing quirk?" Mei asked while getting rather up close and personal to Izuku.
A little too person for Izuku's sense of self being that he never been this close to a girl before. "Um, well...you see...I uh….that is….um….."
Izuku's stuttering and mind freeze was getting the better of him but it certainly didn't do anything to squash the curiosity that the girl in front of him was showing in her eyes.
Mei definitely became more curious about this person with each passing second because of the idea that entered into her mind. A long shot but it made a kind of sense if he was using a quirk in moving this garbage around which could mean he was a Pro-Hero or least someone who had a provisional license that allowed him to do work of this nature with the usage of his quirk. Mei's dream of inventing all kinds of gear that she called her 'super cute babies' for Pro-Heroes, well a dream of inventing everything that appeared in her imagination at least, did require some steps for her to take and one of them was securing a kind of backing once she got into U.A. High.
She wasn't going to try for the entrance exam for the Hero Course but for the Support Course with U.A. High and what was required for passing that entrance exam was exceptional grades along with ingenuity and imagination. Like most of the high profile Pro-Heroes in Japan, having U.A. High as a reference for education and graduation almost guaranteed lucrative contracts with any of the Support Hero Agencies in the country. Mei knew that once she had that on her resume, all the tech she imagined and dreamed up over the years would become a reality. Her ultimate goal was to secure a position on I-Island because it was THE premier place in all of the world for making new technology and exploring new frontiers of science.
Mei was actually having a hard time keeping her giddiness in check since it seemed like pure chance she ran into someone that might actually help her get one step close to what she wanted to achieve.
Izuku took in a deep breath to steady himself, which was a challenge in of itself, before he properly responded to the girl that was staring so intently into his own eyes. "I'm not actually using, um, my quirk for this. This is preparation for getting ready to take the entrance exam to U.A. High."
"Wow! Really?! You're gonna apply to U.A. too?!" Mei wasn't disappointed when she heard Izuku say what he was actually doing. It was still an opportunity of sorts that could help her and if she did it right, could help him as well. "I'm applying to U.A. High too! What course are you getting ready for? The Hero Course?"
"Uh, actually, yeah. I plan to take in less than ten months."
Mei's giddiness practically exploded after hearing that. She remembered hearing from her teacher when she expressed, or rather yelled out her desire, to apply to the Support Course at U.A. High that if any thing she created personally while attending U.A. was used by a Pro-Hero practically guaranteed multiple options after graduation. And if that was true, maybe helping someone who was taking the entrance exam for the Hero Course with any of her super cute babies would help both of them stand out in many ways.
That was what the logical argument was in Mei's mind at first. But her desire to invent and create was so strong within her that any outlet for said desire to be expressed was never a missed opportunity.
"What is your quirk? Super strength since you're moving all of this heavy stuff around on your own? Matter manipulation? Some kind of variation of an emitter type or maybe that really rare warp quirk I've heard about? Like you can look, touch or something and you teleport an object to another location?" Mei was firing off question after to question so fast that Izuku's mind need a moment to understand what was asked first while Mei was three questions passed that one.
Izuku had to take a step back from the verbal assault but Mei kept in step each time he took one back. Izuku didn't realize how many steps backwards he had taken until his left foot didn't have a stable purchase on the ground and made him lose his balance. Whatever it was caused him to fall backwards and react instinctively to grab onto anything in a futile attempt to keep himself from falling. One hand did grab something but it wasn't enough to stop the fall.
Both luckily and unluckily for Izuku, where he had fallen didn't have any thing that might hurt him if he had landed on it. The lucky part of the fall was that whatever Izuku tripped on to fall over must have been buried under the sand just enough that it wasn't visible enough to notice but wasn't near any of the piles that Izuku was moving.
The unlucky part for Izuku, at least in his view, was that he realized what his hand had grabbed onto to try and stop himself from falling was the shirt of the girl and where his hand had ended up since he had caused said girl to fall right on top of him. His thought processing ability came to a crashing halt when he notice and felt where his hand was so he didn't register the fact that the girl who he made to fall on top of him was still looking at him with the same intense curiosity she had when she asked all those previous questions.
"Is your quirk able to control sand or air? It's gotta be sand like that one Pro-Hero, The Sand Hero: Snatch. I mean, how else can you move all this stuff on your own?" Mei's mind was completely unaware or uncaring of the fact that Izuku's left hand was on her chest.
Izuku's mind might've stayed in such a shutdown state if Mei remained on top of him but instead she straightened herself so she was basically sitting on his lap. When she had her hand on his chest to help maintain her balance in taking a sitting position, Mei took note that Izuku definitely had a toned chest of sorts. His clothing seemed a little baggy so she didn't have any hint before that he was more toned in the muscle aspect.
"Okay, your quirk has got to be some kind of super strength or maybe a kind of energy application or transference. I've heard that most quirk require a strong physical body in order to be used properly and fully and if you're using this as a kind of training method to strengthen your body, then said quirk is being under-utilized or is currently underdeveloped or…" Mei's mind ran though all the ideas of what kind of gear she could make even though she didn't even get the answer as to what kind of quirk Izuku had. But she did become aware that while she was talking both to her and to Izuku that he was just staring upwards with a blank look on his face.
Mei looked up to see what might've gotten Izuku's attention and when she saw nothing but blue skies and a few clouds with her eyesight quirk, she looked back down with her confusion evident on her face. She tilted her head to the side as an expression of her growing confusion. After a moment of contemplating passed, Mei thought of something that she felt appropriate for the situation since it sometimes worked whenever she made something and it didn't turn on right away.
With her right hand, Mei slapped Izuku across the face and was pleased that the tried-and-true method of getting a piece of equipment to work by smacking it just right could also be applied to people.
"Huh? Wha...? Uh…?" Izuku's mind was in the processes of 'rebooting' so it took a moment for him to realize what had happened and what was currently happening. Seeing the pink-haired girl sitting on top of him with a puzzled look on her face had all the memories rush right back to the forefront of his mind.
Including where his left hand had been.
Izuku looked at his left hand and then at Mei several times before he scrambled out from under her and took a kneeling apologetic position in front of her. "I am so sorry! Please forgive! I didn't meant to touch you...touch you there!"
With his head face down in the sand, Izuku didn't notice how his action puzzled Mei even more.
"Touch me? Touch me where? You fell down and grabbed my shirt. I don't think my shirt has a mind that says it doesn't like being touched." Mei didn't recall anything Izuku had done to warrant such an apology. But then again, she didn't even notice what Izuku had accidentally done that he felt the need to apologize for.
"You're...you're not mad?" Izuku had only heard that if someone touched someone else without their consent or permission, it usually ended with that said someone being angry. He had seen it before where a fist fight of sorts ended up happening among the students at Aldera Junior High. He wasn't afraid to get hit by the girl since he felt it was justified. Izuku was more afraid of her grabbing something one of the piles of debris around them and using it as means to bludgeon him to death.
"Mad about what? You tripped, you fell, probably hit your head and got knocked out." Mei said with a hint of puzzlement in her voice while standing to her feet. "Gotta say, you seem a little strange right now but hey, chalk it up to smacking the back of your head."
Izuku watched as Mei walked back over to her backpack that had the salvaged motor in it, picked it up so she could put her arms through the straps. Izuku was still worried she might hit him for what he had done, accident or not, but cautiously got up from his spot on the ground while brushing off the excess sand that was clinging to him.
When she was sure the backpack and it's content were secured, Mei returned her attention back to Izuku. "So, honestly, what is your quirk?"
Izuku wasn't all that good at lying or telling made up stories. It was just how he was raised by his lone mother. But he also knew he couldn't tell this girl in front of him any more than what he had already told her. All Might had told him the secret behind his power and Izuku knew that the very idea of a quirk can be transferred from person to person would change literally everything that people around the world. But all of that meant if she believed him to begin with and Izuku remembered how he couldn't comprehend at first what he was told.
And with the way the girl was staring at him, waiting for an answer, Izuku felt like he was in a very unfamiliar position to say the least. It was unfamiliar enough that Izuku acted on the first instinct he had and simply say what was in his mind.
"My quirk...it...it involves….a shield…."
Izuku saw Mei's facial expression hint at a growing curiosity when he gave her that answer. It wasn't a lie exactly that he had told her but he definitely felt that he needed to give her an explanation.
"My quirk, it's connected to a shield I have. I can make it, well, I can make it so it can bounce off of almost any solid surface. I don't have it with me right now but the best visual example is like this." Izuku said while walking over to the edge of the beach with a stone in his hand. He threw the stone in a way that made it skip several times off the surface of the water before finally making a splash and sinking beneath the surface.
Mei had a contemplating look on her face after seeing and hearing what Izuku showed her. Since there were so many times of quirks out there that could do virtually anything, it started to make sense in Mei's mind with all the information she had.
"I get it. Your quirk is one of those union types." Mei said. Izuku was curious since despite all of his recorded research of quirks he did over the years, he was ashamed to admit that he never heard of quirks being classified as 'union types'.
Mei picked up on Izuku's unspoken question and explained the information she had. "It's a relatively new classification for quirks so I'm not surprised you might not have heard about it. Such quirks usually are connected to the basic elements like fire, metal, air, wood, water, etc but it's different than people who can create fire, metal, air, wood, water and whatever else exist in nature."
"So the difference is one can create something and control it while the other can only control it but not create it?"
"Mmm, not exactly." Mei replied while looking around to see if there was something she can use for a visual aid. Remember when Izuku said his quirk was connected to his shield, Mei ran over to a car's hubcap she saw and picked it up. "Say this is your shield." Mei said with said item in hand. "Now, there are some union type quirks some people have that is like saying this is part of me and no one else can control it but me. If someone had a magnetic quirk or a means to levitate objects, they can't take control of your shield because they are trying to take control of only a part of you. To take control of the shield, they would have to take control of every aspect of you just in order to take the shield."
Mei did a little frisbee toss with the hubcap so it could fly over to another pile. "Now, had someone had the means to control metal or certain objects, they wouldn't be so easily able to take control of your shield because another aspect of union quirks is the amount of space that it affects."
Izuku processed the information and spoke what his mind formulated as a theory. "So you're saying some union quirks affect a specific amount of area too? Like say if it was a radius around someone, anywhere between a meter and mile, and if someone who can control an element then their control would be affected inside the radius?"
"Exactly. Like if someone had a fire creating and/or controlling quirk. If that person was inside the area that a union quirk affects than the person who can create or control fire would have their quirk either compromised or inert for a time."
Izuku felt like he understood what Mei was telling him save for one piece of the information. "Wait, wouldn't the term be more like 'area quirk' than 'union quirk'? I mean, union usually is a term for joining and what you described doesn't really seem like the term fits properly."
"Actually that's why separates the two kinds of quirk. Area quirks affect an area but union quirks can also affect a person if the quirk they have is similar to the person who has the union quirk. Like using the person who has a fire quirk for the example: if a person has a union quirk and its also related to fire than it more than just possible that the person with just the fire quirk can actually be controlled by the person with the union quirk so long as they are in the affected area."
That information cleared things up for Izuku. His mind made the visual of a puppet and it's strings. Anything that's within the string's reach becomes controllable like a puppet and more than one puppet can be controlled at the same time. Izuku knew such an analogy was simplistic but the way it was describe seemed that said analogy was apt.
Hearing that from Mei definitely impressed Izuku since he thought his fanboy hobby of collecting Pro-Hero data and their quirks covered a lot that most people didn't know about outside of Pro-Heroes and government agencies.
But it also sparked Izuku's curiosity since he was just told all this by a girl who was salvaging parts. He remembered her saying that she was applying to U.A. High as well and if she had all this information already, did it mean he was lacking something that might be required to pass the entrance exam? Between his junior high school work and the physical training he was doing, it became an alarming idea in his mind that he missing something critical.
"Um, Hatsume, was it?" Izuku asked politely.
"You can call me Mei." the pink-haired girl replied with a smile on her face.
"Okay, um, Mei. Uh, you said you were applying to U.A. High as well." Izuku said to which Mei responded with an energetic nod. "Are you applying for the Hero Course?"
"Me? Ha ha ha! Nope. Not a chance since I know I don't have what it takes to pass something that has a passing rate of less than 1 percent." Mei let out a couple of laughs along with her reply.
"Then why apply if not for the Hero Course?" Izuku had the long running thought that if anyone wanted to be a Pro-Hero, the only place worth going to for such a goal was U.A. High and nowhere else.
"Because U.A. High doesn't just offer the Hero Course." Mei said with confidence in her voice. She looked over to another pile of debris to rummage through while elaborating what she had said. "There are many other high schools around the country that offer a Hero Course. There are several Pro-Heroes that are among the top ten in the nation that didn't graduate from U.A. High but that doesn't mean graduating from U.A. High is the same as graduating from any other high school in the nation."
Mei inspected another piece of appliance she found. Looked to be a small tv or computer monitor but whatever it was it didn't pass Mei's inspection so it was thrown to the side without any care. "If you think about it, everyone in this world has dreams. Some are the same while most of them are different and vice versa."
"Huh?" Izuku wondered if what Mei had just said was meant to confuse him or if she was actually sincere.
Mei turned her attention to Izuku from the broken parts of appliances she was rummaging through and walked up to him. "You said you're going to U.A. to take their Hero Course, right?"
Izuku nodded, trying to keep his composure since he felt uncomfortable at how close Mei was to him again.
"Well, what do all heroes have or rather need? And don't just say 'quirks'." Mei asked but didn't wait for Izuku to give her an answer. "They need support!"
Izuku's mind thought of all the example of Pro-Heroes needing support and found how little of information he had in his own head. He thought that maybe the kind of support Mei was talking about was Pro-Heroes having sidekicks which wasn't uncommon at all. Izuku had heard of some Pro-Hero agencies having more than a dozen sidekicks in their employ so that would count as support, wouldn't it?
But the more he thought about what Mei had said about heroes needing support, the more he realized she was talking about something else.
To clarify, Izuku did ask Mei on what kind of support was she talking about.
Reaching into one of her pocket, Mei pulled out a circular shaped black color object and demonstrated what it could do by somehow making two smaller halves of it and then tossing one piece at one random appliance and another at a different object. No sooner after she did that did the two random objects suddenly fly at each other and then crashed into each other halfway.
To say Izuku was surprisingly impressed was an understatement. What Mei used was barely bigger than her hand and yet it did something that almost seemed impossible. Mei had already walked up to where the two objects had collided together and managed to retrieve the item she had used to cause them to fly at each other.
"This little super cute baby of mine is a prototype for a capture device I'm working on. It creates a strong magnetic effect between the two parts that attracts to each other. As you saw, it's so strong that it can actually carry rather significant weight loads in almost an instant." Mei looked over the device to confirm something that was an issue with the device and wasn't surprised at all when she found it. "Unfortunately, the charge that's needed to create such a strong magnetic attraction so strong that the battery life for it wears out in less than 30 seconds."
"But still…." Izuku looked at the device in Mei's hand with amazement. "...for something that small being able to lift two things that are clearly heavy metal objects in an instant…."
"Impressive cute little baby isn't it? It's something I made last month but I'll eventually figure out how to make a strong enough miniature power source for it so it last far longer than 30 seconds."
Mei handed the device to Izuku while he was still examining it. "Pro-Heroes are trained to be at their very best but more often than not they come across something that isn't something they expect even if they are taught to expect the unexpected. As not all Pro-Heroes are the same, not all villains are the same as well. What can take down one type of villain may not work on another type. Plus, not all villains just use their quirks to commit crimes. To give the Pro-Heroes the chance to counter anything a villain might throw at them, sometimes they need to use a support item."
Taking back the device from Izuku, Mei tossed it up into the air like she was flipping a coin. "This cute little baby of mine will be able to do all sorts of things once I make it even cuter. Just think: if a villain has a gun or can make or use metal weapons, one of these will rip them out of their hands and give the Pro-Hero the chance to one-shot them with ease."
Izuku nodded his head in agreement but stopped when he realized what Mei had said earlier before that to him. "Wait a minute. You made this a month ago? How?"
"How you found me! Looking for some spare and usable parts from places like this!"
Izuku did a quick glance all around in a manner that said he was actually seeing something that was so obvious to someone else for the first time.
"You mean to say that whatever you find in garbage piles like this that are usable, you can use it to make stuff like that thing in your hand?"
Mei's smile was the only response Izuku got but it spoke volumes all on it's own.
What could be considered the penultimate realization in regards to Mei Hatsume finally hit Izuku when the dots started connecting inside his head. Of all the trashed items he had seen and moved over these recent weeks, even he knew that if with the proper know-how in engineering and mechanics, some of these items could be restored enough to function like they did before and if possible, repurposed for something else. Izuku knew he wasn't sure how but even he knew that a motor from a refrigerator would use to keep items cool if repaired and used in the same manner.
If Mei could make something like that magnet out of spare parts that people throw away, what could she make if given solid materials and equipment?
"Once I get into U.A. High, I'll be able to go even further in designing and creating super cute babies like these! Until then…." Mei's smile didn't leave her face as she went back to checking around to see if there was anything else she could use or salvage and repair.
Izuku wasn't sure how but he could tell that this girl was going to go far if she kept that attitude of hers. In a way it kind of reminded him before he met All Might and was chosen to be his successor. Going through things most people don't give more than a single thought about with a drive towards a goal.
Izuku was just about to get back to his training/cleaning of the beach when he looked back at the two items that the magnet device that Mei had used earlier. A flash of inspiration hit him when he remembered how fast the two items flew at each other in response to the magnetic effect.
The teenage boy practically ran up to the teenage girl and flat out asked her for more information about that magnetic device she demonstrated Questions like was it one charge it could hold or could be redesigned to hold multiple charges. No sooner did those questions get asked did Mei remember earlier why she was asking all those questions about Izuku's quirk. She also didn't realize that even though the magnetic device wasn't performing the way she had imagined it, she almost considered it a done project and would move on to the next one she had already planned in her head.
"So can it be done?" Izuku was about ready to smack himself upside the head when he realized how he had overlooked what could actually be a significant flaw in having a shield.
"Make it so this magnet can call your shield to you if you can't reach? No sweat!" Mei's mind was already thinking of ways to modify the device to do what Izuku had just asked. She first envisioned a kind of belt buckle that Izuku could press that would call his shield to him but scrapped that idea. She next imagined a kind of helmet or full body suit to wear.
But when she looked down at the device in her hand and then looked at Izuku's hands did she get the perfect idea.
For his part, Izuku was rather overjoyed that he had met someone like Mei and was she was more than willing to help him out with something despite having just met. Then he became something of a nervous wreck when Mei took his left hand and felt all around up to his elbow and repeated the process with his right hand and elbow.
"Um….what are you….you doing?"
"Well, a shield is usually carried on the back or the arms of the person whose using it." Mei replied while mentally taking notes how Izuku's hands and arms felt to her. She was already in the mental process of building either magnetic gauntlets for both hands or magnetic forearm guards. "Since you said your quirk can allow you to throw your shield, best to make it so my soon-to-be made super cute little baby can fit on your arms. That way if you throw your shield and if it goes off course or you need to call it back to you quicker than you can reach for it, all you'll have to do is stick out your hand to call the shield to you."
Izuku did his best to keep his face from turning flaming red as Mei examined each of his hands. He wasn't sure if his hands were that interesting to her or if she was teasing him. He did however note that her own hands seemed to be softer than his own or at least her fingers since she was wearing a pair of looked like fingerless gloves. When Mei finished doing whatever it was that she was doing with his hands did Izuku take in a breath of relief.
Only to freeze up immediately when he felt Mei's hands feeling his shoulder area and his entire back.
Mei was taking all the mental notes she needed in designing a kind of harness that Izuku would wear to that secure his shield on his back. There was one more piece of information she needed before she fully committed herself to the plans she quickly made up in her mind.
"This shield of yours, what kind of metal and shape is it?"
Only when he felt Mei's hands off of his back did he loosen up, albeit just a bit, to answer her. "It's a circular shape that's about 2 ½ feet wide and weights about 12 pounds."
"Hmm…." Mei said mostly to herself while placing a finger under her chin in a kind of thinking pose. "Okay, I got the perfect super cute baby in mind for what you need!"
Izuku could easily sense the excitement in Mei's voice. It was kind of infectious but he wanted to ask one more practical question before she started. "Before you start, Mei, what do you want in return? I mean I'll gladly pay you if you want."
Mei thought about what Izuku said, about what she ask for in return for her services. She didn't mind the idea of getting paid but she decided against it. Mei decided to do a kind of "Quid Pro Quo" deal with Izuku.
"Tell you want, in exchange for helping you to make your own personal super cute little baby, you can help me by testing out some of the super cute babies I've already made!"
Izuku wasn't sure if the deal Mei offered him was more dangerous than it seemed. There was a chill running up his spine when she made the offer along with giving him a smile that seemed like Mei was just barely able to rein in her enthusiasm. Aside from the spine chill feeling, there was nothing else that seemed like the deal was anything else but fair overall.
"Deal." Izuku extended out his right hand to which Mei accepted with both and shook his right hand vigorously.
"Awesome!" Mei was genuinely happy that Izuku accepted the deal. "Now I must be off. I got all these ideas in my head and not a lot of time to turn them into reality!"
Mei was about to take off but stopped just long enough to confirm is Izuku would return to this beach next week. The pink-haired teenager said that she could easily whip up in a day what Izuku had asked of her but she wanted bring some of the tech she wanted to test out with her as well. Izuku told her that for the foreseeable future, he keep coming back to the beach until he finished cleaning up as he was instructed to do.
"Great! Seeya next week Zuzu!" Mei said while waving goodbye.
"Um, it's Izuku! Izuku Midoriya!" the teenage boy yelled out.
"That's what I said! Zuzu!" the girl yelled back while still running towards her destination.
Izuku didn't have a chance to call out again to try and correct Mei since she was already off the beach and out of his line of sight.
He rubbed the back of his head at how the whole ordeal with Mei Hatsume ended. He knew it was weird on his part to ask who was basically a stranger to help him with something practically out of the blue. Then again, he recognized that he got caught up in the moment when he saw this girl was doing more with so much less than most people. That was something worthy of respect.
"Cute girl. Your girlfriend?"
Hearing that coming from behind shocked him out of his thoughts rather quickly. Mostly because he heard the tone of disappointment in the four spoken words.
Turning around to see All Might in his non-muscular form with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed at him definitely made him feel nervous on many levels.
All Might let out a tired sigh after he noticed how nervous Izuku was becoming. In his view, the teenage boy looked about to be one step away from literally sweating bullets of water. He also realized that he couldn't be too disappointed with Izuku on account that it took longer than expected to deal with the fans that showed up at the beach. All Might knew he was going to have to rethink how continue to train Izuku without his status as the most popular Pro-Hero interfering.
Plus, since he had heard what the two teenagers mostly talked about, he felt maybe it was time to impart a few lessons he learned from his own personal experience.
"Relax, kid. I overheard a lot of what the two of you said and I gotta say, what she said isn't far from the truth."
"Um, which part?" Izuku asked his all time favorite hero.
"About Pro-Heroes needing support and support items." All Might said while walking over to Izuku. "Its not an uncommon practice for any Pro-Hero to have support items. Some use them sparingly and some use a common one like a kind of handcuffs or even a first-aid kit. But there's another side that most don't think about until it's too late."
"Another side? What other side is there?"
"For starters, any hero reinforcing their power with new gear can be a smart move. Just make sure you don't rely on it too much." All Might said while recalling some events that served as examples in his career as a Pro-Hero. "Some people aren't able to hold their own after losing an item. I've seen way too many heroes fall into that trap and what the cost is as a result."
All Might didn't want to give Izuku the wrong message that he shouldn't use a support item ever but he also had a question that popped up into his mind while he over heard the conversation between the two.
"Now what's this about a shield?"
The moment All Might asked that question did Izuku realize that ever since that day, he never once told the man about the shield or anything even remotely related to it. Being asked somehow made Izuku feel like he had lied to All Might to which the teenager openly apologized and told the man that he wasn't keeping anything secrets from him.
All Might saw the look in Izuku's eyes and believed the boy. Which was why his curiosity about the shield signficantly increased when Izuku told All Might the details about how the shield. How old the boy was when he found it, where he suspected it came from and what he learned about it over the years.
The current inheritor of One For All took in the information that Izuku had given him about the shield and mentally examined it. All Might had seen much when he traveled around the world in the past to practice and perfect his control over One For All but nothing in his past experiences seemed to give an answer that he felt best fit this riddle he was told. A riddle he felt was worth solving but how best to go about the first step.
He didn't doubt Izuku on what the shield could do but maybe the pink-haired girl was touching on to something when she explained union types of quirks to Izuku. Maybe it was possible that Izuku truly wasn't quirkless, that he was somehow misdiagnosed.
If that was the case, then maybe it was best to learn once and for all if Izuku Midoriya had a quirk or not.
All Might took a long look at the beach and noticed that Izuku was actually ahead of the schedule he had planned out for the teenager. One day could be afforded to do what All Might had planned.
"Izuku, tomorrow we're going to take the day off from training." All Might said and then held up a hand to hold off the inevitable flood of questions Izuku was about to hit him. "Your progress has been exceptional after these recent weeks and judging by the state of the beach, you're ahead of schedule enough to where we can take at least one day off but we'll be redoubling the efforts afterwards to make up for what is still going to be lost time, understood?"
"Yes sir!" Izuku replied. He did his best to show in his voice how strong his commitment was to follow the training All Might had prepared for him.
All Might could tell that Izuku hadn't lost any of his drive towards the goal the man had set for him. If anything, it just further proved that Izuku was indeed a worthy successor and All Might made the correct choice. There were other candidates that All Might had been presented with and considered. He even might have chosen one of them had he never met Izuku that day.
Even though the process of choosing a successor was different than what All Might expected to be, what was expected of him at least was learning the answer to any riddle that comes their way regardless of how significant or insignificant they are. And right now, All Might's instincts were telling him the shield that Izuku spoke of was anything but insignificant.
"Tomorrow, meet back here around 5 am. We're going to go meet a friend of mine and she'll tell us exactly what that shield is." All Might said and then again raising his hand to stop the question that he knew Izuku already had in his mind. "I'll tell you all about her tomorrow since it will be something of a long drive just to reach her."
Izuku nodded in response and later mentally tabled all the questions he had in his mind for later.
"Now…." All Might said before going into his muscular form. "IT'S TIME TO GET BACK TO WORK!"
"Yes sir!" Izuku replied before running back over to the debris pile where he had originally started working before rescuing Mei Hatsume.
Seeing Izuku putting everything he had into moving the junked items off of the beach was indeed a solid testament to the boy's resolve. All Might wasn't ready to say he was proud of the boy just yet. It hadn't been a full month since he started and training the body to be a suitable vessel for the power that One For All wasn't going to happen any time soon.
That and no matter how hellish these months Izuku felt there, All Might knew the teenager would look back on these days as the easiest time ever in his life. U.A. High only accepted the best and even those that claimed to be the best crumbled under the pressure of the Hero Course. Those that didn't crumble became even better.
Those were the kinds of hopes that All Might was placing on Izuku Midoriya's shoulders whether the boy knew it or not.
The following morning, Izuku met All Might at the entrance to the beach but as was said yesterday, both got into All Might's car and began heading to the acquaintance he had told Izuku about.
All Might said that the person they were going to meet was a retired Pro-Hero named Valhalla. Her quirk, which was called Soul Sense could allow her to essentially sense people or rather their life energies to such a degree she could connect to someone if she had an item they possessed at any point in their lives. She was great when it came to search and rescue missions since she could find anyone almost half a world away. Izuku was impressed by the description of the person's quirk and several of the missions that All Might recounted where he was an active participant under her command.
Izuku did ask what it was that led to the such an accomplished Pro-Hero to retire. All Might explained that while Valhalla's quirk allowed her to sense people's life energies, she would, as best as All Might was told for an explanation, feel the person's life energies at the same time. The downside to such an ability was the incredible emotional and mental taxing that came when Valhalla would sense the person perish before they were rescued. It was one thing to feel the residual energies of someone that had passed away regardless if it was very recent or years ago. It was quite another to feel it die out no matter if it happened slowly or fast.
A part of Izuku actually felt bad for asking such a question but All Might reassured him being a Pro-Hero requires a strong will and sometimes someone's will can only take so much before they break. He also said that while Valhalla wasn't an active Pro-Hero, she had taken up a teaching position at a different high school to help train others in forest rescue techniques and tactics for their Hero Course.
Still, hearing that one part about the will of the hero reminded Izuku of the moment when All Might told him that though he always shows a fearless smile, it ended up becoming a mask to hid all the fear that he did feel. Izuku didn't have completely romanticized dreams of becoming a Pro-Hero, he knew there were going to be challenges that he would never see coming. But it was still a sobering reminder nonetheless.
After about 3 hours of driving, the pair reached the destination which was in a rural area. It wasn't as if they were in the middle of nowhere but they were definitely outside of the nearest city limits. They had stopped in front of a gate to what looked like surrounded a rather large estate. Near the gate was an intercom system so someone could 'buzz' and alert the people inside that they had visitors.
But before All Might even got the chance to reach the button, a woman's voice sounded over the intercom. "Didn't expect you visit me today, All Might."
All Might, in his muscular form, replied: "Well what can I say except I am here! And I brought along someone else for a visit as well!"
There was a laugh that could be heard on the other end of the intercom. "Well I at least thank you for not dropping by like the last time. Took awhile to fill in that impact crater you made."
"Heh, sorry." Since the intercom had a camera system attached to it, All Might showed an apologetic gesture to the camera at the same time he spoke.
"You're forgiven….but only for that time. I still haven't forgiven you for the other 5 times."
All Might could only give a sheepish smile and a nervous look at the camera as a response. Mostly because he couldn't remember what other times Valhalla was talking about.
Before All Might could gleam what other times Valhalla might be talking about, he and Izuku heard a loud 'buzz' sound and watched as the gate rolled open in front of them.
While going up the driveway to the main house, Izuku was amazed by the sight of it all. Sure he had seen some houses that had large front yards or backyards but never did he see a house that alone took up what looked to be at least a city block.
"Wow! Is she rich? I mean, how can she afford all of this?!"
All Might, back in his normal form simply because his muscular form was a little too big for his car and he had forgotten that he didn't adjust his seat when he transformed, said that Valhalla had actually spent some time abroad like he had. All Might wasn't sure when but Valhalla started a business in the agricultural industry that developed the means of increasing the chances of bountiful harvests. She told him that since she had been so attuned to the nature of life energies that she helped create better practices where farmlands could actually do better even if the weather or the seasons worked against the farmers.
Plus said practices even help restore forest areas that were either damaged by natural events such as forest fires or villains that get felt the need to wreck anything in sight.
When the car pulled up to the front of the main house, Izuku asked if Valhalla knew his secret, about his two different forms. All Might had to remind Izuku that she knew they had arrived before he could hit the buzzer on the intercom so it pretty much already went without saying.
The pair were greeted by a housekeeper who informed them that Valhalla was at her personal garden located to the east side of the property. All Might led the way since he knew where exactly on the east side of the property said garden was located. Izuku followed behind while keeping the shield covered in large piece of cloth so as to hide it from at least plain sight.
As they walked, All Might decided to inform Izuku a few more tips about when talking to her. He mostly pressed upon Izuku not to bring up anything about her former hero career unless she did so herself. After Izuku curiously asked why did All Might say that Valhalla was the kind of hero that didn't like the fame that came with her deeds. She was the kind of person that rather be doing what she wanted to do instead of being put on a pedestal and praised for a few noteworthy accomplishments.
All Might even pointed out that she was the inspiration for the reason why he wanted Izuku to clean up the beach as part of his training.
Izuku almost laughed after being told that. The laugh would have mostly directed at himself since it was so obvious that as much as All Might inspired people in today's times, there had to be people that did the same kind of inspiration for All Might when he started out.
When the garden came into view, Izuku noticed that one side was a kind of outdoor garden and the other side was a greenhouse. What he could see in the outdoor part of the garden was definitely a pleasing sight of what looked to be an assortment of different plants and vegetables. Some of the plants and vegetables he was sure weren't really native to Japan but they seemed to be thriving nonetheless.
If this is what said practices that All Might had told him about could do, it made sense to Izuku that this woman would be rich as a result.
"Ah, so what brings the Symbol of Peace and Justice to my home for a surprise visit?"
Izuku turned his head to see a slender looking woman just exiting the greenhouse and walked up to them. She had raven dark colored hair that reached down to her waist tied up into a ponytail and was wearing a light green looking blouse and skirt. Izuku's first initial view of the woman seemed to say she was a fair beauty but that changed when he finally noticed her eyes when she took her black sunglasses off and revealed them to be pure white.
The teenage boy made a kind of side mental note that first he met a girl with unique irises and now he was meeting a woman that had no irises. He did his best to not try and stare but it was weird since his mother always told him it was proper etiquette to look someone in the eye when you talk to them and here was someone he actually couldn't look in the eye.
"I apologize for the surprise but if it makes you feel any better I was actually going to call you to talk to you about something else. I wanted to get some tips from you about something." All Might replied.
"Hmmm, maybe. Depending on what you wanted to talk to me about. Both now and in the future."
All Might leaned in and whispered something into the woman's ear that seemed to surprise her a little. Whatever was said to her was too faint for Izuku to hear clearly.
"I see. Well, we'll talk about that later. What is it that brings you here along with this strange one?" Valhalla said while 'looking' at Izuku. The gaze wasn't unnerving but Izuku was still nervous anyways.
All Might was about to say the reason but realized he forgot a step in basic manners. "My apologies. The strange one here is Izuku Midoriya. Izuku Midoriya, this is Valhalla."
"Please, call me Valeria." the woman said while extending a hand for Izuku to accept.
"It is a pleasure to meet you and allow us entry into your home." Izuku made sure that his voice didn't crack when he respectfully spoke the owner of said home. He even added a bow to help emphasize his show of genuine respect towards her.
"Quite the charmer and gentleman, isn't he Toshinori." Valeria said while giving a smirk to her friend.
"He seems to be many things. Apparently not only is he seemed to be my no.1 fan, but he's found something that, well to put it simply, doesn't make a lot of sense." All Might said.
"Oh? And what might that be?" Valeria asked but already had a suspicion what it might be since it was rather too obvious to ignore even under a white cloth.
All Might glanced around a bit of the area. "Perhaps it be best to discuss this after a demonstration of sorts." He changed into his muscular form and turned to Izuku. "May I?"
Izuku had given the rundown of what the shield could do and did a small demonstration of it's abilities before they had left to travel to Valhalla's home. It took a coupe of shows for All Might to fully understand what he was seeing. Even in a society that tends to operate on the concept 'seeing is believing' with a lot of things, All Might still had a hard time believing what he saw the shield could do. He already knew that Valeria would understand better his request after she saw the shield in action as well.
Valeria watched as the teenager unwrapped the item and noticed right away the color scheme before she recognized what the item was. She thought the coloring and the design of it was inspired by All Might since his current uniform definitely held similar aspects in comparison.
With the shield in his hands, All Might took a couple steps away from the two while looking at all the nearby trees. After he made his decision, he told Valeria to keep her eyes fixated on the shield. Izuku looked back at Valhalla and could tell her attention was focused solely on the shield. Both of them watched as All Might ready himself for how much strength he was going to put behind his throw of the shield. He put in what he figured would be a proper show which was at least 10 percent. All Might did suspect that if he put all he could into the throw he might actually down several trees in the path of the shield to say the least.
Once he threw the shield, Izuku and Valhalla watched as the shield flew rather fast at one tree but bounced off of it. Only Izuku was aware of what happened next since saw out of the corner of his eye that Valhalla's expression changed from simple observation to confusion and surprise.
Valeria's surprise was even expected by All Might since it seemed to mirror his own when he saw the shield in action.
All three sets of eyes watched as the shield bounced off the side of one tree and flew to another tree and bounced off of it, never once losing any momentum regardless of how many trees the shield bounced off of. All Might figured that Valeria was having the same kind of thought he had, that the shield despite looking like it was made of metal was actually some kind of rubber because of how it ricochet off each tree.
After it made a kind of misshapen circle around all three of them did All Might catch the shield but had to jump into the air a bit in order to do so. Once back on the ground and changed into his true form, All Might walked up to Valeria and offered the shield to her.
"I'm guessing you might want to take a closer look at this somewhere a little more private." All Might said while Valeria looked at the shield with wide eyes and an open mouth of surpise.
She heard what was said but only nodded in response. Both All Might and Izuku followed her as she walked back towards the house while still examining the shield in her hands,
Once inside, Valeria practically yelled out the question that she couldn't seem to answer on her own. "Wha….what….what is this?!"
"You're guess is as good as mine but I believe you have the better means of answering that question than I do." All Might said.
Valeria didn't say anything but made her way to a room in the house that she uses to both meditate and study. When all three were inside, Valeria told All Might to close the door behind them as she walked over to a table that was off to the side of the room itself. Once on the table, she began to use her quirk to see if there was anything she could sense from it that might give an answer or two to the hundreds of questions that was in her mind at the moment.
Izuku noticed that Valhalla's eyes began to glow which he took as a sign of her using her quirk. His curiosity got the better of him and so he whispered to All Might on what the woman was doing.
"As I said, her quirk allows her to sense people's life energies even on an object. You could say it's like she can see the fingerprints left behind by a person and some of the history of the person who possessed the object. The longer it was in their possession, the more history she can see." All Might whispered back so as to not disturb Valeria's concentration.
Izuku nodded while taking as many mental notes as he could on what was happening in front of him.
Valeria's concentration on the object in front of her was giving off the strangest of sensations she had ever experienced. Without question her quirk was sensing traces of life energies on the shield. One life energy in particular that was very distinct and, if what she was sensing was accurate, had been with the shield for virtually all of it's existence.
That was the only thing that made sense to her. The other sensations she was getting from the shield caught her by complete surprise.
Whenever Valeria activated her quirk, her field of vision changed in the way someone does when seeing through different elements of the electromagnetic spectrum. Like how someone sees the world in one way and then sees the world through infra-red to ultra-violet glasses.
To her, this was how she was seeing the shield before her. In the general shape of the shield was someone's life energy that gave off a strong sense of duty, justice, and both the courage and will to stand up against overwhelming odds. It reminded her of All Might in his early days before becoming the Symbol of Peace and Justice but she knew clearly that whoever had this shield before wasn't All Might or any other Pro-Hero she had ever heard of.
What she sensed next, what she saw next, confused her. On the surface the shield looked to be one solid shape save for what was used to create it's color scheme. But to Valeria, it looked like she was seeing the shield in three different ways overlapped on each other. One way of the shield felt to Valeria that it was man-made like it was almost unnatural. The other two ways were both similar and different at the same time which made no sense to Valeria. Both felt to her as though they were as ancient as the world itself and yet, both felt they weren't any more part of the world as they were part of the other two.
The only thing that made sense to her at the moment that this shield was made out of three kinds of metals and if she was right, neither one existed anywhere in the world. But that couldn't be correct in her mind because two of the metals were clearly old while the general feel of the shield itself told her that it wasn't even a hundred years old and that feeling was unmistakable.
The confusion in her mind was significant and almost made her miss something. Something that she regret focusing on so much to understand because the moment her quirk touched it, a blinding flash hit her and physically sent her almost flying backwards.
Luckily for Valhalla, All Might was quick enough to catch her in his muscular form.
"Are you alright?" All Might asked to which Valeria gave back a rather dizzy nod in reply. "What just happened? Never see something like that happen before when you used your quirk."
"Actually….it did happen once before." Valhalla said while getting herself back to her feet. "Around the time my quirk first manifested and I didn't have a lot of proper training in how to handle it, I learned that if an object has it within them that I can actually see a moment of either the object's history to a person or the person's moment where the object had the most significance in their lives. A hidden memory if you will between the person and the object."
Valeria walked back to the table that the shield was still resting on. "It's very rare for it to happen and I can count on one hand how many times I've experienced it. This shield now makes it at least 8 times I've come across a hidden memory within an object."
Turning back to All Might, Valhalla gave a level look at All Might and Izuku before she flat out asked them where did they find the shield. Izuku told everything he knew personally with the shield with All Might saying that today was literally the first day he himself ever laid eyes on it.
No question that both were telling her the truth but it frustrated her that none of the answers she was given by the two of them helped to even answer just one question the shield presented her. Valhalla took a moment to collect her thoughts and all the information she had at her at the moment before she addressed the two what she had learned.
"When I saw this shield bounce off trees in a manner that seemed to defy the laws of physics, I made the assumption that someone's quirk affected it. Maybe somehow you did, young Midoriya….but now I can say that at least what this shield can do is not something you did or you, Toshinori. In fact, no one on this planet has done anything to this shield."
Izuku long ago had the idea that the shield might've come from somewhere deep in space but over time gave up on the idea since it seemed more logical that someone's quirk or even technical abilities might've created this shield instead. For All Might, it at least confirmed no quirk was applied to the shield and by extension, it also meant Izuku didn't have a quirk either.
'Well, one answer found but now 100 more questions from just that one answer alone.' All Might thought to himself.
All Might, back in his true form, asked Valeria if she could explain what she meant by saying about how no one on this planet had anything to do with the shield.
"I'm no expert in metallurgy or physics or even kept up with any new materials that are created but I know without a doubt that what was used in the creation of this shield, the three distinct elements that combined within, neither of them exist or at least there are two that shouldn't exist."
"Um, what does that mean, exactly?" Izuku always found it strange when someone would say that something should not exist yet does because in simple terms if it doesn't exist then it can't exist. Made more sense in story telling but not commenting on something in real life.
Valeria picked up the shield from the table, still finding herself having trouble believing on how light it was, and walked over to the two. "Without question, whatever makes up this shield, two of the three elements feel very ancient to me. I think the best example to describe it as that they feel far older than anything recorded in history. I don't know if they are older than the dinosaur bones on display in some of the museums around the world but they are very, very old."
"You said two elements." All Might said while eyeing the shield with a rather fresh set of eyes because of the information. "What's the third one?"
"The only thing I can tell you is that like the other two, it is not something that was made on Earth. Even if it was, then it was made in the strictest of secrets. Its like there are three secrets in this object, each individual secret is kept secret by the other two in such a way that they don't even know what the other secrets are. And to top it all off, I get the sense that this shield was made less than a century ago. The person who held this shield the longest held it at least 40 years to as long as 60 years."
"Hmm….a riddle wrapped up in a puzzle that's covered by an enigma." All Might said but mostly to himself.
Both Izuku and All Might looked at the shield, trying to understand the questions that they were now given by Valhalla's inspection of it.
"And all of that doesn't answer the question of the hidden memory I saw within."
Hearing Valhalla say that got both Izuku's and All Might's attention since they both realized they had actually overlooked that fact.
Valhalla thought about what she was going to do. Like with the other times she viewed hidden memories within an object, what she was considered doing was even more rare for her. Then again, she knew she wouldn't be able to adequately explain what she saw to the two. It was a flash when she first saw the hidden memory so there was no doubt there was a lot that she missed. So having two more sets of eyes might allow them to see something that could give them more answers.
"What I'm about to do is tricky and I can't do it for very long. Maybe a minute at best." Valhalla said while raising the shield so it was in the middle of the three of them. "Hold onto the shield with both hands and clear your minds of all stray thoughts. Do not think of anything else except the shield in your hands."
Izuku and All Might as they were instructed. When she was sure they were ready, Valhalla activated her quirk and searched for the hidden memory she had seen before. As both All Might and Izuku watched Valhalla's eyes glow again, telling them she was using their quirk, they watched as the world around them turned to white and then changed into a scene that was straight out of an old war movie.
Izuku was caught completely off guard at the sounds of rifle fire and explosions. Even All Might was surprised when he instinctively tried to transform into his muscular form and found that he couldn't
"What's going on here?! Did we get sent to an active battlefield?!" Izuku looked around to see exactly where he was and where to run to so as to not get hit.
It was clear that they were on a beach with an ocean to one side and a steep looking cliffside with gun placements scattered across the top of it on the opposite. And in between were soldiers running from boats that were landing on the shore trying to get as close as they could without getting either shot or hit with explosions.
"Calm yourself. This is only a memory." Valhalla said while looking around at the scene herself. A part of her was actually glad it was a memory since such a scene would have been too much for her to handle in real life, so many lives ending in an instant and she was right in the middle of it.
All Might let out a sigh of relief after hearing that. His first thought was that he somehow lost his powers but mentally slapped himself upside the head because he had to be reminded he was in a memory that wasn't his own. He then had his attention on the sight happening all around him. He immediately noticed something off about the soldiers that were storming the beach. Their equipment that they had on them seemed to be out of time as best as All Might could describe it.
"Valeria, can you tell exactly when all of this was taking place? It feels like what were seeing is far back into the past." All Might asked while trying to see anything that also might give a reference to when exactly this memory happened.
"The general feel of this memory is saying it happened in the month of June in the year….." Valeria focused on what she could to get the information. After a moment of concentration, there was a number that felt consistent to the memory. "….in the year 1944."
Izuku heard what Valhalla said but All Might was the one who reacted to the information. "That can't be right. You said that the person who the shield the longest held it for at least 40 to 60 years. Did anyone else hold it?"
"No!" Valhalla had to yell out because an explosion went off nearby which made a rather deafening sound that forced her to yell over. "The only constant energy I feel coming from the shield is from one person. There are hints of others but the amount of time for all of them combine doesn't even amount to a decade."
All Might wanted to ask if Valhalla got the year wrong but the more he watched the memory, the more it felt like it was accurate. That was when he realized something and turned his attention back to Izuku. The teenager hadn't really seen the worst that can happen in the world just yet or what to expect when someone becomes a Pro-Hero. Said teenager was now watching a memory in all it's horrible glory of people dying in combat.
Izuku was definitely shocked at the sight. Seeing people act like they were getting shot and killed was definitely different compared to what he was seeing now. He even saw one explosion happen on the beach and could make out someone had been thrown up into the air as a result. It was a sight that made him sick to his stomach when he noticed that the person who had been thrown up into the air fell apart as he came crashing back down to the ground in a red haze.
He turned his head away from the sight and put his hand over his mouth in an attempt to keep himself from throwing up when he saw something that instantly recognized.
"Look!" Izuku yelled out which made both Valhalla and All Might turn in the direction he pointed.
There they saw a man in a red, blue and white uniform leading a charge of men off one of the landing boats with the shield in his hands raised like a flag.
"Lets Go! Time to kick these Nazi sons of bitches all the way back to Germany!" The man yelled out as a battle cry running in front of the men he was leading with his shield raised to deflect any incoming bullets being shot at him.
The trio watched as he ran right through them, a sign that helped emphasize that they were still in a memory. All three of them noticed when he ran past them that the man with the shield was wearing a kind of helmet that had the english letter "A" on it and that his uniform did bear a resemblance to All Might's current uniform with a white star on the chest and back of the upper part.
The memory then started to fade which was a sign that the minute was up in regards to Valhalla's quirk. When all of them recognized that they were out of the memory and back in the present, only Valeria didn't show signs of being hit with an intense wave of dizziness that Izuku and All Might showed.
"Sorry about that. I forgot that it's something of a side effect for taking people with me in seeing a hidden memory. I'm used to it but first timers, well…."
Valeria was glad that she had a couple of waste baskets in this particular room since it wasn't entirely a pleasant sight seeing two people running for them and then emptying the contents of their stomachs into said baskets. It was more of a distressing sight seeing All Might do so with red coloring than it was with the teenager.
To help ease the smell that was going to fill the room, Valeria walked over to the windows in the room and opened them up all the way to help lessen the strength of the incoming stench.
Once both had finished getting over their dizziness and drank some water to help ease the after effects, Izuku and All Might brought their attention back to what they had learned from the hidden memory they saw.
"Lets recap what we know…." All Might said while sitting down on a chair to help keep any more bouts of queasiness under control in much the same way as Izuku was doing. "We know that shield is made up of at least three elements that are completely unknown at least to the three of us. It belonged to someone that wore a kind of Pro-Hero uniform during either a major conflict or war time and the memory we all saw took place in the year 1944."
Valeria and Izuku nodded to show they were in agreement with all Might's points. When he saw that they agreed, he moved on to some questions he personally had which were more or less answered.
"Izuku, when you told me what the shield could do, I made the assumption that maybe you did indeed have a quirk and it was tied to the shield. That you were somehow misdiagnosed. Clearly, that assumption was wrong."
Izuku nodded in agreement since he even acknowledge that there was a small part of him that hoped he did have a quirk. Now he knew for absolute certainty that he didn't. It didn't sting as much as the day he was told he didn't have a quirk by that doctor but at least he had the truth.
All Might forgot that he hadn't told Valhalla that bit of information. For her part, Valhalla only gave the teenager a curious glance before returning her attention to Toshinori. "I was also under the assumption that someone's quirk was affecting the shield but now more than ever I know that was wrong."
"And if we are to take everything we now know about the shield as the absolute truth, then there are a lot of things that don't make sense." All Might continued while taking on a contemplative look.
"Agreed." Valhalla said. "If memory serves me correctly, in the year 1944 was the essentially the start of World War II. And if the shield is truly less than a hundred years old…."
"It contradicts the fact that World War II happened several hundred years ago." All Might said which finished the thought Valhalla was speaking.
There was a quiet moment in the room as all three individuals absorb and process the information they had. Izuku was the first to speak up about a question he had.
"Is it possible that the hidden memory we saw might've been a dream of some kind?"
"Memories and dreams are different." Valeria began to explain since she had a similar thought in her mind but discarded it. "Dreams more often than not don't involve all five senses that a person has. Its exceptionally rare they they do but the odds are the same as if finding out how many people in a city share the same birth year, month, and day. Since memories do involve all five senses which means they leave a stronger impression that can affect both the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. I'm not totally discounting the idea that what we saw was a dream but until anything else appears that says otherwise, what we saw was a memory."
Izuku found it rather comforting of sorts when it seemed that what they saw was more of a memory than a dream. Even a teenager like him knew if someone dreamed of a scene of a battlefield where people were dying, either it was a nightmare to them or they weren't all there in the head.
"Valeria, did you get a solid impression of the person who was the sole owner of the shield?" All Might asked.
"I did. Strangely enough, it was the same kind of impression I get from you when we first met. Or should I say the impression you created when you first appeared on the scene all those years ago. Like he was also a Symbol of Peace and Justice of his time."
The answer to the question did erase some of the worry that All Might had in regards to the shield. His initial worry was when the time came that All Might would have to explain the full history of the quirk One For All to Izuku and how it originally began. He thought that maybe the shield had a similar backstory, that it belonged to someone who could have been a villain.
But that now seemed even more unlikely than before.
In fact, it seemed to be a kind strange coincidence that made sense the more he thought about it. There were still reservations he had, that was never going to change any time soon in regards to the shield. But it seemed now in All Might's view that someone or something also recognized what was in Izuku Midoriya's heart and gave him something that would be part of his journey to becoming a Pro-Hero.
All Might changed into his muscular form, walked over to the shield so as to pick it up and hand it over to Izuku.
"However this came to you, young Midoriya, it was meant for you and you alone. Of that I have no doubt." All Might said as he handed it back over to Izuku. "I also have no doubt there are lesson to be learned from it and those lesson will be for you and you alone. Treat it with respect and never forget. Understood?"
"Yes sir!" Izuku said after accepting the shield back in his hands.
All Might gave Izuku a thumb's up and his true fearless smile. He knew it wasn't his place to take or to give the shield to Izuku but at least he could remind the teenager that there was a meaning to the shield and that he should never disrespect it.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some personal matters to discuss with my friend. We'll be leaving soon afterwards."
"If you want, there's some fresh apples and oranges down in the kitchen. It'll help your stomach to have some soft fresh fruit in it." Valeria said while showing Izuku where to go in order find said kitchen.
After Izuku took off with the shield in tow, Valeria closed the doors again and turned her attention back to All Might who had deflated from his muscular form.
"So….your chosen successor is also quirkless. They say fate isn't without a sense of irony, Toshinori." Valeria said which made All Might actually look away in shame. That surprised the woman and fueled the question Toshinori was rather reluctant to answer.
"I almost didn't choose him to be my successor. I even told him that he couldn't be a hero without a quirk."
That actually made Valeria annoyed with Toshinori when he said it. "Maybe you better explain from the beginning."
Toshinori actually winced at those words and even felt incredibly uncomfortable under Valeria's gaze.
It took about a minute or two to fully explain the history between himself and the teenager. After which Valeria shook her head in disbelief at the actions the man in front of her willingly chose to make.
"So, had you not seen the boy act like a hero while you couldn't, you would have still let him believe he couldn't be a hero. That about sum it up?"
"Yeah…." Toshinori knew he would always feel a sense of shame at his actions. Not that it wasn't undeserving but still weighed heavily on him when he felt it.
Valeria let out a tired sigh before she said something she knew Toshinori needed to hear. "Nana Shimura was of a similar mind when she met you. If you hadn't done what you did to convince her that you were worthy to be the next inheritor, well you certainly wouldn't be All Might to say the least."
"The irony of it all isn't lost on me. I just couldn't believe I didn't see it since it was literally right in my face."
Valeria walked up to Toshinori and took one of his hands into hers. "One of the downsides to being a symbol that no one knows about. The expectations grow as does the symbol created by person or people. Both grow until people always expect it even under impossible circumstances and become blind to everything else around them."
"I've heard that before but in a different way. I don't regret turning myself into a symbol but what I said to my master was true. I wanted to create a world where everyone can smile, free of worries and fear."
"And as I told you, it's an admirable goal but no one can wholly do it on their own." Valeria kept herself collected since felt like she had this argument before with Toshinori and like before, it would go nowhere but in an endless circle which would ultimately annoy her to no end like every other previous times. "And yeah, I do remember all the times that you said that you won't have to it forever but after that fight with….him….even you have to admit you're running a kind of gamble after waiting so long to find someone to succeed you."
Nothing was said for a moment before Valeria told Toshinori to ask the question she knew he wanted to ask her.
"Has there been any signs of All For One?"
The question itself was almost part of an obsession in regards to both Toshinori and the quirk within him. But every time Toshinori asked her this, her mind instantly went back to the fight where Toshinori almost died and how much it hurt her to see him such a state.
But that memory was also connected to Toshinori's sidekick at the time, Sir Nighteye and how his quirk which allowed him to see in someone's future showed him something he was desperate to have from happening.
She still remembered as if it was yesterday that both Toshinori and Nighteye were arguing in the hallway of the hospital about what would happen if Toshinori continued on as All Might and how Toshinori said that he couldn't stop being All Might since that meant ignoring the people that were calling out for any hero's help.
When Sir Nighteye said that in 6 or 7 years All Might would face off against a villain that would kill him, it was a kind of revelation that was hard for all those that heard it to accept because his predictions of the future were never wrong.
While Sir Nighteye had his reasons for wanting Toshinori to retire, Valeria's reasons were more personal since they were about Toshinori and not All Might.
"It's been over five years. You defeated him. Even if he lived, you practically crippled him in that fight."
"That….monster has been around since quirks first appeared." Toshinori said while keeping his anger towards the villain in check. "What it took to take him down made me realize that all this time later that he may be down but he doesn't stay down. Not for long."
"Which is why you should have chosen a successor all those years ago." Valeria's voice again showed how annoyed she felt with Toshinori at the moment. "Sir Nighteye was correct that it may have been a rough time had you retired after that fight but he was also correct that it was the better choice than continuing on with a body as badly damaged as yours."
Valeria placed her hand over the area that was the center of the massive scar hiding underneath his shirt.
"You are so worried that All For One would return that you ignored your own health and ignoring the smartest choice you could have made all those years ago. Seriously, what's better? A successor with at least 5 years of training in One For All or a successor that will probably be lucky if he has at least a year?"
Toshinori looked away in shame when Valeria reminded him again of some of the choices he made in the past. She used both of her hands to make it so Toshinori would looked directly at her. Even without irises, both could feel their gaze meeting the others.
"My reasons for retiring from being a Pro-Hero are the same as yours. If I don't take care of myself then how can I hope to take care of people or worse, make a mistake that cost lives?"
Even without irises, Toshinori could tell that Valeria was on the verge of tears and he knew what the source was for these tears.
Toshinori reached up with his hands so as to gently hold onto Valeria's hands that still held his face in place.
"Which is why I want you to come with me to U.A. High to teach. Izuku Midoriya can be taught to be better than I was. But as much as I can teach him, he needs to know more and aside from the principal and one other member at U.A. High, no one else knows about One For All. Your own quirk training alone could help him faster understand, to make up for all the time anyone else had who was born with a quirk."
That made Valeria's eyes widen since she didn't even think about that particular idea at all. Toshinori easily had to most experience in how to use One For All but the Hero Course at U.A. High was meant to teach much more than simple quirk training and refinement. She even remembered her time in high school about how distinctly different her fellow students' quirks were and how no one lesson managed to cover even the basics for everyone in the class. Everyone had to learn all there was to know about themselves as well as their fellow students.
"And then….well maybe….maybe we can…."
Valeria took her hands away from Toshinori's face, took a couple of steps back and turned her back to him. The act did catch Toshinori by surprise but he didn't push the matter since Valeria's acts was a reminder that there was a time and place for that particular discussion and today wasn't it.
She was quiet for a moment because she was thinking over the offer to teach at U.A. High. She was already a teacher for a different high school but it wasn't an uncommon practice for someone to take a teaching position at U.A. High practically out of the blue because they were very picky in extending offers for teaching positions as they were for accepting students.
What really made the decision for her was the idea that maybe this would defeat Sir Nighteye's prediction of All Might's death. If she could help train the chosen successor, it might be enough to make up for lost time and help Izuku be prepared if and when All For One might return.
Another factor that went in the positive aspect of her decision was maybe it would help mend some bridges between them all including All Might and Sir Nighteye. Maybe even her and Toshinori….
Turning back to Toshinori, she told him that she would accept the offer of a teaching position on only one condition. Toshinori first had a sense of curiosity as to what the condition might be but it quickly changed over to dread when he noticed a smile appear on Valeria's face. A smile he had seen a few times before and remembered how much trouble it meant for anyone in which the smile was directed towards.
"I'll only accept a teaching position on the condition that…"
Outside the house, a loud yell was clearly heard caused all the birds that were nesting in the nearby trees to fly off in a panic because of the sound.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"
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Author's Note: Don't worry, you'll learn what the condition is in due time. Just at the moment I can't decided from three ideas I have in my head.
Now, Valeria is something of an OC that will play several different parts in the story outside of what All Might has asked of her. One reason for her is that aside from Miss Jokes, Thirteen, and Midnight, I haven't really seen another female teacher and no, Recovery Girl nor do the girls of the Wild Wild Pussycats count since one is a nurse and the other is first and foremost a hero agency and neither are actively part of the Hero Course. Also, I decided to throw in some more backstory for All Might because even for a series such as this, its rather hard to believe that when All Might attended U.A. High, he didn't mention any friends he made during those years. Even Eraserhead and Present Mic had a friend during their high school days.
Having Mei Hatsume introduce this early in the story serves a purpose. First to help Izuku develop the basic ability to talk to a girl in a casual environment a lot sooner and with the personality that Mei has, it could be considered a kind of 'trial by fire' but hey, who better learn from before entering U.A., right? Another in regards to Mei, for who is basically a mastermind of creating gadgets, is to learn of the shield and study it. No, she won't replicate the different properties of the metals that make up the shield and even if she could, the only one she might be able to replicate would be the Proto-Adamantium but that would be one big of a stretch on that alone. There are synthetic versions of Vibranium in the Marvel comics but honestly, they became more troublesome for all than the actual material itself.
Lastly, the memory of Captain America on D-Day storming Normandy Beach is the beginning of the ripple effect of the x-factor that shield represents. It's meant to fully establish the truth that the shield isn't part of the world for at least Izuku Midoriya. Think back to the part where Izuku said about how something that shouldn't exist can't exist. Another example: throw a stone a hundred yards out into a large lake and in time the ripples will reach all around the lake itself. You may not see all the ripples but that doesn't mean they aren't still moving under the surface.
