Chapter 5

Izuku made his way through the compound to the boss' office, however when he opened the door he was greeted with an unfamiliar face. Sitting on the left couch in front of The Boss' desk was a small girl with short pale blue hair and large red eyes, and most noticeably, a short horn protruding from her forehead. She looked at Izuku with sad eyes for a second before looking away. Izuku looked up at the boss and raised an eyebrow, eliciting a sigh from the man.

"This is my granddaughter, Eri. My daughter sent her here after she somehow made her father disappear entirely," The Boss explained. Izuku felt a pang in his chest, relating to how they had both killed one of their parents. He made his way to Eri and gave her a smile.

"Hi, Eri! My name is Izuku Midoriya, nice to meet you!" Izuku greeted. Eri looked at him, but there were no signs of a smile coming anytime soon. Izuku wasn't sure how to handle a small child, but he wouldn't give up!

"Oh, and Izuku?" Izuku straightened up at the voice of The Boss, "Could you come here for a moment?"

"Yes sir," Izuku replied as he walked over to the man.

"I want you to figure out what her quirk is. I'd take her to a Quirk Doctor, but your quirk analysis skills are so good I may as well get you to do it yourself. Reckon you can do that?" The man whispered conspiratorially. Izuku looked over at Eri and sighed. On the one hand, it sounded exciting to be able to study a new quirk like this. On the other hand, this sounded insanely challenging to figure out. But…well, Izuku was always up for a challenge.

"Yeah, I can do it," Izuku replied, earning a smile from the man.

"That's my boy. Now, how did your exam go?" The mention of 'exam' immediately flicked a switch in Izuku's head, making him go overdrive.

"Oh it was great I almost fell over at the entrance but this ghost like girl used her quirk to save me so it was fine and after the written test which went smoothly was the practical and that went really well and I used my quirk to make a gun from the parts of a robot and then later on that same girl from outside hurt her ankle and was about to be crushed by the Zero Pointer so I used my quirk to destroy it and heal her and then I fell unconscious!" Izuku breathed in an industrial amount of air once he finished, having not stopped talking for about 20 whole seconds. The Boss sighed, long tired of Izuku's habit to blab everything out all at once.

"You know, maybe you should start your research now," The Boss suggested, and Izuku whole heartedly agreed.

Her quirk made her father disappear without a trace

Most likely connected with the horn on her head

So far, that was all that Izuku had on Eri's quirk, who was currently sitting on a chair in a small laboratory Izuku had made out of a spare room. Ever since he was young, Izuku had been fascinated by the human body, specifically quirks. He even had a genome sequencer as well, which he had used to study DNA sequences, having found many interesting details, such as how Emitter, Transformation and Mutation quirks all had sequences that differentiated them from each other. Currently, the machine was busy with some of Eri's DNA, which should only take about 15 more minutes – something that would have taken a whole day back in the pre-quirk era.

"Maybe I should study Itsuka's DNA Sequence, what with her having two quirks and all that," Izuku muttered to himself, mentally tucking away the idea for later.

"Who's Itsuka?" Eri asked, startling Izuku.

"Ah! Itsuka is a friend of mine! I should have a picture of her on my phone…" Izuku replied as he pulled out his phone and searched through it until he found a picture. He showed it to Eri, who looked at it with her white eyes.

"She's pretty…" Eri commented, which made Izuku laugh.

"Yeah, I guess she is. I always saw her as a 'big sister' of sorts. She's always making sure Kurono and I aren't doing anything dumb when we hang out," Izuku said.

"Is Kurono the one with the weird hair?" Eri asked.

"Ah! So cruel!" An overexaggerated voice called out, revealing that Kurono had snuck into the lab while Eri and Izuku had been busy. Eri's head shot up to look at Kurono, and she cocked her head to the side.

"Why is your hair weird?"

Izuku swore he could see Kurono's heart break into pieces at that comment through his eyes.

"It's because of my quirk, Chronostasis! As long as I'm standing still, my hair can extend, see?" Kurono demonstrated with a minute-hand hair, extending it to the side, "Anything hit by the long arrow is slowed for a minute, and anything hit by the short arrow is slowed for an hour! Pretty neat, right?" Eri's eyes lit up in fascination as Kurono finished explaining his quirk. She then turned to Izuku.

"What's your…q-quick?" She asked, not knowing how to actually say 'quirk'. Izuku just smiled and knelt down to her level.

"Quirk, Eri-Chan, it is pronounced 'Quirk'. And as for mine, It's called Overhaul and lets me disassemble and reassemble any matter I touch with my hands, see?" To demonstrate, Izuku used his quirk on a glass vial nearby and overhauled it into a pretzel shape. Eri looked excited about it, but then her mood dropped.

"My quirk is a curse…" She said, the cheerful tone in the room doing a 180, "My mummy said so after I made daddy disappear. He was holding me, and then my horn started sparkling, and then a few seconds later he was gone except his clothes," Izuku mentally catalogued this information; perhaps it could send living organisms to some kind of pocket dimension, but not clothes? Wait, that wasn't the point, not when he had just been told that Eri had been called cursed by her own mother.

"Eri-Chan," Izuku said, firmly holding her little shoulders, "Nobody is cursed. Nobody. And that includes you. Nobody here thinks your cursed, and we can help you with your quirk. Even now, I'm doing…er, science things to figure it out," Eri looked at Izuku with big eyes, which soon filled with tears which she let fall out. Izuku hugged her, and soon enough Kurono joined as well. A couple minutes later, the genome sequencer dinged, indicating it had finished. Izuku slowly exited the hug and made his way to the screen attached to the genome sequencer, which showed Eri's DNA sequence, which was interesting to say the least.

Izuku immediately recognized the first part, as it was the strain that all emitter quirks shared, a fact he had discovered after comparing the DNA of Irinaka, Nemoto, Kurono and himself. While Irinaka, Nemoto and himself had the same strain, Kurono had a different one as his quirk was a mutant type. However, the truly interesting part was the strain that bore no resemblance to an emitter, mutant or transformation strain. Izuku quirked an eyebrow at this and called over Kurono, who was now free after handing Eri some toys that The Boss had apparently asked him to deliver.

"Eri's DNA results came back, but there's a slight problem," Izuku stated as he let his friend take a look at the screen himself, "The strain for an emitter quirk is there, but there's also a unique quirk strain that I've never seen before," Kurono looked at this and hummed.

"This is quite strange. Are you sure it's to do with quirks and not other things?"

"Quirk strains are the only DNA strains that have a gold colour," Izuku reminded Kurono, who slapped his forehead.

Right, I forgot that. Perhaps we should research?"

"That seems like a good option for now," Izuku replied as he made his way to the lab PC and booted it up. It opened up to a plain home screen which Izuku quickly exited to reach Google.

'Differences between quirk strains' Izuku typed. The search result only brought back comparisons between emitters, mutations, and transformations, so they quickly gave up there.

'Quirk strain different from emitter, transformation and mutant' returned far more results, with the first link showing him exactly what they needed.

"It looks like Eri may have a stockpile quirk that releases as an emitter," Izuku muttered as he quickly wrote that down in his notebook and sighed, "But what is she stockpiling?" Kurono shrugged.

"You're the smart guy," He snarked. Izuku rolled his eyes and decided to continue researching Eri's quirk while Kurono decided to sketch in his book as he always did.

'Stockpile Quirks are pretty rare, so there isn't much data on them. It's pretty likely she isn't stockpiling fat or anything, because most kids her age aren't that fat, and quirks generally won't activate unless it hurts the user…except for a certain quirk belonging to a certain ginger girl. Shock stockpiling is unlikely, as she doesn't seem like she gets hit often, or at all altogether. The most likely answer currently is-'

Izuku was startled when his computer showed a notification for an email, which he quickly checked. The address was 'nezu-san .jp', which caught Izuku's eye. At first he thought it might be a joke, but then he remembered only official UA staff have emails ending in ' .jp' and his eyes widened at the implication that Nezu of all people had messaged him. Was it to tell him that they wouldn't accept a Yakuza (even though he wasn't one)? Was it to tell him in advance that he had failed and he should try some other dream? Either way, he wouldn't find out by just hypothesizing, so he decided to just rip the band-aid off and opened the email.

'Dear Mr. Midoriya,

Greetings!

My name is Nedzu, the Principal of UA, but I'm sure you already knew that! I want to discuss something I noticed you had written on the working out paper from the Written Exam, something that I found very interesting. When I was reading through it, I was amazed at two things. 1: you know about possibly the most guarded secret in the modern world, and 2: your hypothesis' about how other quirks could be affected by it were very impressive!

What I'm trying to say is that you've impressed me, Midoriya, and that I'd like to personally chat with you sometime. Perhaps you would like to meet sometime soon? If so, please reply to this email with a time and date! If not, I will simply have to force you into a conversation through alternative means!

I hope to see your reply soon!

Best Regards, Nedzu'

Izuku hadn't realized he was hyperventilating until he felt the telltale sign of Kurono using his quirk on him.

"Take a minute to calm down and then tell me what's got you so excited," Kurono said. Izuku didn't really have a choice, so he waited for a minute to pass, and as soon as it had he immediately began talking.

"I just received an email from Principal Nedzu, and he said he wanted to chat with me," Izuku blurted out. The room was silent for a minute.

"What?" Kurono finally uttered out.

"Principal Nedzu-,"

"No, I heard you the first time. Why as in 'why does Nedzu want to chat with you?',"

"Oh…I, uh…may have accidentally wrote about One for All on the working out sheet for the written exam?"

"…You're an idiot,"

"I'm aware,"

It took multiple attempts for Izuku to write a coherent email not filled with fanboying, but after 30 minutes he finally had a reply written out.

'Dear Principal Nedzu,

Thank you for the email!

Personally, I am surprised that you want to chat with me, but I accept your offer! Perhaps we could meet this Saturday at around 1:00 PM at a venue of your choosing? I eagerly await your response!

Izuku Midoriya'

Satisfied, Izuku stepped away from the computer and turned to see that Eri had apparently fallen asleep, and by god if that wasn't the most adorable thing Izuku had ever seen. He walked over and carefully scooped her up before walking to his room and depositing her in his bed; he knew that between emails with Nedzu and hypothesizing about her quirk that he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight anyways. He exited his bedroom, only to run into a familiar face outside.

"Oh, hello Irinaka!" Izuku greeted as the older man looked at him. Izuku still remembered how he used to be scared of Irinaka when he was younger, but now he just viewed him as a cranky old friend that occasionally offered uncut gems of wisdom.

"Kid! How'd the exam go?" Irinaka asked. He'd been surprisingly supportive of Izuku going to UA, a fact that greatly pissed of Nemoto, to the point where Izuku wondered if Irinaka had done it because he believed this was best for Izuku or because he wanted to annoy Nemoto. Either way, support was support, and he was gonna take it.

"It went well! I think I got a lot of points, and I met this really nice girl as well!" Irinaka laughed at this.

"Ah, you're so grown up now! Next thing we'll know is that you've had kids with this mystery girl and you're Japan's number 1 hero!" Izuku blushed at this statement and waved his hands around.

"W-What? It's n-nothing like that!" He stammered, which Irinaka laughed at.

"Ah, I'm just messing with ya, kid. Anyways, I gotta go talk to the boss. See ya later," And with that, Irinaka walked towards the Boss' office. Izuku walked back down to the laboratory to continue researching Eri's quirk.

'Ok, so let's summarize. It's an emitter-stockpiler quirk that stockpiles an unknown variable, and this stockpiled variable can be used to seemingly erase a person from existence. However, according to Eri it did not erase her father's clothes, implying that it may not work on non-living objects. It's clearly linked to her horn as well, as Eri stated it began 'sparkling'. Perhaps the stockpiled variable is stored in her horn, and it's released via the horn?'

Izuku quickly had to start writing this down on a whiteboard, and soon enough he had a couple theories as to what Eri's quirk is.

1: Eri absorbs light and stores it in her horn. When her quirk is activated, the light energy stored can be used to vaporize living objects.

2: Eri stockpiles kinetic energy gained over time from moving, and this kinetic energy can be released to teleport a living object anywhere in the world.

If he had to be completely honest, Izuku was stumped as to how her quirk worked. He'd most likely need to see it in action to determine what it does, but seeing as it's a stockpile quirk with no identifiable source, that could take a while to happen. Suddenly, a notification from his computer alerted him to the fact that Nedzu had replied to his email. He swiftly opened it to read it's contents.

'Dear Mr. Midoriya Izuku

Thank you for the swift reply!

I agree with your suggested time and date, and as for the location for where we shall meet, I would like you to join me at UA so we may talk in the privacy of my own office. The gates will allow your entry unimpeded from between 12:30 PM to 1:00 PM on this coming Saturday. I will await our meeting eagerly!

Best Regards, Nedzu'

Izuku let out a sigh of relief that Nedzu had agreed with the date he had suggested. He looked at his calendar and saw that he still had 3 days until it was Saturday, so he could panic later, so for now he could continue researching and hypothesizing Eri's quirk. And so, he continued that until 5:00 AM, at which time he was passed out on his desk.

It was now Saturday, and Izuku walked nervously through the gates of UA in a personal favourite outfit of his; a sea-green bomber jacket with a beige fluff over a charcoal dress shirt and white tie, with black slacks and red sneakers to top it off. Izuku was relieved when the gates did not automatically shut in his face, however he was surprised to see the same scruffy man from the Entrance Exams walk up to him. He still looked like he was in need of sleep, and he looked like he'd rather be anywhere else.

"I'll assume you're Izuku Midoriya, right?" He asked.

"Er, yeah?" Izuku replied. The man proceeded to turn around and walk away.

"Follow me, I'll escort you to Nedzu's office," With that Izuku began following the man into the school. Izuku analyzed the man, trying to figure out which hero he was. He swore he'd heard of him before from Yakuza thugs talking, however he hadn't seen him make his eyes glow red yet, so he wasn't particularly sure.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" The man asked. Izuku, realizing he'd been caught, was flustered and looked away.

"I was just wondering why you seemed so familiar, that's all!" Izuku explained. The man sighed as they walked up a flight of stairs.

"It's illogical to care about the name of somebody who you may never meet again," The man replied. Suddenly, a door in front of them opened to reveal-

"Huh? A-All M-," Izuku slammed a hand over his mouth as the skeletal man came out of the door. To his surprise, All Might laughed.

"Ha! Don't worry, Young Midoriya! Aizawa and the rest of the UA Staff are well aware of my time limit!" Izuku took note of how he only said 'time limit', meaning that mentioning OfA to the UA Staff was a bad idea. The man, who was apparently named Aizawa, sighed again.

"All Might, if you have nothing important to say, then I suggest you return to doing your paperwork, as you have plenty to work through," Aizawa said coldly. All Might spluttered a bit before returning to the office, however Izuku took note of how All Might was doing paperwork at UA. Was he perhaps becoming a teacher? It did make sense, considering it would allow him to keep an eye on Itsuka while also letting him slowly exit Hero work and enter retirement. However, Izuku would have to consider this later, as currently they had arrived outside Nedzu's office.

"Here we are. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap," And with that, Izuku's grumpy escort turned away, leaving Izuku alone in front of the door. He knocked, and when he heard a chipper voice reply 'come in!' he entered.

Nedzu's office, for lack of a better word, was comfy. The back wall was completely glass, giving a display of the UA grounds. The other 3 walls were white with dark oak wood accents, which went well with the black carpeted floor. The desk in front of the back wall was also dark oak, with a black office chair behind it and a high-end looking PC. Directly in front of Izuku were 2 black leather couches, one of which was occupied by the resident principal and cryptid Nedzu, who was pouring himself a cup of tea.

"Welcome, Midoriya-Kun! Would you like some tea? Feel free to take off your jacket!" Nedzu added. Izuku obliged and took off his jacket and hung it on a nearby coat racket.

"Tea would be lovely, thanks," Izuku replied as he took a seat on the couch opposite Nedzu, which was the perfect mix of soft and firm. Nedzu poured a cup of tea for Izuku, which he gladly accepted and sipped, finding it was Gold Tips Imperial, a brand that Izuku liked to drink if he could find it anywhere.

"So, Midoriya, I'd like to talk to you about quirks, if you were wondering!" Nedzu started. Izuku looked at the animal's beady little eyes, trying to find any emotion. However, it is surprisingly difficult to gauge an animal's emotions from their eyes, so he stopped.

"What kind of quirks?" Izuku opted to ask.

"Perhaps we could start with the quirks of the Irinaka and Nemoto you mentioned on your paper? I am interested to hear what their quirks could be!"

And so, Izuku spent the next 15 minutes explaining the two Yakuza's quirks in extensive detail, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses and potential. By the time he was finished, Nedzu looked impressed.

"Well, you're an expert at quirks, I'll say that at least!" Nedzu stated, which made Izuku smile.

"Yeah, but this quirk recently's been driving me up the wall. I just can't figure out how it works," Izuku replied. Nedzu gestured for him to continue, and so he did, "This girl, the granddaughter of The Boss, she got sent to him by her mother after her quirk somehow made her father – but not his clothes – vanish. So far all I know is that it's a emitter-stockpiler, a mutation of her parent's quirks, and that her horn 'sparkles' when she uses it. And I can only assume that it only works on living objects," Nedzu sipped his tea and hummed.

"That does sound like a troubling quirk to figure out. Have you considered taking her to a Quirk Doctor?" Nedzu asked. Izuku sighed.

"Well, Boss wanted me to do it because I'm good at this stuff, and at this point I feel like I'd be giving up if I took her to a professional, y'know?" Izuku explained. Nedzu hummed.

"It is not wrong to admit that you need professional help sometimes. Even I often seek out my colleagues for second opinions on decisions," Nedzu said, "Admitting defeat is often the first step to improving, and if you can never admit your faults, you will never grow as a person," Izuku sipped on his tea as he let that little nugget of wisdom sink in. Now that he thought about it, he really was being selfish by trying to do this himself, and it was about time he got a qualified person to step in.

"Alright, I'll ask The Boss to take Eri to a Quirk Doctor tomorrow," Izuku replied. Nedzu nodded, and the room was filled with silence for a moment.

"If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to be a hero?" Izuku was surprised by the question, and he actually had to think on why he wanted to do this. At first, he thought it was because he wanted to be a shining beacon of hope, just like All Might, but once he thought about it further, he realized what his deep, hidden motivation to push onwards really was.

"I…I want to prove that a true hero can come from anywhere in society. I want to show all those people living in the dark depths of society that even they can be a hero, no matter where they came from or how they were brought up. That's what I want to prove," Izuku replied after a couple minutes of contemplation. Nedzu considered this for a moment and smiled.

"Well, that speech was quite inspiring! If Yagi had not already chosen his successor, I would have recommended you!" Izuku was flattered and smiled back, "Unfortunately, I believe we are out of time for now. 2 hours have passed, and I do need to get some work done. It was nice chatting with you, Izuku Midoriya!" Izuku checked his watch and, sure enough, it was already 3:00 PM. Izuku hurriedly got up from the couch and thanked Nedzu for his time before being escorted out of the school by Aizawa. As he exited the school gate and waved his apathetic escort goodbye, Izuku smiled to himself as he began to walk to the train station; today had been a good day.