"I thought you said you didn't want to stick out." Shouta stared at the teen in front of him, who was still tired from the exam earlier that day. Some of her fingers were swollen and wrapped in bandages, a side effect of overusing her Telekinesis.
Izumi huffed. "She was in danger. It was more of instinct than anything."
"You could've just pulled her out and have been done with it," he pointed out.
The green-haired girl's eye twitched. "You sound like you're upset with me doing something good." Aizawa paused for a moment.
"Izumi..." The man's stare softened slightly. "I'm not mad. But... the more open you are with your abilities, the more attention you'll get, and that leads to a greater chance of being connected to your vigilantism." Izumi opened her mouth to argue, but Aizawa held a hand up. "I know you haven't been caught yet. But if you do something big, and then someone watches a video of it or something and then runs into a vigilante using the same exact Quirk, things start to become obvious." Izumi closed her mouth, her words dying in her throat.
Eventually, she spoke. "I'm still not sorry about it."
"And you don't have to be. You just have to be smart about it." The girl bit her lip. Aizawa finally dropped his stare. "And... for what it's worth, kid... you did good." He left the room, barely catching a glimpse of the girl smiling and the tears coming to her eyes in his peripheral vision.
Toshinori Yagi stared at the screen in front of him, replaying the Entrance Exam over and over again in his head. What he had seen... What he had seen was brilliant. A mere Telekinesis Quirk - nothing flashy, used with skill and intellect, not only to fight, but to protect.
"She's our top scorer for the practical exam - 42 Villain Points, and a full 60 Rescue Points, for a total of 102 Points," Nedzu smiled as he spoke. "Of course, that is one of the highest point totals accumulated in the history of Yuuei. Interestingly enough, she was also the top scorer for the written exam that didn't have an intelligence Quirk." Students with an intelligence Quirk often took a slightly modified exam, so as to more accurately challenge them.
"Her-Her essays?" Toshinori dared to feel a small amount of hope ripple through his lanky form as he coughed a small amount of blood into a handkerchief. Nedzu kept the smile on his face as he handed the papers over to the man, the other hero's gaunt appearance seemingly not affecting him in the least. Yagi read through them. The words written... while they weren't the most original, they had heart in them. They were the sentences that other students wrote in order to pretend to appear heroic, but for some reason, as the blond read through them...
They seemed real.
"And what about her background?" Yagi could feel his blood starting to pump, but he no longer cared. He transformed into his muscular form, a grin showing on his face.
"She currently lives with two of the Yuuei faculty members - Shouta Aizawa, and Hizashi Yamada. They are her legal guardians." All Might blinked.
All Might deflated slightly. "... eh? She's Eraserhead and Present Mic's daughter?"
Nedzu's smile finally dropped slightly. "Adopted, of course." Eraserhead had never seemed to like him much when he met him at the faculty meetings, and ever since about a month prior, he had treated him outright coldly. A month ago...
He stood up straight in realization. "I met her!" The hero exclaimed. He had seen the girl with Eraserhead just a month ago - what had she been doing at Yuuei? He had run into her while on his way to the infirmary to get a new supply of supplements from Recovery Girl. "Was she... in the infirmary?"
"Quick thinking, Yagi-san," the principal praised. "Yes, she was. She was injured, although Aizawa-san wouldn't tell me from what."
"I assume you found out regardless, though," Toshinori sent a knowing look at the devious bear-like creature.
The devious animal held up a finger. "Ah! Not quite - but I do have a good guess!" The Number One Hero waited for his friend to go on, but he seemed to be waiting for something. Finally, he got the hint, and deflated to his true form. The animal snickered slightly, although it was in good nature. "She's a vigilante in the Musutafu area."
"Oh?" This could be troubling, but it also explained her combat experience present in the exam.
"Indeed!" Nedzu cheered. "With a 99.4% probability, by my calculations. If she is who I think she is, then she is quite competent, although she still suffers from the common vigilante factoid that many of the criminals she saves others from can't be indicted without prior charges as there are no real witnesses to stand on. There have been rumors of a vigilante working with Eraserhead-san as well, and if that is also her, she sees much more success in that area."
All Might relaxed and smiled. "So... she is a good vigilante?"
Yuuei's principle blinked knowingly and smiled. "That's up for you to decide, Yagi-san."
The blond man smiled. It may be that his search for a successor was finally over. 'Izumi Midoriya...' He thought to himself. 'Why does that name sound familiar?'
Izumi waved goodbye to her classmates. They had all liked her a little bit more after she had developed her Quirk, and even though she knew it was all just fake, whywouldtheytreatmedifferentotherwise, she didn't mind too much. Their faces were all blurry in her memory, like there was nothing left there, just a general idea that she remembered. It was very sunny that day, too. She remembered because it was her sixth birthday, and Papa had taken her out to see the sunset and then, afterwards, the stars. She cherished that memory because that was the last time she had seen the stars for many years. It had also been the last time she had seen her father as a human...
... instead of a monster.
Izumi stared out at the ocean. Dagobah Beach was a trash dump, no doubt about it. The way the current around it worked, just about everything dumped on this side of Japan ended up here, and the problem was compounded by locals using it as their own trash dump as well. Nobody was going to care about another sofa or chair amongst the mountains of preexisting trash already there.
Perhaps that was why Izumi felt at home there. Because she was trash, too. Discarded by everyone who encountered her, the only factor being how long it took. Or perhaps it was because she knew that she wouldn't be disturbed there. Locals weren't exactly willing to have their faces seen there, and who hung around a trash dump? The green-haired teen didn't let the irony in the thought bother her. She had stayed on the beach for a few months when she was nine, before she had 'moved' into the library, and before she had gotten brave enough to risk her safety on the streets.
Of course, nothing remained of that time, more than five years ago, but the beach still had a sense of comfort for Izumi. It also held a small amount of bitterness - there were definitely hundreds of heroes, never mind thousands of citizens who would be able to clean up the beach in a matter of days, but instead, they let it rot, figuratively speaking. All because... where was the glory in it? There's no heroes, there's no bad guys - just a trashed-up beach, and some time of work with no reward.
No matter what she did, Izumi couldn't shake the feeling of failure. Logically, she knew she had done at least decently well on the exams, maybe top fifty if she was lucky, but the more she went over it in her head she just felt like she could do more. She was supposed to be able to do anything, so why-
Izumi buried her head into her legs, curling up and sobbing. Was this all that years of training was worth? Passing out after saving just a few people? She heard a noise to her right, but paid it no mind. "Probably just a rat come to watch the show..." she murmured humorlessly.
Finally, after a few minutes, she got a hold of her emotions again, but her eyes were still red and puffy. She raised her eyes back up to the ocean, the moon starting to peek out beneath the eastern waters, the sky dimming to its orange and golden hues. A crashing sound filled her ears, though, and her head darted towards it.
"... eh?" She blinked twice to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Dressed in a white t-shirt and cargo pants, a tall man was making his way towards her, wading through the piles of garbage that created a brown and gray sea parallel to the one to her left. The man was incredibly tall, with blond hair.
For some reason, she noted, he looked... off. He was tall - very much so. Probably about seven feet tall, if she had to guess. His blond hair was spiky, with two long strands at the front sticking up jaggedly instead of bangs. Other than that... his face seemed slightly sunken, yes, but his blue eyes were vibrant and his skin was healthy. He was also rather thin, but not unhealthily so, still packing a decent amount of muscle.
Finally, Izumi recognized him. "Is that... All Might's secretary?" She muttered under her breath, rubbing at the tear streaks under her eyes. 'What's he doing here...?' She wondered. Was he here to dump trash, too? It couldn't be that, since the man didn't seem to have anything on him. Finally, he came close, knocking over a few more piles of trash along the way. As she did, Izumi noticed with amusement that he shared many physical similarities with his employer. Obviously, though, there was a major difference in their actual power levels. Absentmindedly, she found herself wondering what the man's Quirk could possibly be to be the secretary to the traditionally-secretive Number One Hero.
"Hello!" The man greeted. Izumi blinked at him, finally realizing, somewhat embarrassingly, that he was talking to her.
"H-hello!" She greeted back, politely.
The man smiled at her, a reassuring smile that she had witnessed in January when she had encountered him at Yuuei. "Hi, you're Izumi Midoriya, right? I met you a few weeks ago, at Yuuei High School." Izumi nodded in affirmation. "Glad to meet you, Midoriya-kun. I am Toshinori Yagi." The man had a booming personality, and the girl could tell he was toning it down, which she was thankful for.
"Ohayo, Yagi-sama," Izumi stood up, brushing off her outfit, and then reached out to shake the man's hand. She had her gloves on, thankfully. The man kept his smile up as he shook her hand, his massive fist dwarfing hers in size. 'No skin contact, no skin contact, no skin contact...' Izumi reminded herself, pulling her hand back as naturally as she could, finally letting out a breath once it was by her waist again.
"May I sit?" The tall man asked, making Izumi blush with embarrassment.
"Uh-" her eyes darted around to the piles of trash everywhere. "I-It's not my stuff..." She chuckled awkwardly. "I mean- yeah! Uh, I can't stop you," she said, flustered.
He sat down with less care than Izumi supposed a man of his status should have. "Is it alright if I ask you a few questions, Midoriya-kun?" Izumi tilted her head.
"Like a paparazzo?"
The man chuckled, a deep laugh that reminded her of her father's. "No, no! It's not something for me to record, or to tell anyone else, really, and if you feel uncomfortable at any time, you're entirely free to stop answering."
Izumi shrugged. 'What's the worst he can ask?' She thought to herself. Hadn't she learned not to tempt fate yet?
"Alright," the man still hadn't stopped smiling, but it was less intense now. "You took the Yuuei Entrance Exam earlier today - how are you feeling about it?"
A light-green eye's brow rose. "I thought participants weren't supposed to be public."
"They're not."
Izumi blinked twice. She was probably missing something obvious here. "Uh... Well, it went... okay, I guess? I think I probably should've studied a bit more, and I probably got put in a lower priority bracket for acceptance because I ended up hurting myself and passing out because of Quirk Exhaustion during the practical exam."
The man stared at her, seemingly confused. 'What are you confused about, Yagi-sama?' Izumi wanted to ask, but bit her lip to keep the question internal. "From what I saw, your performance was very impressive," the man offered.
"Thanks." They sat in a discomforting silence for a few moments before Toshinori asked his next question.
"Well... how did you feel about the essay portion of the written test?"
Izumi snorted slightly. "I think it's flawed. I could say what I mean, but then you could have ten dozen other people all saying the exact same thing because they think it's what the administrators want to see."
"What they think they want to see?" Toshinori inquired.
Izumi frowned. "Yeah. In-person interviews would be much more effective than these essays, but obviously that's difficult to do with thousands of applicants every year. You have a bunch of people who know what heroes are supposed to do, know how heroes are supposed to think and feel, and that's what they'll say instead of their real thoughts. They don't understand that they're not expected to come to a Hero School already prepared to be a full-fledged hero. I'm somewhat disappointed that Yuuei relies on those for character."
"Who says that's all they rely on?" The blond man smiled cheekily at her, leaving her silent. "You live with two Yuuei teachers, right?"
Izumi's eyes flicked towards the man, her opinion on him rapidly fluctuating. "How do you know that?" Her voice was sharper than before.
"O-oh!" Toshinori held his hands up in apology, sweatdropping slightly. "I should probably explain - I am a good friend of Principal Nedzu, and I'm actually an alumni of Yuuei itself. Sorry if I alarmed you." Izumi relaxed slightly.
"Oh... It's fine!" Her voice cracked slightly at the end, embarrassed for jumping to a conclusion so quickly. "Y-yeah, they're my adoptive parents."
"And may I ask what happened to your original parents?"
Izumi blinked. "I'd prefer not to answer that question." Her positive mood from earlier was starting to disappear. With the memories that had surfaced that morning... she still wasn't quite stable thinking about those.
"That's all right!" The man hurried out. "How about... how do you feel about the Symbol of Peace, All Might?" The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
"I think we're done here, Yagi-sama." To Toshinori, the words didn't sound so sweet with the anger that was present in the girl's eyes. "It was nice to meet you, sir, but I think I'll be leaving now." Izumi scaled up the cement barrier that cut off the beach to the rest of the world, her gloves making it all the easier, leaving behind an incredibly confused man.
"What in the world...?" All Might questioned aloud, softly, to himself. He would need to figure out what was going on there, especially if he was going to commit to passing on One For All to her... and fast.