A-a-a-a-a-a-a-n-d we're back!
Welcome to Arc Two, ladies and gentlemen!
Lot's of fun stuff is coming up in this arc, with the plot getting more and more AU as the story continues! I've got things planned out reasonably well, though I got hit by a delay for personal reasons. I'm down to being 1.5 chapters ahead of what I'm uploading today, instead of my usual 3 chapter lead, but I should be able to catch up by next week.
Either way, worry not! You're still getting a chapter today and the following Friday.
But, I think it's time… for me to begin.
On with the show!
—
"Has there been any updates on the meteorite case?" A feminine voice began.
"Yes, though nothing related to our realm of interest. A rich collector got their hands on the contents of one, and is reportedly making plans to display it at a museum sometime next year," a second speaker, who sounded like an older gentleman, replied. "I've sent a few agents to check the contents. There's no reason to be concerned about volatility. This time, it seems more stable."
"Hmm… That's good to hear," the woman agreed.
"What about things on your end? Anything new with Hawks' little secret?" the man asked.
"They've… progressed as we expected," the first speaker said. "If things continue as they have been, we'll need to make a Decision."
"Unfortunate," the second replied instantly. "Disposal or Hero Track?"
"As it stands, I believe the former. There's too much we can't predict, and they're too old for us to nudge onto the proper path."
"Hmm…" the second voice muttered.
"What? Do you disagree?"
"No, not necessarily, but I think it might be a bit hasty to rush things along. From what I can see in their psyche profile, they have a lot of potential to serve the greater good. Either in the light… or…" the second trailed off.
"Are you serious…? We already have Hawks, and we got lucky enough to find him at a young age. We cannot afford another of her," the woman spat.
"Ah, apologies. I didn't mean to remind you of your husband's…" the man paused.
After a moment of awkward silence, he continued.
"Well, regardless, something tells me we may have a chance with this one. Hawks went out of his way to hide their potential, after all. He hid something from us just to keep our eyes off this child. That's not something to scoff at."
The two remained in silence for several minutes as the man awaited a reply.
Finally, she spoke.
"...Very well. I'll consider it," the first person said stiffly.
"That's all I ask," the second said. "Besides…"
"We have all the time in the world for the child to slip up."
—
"Hey, did you hear?" an older woman asked.
She was walking side-by-side with a man of similar distinguished age, the matching rings on their fingers signifying their relationship.
"Hear about what, honey?" he asked.
"Well, it's been in the newspaper so I thought you might have seen it, dear, but we have a vigilante in town…!" the woman whispered conspiratorially, like it was some great secret.
"Really?" the man confirmed. "I… I don't remember the last time there was a vigilante around. It's just heroes and villains these days. Was it in one of the tabloids? I find it hard to believe one popped up all of a sudden."
It was evening currently, the sun's rays streaming over the horizon as it set. It was a beautiful time of day, perfect for photographs, romantic confessions, and other similar things…
"Yes, but still!" the woman countered. "No one's gotten a good image, but there's been a few interviews with people they helped! Returning wallets, stopping pickpockets..."
"Hmm… Well, if they're even real, I should hope someone talks some sense into them," the old man stated. "We don't need vigilantes anymore, heroes are reliable now—"
He was cut off by a gust of wind, blowing with such sudden force that it nearly bowled him over, and would have knocked his wife over if she hadn't reflexively latched onto his arm.
"What the—"
"My purse!" the woman yelled, interrupting her husband's exclamation.
Looking ahead, the expensive bag was clearly visible, hanging off of a floating piece of paper. The thing was moving fast, almost as quickly as the wind. So quickly that there was nothing the elderly man could do to catch up. Neither of their quirks would help either, with his being nothing but—
A blur of steel streaked through the air, impaling the piece of paper and pinning it to a telephone pole. Shortly afterward, a girl with blue-ish black hair trailing above what was clearly a hero costume leaped out of an alley—the alley the blur had originated from—and retrieved the bag and her large… needle?
From there, the girl turned toward the couple and sped over, crossing the distance rapidly.
As she approached, her silhouette became far clearer to the older gentleman. She was dressed in a baggy hoodie, most of which was a pale faded purple but for the white on her shoulders and sleeves. Strapped to her right leg was a long pouch, while upon her feet was a pair of open-toed sandals. A cloth band hung from her neck, with a metal plate that had an hourglass inset within a circle etched into it sewn onto the cloth's surface.
Most notably of all, however, was the pale fox-like mask she wore. Reminiscent of a traditional face-covering, the kind you'd see at festivals, the thing obscured the upper two-thirds of her face easily. Red whiskers adorned its cheeks, while its thin snout extended a few centimeters from her own nose.
Despite the way it hid her identity, the mask could not cover the wide smile the girl presented below it.*
"Here you are, ma'am," she said, offering the purse to the woman.
"Oh, thank you!"
"Who're you?" the man rattled off suspiciously. "I've not seen you on the news before. Is this your debut?"
The girl laughed, sounding a little nervous. She was clearly young, old enough to be his granddaughter even.
"Oh, I'm a nobody," she said. "Just doing what I can!"
"Hmm…" the man said, squinting at the hero.
"Oh, stop it, dear! Leave the girl be!" his wife said, smacking him lightly on the arm.
In the brief moment he'd looked away, the girl had already taken off running in the direction that the purse had initially flown.
"Sorry, I've gotta go!" she exclaimed, waving her hand as she ran after the floating piece of paper. "Have a good day!"
A moment passed in silence.
"I can't believe you!" his wife began. "You didn't need to be so rude!"
"Now, honey—"
"Don't 'now, honey' me!" the woman denied. "She just saved my purse!"
"I do believe we just met that vigilante you were talking about," the man cut in before she could continue.
The woman stared at him disbelievingly.
"There's no way!" his wife denied. "I was just talking about that! It's too convenient for them to show up right as I'm speaking! This isn't a comic, dear."
The man shrugged, and with the wisdom of someone who'd been married for over thirty years… he threw in the towel.
"I must've been wrong then…"
—
Certainty brings its own kind of relief.
If there was one thing Izuku had realized in the past several weeks, it was that. After her most recent encounter with a villain, she'd realized that she had to help people… but it's one thing to say that, and quite another to act on it.
She simply could not become an official hero. The temporary-girl had spent a decent amount of time looking into it. The legalities involved demanded she attend a Hero Course, which wasn't possible now that the application period for hero schools had passed. Compounded with the fact that she simply couldn't wait until the next year because of laws to keep minors in school, and… it didn't paint a good picture for that particular hope.
Without an official education, it was still technically possible to become a licensed hero, but there was so much red-tape and money involved that it wasn't really an option either. It was a shame, because that just left… being a Vigilante.
It was hard to imagine at first, since everything Izuku had been taught throughout her life screamed at her to not do that… To 'let the heroes handle it.' That was the attitude drilled into every person from the day they were old enough to understand basic conversation. Somehow, though, that philosophy hadn't stuck in her case.
Look at what she'd done recently, after all.
Unfortunately, being a Vigilante wasn't much better than wading through the paperwork to get a license without proper schooling. It was Prohibited, with a capital 'P.' Crime was for the police and heroes, not civilians with delusions of grandeur. At least, that's the mentality most followed, nowadays.
There were 'doo-gooders' and 'good-samaritans,' that the law left alone, mainly people who just happened to be in the right place to stop someone from getting hit by a car, tackle a purse-snatcher, and so on. That was allowed…
True, proper, Vigilantes, that were equal to heroes, however?
They had fallen out of favor in the modern world. If you were caught trying to be a real Vigilante, the consequences were severe. Despite that, Izuku knew that she was going to do it. She couldn't help it! Not after the epiphany she'd had that night, weeks before.
In fact, it was even easier to make the leap into Vigilantism because of, ironically, something Aizawa had said to warn her away from it.
'The reason the Hero Commision is so proactive about Vigilantes isn't because we don't want competition… It's because if we allowed just anyone to fight villains... a lot of people would end up dead.' the man had said.
Or, in other words, the only real problems with being a vigilante was being weak… and getting caught. If Izuku could gain the requisite ability, along with taking precautions to maintain anonymity… Then there wasn't any issue, right?
So the normally green-haired boy had jumped into the deep end head first. First came the costume, then acquiring support items to assist, like a set of extra-strength nails that she'd filed down into senbon for Hinata. Combine all that with maintaining her grades, and Izuku had become even more of a coffee addict.
It was taking a lot of work.
But… she found that it didn't matter to her. Now that she understood herself, Izuku felt like she could take on the world! Most of the time, it was hard to constrain the general sense of enthusiasm that pervaded her every action. Izuku was smiling all the time now, enough so that her mother had taken to commenting on it whenever they crossed paths.
It felt good to finally understand what she wanted to do with her life.
Schoolwork no longer felt as soul-sucking, while the aches of her old crushed dream had faded to a dull simmer that was, at worst, a slight nuisance. Everything truly seemed to be getting better now.
'Up ahead, Izuku-san,' Hinata interjected. 'The paper tag flew this way.'
Right, thanks Hinata!
'Y-you're welcome, Izuku-san,' the girl stuttered.
It was weird how the girl was so nervous all the time, given how reliable she'd been at the power plant… but Izuku found it somewhat endearing in a way. Honestly, with how starved for relationships the freckled-usually-boy was… she had already started to consider the spirits to be her friends.
Ridiculous, highly eccentric, friends that tugged her this way and that with their antics… but friends nonetheless.
I see… him?
Using the Byakugan's 'Awareness' to look ahead, Izuku had rushed around a street corner with the not-mundane speed that she'd discovered this form was capable of achieving. Standing awkwardly behind a dumpster was what appeared to be a living piece of paper with a large amount of animated red eyes printed upon its otherwise blank surface. The thing was human in shape, if not material, with creases and folds allowing it to have joints. It looked like a child's attempt at origami.**
The tag that Izuku had stopped from stealing the old woman's bag appeared to be made of the same material as the paper-person, with a single red eye emblazoned upon its surface.
"Got you!" Izuku exclaimed with excitement.
The thing had seen her the moment she'd rounded the corner, its many eyes all widening in shock and then crinkling into panic.
The currently blue-black-haired girl leaped forward, spinning midair in a familiar maneuver. Reaching down with her hand, she grabbed several senbon from the pouch on her thigh and went to launch them at the villain's tenketsu.
"!" the thing screeched.
It flung its arms forward, sheafs of paper sloughing off the extended limbs and smacking into Izuku. Obstructed as she was, the freckled girl spiraled out of control, hitting the ground with an awkward thump as paper wafted to the ground around her.
'Izuku-san, it's not good to jump like that without a way to alter your course. You're a sitting duck,' Hinata chimed in.
Got it!
Hopping to her feet, Izuku ran forward. The villain had ceased its attack the moment it proved effective, running away immediately. Giving chase, Izuku flung several senbon at the villain—catching it in one of its ankle-like creases. With the way she used her energy to coat the items, it wasn't enough to seriously injure—unless they hit an eye or something—but the oversized needles would either force a tenketsu shut if it was open or numb it such that it impeded the opponent greatly.
Izuku had tried infusing her energy in other things, once or twice, but it got exponentially more difficult the larger and more complex the item—so she stuck with the senbon.
"!"
The villain tumbled to the ground, clutching its ankle. Izuku rapidly closed the distance, prepared to—
Huh?
Without having realized it, Izuku had stepped on a sheet of paper—one of the many that were strewn throughout the alley now—and began to skid. The surprise ripped away her connection to Hinata's skills, leaving her fully in control of her body.
"Aaaaahhh!"
Pinwheeling her arms around in a vain attempt to regain her balance, the temporary girl slid forward... heading straight for the villain.
"Oof!" she grunted, smacking against the surprisingly dense paper-person and tumbling over them.
She landed a couple meters away with a groan.
After a few moments, she remembered what she was doing through the headache that was forming, finally re-activating her Byakugan's Awareness. As her eyes pulsed, Izuku noticed that the villain was tensed up, its energy coalescing like it was charging an attack up in a game or something.
What the—
Izuku leaped to her feet, hand already reaching for her senbon pouch as the villain gave her a salute, its many eyes winking cheekily. Its incredibly tenseness faded all of a sudden and then…
It dispersed into thousands of tiny little paper sheets, floating away on the wind.
Staring with her unique sight in sheer disbelief, Izuku watched the villain escape. There was nothing she could do to stop it now. After a few moments, she drooped dejectedly, her hood falling forward onto her head as she let out a groan.
"...Crap…"
…
Returning home after dark was… an experience... now that Izuku had her new hobby.
It would be impossible to just walk into her house, dressed like a hero, so she needed to change first.
One part of that was, thankfully, a rather quick process because of the fact that she'd finally figured out one of the watch's functions! That's right! After months of trying to understand the device's inner workings, Izuku had finally gotten something to show for it!
The watch could actually change the teen's clothes after a transformation occurred, replacing whatever was currently worn with a preset that she gave the watch before-hand. This allowed her to have customized costumes for each spirit! She'd considered trying to use this mechanic for changing into clothes that fit properly, but… there was an issue with that.
Not only was there a finite amount of 'slots' that could be filled with designs… but the watch was picky. Well, either the watch was picky, or the girls themselves were somehow involved with the process. For a design to be accepted, it had to 'suit' the girl it was being associated with—accurately fitting their look and demeanor.
Ryoko-form clothes had to be flowing and be somewhat alien, Rias-form clothes had to expressly show off her curves, Hinata-form clothes had to be simple and/or ninja-like, Baiken-form clothes had to match her 'ronin' aesthetic, and 2B's clothing had to be elegant and somewhat frilly.
When combined with the heavy restriction in the amount of clothing slots available… The stylistic limitations led to Izuku tabling the idea of using the function for convenience. Instead, she used it exclusively for hero costumes.
She'd pretty much just copied the girls' own clothing for now, but she had some vague ideas for improvements to add in the future. The masks however, were her own creation. If she was going to be a vigilante, she needed to hide her face, and none of the girls—with the exception of 2B—had anything like that.
Of course, there was one complication… Izuku still had to change out of her costume manually unless the transformation ran its course fully. The clothing change applied by the watch would only revert whenever Izuku herself changed back, and not a moment sooner. Thankfully, she could remove the costume manually—making the thing disappear—but it was still quite inconvenient.
As such, Izuku's usual routine now involved her awkwardly changing out of her clothes in the dark of her own backyard before she snuck around to the front to enter. She had a stash of normal clothing hidden in a plastic container beneath some shrubbery, but the entire situation wasn't exactly… ideal.
Despite her mother's insistence that she 'acclimate' to her 'quirk,' Izuku had managed to avoid taking a shower with the watch active or otherwise seeing her transformed states without clothes. Even when she had to change into Uraraka's clothing for her fight with Bakugo, she'd managed to keep her eyes from wandering. Baiken's threats had assured that.
She would not be beaten. Rias would never corrupt her!
'Um… Izuku-san…' Hinata said, a few minutes into Izuku's awkward process of changing while keeping her gaze pointed at the sky.
Hm?
'W-while I appreciate your sense of chivalry… Inko-san is correct. This isn't healthy…' the girl stated somewhat nervously. 'Furthermore, it could be a disadvantage in a fight—'
Did Rias put you up to this?
'What? No—'
Of course she did!
"Gah!" Izuku exclaimed in frustration, smacking her now uncovered face against the tree in the yard. "Why can't she leave well enough alone?!"
The sound of her frustration was loud, calling attention to her presence.
"I-Izuku...? I-Is that you out there?" a familiar voice asked.
Before the temporary-girl could reply, her mother burst out of the back door, baseball bat in her shaking hands as she looked around wildly. Thankfully, she had just finished changing back into her school uniform, keeping it unbuttoned as usual whenever she wore it while transformed.
"O-oh! It was you. What're you doing back here, honey?" the woman asked, hiding the bat behind her back bashfully.
W-what do I say?!
"Um…" Izuku muttered nervously, poking her fingers together habitually as she struggled to come up with a lie on the spot.
"Oh, sweetie, don't tell me you were trying to sneak into your room without me seeing you…" Inko chided. "It's just how your quirk is, honey. You really don't need to be this embarrassed over it."
That works…!
"R-right, that was it!" Izuku agreed a bit too eagerly.
Thankfully, the woman didn't notice.
"Come inside, sweetie. It's late. You need to sleep," the older woman ordered.
Izuku complied silently, making her way into the house, where a plate of food was shoved into her arms and another warning about not staying up too late was shoved into her head. Inko was a surprisingly stern woman when she wanted to be…
'She just cares for you, Izuku-san…' Hinata stated as Izuku tore into her meal with the ravenous nature of a student determined to not let their meal cut into study time.
I know, I know… It's just frustrating sometimes. It's like she thinks I'm made of glass!
'You should still appreciate that she's there, Izuku-san. Trust me, it's better that she's around to worry for you…' the girl replied with a bit of melancholy. 'Not everyone has that luxury.'
Izuku paused in the middle of taking a bite of her dinner, eyes widening in realization.
O-oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean—!
'It's alright… You couldn't have known,' Hinata stated. 'Just… Be grateful for what you have, okay?'
R-right!
Determined to not dig that conversational hole any deeper, Izuku wisely kept her mouth shut after that, finishing her dinner with gusto. Following that, she began the painfully dull but equally necessary activity that was homework.
Thankfully, there wasn't too much work to do tonight, so it was only eleven o'clock by the time she was done.
With an eager grin, Izuku finished her last physics problem, packing away the papers and clearing space on her desk. Checking to make sure that the door was closed, and more importantly locked, the currently freckled girl stepped up onto her workspace. Stretching onto the tips of her toes, she reached for the vent near the ceiling.
With a soft grunt of effort, she managed to pry it off, having already removed the screws weeks prior. From within her hidden stash she withdrew a shoe box and a notebook, setting them at her feet on the desk before replacing the vent cover and returning to her seat. The book, titled 'Hero Plans for the Present,' was a compendium of all of Izuku's notes on the watch, her transformations, and her ideas. The box, on the other hand, contained her latest project… her first proper support item.
Letting out a yawn, Izuku rubbed her eyes tiredly. A moment later, she noticed a familiar tingling feeling.
Good night, Hinata.
'Good night, Izuku-san—' the girl replied, but was cut off by a flash of red light.
With that, Izuku was back to normal.
Another yawn came out before he could stop it, but Izuku ignored what it implied. He needed to make progress here.
Grabbing the lid of the shoebox, the freckled boy gently emptied its contents onto the desk. A long chain took up most of the space, with the remainder taken up by some loose parts and a partially assembled bracer. The partially built support item was intended for Baiken, since it was the only thing Izuku could reasonably make right now for any of the spirits.
Most of the girls weren't all too reliant on weapons or tools for the use of their abilities to begin with. Ryoko and Rias didn't use any at all, and while Hinata could use quite a few shinobi tools, not only were they not her specialty, but the only things Izuku could reasonably get his hands on were senbon… and he'd needed to make them himself out of nails.
Most of 2B's equipment was so high tech that Izuku wasn't even sure if he could recreate a lot of it even if he delivered blueprints directly to a support company, much less attempted to make it himself. As such, trying to remake a 'pod' was a distant project, if he ever even tried it. There was some potential with other technological things for 2B, mainly related to making 'pod programs' into energy abilities, but that would be a long-term project anyway. For now, Izuku would just be using the bokken he'd bought for the 'duel' with Bakugo for 2B instead of the futuristic blades she apparently had originally.
Baiken was the most reliant on items aside from Hinata, but Izuku definitely couldn't get his hands on a real katana—the defining bit of her equipment—so the bokken would have to suffice for her as well. However, the other noteworthy part of her kit was something that Izuku could get… well, make actually, but it was the same thing functionally.
The pink-haired samurai had hooked up a large grappling hook to the place her severed arm used to be, hiding its presence underneath the flowing sleeves of her kimono. According to her, it was useful both for moving around creatively, but also as a method of surprising or tripping up the enemy—even pulling them directly if there was an opening.
The issue was… it was a complex project.
Well, that wasn't true. It wasn't all that complex to make a grappling hook. Izuku could find simple diagrams all over the internet or make them up himself with what he knew and the experience he'd gained in his studies since applying for the Support Course. The real issue was in trying to make a grappling hook that was compact enough to not take up the space his arm did in a sleeve without relying on any of the industrial-grade equipment he couldn't access.
It was quite difficult, under these constraints, to make such an intricate device.
The current design would rely on attaching the three-pronged claw to a vambrace that would wrap around his forearm. The chain, while retracted, would encircle the remainder of his arm all the way to the shoulder. It wouldn't have the best range because of that, but it would be more than enough to allow Izuku to fully mimic Baiken's combat style while in her form.
Speaking of which, Izuku had another problem beyond making Support Gear for himself.
I need to find a place to train…
The fight with what had to be an F-tier villain—given how they paled in comparison to Tesla—earlier that day had only reinforced that fact.
As it stood, Izuku had no way to train besides getting into fights with criminals and low-level villains. Obviously, that wasn't ideal. Particularly because Izuku was the kind of person to experiment and plan things out. He needed time to consider his options and familiarize himself with all the different things he could do in each of the forms the watch granted him.
Unfortunately, that wasn't exactly something he could do in his room, nor was it something he could do with other people around. He'd checked the internet, searching for abandoned warehouses and plots of land. Places like the half-built factory complex Uraraka had invited him out to so they could...
Why had she invited him, actually? They'd never gotten a chance to talk about it. She's said something about a training program in her text, but what did she need him for?
...Ah well. It's probably not important.
There were a few potential locations he could go to, with one near Esuha—though that was a bit far for Izuku's preference, another in Naruhata, and a third that was actually in Musutafu. Ideally, the one nearest to him would work, but Izuku planned to check out all three of them at some point.
With a quiet click, the last piece fit into place and Izuku realized that he'd finally finished this prototype. Blinking owlishly, he set the thing down and stared at it.
Scratch that… I need to check them out soon.
…
The following few days passed quickly, with school flying by in a haze.
The only noteworthy things were visiting the costuming club and Izuku's continued efforts to not vomit whenever he saw Bakugo. It was disturbing on so many levels that the blonde had a crush on 'Baiken.'
Worse still, Izuku knew he would need to interact with the boy further in some way.
In his panic to escape the bewildering situation he'd been in when the blonde had confessed, Izuku had left his bokken behind. It was a very high quality tool, and had been something he'd needed to spend most of his allowance on to get. He couldn't just replace it… but he still had to use it for Baiken and 2B.
Bakugo had, to Izuku's horror, claimed the thing—keeping it with him all the time in a cloth sleeve he slung over his shoulder with his backpack. So, somehow, Izuku was going to need to get it back from the blonde.
The angry teen hadn't spoken to Izuku—when he was in his true body anyway—since he'd demanded that the green-haired teen setup a meeting for him with 'Baiken.' In some ways, this was a good thing since it meant that the blonde wasn't going to bother Izuku directly about… whatever this was.
On the other hand… It probably meant he was waiting for a call from 'Baiken.'
This meant Izuku would need to somehow convince Bakugo to give him the bokken—which was unlikely to work—or he would need to bite the bullet and contact him as 'Baiken.' As you can expect, he'd been putting off that decision ever since he realized it needed to be made.
As for the costuming club, little of note was going on there.
Izuku had designed a simple costume for Agoyamato's assignment, basing it off one of the lesser-known heroes in his older notebooks. The boy had liked it, but given several corrections that had ended up assisting Izuku more than Agoyamato had probably intended. Izuku hadn't mentioned, and had no plans to mention, his personal project, but the big-chinned-teen somehow ended up being helpful with it anyway.
Maintaining his membership in the club made things a bit more difficult than they already were, since he had to split his focus even further so as to keep up with his mentor's assignments, but it was still manageable—even with the way it ate into Izuku's sleep schedule.
Now though, Izuku had made sure that he had plenty of time this weekend to travel around and visit his prospective training grounds. First up was the nearest one, still within the area of Musutafu. Funnily enough, it was actually somewhat close to Endeavor's mansion, which was a popular place to take photos of, though people were warned to not actually peer inside the outer walls.
You would expect the location of his family home to be top secret, given the possibility of villain attacks, but unlike many other top heroes… he didn't care. He flaunted his location to the world, giving an open challenge to any and all comers.
It said a lot about the man.
The place Izuku was planning to visit was an empty lot, previously home to an old shopping complex that had been demolished. There was some debris still left over, from what Izuku could find online, but the majority of the buildings were gone by now. More importantly, the place was out of the way—further aided by the fact that Endeavor's home would direct even more attention away from it.
It was forty-five minutes away from home by bus, with no train connection near enough to use, and fifteen from school. It was much better than the two or three hour one-way trips to the other options Izuku had managed to find.
As he approached, the green-haired boy made sure that he had everything in his bag, ready to—
A loud cracking sound, like glass shattering, caught his attention. Up ahead, Izuku could see a tall pillar, lancing up toward the sky, made purely of… Ice?
The thing was huge, easily a few dozen stories tall. It split apart the further up it went, forming tree-like branches that spiked angrily in every direction—like it was seeking to claw at the air itself.
After several moments, cracks formed in the fragile substance, reaching up like spiderwebs as they pervaded the structure. As soon as they reached the top, the whole thing fell apart. Massive pieces of ice fell towards the ground, shattering upon impact beyond Izuku's line of sight. The walls surrounding the abandoned lot were too high to see over.
What was that...?
Thoroughly amazed and eager for answers, Izuku approached the area cautiously, climbing up the stone wall and peering over it.
The area was clear, excepting the massive amounts of already melting ice and the lone boy standing in the center of it all. He was dressed simply with a basic sleeveless t-shirt and jeans. Far more interesting was his face. Bi-colored hair with red on the left and white on the right, that was just long enough to dangle a bit, draped over his eyes. Izuku couldn't quite make out their color at this distance, but something seemed off with them too.
Frost wafted from the boy's breath, while large shards of ice clung to the right side of his body. He was shivering notably from the cold, and the look on his face was not a happy one. His wince was visible even through his glare as he gripped the partially frozen side of his body as an instinctual counter to the pain.
Before he knew it, Izuku was running over to the boy, already trying to remember what he knew about helping with hypothermia from his first aid studies.
"Are you okay?!" Izuku called. "What am I saying?! Of course you're not okay! You're covered in ice and—"
The ice-laden teen spun to face Izuku, cold rage etched into his features as he stomped with his right foot as part of the motion.
Ice lanced out from the limb, spiking forth from the ground in a straight line that rapidly approached Izuku, coming to a stop just in front of him with a single—blunted—skewer primed to knock the wind out of Izuku's lungs.
The green-haired boy barely managed to dodge, tumbling awkwardly to the side and rolling with awkward thumps. After a few painful bumps, he managed to look back at the boy in front of him. The boy glared at him angrily before declaring...
"I'm not going back."
—
Todoroki Shoto was an unhappy person.
Raised in an unhappy home, by an unhappy family, with an unhappy father pushing him beyond his limits ever since his quirk was discovered. All this for the sake of one thing: his father's pride. That was the sin that defined and tore down his life for as long as he could remember.
It was his father's pride that kept him separated from his older, happier, siblings; his father's pride that led to beatings in all but name for the sake of training; his father's pride that pushed his mother to a mental breakdown that ended with a permanent burn scar over his one eye...
If there was one thing Shoto hated, it was pride.
So he rebelled, pushing back against his father's dream of having someone of his blood finally break past the limits of the position of 'Number Two Hero: Endeavor' and surpass the only man he couldn't beat: All Might. Shoto may not be able to control whose blood flowed through his veins, but he could spit in the man's eye by not using the part of his quirk that came from his genetics.
Half-Cold, Half-Hot… If he had anything to say about it, the quirk would simply be Cold.
The teen had vowed to never use his father's flames in battle, either in spars or in the eventual combat he would be forced into as part of a hero's job description. He would become Number One, but purely through the powers he'd received from his mother.
Of course, this vow had placed a major wedge between Shoto and Endeavor, as it was meant to. The man had pushed him harder and harder in practice, determined to force him to use the half of his quirk that was synonymous with the hero. As of yet, he had yet to succeed. All it would amount to was Shoto inevitably getting overwhelmed and turned into a walking bruise. There were never any burns, between the boy's natural resistance and Endeavor being determined to not 'marr the image' of his 'heir' any further than his mother.
Because of the steadily increasing difficulty of his training, Shoto had taken to sneaking out of the ostentatious building he called home and practicing on his own in a nearby lot. No one ever showed up there, for a multitude of reasons, so it was more than enough for him. Unfortunately, he could only get out so often, since his father would send out minor heroes or sidekicks that owed him a favor after Shoto to force him back home.
That all started because of the minor manhunt the man had started the first time Shoto left without permission, the flame hero's sheer panic at his son's apparent disappearance making him think the boy had been kidnapped. Now, however, Endeavor made it something of a game: Shoto would be permitted to continue his rebellious behavior if he managed to beat the person that was dispatched after him.
Today, though… Today was different. The teen needed to blow off some steam, ironic as that may be given how he would be doing it. Pushing himself to the limit of his ability to generate ice over and over again was, while effective, also incredibly tiring. The formations always lost most of their strength and durability when he pressed beyond a certain scale, and the loss of control that resulted from them shattering left a tiring sense of feedback. It was working though. The limit of his creation was steadily increasing from the activity.
The reason he was so angry, however, was less simple than it usually was. Endeavor hadn't just made some offhand disparaging comment about Shoto's mother, or pushed particularly hard for the teen to use his flames… no, the man had taken one of the things that the bi-colored teen had been most looking forward to and stained it with his damnable pride.
From a young age, Shoto had been kept separate from his siblings. It started with distance—they weren't allowed to interact for too long so Shoto could keep training—and had gradually built into the terrible realm of unfamiliarity.
Shoto knew their names—Fuyumi and Natsuo—and he knew their faces… but they were practically strangers to him. Their relationship was more akin to people that lived in the same apartment building, stumbling into each other occasionally and giving passing greetings and platitudes, but nothing deeper.
This sense of loneliness was worsened by the fact that Endeavor had deliberately kept him away from the other children in the neighborhood and gone so far as to homeschool him—aided by an endless stream of tutors. It had taken special dispensation from the Japanese government, since it was normally not allowed, but the man was Endeavor. Of course he got special treatment. He always did.
Maybe homeschooling would have worked for him in another life, a better one where he wasn't so terribly unhappy… but here? Now? All it did was reinforce the hatred he'd cultivated for his father through their forced proximity. It was even more of a problem once his mother was forced into a mental hospital after… the incident. It was essentially only Shoto, his father, and the damnable tutors all the time after that, training and studying day in and day out.
The monotony was only broken up by the occasional presence of disposable hero-nobodies that Endeavor knew—bringing them in as training partners and baby-sitters for Shoto. At first, Shoto had been overjoyed to finally be interacting with people a bit closer to his age than the practically geriatric teachers he got, but he'd quickly been soured on the idea when he realized that these people were only there to appeal to his father.
The reason all this mattered was simple. Shoto would be going to high school soon.
Even though the man probably could have gotten away with pushing his methods until Shoto was old enough to take exams and leap straight into his career, he'd decided that the benefits of developing a reputation from a younger age outweighed those he would get if he skipped conventional schooling altogether.
Shoto was as close to ecstatic as he could remember being at that news.
He would finally have freedom, even if it was something of an illusion, and would be able to interact with his peers. It didn't matter if they got along or not, all that did was that the people he met wouldn't be Endeavor.
Then, because of course the man couldn't let him enjoy things, Endeavor had declared that he was giving Shoto a 'recommendation' to increase his chances of getting into U.A.; which was the only hero school the man would accept his son attending. This would allow him to bypass most of the admittance process, though he would still need to take a written exam and a practical.
He wouldn't need to compete with a vast horde of people for the attention of the proctors, and the school would even interview him to see if they liked him—further increasing his chances of attending, since most people washed out of the application process without getting the attention of anyone important.
To most, this would be fantastic news… but to Shoto? It meant that he was getting special treatment. He hated it. It was nearly as bad as the idea of using his flames. The recommendation system was in place so that pros that had stumbled across diamonds in the rough could bring them to the attention of the teachers, not so that a successful hero could get his son into his alma mater more easily.
It was always about Endeavor's pride…
The man had even given him an out, since he knew what this meant to Shoto. If the teen could beat him in a fight—which was impossible right now—or agree to use his flames, then he would drop the recommendation and allow Shoto to try and get in purely from his own merits...
The teen would never use his flames… So here he was, pushing himself to his limits so that he could achieve the impossible.
It's not enough…
Gripping his extended fist into a tight ball, he generated a jagged orb of ice, several meters tall, that grew inward on itself in a lethal imitation of a geode.
Not enough…!
Spinning in a circle and dragging his right foot on the ground with him, a semi-circle of spikes spiralled into existence, cutting a vast swath across the cracked concrete as it extended like a wave into the empty lot.
Never enough… Not to beat him.
Channeling the cold wrath he nurtured at the center of his being, he stomped on the ground and flung his right arm toward the sky violently.
At first, nothing happened.
An angry growl echoed from his throat as he forced even more energy into the process. He felt it when he passed the activation threshold, and suddenly it appeared. Exploding forth from the ground came a gargantuan ice tower, well beyond anything he'd ever made. Scraping at the sky with its sharp edges, it was sure to catch the attention of everyone within several blocks.
Including him.
Shoto's concentration shattered, and with it the tower, crumbling down toward the earth violently. If he was lucky, then Endeavor hadn't noticed it. The thing had only existed for a few moments, after all. But that wasn't as important right now.
He'd done it. He'd finally passed the limits he'd maintained for years and made something truly massive in a few bare moments. With training, he was sure to be able to replicate the feat, but…
It's still not enough! Something like this will never beat—!
Wincing, he finally noticed the consequences of his action.
Too caught up in the moment, he hadn't paid attention to the downside of his quirk. Well, the downside of using it the way he was determined to. Whenever he used too much ice, excess crystals would begin to form on the surface of his right side, sapping body heat and damaging his skin. For a normal person, it would cause crippling damage, but his innate resistance aided him well enough that it was only a temporary issue at worst. Were he to use his flames to counter the ice, it wouldn't be a problem at all, but… That wasn't an option.
For now, he would just return home and take an incredibly hot shower. It would be more than enough to clear this amount of—
"Are you okay?!" A voice called, rapidly approaching. "What am I saying?! Of course you're not okay! You're covered in ice and—"
Turning to face the threat, Shoto followed the ingrained reflexes that resulted from his father's training, sending a torrential line of ice towards the unfamiliar sound that had startled him so badly.
The meaning of the stranger's words skipped past him, his fatigue and lack of awareness rendering them meaningless gibberish. All he knew was that someone had interrupted his training, and there was only one thing that could mean.
Looks like today's handler finally caught up...
His opponent dodged to the side awkwardly, landing in a heavy roll worse than what Shoto had learned by the age of six. With that, it seemed likely they weren't a close-range fighter, which could be a blessing or a curse depending on how effective they were at their chosen distance.
They were dressed in civilian clothes, but that didn't matter right now. It was just as likely they were suddenly called by Endeavor when they were on an off-day and didn't have time to grab their costume.
"I'm not going back," he declared coldly.
—
"W-what? I don't—" Izuku began, confused by the declaration.
"There's no point in denying it," the stranger interrupted. "I know why you're here."
What is he talking about?!
"But—" Izuku tried.
His words were cut off by a wall of ice surging toward him.
Eyes wide, Izuku sped off running, narrowly avoiding the formation even as it connected with the ground where he'd been standing. The ice merged with the ground and instantly crept across the ground in pursuit of the green-haired boy.
"Why are you doing this?!" Izuku shouted back at the bi-colored boy.
"I told you to stop lying!" the other teen yelled back.
Izuku narrowly managed to dodge the spike that shot through the air at him, only noticing it because he'd glanced behind him at the other boy.
"We both know why you're here!"
Frost nipping at his heels, Izuku pressed on—his paltry stamina already beginning to fail him. Thankfully for him, the angry teen seemed to be similarly tired, the droop of his posture clearly evident from here. With any luck, that would affect his ability to use his quirk.
"I'm not going back!" the boy repeated.
Back…? Back to what…?
"Are you even going to try?" the teen continued. "Usually the sidekicks my father sends do more than run away!"
What kind of crazy family does he have?!
Panting even harder, Izuku pushed himself to run faster. Up ahead was the broken down remnant of the few remaining buildings of the shopping center. If he could at least get there then he would have a moment to breathe and a chance to think of something.
"Where are you going?!"
Izuku slipped inside a small building, slamming the door shut behind him. The ice halted there, thankfully, though frost was starting to emanate from the cracks. All he'd done was buy time.
Think! What can I do to get out of this?!
The watch was both the most obvious solution, and the one he wanted to rely on the least. Nevermind that it was still somewhat embarrassing to use, he simply couldn't keep using it every time he had a problem if he wanted to avoid bringing more attention to himself.
Though it was unlikely, the possibility of people connecting his 'quirk' to the vigilante that was beginning to be noticed was too much of a risk to ignore completely. Especially since that risk would grow the more his 'hobby' gained attention from people.
But… What could he do?
The door let out an eerie crinkling sound, like spiderweb cracks spreading throughout glass, before shattering open from the kick placed against it.
"T-there you are…" the other teen stated with an involuntary shiver.
The grimace on his face was impossible to hide. With the ice shards sprouting from his right side, it was clear that he was pushing himself beyond his limits. The boy was hurting himself in his determination to fight off the person he thought Izuku was.
If for no other reason than that, Izuku needed to interfere. He couldn't let someone do this to themselves.
"Stop it! You're pushing yourself too far!" Izuku cried. "Your teeth are chattering and you're obviously hurting yourself!"
If anything, that comment made things worse.
"That's rich, coming from one of you… What do you care if I get injured in training? All that matters is sucking up to my father, right?" the boy denied. "It's why you're here, after all."
"No! That's not—"
"Save it…" the dual-toned teen interjected. "I don't want your platitudes."
...Oh.
Just like that moment, weeks ago now, when he'd finally understood himself enough to realize what he needed to do with his life… Izuku had an epiphany as he stared at the person in front of him.
The pain and anger on his face may be caused by pushing himself too far, but that wasn't the thing that mattered right now. The look in the other teen's heterochromatic eyes was the real problem. They were cold, sharp, orbs; filled with anger and sadness and the crushing weight of loneliness…
They were the eyes of someone who needed saving.
With that realization, everything snapped into place for Izuku. Nevermind his plans, nevermind the possible consequences… This was what he was made for. This was the reason he chose to return to his dream, risking untold problems to pursue the life of a hero in spite of his disadvantages.
It wasn't a surprise then, when a moment later… green light filled the room.
—
*For Izuku's 'Hinata-Form' hero costume, just imagine Hinata's normal Shippuden outfit with a shorter version of a fox Anbu mask added to it so that Izuku's smile is still visible. Additionally, the Konoha Leaf symbol on her headband is replaced with the symbol of the watch: the classic Omnitrix hourglass.
**This little guy is a background canon villain, taken straight from the background of the USJ incident and described with a bit more detail than he's given in the anime or manga. He's called 'Thousand Eyes,' and I modified him a little bit for my purposes, like with Gravitational Spring and Tesla. What I altered is his threat level (In this story, he's F-rank for the purposes of power-scaling, whereas in canon he's E-rank) and a bit of how his quirk functions. Instead of making a few paper tags and duplicates of himself, he gets what you saw in the chapter.
AN:
Sorry to leave you with a cliff-hanger, but the timing was just perfect and it leaves lots of room for the fight that follows in the next chapter.
So, what did you think of Todoroki? I've modified a few details here and there, and altered the point of his character slightly, but I think I've maintained the core of who he is. All the modifications I made honestly are just my way of adding more to what was already there, but I'm curious if you'll like my portrayal.
In other news, I'm getting faster at writing Author's Notes!
Anyway, the last thing for here is that I wanted to leave you guys with a new type of prompt, since the Waifu list is getting quite full. I'm considering writing Omakes (brief shorts that are not part of this story officially) for some chapters as occasional bonus content-when I have the time-that will be entertaining 'what if?' moments.
If I do end up doing this, they'll range in length but usually be rather comedic.
So, the new prompt is this: What are fun ways you could have seen anything in the story so far going instead of where the narrative actually went?
This could be anything from a different scene interaction that is wildly and comically out of character, to a different waifu transformation occurring in the same situations you've seen and the entertaining results of it.
Anything goes, really! I just want to see what you all come up with!
AN? Did you mean WAIFU CORNER...?:
As I've mentioned recently, I'm starting to run out of space on the roster. Given my projected outline for the story overall, I really don't have much more room to add more characters to Izuku's arsenal, nor the time to properly characterize any additions without cutting into other aspects of the plot.
In spite of this, I'll still be watching out for anything you guys may offer, but at this point, you'll be pitting your suggestion against the things I've already decided upon. Granted, some of those decisions are less cemented as being certain, but you get the point.
But, regardless of how solid the list has gotten, I do have a character up for discussion today!
Guest starring 'Lady' from the Devil May Cry series!
So, I've been considering this wonderful gal over the past week, since there was a specific combat role that I somewhat wanted on the roster from the start, but hadn't found a good character to fulfill the position: the gun-fighter!
I considered characters like Sinon from SAO and Yoko Littner from Gurren Lagan, and while I do like those two, my original mental image was always the agile gun-fu kind of character, whereas Sinon and Yoko are classically considered 'snipers.'
Beyond that, I'm just a sucker for the DMC series.
Also of note is the fact that I had this idea because a few people suggested Bayonetta. While a fun character with a lot of personality and definitely fitting the gun-fighter archetype, even with her other crazy things… She would just be near impossible to balance, given the sheer ridiculousness of her powers.
Anyway, now that I've rambled on about other character that I could be using, here's some things in favor of Lady directly:
She's got a backstory/history that would be easy to tie into the narrative of this story; her combat style is unique and grants lots of opportunities for Izuku to further his Support skills; and her 90s action movie attitude would be unique on the roster. Additionally, she's got the unique looks and general 'feel' of a character that deserves the term 'waifu.'
The main point against her is that I would either need to do a good amount of research into guns in general, or fake my way through more technical knowledge when Izuku is making firearms. Secondly, it would probably be kind of difficult to have her keep up in late-story power-scaling unless I give her some kind of power-up related to demons. Either I could do something that coincides with her meeting Rias, or something that coincides with her canonical heritage.
These problems aren't something I can't overcome, just something of a challenge, otherwise I wouldn't even be posing her as an option.
But, for now, I'll leave it to you guys to voice your opinions! Are you for her inclusion? Against it? Ambivalent? Let me know!
See you next week!