Author's note: Greetings and salutations! It's a day early, but that's because I'm gonna be driving halfway across the country tomorrow to go back to college. It'll be like 12.5 hours tomorrow and maybe 4-ish on Sunday. But hey, that just means that you guys get a chapter a day early! So hey, win win!

Also, if you want to get into a place with other lovers of MHA, and specifically IzuJirou stuff, come on and join this Discord server that I'm on:

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We're only kind of crazy, and not at all a cult... except, we also kind of are. Anyway, yeah, join that!

I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's cross-posted on Ao3 as well. Leave a review if you want to. I welcome the feedback! See you next week.

The day was finally there! Izuku had received his letter from the UA exam yesterday, but he held off on opening it. The five of them wanted to be together for the reveal, and so once all of them had revealed that they received their results, they planned on meeting the next day at Kyouka's house. And so, the next day came, and the five of them met in Kyouka's room, where they were all sitting in a circle on her floor.

"Alright, Mei. Since you're the only one that isn't in the Hero Course, why don't you go first?" Kyouka suggested.

Mei shook her head. "I think we should all open them at the same time."

"That sounds fine to me." Hitoshi said, pulling out his letter. The rest of the group followed suit with Kyouka huffing slightly.

"Sure he didn't brainwash all of us with his idea?" She said under her breath. Mei slapped her shoulder lightly. Kyouka laughed. "I'm joking, chill."

"To be fair, I did think it was funny." Hitoshi said.

"Thank you for having a sense of humor, unlike some people." Kyouka pointed her jacks at Mei and Fumikage.

"Hey, enough of the teasing, Kyo. We should read our letters." Izuku said, a smile on his face. Truth be told, he was incredibly nervous. Sure, Mei had told them about Hero points, and he should get plenty of points, but there was a part of him that told him to not rely on that. That it wasn't going to be enough. The five of them ripped open their letters and began reading.

Kyouka was the first to speak. "I got in! 55 points!"

Tokoyami spoke next. "I also walk towards the dawn. I passed with 62 points."

"I got into the support course, too!" Mei said happily.

"I… I passed!" Hitoshi said, breathing out a sigh of relief. "40 points! I got 35 Hero Points!"

"What about you, Izu?" Kyouka looked to her best friend, the rest of them following shortly.

Izuku read the letter again. And then again. Something had to be wrong. But every time he reread it, he kept coming back to the bold red words at the bottom of the page. 'Failed'.

"I… I didn't pass… They gave me 20 Hero Points, but due to how reckless it all was, they couldn't give me any more than that…" Izuku felt tears forming in his eyes, and as Kyouka's arms wrapped around him in a warm embrace, he felt his floodgates open. The air immediately became tense and hung like a miasma in the room. It seemed suffocating and hard to breathe for all of them, but they all imagined it was especially that way for Izuku.

"That's bullshit!" Kyouka yelled.

"Kyo…" Izuku whispered, barely able to actually speak.

"She's right, Izuku. This isn't right. You should be in the Hero course." Hitoshi agreed.

"He could join the general studies course and try to win his way into the Hero course." Fumikage suggested.

Izuku just shook his head. "You all are going to be training to be heroes. You'll be learning important information about heroics. I won't be able to catch up to that… I'm better off just not going…" Izuku slowly lowered his head as small tears dripped onto the carpet.

A few minutes later, Mei stood up. "Alright, you lot. I know I only speak for myself, but I don't want to go to UA without Izuku."

"I agree." Hitoshi nodded.

"I would rather walk into the abyss than attend without him." Fumikage said.

"As if I'd want to go to be a Hero without my best friend." Kyouka smiled at Izuku.

"What? No! You all get the opportunity to help people! You can't give it up just for me!" Izuku stood up, looking at each of them.

"Who says anything about us giving it up?" Mei asked with a smile.

"How would you not be giving it up?" Izuku cocked his head.

"I have a bit of… explaining to do to you four." Mei said, walking to the window in Kyouka's room and quickly shutting the blinds. She then walked to the door and locked it.

"Mei? What's going on?" Kyouka asked.

"I was able to get access to the Hero entrance exam details about a month before the exam itself. Call it what you will: computer wizardry, vast amounts of intelligence, hacking. The name isn't important. Anyway, knowing what we know about Hitoshi and Izuku's quirks, I knew this could prove troublesome. And so, I prepared for the worst."

"What do you mean by that?" Kyouka now stood up, looking at Mei.

"I mean, whenever I went to the Support class exam and showcase, I released one of my babies. It's a little bug that can remotely send data to a database that I have, and then purge that information from the servers."

"Why would we need that?" Kyouka looked around the room, confused, before her gaze found its way back to Mei. "What is that in preparation for?"

"Because we need them to forget about us. About who we are. So we can… slip away. Isn't that right, Mei?" Izuku spoke up.

"Absolutely, Izuku." Mei confirmed with a smile. "I'm glad that you can see where this is going."

"I can see where it's going, but I don't know if I'm for the idea."

"Wait wait, hold on. Where is this going? What idea, Izu?" Kyouka looked at Izuku

"We're still going to be heroes. Just in an unconventional sense, Kyouka." Mei said cryptically.

"She's wanting us to be vigilantes, Kyo." Izuku said matter-of-factly.

"Vigilantes? Isn't being a vigilante illegal? And aren't we trying to uphold the law and help people?" The young rocker looked at Fumikage. "Fumikage, you're the paragon of justice here. I'm right, right?"

Sighing, Fumikage stood up. "Kyouka, as much as I'd like to say that isn't the best course of action, Izuku deserved to get into the hero course, maybe even more than we did. And they chose to deny him entry into the gates. For being reckless? Aren't heroes supposed to do anything to help people? From my point of view now, our society is broken. Dead. I agree with becoming vigilantes. Our acts shall be the requiem that honors what society could have been."

"Hitoshi?" She then looked at him.

He, joining the others, stood up. "I barely passed. The entrance exam is too skewed towards power and not towards the other aspects of being heroes. If you don't have what society deems as correct quirks, you can't be a hero. That needs to change. Just because Izuku can't destroy robots with his luck doesn't mean that he can't help people. I'm for it. Besides, if I were to join the hero course, they'd see me as a villain anyway because of my quirk. You four were the first to see it differently. That also needs to change."

"Izuku?"

Silence hung in the air as the green-haired boy thought to himself. "I want to help people. To save them. I can… We can still do that as vigilantes, right? But the life of a vigilante is hard. We don't have any money, nor do we have a base that we can use. And how would we get away from our families?"

"I may have some answers for that, Izuku." Mei walked up to him and stood next to him, facing the rest of the group.

"Wait, was I mumbling again?"

"Yes." All four of his friends said simultaneously.

"Damnit…" Izuku hung his head.

"But those are good questions, Izuku. And I have the answers if you are really wanting to do this."

"I'll… If everyone does it, then I will. Everyone. Including you, Kyo."

"I…" Kyouka trailed off. "I'll go wherever you go, Izuku."

"Then Mei, tell us what you have. It's clear you've put quite a bit of work and thought into this."

"Gladly!" From her bag, she pulls out a manilla folder and spreads its contents out on the ground. "A few years back, I had some people in my family buy a warehouse for me so that I could store some of my larger babies whenever I eventually made them. They just kind of gave me the deed and forgot about it, but not before outfitting it with a few things should I ever want to stay the night, or several, to tinker. They even bought it in cash, so technically , there's no card trace. The only thing that would need to be worried about is the name on the deed. But I'm sure that we can figure something about that out. We'll need aliases eventually anyway. As for the money, well, I've done a few odd jobs here and again. I may have also patented and sold production rights for one or two of my babies about a month ago in preparation for this. I have several million yen saved up already, and more to come as time progresses."

"You're telling us this now? I spotted you for lunch two days ago, and it wasn't cheap, y'know. And for the train ride here. Why?" Hitoshi asked Mei.

"Just because I have money doesn't mean I should spend all of it. I was saving it in case this happened. It's enough to get us started. I, of course, have kept a separate budget for my work. And then each of you have your UA tuition money that can help pad anything else out, right?" The group looked at her like she was insane. "What? I was worried! I'm a disaster prepper. This was my mitigation method. If everything went fine, then this money would be put to other uses. But with all of this, I can't think of anything better for it."

"Well, I guess that answers those questions... " Kyouka started. "But how are we going to deal with getting away from everyone's parents? What are we going to tell them? There's no way in hell that your parents would let you do this. Especially your mom, Izuku." Almost immediately as soon as she finished speaking, there was a knock on the door to the room. Kyouka quickly unlocked it and opened the door to see her mom standing there. "Oh, h-hi mom. What's up?"

"Before we start, just know that I hear everything that happens in this house." Mika said, sweeping her gaze over the group as her jacks raised into the air. Everyone's face went white in panic. Izuku started fidgeting almost immediately. "Now, let's get to business. Kyotoku. Get in here. It's time to have a chat with our daughter."

"Coming!" Kyotoku entered the room not even a minute later.

Mika and Kyouka matched eyes, Mika's expression one of a stern, but caring parent. It soon relaxed, though, into a smile. "We have a solution to your problem."

"I'm not sure if you kids know this, but Mika here used to be a part of a band whenever I was first starting out as a record labelist." Kyotoku started. "Her band was popular here, but even more popular in America. My label company wanted her group to do a reunion tour here starting in two weeks. That's around the same time that classes in UA start, right?"

"Yeah, three weeks for them to start, to be exact." Izuku confirmed.

"Well, there's been years that UA has given out study abroads, even to first year students."

"Oh yeah, I've heard that they're talking about doing that again this year." Mei said, putting her fist down into her other palm.

"You're good with technology, right, Mei?" Mika asked.

"As good as it gets, Miss Jirou."

"I'm sure you can write up a convincing letter to everyone else's parents. You'll be able to say that you are leaving here with us. We'll provide the 'transport' to the airport. From there, you'll be free to do whatever you want."

"Mom… Why are you doing this?" Kyouka asked, concerned.

"I knew that if one of you didn't get in, something was going to happen. Personally, I'm glad you're still trying to help people rather than some of the other options. It all comes down to being a supporting parent. We'll support you in getting you out of sight. The rest is up to you."

Kyouka rushed to her mom and dad, grabbing both of them in an embrace. "Thank you…" Kyouka whispered.

"Of course, Kyo." Mika said. Her tone then became a small whisper as she spoke next, loud enough for only her, Kyouka, and Kyotoku to hear. "We both knew that this boy was going to change your life. We just hoped that there would be more… wedding bells." Mika smiled.

"MOM!" Kyouka shouted, backing away from her parents, a slight blush on her face.

"Just kidding, just kidding… Well, mostly." Mika winked. "Now, get ready. Kyoto and I will be flying out to the states in a week and a half. I want all of you to have everything ready for your disappearance by then. Get everything in order, okay?" Mika addressed the group before turning to Kyouka. "Kyo, we'll have your bed and some of your things moved to this warehouse the day that we leave. Now, enjoy the rest of your night." Mika said, walking out of the door with a wave. Kyotoku followed, but not before pointing his fingers to his eyes and then to Izuku. The latter looked incredibly confused by this, but shook it off.

As the door closed, Hitoshi was the first to speak. "What… What just happened?"

"I believe we were just given a blessing by the gods… in the form of Kyouka's incredibly supportive and understanding parents." Fumikage said.

"I guess…" Izuku said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Great! Now that that's all settled, we need to move onto some personal logistics."

"Such as?"

"Names! What do we call each other and ourselves? Time for some brainstorming!" Mei passed out a few pieces of paper and pens to the rest of the group. "Make sure it sounds cool!"

After a few minutes, the five of them came back together.

"Okay, I'll go first. I will go by Overwatch."

"Like that really old game?" Hitoshi asked. "The one with the cyborg ninja and that korean girl in a mech suit?"

"No, it's a military thing. One small unit supporting another by keeping a lookout and pushing supportive fire when needed. Since I'm not trained in combat, I'm mainly going to be taking that role. So it makes sense to be called that." Mei explained. "Alright, next is Kyouka."

"Earphone Jack!"

"You're just naming yourself after your quirk…" Hitoshi said.

"And there's something wrong with that? You wanna start something? You wanna play some games? These hands are rated E for everyone!" Kyouka asked, raising her fists into a fighting stance. She couldn't keep up the charade long though, as she fell backwards laughing. The rest of the group laughed as well. If there was one thing that Kyouka was good at, it was bringing humor and comfort to different situations where they were needed.

"What about Heartwave?" Izuku suggested.

"Well, if my idea is getting vetoed, then I want my name to be something that sounds more dangerous than that."

"Heartquake?" Izuku asked, slightly less confident in his suggestion.

"That sounds badass. I love it. Alright, you're looking at Heartquake."

"Alright! Another down. Fumikage, you're next."

"NightHawk."

"Brilliant. Hitoshi."

"Mastermind?"

"Personally, I think that Mei has been the mastermind behind this operation, but sure. We can do that. As long as it makes you happy." Kyouka said, feigning a smile. Being unable to keep up the act for very long, again, she broke soon after and started cracking up laughing at herself. Again. When she saw Hitoshi's unamused face, she stopped for a second. "Listen man, you give me shit for mine, I get to give you shit for yours."

"She does have a point. The law of equivalent exchange, Hitoshi." Fumikage said, nodding towards Kyouka.

"With that settled, let's move onto our fearless leader. Izuku?"

"L-Leader? Whoah whoah, I didn't sign up for this! You said so yourself, Kyo! Mei is the mastermind behind all of this!"

"Izu, your analytical skills on top of your skill in fighting and your quirk would make you a great team leader" Kyouka said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "I'd love to have you as our leader."

"I will follow you to the dark abyss of hell itself, Izuku." Fumikage said.

"I… I'll think about it… Well, in terms of names, whenever I still thought I could get into UA's Hero course, I wanted my Hero Name to be 'Cloverleaf'. You know, a lucky four leaf clover. But now, I think I should get away from that. I still want it to be luck-themed. So I came up with… Snake Eyes."

"Izuku, that sounds SO badass! That sounds like a great name for our group's leader." Kyouka beamed at him.

"Speaking of, our group itself needs a name." Izuku said, hoping to change the subject. Something that didn't have him and 'leader' in the same sentence.

"I've been thinking of that. And there's something that Fumikage said earlier. Like most of what he says, it's strangely philosophical. You said that we will be the requiem for today's dead society. What if we call ourselves 'Societas Requiem'?" Mei suggested.

"Perfect." Hitoshi said.

"Alright. That settles it. We have our names. Up next is gear, which I will be working on between now and our debut. We should plan visits to my warehouse soon. Set things up a little bit now, see how things look."

"Where is this warehouse of yours?" Fumikage asked.

"SangenJaya."

"In Tokyo?!" Kyouka and Izuku asked at the same time.

"Yeah, there's plenty of stuff that goes on there that would distract from us setting up shop in what everyone thinks is an abandoned warehouse."

"That's fair." Hitoshi said.

The five of them decided to visit the warehouse in two days' time. Mei, Hitoshi, and Fumikage left soon afterwards. They needed rest. Today was a big day for all of them. As the three left, Izuku collapsed onto the ground. Kyouka immediately embraced him.

"It's okay, a lot happened today. I'm gonna ask mom if you can stay over tonight."

With permission from Inko and Mika, Izuku stayed the night and the night after that. The day that they were to meet up at the warehouse, Fumikage, Kyouka, and Izuku all took the train to Tokyo together. Once they got off at the station, they waited for about 20 minutes until Mei and Hitoshi showed up together.

"Lead the way, Mei." Hitoshi said.

"Right! This way!" Mei led the group away from the station and into the alleyways. They passed a few bargain shops, a small cafe, a small clinic, some batting cages, and a movie theater. Heading past those buildings, they eventually came across a warehouse complex.

Weaving her way through the warehouse alleyways, she led the group to a large metal bay door. Pulling out keys, she unlocked the bay doors and lifted them, revealing quite the interior of a sprawling warehouse floor. There was a bed set up in the corner of the room as well as an oven, a sink, and a washing machine dryer combo along the wall next to the bed. Spread out through the rest of the warehouse are several different robotic parts that were midway through completion, and in the corner opposite the already set up bed, there was what looked to be a showerhead and an old curtain.

"Welcome to our new home! We'll be finalizing some furnishings soon. We'll need to set up different rooms, which will take some work. But I know that we can do it. There's a few technological things that I'll need to do on my own, so I won't bore you with those. Dark Shadow is gonna be really helpful for the building that we're gonna need to do. Next, if you look above you, there's the catwalk. Along the West side of the building, there is a set of stairs that can take you up to the catwalk, and from there, you can get to the roof. We might add some things to the catwalk and surrounding air, but I'm not sure yet. Finally, as you saw, we came through a set of bay doors, but there are a few other doors in the building. A notable one is in the catwalk, and that leads to the roof. There are two doors on the ground level: one that's right next to the stairs that go to the catwalk, and then there's another one opposite the bay doors, kinda near where my bed is right now." Mei rambled on, directing everyone's eyes towards different areas of the complex. Nobody dared interrupt her. And why would they? She was giving them a future doing what they wanted to do: help people. They needed a base of operations. "I know it's not much, but it's a start." Mei turned back to the group after the tour. "What do you think?"

"I think it's perfect, Mei." Hitoshi was the first to speak, earning a smile from their pink haired friend.

"Oh, Hitoshi, that reminds me!" Mei turned and ran to one of the many different piles of her inventions. After rummaging around for a few seconds, she pulled out a black facemask with dials on either side and what looked to be interlocking plates where the mouth of the mask was. "This is for you!" She said, turning around and handing it to Hitoshi.

"And this is…?" He asked, eyeing the mask and then turning his eyes to Mei.

"Put it on! Try turning the knobs on the sides."

"Alright. I'll put it on." And so he did. After a bit of messing with clasps and straps, he managed to secure it around his head. He twisted his right dial one click, and one of the plates shifted slightly.

"Now try talking!"

"What am I supposed to…" Hitoshi spoke, but it wasn't his voice. It was deeper.

"Whoah, what just happened?" Kyouka asked, reeling back in surprise.

"The different plates and strings inside of the mask act like a second set of vocal chords. That lets him change his voice to sound like other peoples' voices. Okay, dial that right one back to how you got it. And then twist the left dial forward three times and the right dial backward twice."

Hitoshi did as he was told, twisting the dials according to Mei's direction. "Okay, now what?" Hitoshi blinked. He recognized that voice. It was a higher pitch for sure. It was… Mei's voice.

"WHOAH!" Kyouka yelled in surprise. Izuku pointed from Mei to Hitoshi and back again.

"Yes, it can replicate different voices of pretty much anyone by messing with those dials. Experiment with it on your own." Mei said. "Oh, and it works with your quirk, too. It's not electronic, so it'll work."

Undoing the clasps and taking his mask off, he looked at Mei. "Thank you, Mei."

"Of course! As your support specialist, it's my job to get you your support equipment made. A lot of vigilantes and criminals have rinky-dink support equipment that's not good quality. But most vigilantes and criminals don't have me. I'll be here pretty much every day until the op starts. We're going to want to have your support equipment mostly completed by then. Just… Make sure the plan to get out of the line of sight works. Once we're off the grid and 'in America'," Mei said, making quotation marks with her fingers and smirking. "I'll be activating that bug I mentioned a few days ago to copy all of their files and then wipe them from their database."

"What should we be doing in the meantime?" Izuku asked.

"Well, what do you think you guys should be doing, leader?" Mei countered with a smile.

"H-Hold on, I'm still not set on this whole leader thing." Izuku raised his hands defensively.

"Well that's too bad, because we are!" Kyouka said, sticking her tongue out at Izuku playfully.

"I don't think that's the case…" Izuku rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"It is for me." Hitoshi said nonchalantly.

"My pact has been made, Izuku." Fumikage bowed dramatically.

"If he's in, I am too. Not that I have much of a choice on the matter." Dark Shadow even made an appearance, albeit not as dramatically as his host.

"And our opinions are already clear, Izu." Kyouka gestured to Mei and herself with her jacks.

"Kyo… I… I failed the entrance exam. That should make me the least qualified person here."

"It was stacked against you in every way possible! And didn't we work on your confidence? You should know your worth, and it's a hell of a lot more than you're showing right now." Kyouka paced back and forth, her tone one of frustration, but not towards Izuku. Izuku knew that for sure.

"Kyouka, calm down." Hitoshi said. "Failing the exam was obviously hard on him. Now we have our chance to fix that in the future."

"Sorry, Hitoshi. I guess I just got worked up." Kyouka took a deep breath in and slowly released it. "Okay. I'm better now."

"Good, we can't have such dark emotions clouding our judgement." Fumikage said. "What are we to do, leader?" The group looked at him expectantly.

His eyes trained on each of them. Kyouka, his best friend, and the person that he has the most experience with fighting alongside. He knew her quirk better than anyone but her and her mother. She was strong, and she knew it.

His eyes moved to the next person: Mei. The first addition to their friend group, and an absolute genius. She was the real reason for all of them being here together. She was the one with all of the resources. But she wasn't the strongest fighter. It was probably good that she knew the most about all of the technology, since she could spend all the time with it while the others were out on missions.

Onto Hitoshi. His quirk would make him an excellent infiltrator. If he trained in stealth, he could do very well in that. Stealth ambush and battlefield control. He'd be very useful for information gathering as well.

And then finally, his eyes moved to Fumikage. Izuku knew that he was the heavy hitter of their motley crew. He was a combat powerhouse, and everyone knew it. The only reason that Izuku was able to beat him when they first met was because the avian-headed boy wasn't aware of Izuku's quirk. Izuku knew that if the two of them fought head on now, he would lose. Especially if Dark Shadow was in darkness. That was something that they'd have to take into consideration.

Izuku closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes and looked at his group again. "I guess we need to finalize some things, but those can be done over the course of these next few days. We each have some key weaknesses to work on, so our first goal is to work on overcoming those, either by training or through support equipment." Izuku started. If he was being truthful with himself, he hadn't used the active part of his quirk since the entrance exam whenever he passed out. "And then, the main thing we need to do is make this place habitable for five people."

"That's our leader!" Kyouka said, a smile plastering her face from ear to ear.

"Then let's get started." Hitoshi said, cracking his knuckles, a smirk on his face.

Izuku turned towards the center of their new building and smiled. "This is it." He thought. "We're doing it."

Author's Note: So some things to address, I don't know if UA actually does any study abroad stuff, but that was what I could think of that could make sense at the time that I wrote this, about a month ago (yay, backlogs!). So if that bothers you... Well, idk what to say. Hope it doesn't.

Anyway, a friendly reminder to join that totally not a cult Discord sever!
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See you next week!