Chapter 14
R&D and R&R

The front door to the UA support lab is, frankly, intimidating. A blast door appears to have been installed, similar make and model to the front gates, but on a smaller scale. The motion detection circuit on it at first seems slower, but the loading bar atop it confirms that it's ensuring whatever's on the other side is safe enough to open up.

After ten seconds, the door unseals and slides open to reveal Izuku, Ochako, and Iida on their way through. Izuku peeks around with a grin plastered on his face as he soaks it all in. "The UA support department is one of the best in the world! All thanks to…"

Power Loader steps out from behind a CNC machine and raises his helmet. "Ah, Midoriya, I was wondering if you'd stop by! How's the injector workin' out?"

Izuku bows in reverence. "I-It's perfect, sir!" He rises and taps at it, already strapped onto his shoulder. "No issues yet, and doesn't slide off the injection point, either! It's a perfect fit."

He nods. "Excellent. As for you two…" He hums as he steps up. "Tenya, good to see you. How's your brother doing? I don't hear much from the man anymore. Even as fast as he is, he can't seem to find the time to visit."

Tenya sighs and slouches. "He has been overworking himself a tad lately. I believe he's blaming himself for not improving his reaction time and predictive skills enough to catch a short-range teleporting bank robber a few weeks ago."

Power Loader grumbles. "Yeah, well, teleporters are bullshit. I don't know a single hero who likes teleporters. They're rare, very rare, but just about every one of them has a habit of running circles around us until they do something stupid to catch themselves for us."

Ochako giggles. "Unless you're Space Chase, they're sort of his specialty."

"Hm?" He peeks up to her. "Not many kids follow him, or even know he exists." He grins and turns the lead the way. "I already know I'm gonna like you. So, Midoriya, what brings you here today?"

"Actually, I was mainly looking to lead these two here and make sure they got a few good upgrades. I'm fine, for now."

"Fair." He hums and looks over Tenya. "So, what error are you looking to correct?"

He grumbles and crosses his arms. "It's become apparent I need some form of protective mesh over my exhaust pipes to prevent blockages that may result in a stall. There will still be plenty of liquid, gel, or unfortunately, slime options that could plug them still, but preventing a solid block would be incredibly helpful."

He hums and stops to sort through a few options on a screen beside him. "Yeah, I can manage that pretty quickly, ready by tomorrow morning. How about I top that off with a coolant system? If your legs are anything like Tensei's arms, you'll need it eventually."

Tenya hums and looks to the ceiling. "I suppose that would be an excellent addition. Best to have it prepared now rather than add it later, when it's most needed."

"Got it, I'll have that done in no-time." He peeks over to Ochako. "Now, miss Uraraka, correct? Designing your suit's nausea prevention measures was an interesting task, not quite something I've done before, but I appreciate the variety. I'm guessing the brainiac here made a few recommendations though, didn't he?"

Izuku chuckles nervously and rubs the back of his neck as Ochako nods eagerly. "You bet he did! I was hoping for some gyroscopes in my boots with controls in my gloves to change direction and position mid-air when I'm weightless!"

Power Loader develops an ear-to-ear grin. "Oh, I like how you two think. 0G can be so difficult to work with..." he turns and starts typing. "and most people forgot everything about space travel technology after the advent of quirks, so they forget we actually had some sufficiently advanced tech involving it already. Gyroscopes for 0G rotation is without a doubt one of my favorites, but I've never gotten the chance to toy with it myself!" He hums. "How about we throw in a grappling hook for good measure? I've got a design that can keep a compact Kevlar cord stored in a backpack, long enough to cover a good fifty feet, with a hook that's got several impact points that determine which grip to extend and use when it lands. We feed it through a tube in your suit headed to one of your arms, and whichever you prefer, and fire off your wrist."

Ochako nods eagerly as she leans in to inspect the design. "Definitely put it on my right, better control that way. How about compact air thrusters on the pack and legs, to work in conjunction with the gyroscopes? They maintain the results, while the thrust gets me there faster."

"Easily done, I've got a few similar designs already actually. Working them into your costume shouldn't be difficult!" He peeks back to Izuku with a smirk. "Excellent work bringin' her to me, kid. Might have just found my favorite new pet project for the year."

"G-Glad to help, sir!"

"That should about do it." He finished typing and grins as he steps back. "Anything else you kids need?"

Tenya shakes his head. "I believe that should be all, but I suspect you may be visited by some of our classmates by the end of the day as well."

"Well, makes my day more interesting. You three head off and enjoy yours. I know Aizawa put you through the ringer already, so don't sweat the training."

Izuku snorts. "That was nothing compared to the ten months of hell I went through before the exam. I feel like I need a spar or something yet to work the rest of this energy off."

Ochako huffs. "Ask Kacchan, he'll jump at a chance to try kicking your ass."

"Nah, I fight him enough, I wanna save that for a while if I can." He hums as he leads the way out and spots Shinso on his way towards them. He waves noncommittally and makes his way in. They wanted to stop and chat for a moment, but something about his furrowed brow and hazy eyes convinced them otherwise.

Back at the dorms, the return to an interesting sight. The front yard is packed with students as Denki organizes a massive chain of people, starting with himself. "Oh, Uraraka, perfect timing! I need you to make everyone in this chain but me float!"

She stares for a few moments, but slowly grins as it sinks in. "Who's gonna close the circuit?"

Izuku turns and walks off. "I'll get Kacchan, he won't pass up the chance to be responsible for shocking the whole class."

Tenya crosses his arms as he watches this display of pure memeing chaos. "Is this just going to be a common occurrence with this class?"

"Take it this way." Kyoka peeks over her shoulder to him. "It's a good bonding experience, and when we post them later, people love seeing the more ridiculous and fun shit heroes get up to. It's endearing."

Silence falls as he weighs his options. "… Very well, but I'll need your editing skills to add music to a clip for later."

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And thus began the first Class 1-A meme-a-thon, which came to culminate as a vast series of short clips and a full compilation up on youtube in short order.

The first clip starred Tsuyu on a unicycle, but as she lacked the experience for it, she was weightless to maintain balance. That went wrong when she slipped off and the unicycle fell, leaving her free-floating and rolling forwards aimlessly.

This only became more hilarious as Shooting Stars began to play and Denki edited her into anything and everything he could, ranging from cooking her over Endeavor's eyebrows and bouncing off Mt. Lady's ass in her debut to getting blown away by a Detroit Smash, then accompanying an old meme of Salaam floating around in some strong winds.

The next includes the massive chain of students being shocked as Katsuki grabs them, resulting in everyone letting go of each other and floating in random directions. Denki edits over them in black with sparking effects to look like getting vaporized in Half Life, only to cut the effect off as Ochako cancels the floating and drops everyone.

Last of all in this session though was a three-parter starting with Mina break-dancing along one of the tracks and spreading a ton of a thin, slippery acid that doesn't burn. The moment she's out of the way, Running in the 90s fades in as Iida runs into the zoomed-out frame at crazy speeds, drifts and spins on the acid, and rushes at the camera- followed by a floating Tsuyu tethered to him by Hanta's tape, riding an imaginary motorcycle as Crazy Frog overtakes the previous song.

Present Mic completely loses his shit when he sees the edits and ends up sharing them with every coworker and pro hero he knows, making the whole class quite popular practically overnight.

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As the sun goes down and the class settles in for the night, Izuku finds himself sitting on the couch and fiddling with some notes. The world is almost dead to him as he really focuses on one page in particular.

The specific page ends up grabbing Ochako's attention. She sees that headline at the top all too easily, spotting her name with ease from any angle. It's the details she spots beneath that end up keeping her attention. She knew Izuku promised to give her a copy of the finished product, so she sees no fault in taking a peek now.

The last thing she expects is some of the notes tucked into the sidelines. Various scrawled ramblings along the lines of "adorable cat pads", "perpetual blush is confusing, but endearing", and "smells like cherries". She does go out of her way to use cherry-scented shampoo most of the time, but did that really stand out to him? And she never thought about her constantly rosy cheeks making it difficult to parse her mood before, but it makes sense.

Her parents called her cat-like finger pads adorable, but she hasn't heard a boy say it before, and that leaves her stunned for a moment.

From there, it only gets more shocking. His handwriting gets less studious and clinical, and much more emotional. He discusses things like her commanding presence when she's determined, the way her passions override everything and make her leap to action in an instant, literally in some cases. From there it largely becomes chicken scratch, but she does pick out one part somehow stating that she has a stronger natural, earthly beauty than Mt. Lady's artificial sex appeal! By the time she spots that, she's turned completely red and began floating herself to the ceiling.

Ending up there manages to get her out of Izuku's sight and beyond his notice by the time he looks up. He sighs and wanders off towards the bathroom, only to be replaced by Kyoka peeking up to her with a knowing smirk. "Need some help there?"

"B-Bite me…"

"No thanks, I think I'll leave that to the green bean."

Ochako only whines as Kyoka reels her in with an extended earphone jack.

"So, not gonna talk to him about it?"

She grumbles. "I-I really don't think I'm ready for that. I-I mean, I shouldn't have seen that at all, a-anyway! I should have waited for him to give me a copy, b-but I was just so curious…"

"Hey, I'd say you learned something valuable from that." Kyoka jabs her shoulder. "So snap out of it. Go clear your head if you need to, but don't ignore this."

"B-But... we're training to be heroes." Her blush fades as she homes in on that one critical fact. "A-And he's amazing, you won't believe what I saw him do at the exams. I can't be a d-distraction."

"I dunno about that." They both jump as Toru speaks up from another couch, having been so still and silent they never noticed her, even clothed. "I mean, look at our sensei living here. If Aizawa and Yamada sensei can be top-tier professional heroes and married, I don't think a little co-ed flirting is gonna be a problem." She waves an arm about as though dusting away the flimsy idea of it being an issue. "I mean, I'm already planning to make a move on Ojiro. And Kyoka, I'm not blind, take your own advice and talk to Momo more."

Kyoka sputters for a few moments, and Mezo speaks up with a groan from a nearby chair. "Do something, do nothing, either way is better than wasting so much time talking about it."

Toru points at him with a gloved finger. "I get that you're ace, but come on, don't complain about it."

He shrugs. "Close guess, but I think I'm more demi and just don't give a damn normally. Either way, maybe discussing this in the middle of our common room isn't the smartest idea. Izuku's on his way back here anyway."

That gets them all shutting up rather quickly, and Ochako turns and hurries off upstairs before Izuku can return. Kyoka turns and raises an eyebrow. "How did you pick that up before me?"

"You were distracted, I'm always alert."

"Ninja wannabe."

"And proud of it. I've actually got a mask signed by Edgeshot."

"No shit? I have a guitar signed by Pop Step."

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Katsuki lounges in a lawn chair in the rooftop garden, overlooking the campus with a calm, yet stern stare. Eventually, Eijiro flops into a seat beside him. "Well, you've clearly got something pretty big in your mind."

He grumbles and closes his eyes. "You're not gonna leave me alone until I say something about it, aren't you?"

"Nah, ya don't have to. I get it." I looks out over the grounds with a subdued smile. "This is just the first step. I never thought I'd get here. I trained like hell, fought my fears… I practically reinvented myself. I can't imagine what our classmates had to go through to get here." He sighs. "I bet it was easy for a guy like you, and probably Momo and Todoroki too, but I bet even you and them know how much more is ahead of us."

Katsuki hums. "Well, you're not as much of a dumbass as I thought. Yeah, there's a lot ahead of us." He leans forward and hunches at the edge of his seat. "And I'm gonna blast my way through all of it. Now way in hell I'm slowing down now."

"So damn manly." He chuckles. "Well, if you ever need a sparring partner to tests those blasts with, I need something that can hit hard to strengthen my own quirk against."

"Well, I guess I could use a good punching bag that can actually take a hit. If there's any quirk around here that can handle it, that'd be you. How's that shit work anyway, do you crystalize yourself or something?"

"Actually, yeah, it is mostly crystallization. Weird side effect is I get a bit reflective, and lasers bounce off me. I once tried doing weird stuff with that like reflecting a laser pointer off small hardened spots to hit people with it at weird angles." He chuckles.

"… shit, now I have another reason to get a laser pointer."

"What's the other?"

"I saw one of Aizawa-sensei's cats escape his room earlier, and next time, I'm gonna get it to jump at Deku."

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As Izuku settles into his room for the night, he sets his notebook down feeling one of it's entries is truly complete now. Studying his classmates' quirks has been eye-opening and entertaining so far, but the more he looks into them, the more he realizes many of his classmates don't really understand their own potential.

Quirk Analysis: Tail

The resulting tail generated by this quirk presents unique properties compared to other such heteromorphic quirks. After multiple sparring sessions against it and various conversations, I've confirmed it to lack any bone structure and instead be a long, flexible mass of raw muscle akin to a giant tongue with skin. This comes with many of the flexible properties of a tongue as well, meaning it's capable of stretching out if thinned or thickening at the cost of length, resulting in variable reach and a wide range of uses.

Alternating between the two extremes of it's potential length can result in a piston-like attack equating to a ranged jab of considerable strength. Also being a mass of raw muscle, repeated training of it's stretching property could potentially result in a permanent length increase and vastly improving it's range of use over time. The lack of bone within ensures that the vast majority of damage to it can be overcome and healed, leaving corrosive attacks and flesh-gouging as the greatest risks.

The potential of quirk-generated and enhanced muscles proves uncalculated as of yet, but the potential of an entire limb made of nothing but quirk-enhanced muscle is surely greater than that of any standard enhanced limb, especially without the limitation of a bone structure. Overall potential in melee encounters is limited at base, but long-term results are currently incalculable.

Hypotheses:

1: The are multiple cases in which tongues that have been bifurcated by accidents, intentional body modification, or birth defects remain fully functional after healing with independent movement to each side. Potentially, if Ojiro's tail is split in a similar manner, it would instead result in two tails with independent movement, should he be able to survive the resulting blood loss. Not a recommended course of action.

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In his office at Might Tower, Toshinori looks over several files regarding cases of missing persons, taking note of only their quirks. Going over the Echidna case got him thinking, and certainly not in any helpful ways.

Missing persons cases of relevance were sparse for the first year after he'd last seen All for One. From there, the ones that remained missing were largely heteromorphic. He'd never known that to be a problem for the man, he could collect heteromorphic quirks all he wanted and keep their factors dormant to essentially turn them into transformative quirks. The bodies on the other hand, if ever found, would raise red flags. Then there were bodies discovered that supposedly had quirks that wouldn't have shown in life or death, and several of them were staple examples of the sort of thing he'd love to experiment with, and others would be critical for the survival of a man whose body had been devastated as much as he'd left it.

The pieces kept falling into place, and it all came down to two critical facts.

For one, All for One was still alive, and gather up more quirks for a comeback.

Second, he couldn't have gotten a hold of these quirks without information on them and the people who have them, straight from the registry. A few heroes and even other villains who've gone missing surely had quirks of interest as well, and that would require information even higher up the chain than the registry.

All for One has a mole in the Public Safety Commission.

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A.N.: Yes, yes, I know. I really had to end such a cheerful chapter on such a horrific note. Mood whiplash can be painful, but SO fun to cause, right? Anyway, sorry about the delays, life got a bit, uh… messy for a while. But I seem to have things back under control. And I started doing commissions! My first two commissioned speedpaint videos are up on my youtube channel now, and my twitter has my price sheet and examples. I've got three more planned yet two, one of which I'm working on right after I post this. But for now, godspeed everyone, and here's to hoping the final arc of the manga doesn't take until next year to finish!