Izuku and Nezu were on the road again once more. They had been trying to reach one particular animal in need for a bit, but they were trickier to track down since they didn't have an address like Apple Kick did.
This particular case they had been contacted because apparently a crow had been saying peculiar things at a few parks, people's backyards, and even inside a restaurant at one point. Normally they would brush this off as crows simply being extraordinary animals that people tried to rationalize as a superpower since they are capable of mimicking speech similar to parrots and are quite intelligent. However, the small town that had reached out was very insistent that this was not a normal bird and that they would understand if they were able to find it.
Izuku's enthusiasm had not faltered even though their most recent scouting attempts were a bust. There had been a dog that was suspected of being sentient, but it was nothing so remarkable. In that case it was a pet with a quirk that let them perfectly mimic sounds they heard. This led to the animal repeating back phrases the family said and was misunderstood as an attempt at deeper communication. There had also been a cat that truly was self aware, but didn't care about human laws or society enough to want to enroll in the program.
Nezu was concerned this would be a waste of time after not finding anything odd about any of the birds native to the park while the rabbit was content to chew on grass as they waited. However, the explanation they had been given suddenly made sense when a crow came flying toward them at great speed and barely managed to not fall over while landing.
"CAW! AM I BIRD?! SQUAWK! AM I A BIRD?!"
That was certainly an odd thing for a bird to screech at strangers so he could understand the townspeople's concern over it.
"Yes, from what I can see you are a bird. Were you expecting to be something else?"
The small creature seemed quite panicked as it stared at Nezu.
"I was a bird before -caw- but am I still a bird?"
"Are you asking if you are physically a bird, or something deeper?"
"Squawk! What am I?! Is a person any more or less than their mind?!"
Izuku hopped over to the panicking bird. "Hi! I'm Izuku! What's your name?"
"I don't know! I might beHina , I could also be" The bird let out a few short and distinctive caws. "Or maybe I'm" This time the sound was almost like a dog barking. This odd show of mimicking animal noises went on for a few minutes.
Izuku nodded, "Wow, that's a lot of names. I don't have nearly that many names. How did you get so many?"
The crow stared into the distance. "Squawk, death and consumption of the innocent."
"Wow, I just got mine from my friends. Do you want to come meet my friends? I think we have seeds and other tasty things to share."
The crow was very interested in going with them since they seemed like her best options for getting answers. They sat in the car together as the crow spoke nearly unintelligibly about the nature of existence. Izuku cheered him on even if he didn't understand at all.
When they got back his new bird friend went with Nezu to figure out what her quirk was, since the quirk was clearly causing the animal a lot of distress. "Bye bye friend, I'll talk to you soon!"
Izuku charged into the 1-A dorms. "Hello friends!"
A bunch of his classmates were sitting in a circle talking about things and making a list.
His confused friend, Shouto, turned to him. "Hello Izuku, we are discussing the school festival that is coming up. We plan on doing a song and dancing."
"Amazing! Are all the classes doing things?"
Koda nodded and sat down next to him and scratched behind his ears.
Izuku nuzzled into the very good scratches. "What song are you playing?!"
His Kachan yelled back to him. "We're doing our own song! It's gonna be better than any song that came before it!"
His long eared friend looked very nervous at this. "Um, as the one writing and singing the lyrics, those expectations feel a bit too high."
"Wait! Does this mean my animal friends and I can do a thing too!?"
Koda smiled down at him and nodded again. That sounded like so much fun!
A few minutes later the two came back from the infirmary to find a large horse and a much smaller rabbit wrestling each other on the lawn in front of the new dorm. At the sight of the new bird friend returning the wrestling stopped and Izuku shot over to them.
"Did you learn things?"
Nedzu nodded. "That we did, and it explains quite a bit. It turns out our newest addition here has a quirk that allows them to gain the memories of the things they eat. This was mostly irrelevant until a hiker falling off a cliff and an opportunistic scavenger crossed paths and now our friend has the mind of that woman along with any others they feed on. This has been difficult for her since that means she has the memories of being numerous different animals that overlap a lot, including her life as Hina the hiker."
"Okie dokie, do you want to be called Hina? You said before that was one of your names and the other names are hard to say."
"Am I Hina? Is a person's essence in their mind? Or am I simply a remnant left over from a rotting carcass?"
"I'm gonna call you Hina the bird friend. Since you're part Hina, part bird, and 100% friend."
These seemed to please the bird who nodded. "Why were you fighting that horse?"
"Oh! That's Apple Kick! We were discussing the school festival and the best way to show the SNH off to the public!"
"SNH?"
Nezu nodded. "That is the official title for the class you would be joining to re-earn your citizenship since your mind is now inside a bird. It stands for 'sentient non-humans', I found it to be the most encompassing name for our group. But classes don't actually start until the beginning of next semester, until then you can simply focus on becoming acclimated."
Izuku binkied a little in excitement. "I'm gonna be the Teacher Assistant for the class! So I'll be there sometimes even though I already have my fancy papers."
A thundering sound came rocketing across the field as a gorgeous Clydesdale charged Izuku while shouting into all of their minds. "We should do a cafe! It will be delicious and I'll be an amazing host! I'll bite everyone who gives bad reviews so there are only good reviews!"
At the very last second before they collided Izuku jumped straight into the air so Apple ran under him.
Nezu smiled at the two roughhousing animals as Izuku kept jumping over while the other charged under in a much larger version of typical rabbit play. "I must be on my way, but that does sound like a lovely idea. Ms. Kick, are you still planning on joining the beauty contest?"
"Ha! Of course I am! I'll remind all those humans that they are dumb and that I'm pretty."
"Fantastic! Hina, I'm sure these two would be happy to show you to your room in the dorms and introduce you to the rest of your future classmates."
In that moment where Apple Kick was distracted talking to Nedzu, Izuku leapt through the air and kicked the horse in the butt before taking off at a sprint with the other close behind.
Hina just stood in the field confused as she had been left behind by the only people she even vaguely knew.
"Sorry about them, Nezu is too smart and Izuku is too dumb for either to realize when someone else doesn't know what's going on. The name's Spinner, I can show you around."
"Thanks. Are you a teacher here, you seem older than the students we passed?"
"Nope, I'm in the same class as you. I know I pass as human really well, it was an essential skill for a long time, but at the end of the day I'm just a humble gecko with a mutant quirk."
He waved the bird to follow him as he walked over to the SNH building. It wasn't nearly as large as the dorms for the other classes, but still imposing nonetheless.
"So, one thing that's important is that every door will have a few ways to open it. Typically each door will have two handles at different heights, a flap at the bottom, and a push button for accessibility and anyone else who doesn't have hands. I didn't realize what a privilege hands were, but I'm the only one in our class so far who has them."
"Yes, I think I'll have to get used to not having hands. I won't be in a birdcage or anything like that, right?"
"What? Of course not. That's the whole point of this program, to prove that we are more than our species and that we must be treated with the same respect as everyone else. This is one of the first and most basic steps in fighting discrimination. And if anyone treats you as lesser, you let us know so we can force them to treat you as an equal."
"Uh… sure. Um, so this is the common space?"
"Yep. And I was serious about that. I would kill for any of my comrades. But anyways, we all have free reign of this area, but I'm one of the only ones who uses the kitchen. The pantry is where we store everyone's food, like hay, birdseed, dried bugs, tomato soup, Jello, whatever you need for your diet we can probably handle it."
"Sure, where will I be sleeping?"
"Most of the rooms are still empty, you can pick whichever you want, but we already have one set up for a bird, so I'd recommend that one. If you need anything specific don't be afraid to ask. I have a bunch of heat lamps in mine and I've never been so comfortable."
"I'm not sure what I'll need but I appreciate-" At that moment his crow instincts kicked in and caused him to caw loudly as the smell and sound of another bird grew close.
A brightly colored parrot came flapping into the room excitedly and landed on one of the perches in the common area.
"Squak! Hello fellow bird! I'm Mikan! Squawk!"
She cawed once loudly before getting the crow side of himself under control. "I'm Hina. How many others are there?"
"Just one! Squawk! One more upstairs! He's a bit crabby though!"
Spinner sighed. "You use that joke every day, it was barely funny the first time." He turned to Hina, "They joke with puns a lot and the last member of the SNH is a crab on the second floor. He mostly keeps to himself but he's a fun guy even if he's a little odd."
"Squawk! Fun if you get him out of his shell!"
They both mostly just ignored the pun, "Can one of you show me the bird room?"
"Squawk! Birds of a feather flock together! I'll show the way!"
They flew to the third floor and spoke a bit more. "Squawk! I'm a regular bird other than my smarts. I have an intelligence quirk, squawk, what's yours?"
She was beginning to dread the fact that she would apparently need to explain his situation every single time she met a new person. "I have a memory quirk." Hopefully that would be enough, she just wanted to rest in one of the many comfortable looking places that were provided around the room.
Later that night she was feeling restless and paced around the dorms, talking to herself a bit.
"Everything here is so weird. Will my life always be this strange?"
She spun around at a clicking sound from the kitchen. There was a massive spider crab standing over a meter tall and glowing slightly. It turned to face him and was holding a burger in one claw and a cup of jello in the other while wearing a cowboy hat.
"Oh, it'll definitely get weirder."
I hope you all enjoyed the OCs I've added in. At this point I don't plan on adding any more sentient animals, but who knows. As always, let me know your questions and comments because that is what makes writing fanfiction so much fun.