If there was anything that Shinsou Hitoshi hated it was talking.

Back in elementary school, every time Hitoshi said anything, the other kids would always tell everyone else to be careful or they might get mind probed.

Back in middle school, Hitoshi stopped trying to make friends, he didn't want to bother when all he was going to hear was the same thing.

Back in high school, Hitoshi stopped talking to anyone. Whenever he opened his mouth he hesitated, whenever words came out it was out of necessity. Hitoshi didn't understand why everyone loved to talk so much, they were just loud and annoying. 'Oh have you seen blah blah blah…', 'Oh look at this!', 'Hey! Yada yada yada…' Every damned day it was the exact same thing, the trash that spewed out of his classmates mouths just kept playing on loop, like a broken record that didn't know how to shut up and stop being so cheery.

But in college Hitoshi thrived on conversation, because thats when Hitoshi made his first real friend.

Midoriya Izuku was nothing like Hitoshi, they didn't share the same hobbies, didn't have the same favourite foods or shows, even their favourite kinds of heroes were different. But for some reason Hitoshi loved talking to him.

He finally began to understand why everyone was so damn noisy all the time, the feeling of being able to converse with someone, connect with someone even if they were talking about the dumbest shit felt therapeutic to Hitoshi. Midoriya was a weirdo but it was almost perfect for Hitoshi who never felt like he fit in, Hitoshi felt like he could understand Midoriya and he did him, and to top it all off Midoriya couldn't be affected by his Brainwashing thanks to his weird right hand. Or at least Hitoshi assumed, he never actually tried due to a combination of futility and anxiety.

But now finally in the hero course he dreamed of being in, Hitoshi just felt withdrawn.

It wasn't the classes fault that he felt this way, not the angry blonde that never shut up, the pink girl who could never keep her hands to herself. Not the overly serious class president who kept urging him to socialise, or the dynamic duo of purple and blonde with their antics.

No, it was simply because his friend wasn't there with him. It was because of that, that Hitoshi once again hated talking to others…

And he hated that he couldn't talk to the one person he enjoyed talking to.

"~Poppy corn, poppy corn…"

*BEEP*

"Ah! Izuku, its done!"

Midoriya Izuku opened the microwave releasing a cloud of steam, inhaling the scent of salt and cheap butter Izuku pulled the bowl out and plopped it down on the couch between him and Eri.

The UA sports festival was pretty much a full day event, with 3 main highlights along with a side of small recreational activities and corny commentary. Thankfully most of the event was streamed and recorded on UA's official website, so Izuku didn't have to search that deep to find it. The real problem was that it was mostly unedited, meaning it was just as long as the event itself. But Midoriya Izuku came prepared this time…

He finished all of his work ahead of time for once, tied up any loose ends with Midnight and enlisted the help of Ochako to buy all of this weeks groceries in advance. That meant Izuku had a free day on his hands.

A full 24 hours to do whatever he wanted, Midoriya Izuku shamefully felt proud of acting like a normal functioning student for once.

"Izuku, Izuku! It's starting!" Eri excitedly bounced as she reached for her first mouthful of crunchy calories.

Izuku looked up to the screen he was streaming on, it looked like the opening ceremony had just begun. Apparently Kacchan had the highest score in the entrance exam so he gave the opening speech, well speech was a loose term for whatever he actually said. Izuku attentively watched as the first event started, an obstacle race. So far he couldn't spot where he or Shinsou may have been in the crowds, but he did see a few familiar faces in the hero course, Todoroki and Kacchan in paticular were very flashy and loud. Izuku tried hard to recall what happened or where in that pack of sweaty college kids he could be, but he just couldn't picture it in his head or with his eyes. Izuku himself was quite plain so he probably blended in like any one of those college students, but Shinsou would have probably used his quirk by now right?

Just where was he?

"Such Misfortune!" Izuku yelled, crushed under the force of a dozen students.

"Damn it!" Shinsou cursed beside him. "Can I use it now?"

"No! Not yet!"

Shinsou Hitoshi grumbled as he held back on using his quirk. While he could easily brainwash the whole crowd if they responded to him, Shinsou wasn't confident in getting all of them to respond yet. Izuku had told him that his only advantage being relatively unknown in Gen Ed was that no one knew what his quirk was, and since he couldn't confidently get everyone around him to respond at a whim Shinsou needed to use that element of surprise as his trigger. A surprise he couldn't reveal at the very first obstacle, Shinsou needed to save that for the final round if he wanted to stand any chance against the hero course students, who trained relentlessly while they whittled away with books and lectures.

Unfortunately that meant that they were going into this round quirkless, in a field full of students, in the best hero school in Japan, against a hero course that had trained and prepared for fighting villains in a tournament that perfectly suited their physical style quirks.

In short, they were screwed.

As the crowd thinned out, Izuku and Shinsou let out a sigh of relief finally free from the tin of sardines. But unfortunately again, they found out the reason the crowd thinned out.

*CRASH*

A large icicle seemed like it fell from the heavens and right in front of their path, it looked like the zero pointers from the entrance exam had been frozen into a glacier of metallic inconvenience. Some of the more mobile hero students had already circumvented the large obstacle with their quirks, and some of the support course who brought equipment to scale the monstrosity had already reached the other side. That left the Gen Ed students who were struggling to get past with their more mediocre quirks and the business course who didn't really care about winning the festival to begin with.

"Could you destroy it with your right hand?" Shinsou suggested.

Izuku shook his head. "Even if I could negate the ice, theres still the issue of the robots themselves."

Shinsou looked around observing his surroundings, from the commentary it seemed like the focus had already moved onto the next obstacle.

"Now?"

Izuku nodded. "Now."

"HEY GUYS!"

The confused crowd turned and responded with a flurry of 'what's and 'who's that's, and Shinsou Hitoshi used the power of brainwashing to manipulate their minds. The swarm of confused students became as organised as a trail of ants, creating a human chain that would carry them through.

"Careful not to touch them with your right hand!"

Izuku glanced at the chain that scaled over the 20 foot tall robot, gulped and nodded. Slowly but surely scaling their way past the obstacle, Shinsou and Izuku finally slid down the leg of the robot and ran. Brushing off the dirty ice and fungus that stuck to their clothes, and struggling to catch up to the front.

The pair dodged any and all robots they came into contact with, they couldn't afford to waste anymore time if they wanted to make it through.

"WHAT'S THIS BAKUGOU CAUGHT UP TO TODOROKI AND IS HOLDING HIM BACK! WHAT A TURN OF EVENTS! HOW WILL THE TABLES TURN FROM HERE!?"

Izuku and Shinsou looked around and noticed their place on the track, anxiously picking up their pace, panicking at the thought of how far behind they currently were.

But that's when Izuku suddenly turned back and ran the other way.

Midoriya Izuku ran all the way back to the giant robot finally crumbling under the weight of the ice.

"What are you doing you idiot!?"

Izuku bobbed and weaved through all the students, sprinting back up the unstable leg of the bulky machine that was crumbling as he ran.

*BREAK*

And fully destroyed the icicle with his right hand, sending the machine crashing down faster than before.

But also releasing the small, petite girl that was trapped within the ice.

"Gotcha." Izuku caught her as they fell.

"T-T-Thank y-y-you…" The brown haired girl shivered.

Izuku didn't have time to muster a reply as the machinery started falling apart all over them.

"Crapsicles." Things were not looking good.

"H-H-Hold on…" The girl muttered as she waved her hand across the ruined metal which suddenly blossomed with a field of mushrooms all across it.

Izuku's fall was suddenly being cushioned by layer upon layer of fungus, bouncing down the caps with relative ease.

"L-Luckily the metal wasn't that c-cold, but had a lot of m-moisture condensing on t-top of it…"

Izuku nodded as if he knew what just happened, and started to run back to rejoin the race. He stopped at a wide canyon with many long ropes scaled across it, seeing as Shinsou was nowhere in sight, Izuku assumed he probably already made it across.

"G-Give me a moment." The girl let out a burst of spores that formed a fungi like bridge across one of the tight ropes. "I've been p-practicing…"

Izuku wasted no time and dashed across his shroomy foothold, making it into what seemed like total and complete chaos.

The last obstacle was apparently a giant mine field, with many students steadily path finding their way toward the finish. With apparently little success, as Izuku observed the many thunderous explosions as students were sent flying from across the field. The sight was almost nostalgic to him.

"Any more shroomy tricks up your sleeve?" Izuku desperately asked the girl in his arms.

"J-Just one…" The girl started to blush. "B-But you have to promise to look away!"

"Ok?" Izuku looked the other way as the girl did her magic.

"Done."

Izuku turned back. "Done wha- AAAHHHHHH!"

A giant mushroom suddenly sprouted from beneath them, launching the both of them into the air. Izuku screamed as he landed on the giant red cap, and another, and another?

It seemed that the girl had sprouted a trail of giant mushrooms down the field, giving Izuku a direct path toward the finish.

"This is amazing! Why didn't you do this from the start? Where did you pull this mushroom out of?" Izuku asked as he hopped from shroom to shroom.

The short girl blushed and turned away. "W-Where no fungus should grow…"

Izuku regretted opening his stupid mouth.

As the finish line came into view, Izuku hopped quicker and with more gusto. It seemed like no one had managed to finish the race yet.

"DEKU!?"

*BOOM*

But that also meant that Kacchan wasn't finished yet.

Kacchan and who he assumed was Todoroki glared at him with looks of shock and anger as Izuku drew closer.

"GET OVER HERE!" *BOOM*

Izuku desperately tried to run past the explosive blond, but paused as the cap beneath him started to shake.

"N-No! My shrooms are sensitive to extreme temperatures!"

Izuku startled as both Kacchan and Todoroki were attacking the mushrooms with heat and cold respectively. He made a mad dash for the finish line hoping the mushrooms would hold out.

*SNAP*

They didn't.

As Izuku tumbled to the ground, he shielded the girl with his arms and rolled. Laying across the field with a girl in his arms was something Izuku had hoped to experience one day, but certainly not like this!

*BOOM*

"HEY! Watch where you're aiming Icy-Hot! WHOA!"

*RUMBLE*

Izuku turned to see a giant wave of ice rushing toward them.

"Run, run, run, run, RUN!" Izuku hastily picked up the girl and ran toward the finish with all of his might but it was no use, Todoroki's ice was just too fast.

"Thank you…" The girl whispered.

Sensing their inevitable fate, the girl rolled out of Izuku's arms and tumbled to the ground. Not wanting to burden Izuku, she closed her eyes accepting the fate that she should have succumbed to since the beginning of the race.

*BREAK*

A fate that Midoriya Izuku had rescued her from.

With just a touch of his right hand, the entire wave of ice was reduced to nothingness. Leaving only an unfrozen blond, a confused two-tone boy, thousands of puzzled viewers, and a girl that was carried to the finish line by Midoriya Izuku.

"….. UHH… A-AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS! IN FIRST PLACE WE HAVE KOMORI KINOKO FROM HERO CLASS 1B, AND UH-Uhhh… Psst Eraser! Who is that!?"

"The profile says Midoriya Izuku…"

"AND MIDORIYA IZUKU! GIVE IT UP FOR YOUR FIRST PLACE WINNERS EVERYBODY!"

First place? Wait Izuku got first place?

Izuku nervously waved as the crowd cheered.

Kacchan was going to kill him.