Their Hero Academia – Chapter 41: A Mighty Internship Begins!
Might Tower! Once headquarters to All Might, now home to Deku and Lemillion, the Number One and Number Two Heroes, who often traded off positions in the charts. It was also home to two of the most effective Underground Heroes, the Voice and Glamour. There were also countless Sidekicks and an in-house Support Studio headed by Doctor Melissa Togata.
The bottom floor included a museum, devoted to All Might's incredible career, including a gift shop, with all proceeds going to charitable organizations and efforts. There were floors of phone banks, answering calls mundane and urgent, with the staff well-trained to direct the calls to the correct people or bring Hero attention to it. There were floors of offices, handling all the paperwork that came with such a huge organization. There were multiple floors devoted entirely to a Support Studio. And, of course, there was a floor each for Deku and Lemillion, and subterranean levels for the Underground Heroes.
Countless people worked there. It was, in fact, by percentage of employees, the largest employer of the Quirkless in all of Japan.
And it was where Isamu was going to be spending the next week for his Internship. With Deku. The Number One Hero. If he could take the necessary steps to the doors.
A hand clasped on his shoulder. "You have to go inside, Haimawari."
"Yah!" he let out a gasp, returning to reality. "Sorry, Midoriya. Drifted away there for a second. Just feeling overwhelmed."
"Relax, man," Midoriya said. He was interning with Lemillion, but he didn't seem nervous in the least. Small wonder, when he was the son of the Number One Hero, who had grown up with other Heroes around him like an extended clan of Uncles and Aunts. Lemillion was even his godfather, for crying out loud! He'd probably practically grown up in Might Tower. "You earned this."
"For what it's worth," Kocho said, wings trailing behind her, "I can't believe I'm here either." She too was interning with Deku. Or, as she'd explained on the train ride over, "doing a ride along." The Voice—Shota Shinso's dad—was also going to be working with her.
The moth-winged General Education student had been offered a spot in the Hero Course following her Sports Festival performance. If she could get herself up to their level, she'd be able to join them for the Summer Training Camp and then formally join their class for the second semester. It'd be nice, Isamu reflected, having someone else in the class who didn't come from a Hero-pedigree. Not that he didn't appreciate all of his friends, but they had so much shared history it was hard not to feel a little left out at times.
"You earned it too," Midoriya said He looked both of them over and hesitated only a moment before he spoke again. "Really, you guys can relax. Dad's one of the easiest going guys around. And Uncle Hitoshi acts kind of grumpy sometimes, but he's really a softie. You'll do great!"
Well, one of those statements was definitely true. Isamu had seen Deku interviewed often enough to know that he could shift easily between giving an inspiring speech to suddenly geeking out over a new Hero or one of his friends or even the interviewer's Quirk. He saw some of that in Midoirya, but he must have gotten a decent dose of good sense from his mom.
"C'mon," Midoriya said, waving a hand in the direction of the doors. "Let's go in."
Isamu grabbed the handle of his rolling luggage and followed suit.
Having left Midoriya behind several floors below, Koharu stepped off the elevator with Haimawari and onto the top floor of Might Tower. Passing through the lobby and other floors with Midoriya had been an experience; everyone there seemed to know him. Small surprise, really, given who he was.
She'd been here a few times on school trips and during one special civilian tour (her uncle, who worked the night shift dispatch, had managed to get tickets for the family), but coming into it as a potential Hero was another thing entirely. Maybe she'd walk these halls as a Sidekick someday? It was way too early to think about. She wasn't even a Hero Course student yet, not really. She'd signed the paperwork, the offer had been extended, but she needed to prove herself first.
A bespectacled secretary told them that Deku was in his office and directed them down the hall.
"Here," Haimawari said, pulling open the door to the office for her. "Ah, Mister Deku, sir?" he asked.
"They told us you were insiiii…." Koharu trailed off, struck speechless by the sight inside.
The whole office looked like it had been the scene of a terrible battle, the walls cracked and furniture turned over and broken. How had anyone not heard this?
"D-d-d-Deku!" Haimawari shrieked, pointing a long arm. "He's… he's… dead!"
She followed his finger and saw Deku on the ground, laying on his stomach in a pool of what looked like blood. His arms and legs were splayed and… were those his intestines? Perhaps it was unheroic of her, but Koharu let out a scream. They had to get someone, get someone to help, how could this have happened without anyone knowing?!
Suddenly, Deku sprang to his feet, somehow looking none the worse for wear. "I'm alive!" he said, a big grin across his face.
This time, both she and Haimawari screamed.
There was the sound of running feet in the hallway and another person burst into the room, a young man, maybe in his early twenties, blond, muscular, and wearing a silver and black costume, lined with red, the majority of the chest taken up by a silver shield-shape. "What's going on…?" He took one look at the room, at Deku, and at Haimawari and her, then slapped a hand to his face. "Dammit, Uncle Izuku, not again!"
No longer able to hold it, Deku let out a long laugh, nearly doubling over. "Sorry, sorry," he said, finally righting himself. "But you should have seen the look on your faces…!"
Koharu exchanged a look with Haimawari. What was going on?
"Okay, okay," Deku said, looking to a corner on the room. "You can drop the illusion, Camie."
There was a strange moment and then the world shifted, the destruction and blood and violence done to the office disappearing and leaving it in its normal state. There was a big desk, covered in paperwork, and shelves full of books lining the walls. There was so much All Might merchandise as well, rare art prints and posters lining the walls and statues and figures covering almost every surface. Too, there was a picture of Deku, with All Might and what must have been his mother, along with Uravity and their children, all wearing matching All Might hoodies.
And there in the corner was blonde woman in a skintight catsuit, the zipper pulled down low to expose her cleavage, and a peaked cap. She was leaning lazily against the wall, scrolling through her phone.
"'sup, party peoples," the woman said, giving them a little wave.
"You're… you're the Shield!" Haimawari said, pointing at the blond man. "And you're Glamour! I knew you both worked here, but I didn't expect to see either of you on the first day!"
Koharu felt her heartrate slowly returning to normal. Haimawari geeking out over the Heroes was relaxing, in its own way. It was such a normal reaction. One she'd have probably echoed if the sight of Deku, dead, wasn't still trying to burn its way across her memory. The Shield she recognized, one of Deku's most well-known sidekicks. The woman seemed vaguely familiar, but didn't strike any major memory chords.
"I'm sorry," the Shield said, looking embarrassed by Deku's actions. "He does this to all the new Interns and Sidekicks. He did it to me on my first day and I nearly jumped through the roof."
"Hey!" Deku said. "It's a time tested method for surprising Interns, passed down to me by Gran Torino himself!"
"You mean the guy whose idea of training was to beat the shit out of me?"
The Number One Hero smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, pointedly ignoring his Sidekick's question. "Anyway, where are my manners? Kids, this is Tamaki Togata, one of my Sidekicks, and Camie Shinso, one of the Underground Heroes who works here. Tamaki, Camie, these are Isamu Haimawari and Koharu Kocho, my Interns for the week. Koharu here is Kaito down in dispatch's niece. They're also The First and Third Place finishers at the Sports Festival!" Deku finished excitedly.
Koharu felt a smile tug at her lips. Deku's enthusiasm was positively infectious and for a moment, at least, all her doubts about being here were banished. "Your son finished Third too," she said.
"Midoriya's deserved it," Haimawari agreed. "He got all of us through the first leg with his plan."
"He's a good kid," Deku agreed. "Mirio will take good care of him, I'm sure."
The Shield nodded. "I saw the Sports Festival. You did good work, both of you. Wish my kid brother had done half as well, but he's happy tinkering with his toys. Nejire came in Third Place too, for the Third Years. Hasn't shut up about it."
"Shota couldn't stop talking about it, either" Glamour agreed. "Mad lit, kids. And Kaito's a total star. Keeps the whole ship running at night. Hubs likes him 'cause he doesn't get gabby."
"Thank you," Koharu said. Her uncle wasn't the bragging type, but she knew his job was frequently demanding and stressful, so praise from the Heroes who relied on his support was nice to hear.
Deku grinned again. "Okay, Tamaki, you want to show the kids where they can stash their stuff, show them to the locker rooms, and then meet me down in Training Room Alpha? And Camie, if you'd like Hitoshi know they're here?"
"Can do," the Shield said, tossing off a small salute.
"If he's awake," Glamour said. "Might have to kick him a few times."
"Careful," Deku told her. "He just got a new sleeping bag with extra padding."
Sleeping? Wasn't it 0800 or so? Maybe he'd been up late on a case? It was hard to imagine a Hero just wasting the day like that.
"It's that a little fast?" Koharu asked, a little surprised. "I mean, I'm here to learn, I know, but I'm so far behind…" Maybe Heroes just did things quickly. She'd studied them plenty, but didn't have any real idea how this was supposed to go.
There was still so much she had to catch up on. What she'd done to teach herself had gotten her far, but she lacked the foundations and skills the Hero Course students had. She thought she might observe or something first, but to just go for it like that?
"All the better reason to get started now!" Deku beamed.
"Oh, that was awesome!" Deku yelled, pumping a fist in the air.
Isamu came to a stop, firing a small burst of power like a retro-rocket. Next to him, Kocho touched down with a flutter of wings. Training Room Alpha turned out to be specifically reserved for Interns, Sidekicks, and Work Study participants, allowing them to hone their Quirks and skills in relatively lower stakes simulated environments, using the latest in holographic technologies. Deku had started them off with a simple obstacle course, throwing various challenges their way (such as catching a falling civilian or avoiding simulated flames) as they made their way across a series of rooftops. The nature of it meant he hadn't been able to go full throttle, and Kocho had been able to keep up with him that way. She was good in the air, maneuverable as all get out. And not afraid to fly headlong into danger. How had the Hero Course missed out on her?
It had probably started as a competition, but it had quickly fallen into something more like cooperation. Which was probably Deku's intention in the first place. He hadn't offered any instruction, just letting them go and seeing what they could do. Considering he had a notebook (Actual paper and pen! In this day and age!) open in front of him and was still scribbling, he probably had lots of feedback pending.
Isamu offered the purple and blue haired girl a handshake, which she took. "Good work," he said. While he was wearing his costume, she wore a U.A. gym uniform, having explained that there hadn't been time to fabricate a costume before the Internship began.
"Thanks," she replied. "You too."
"It was all right."
The sudden voice snapped Haimawari's head around, to a figure all dressed in black, a steel-grey cloth wound around his neck like a scarf. "Mi—mi—Mister Aizawa!"
No, wait, that wasn't right… In fact, he looked pretty much like an older version of Shota Shinso. Right! The Voice!
He wasn't the only one who recognized him, though. Koharu practically lit up at the sight of him. "You're Shinso!" she yelled. "You're a legend!"
The tired looking man shrugged. "That's my name," he said. "But I'm no legend."
"Oh, don't be so modest, Hitoshi!" Deku said.
"But you, young lady," Shinso continued, as though Deku hadn't spoken, "you have a lot of potential for someone not in the Hero Course."
"He's getting his license so he can take on Interns," Deku volunteered. "Which is something he'd said he'd never do. Because then he'd have to deal with… extroverts. I'd have asked you anyway, Kocho, but Shinso really wanted me to."
"Just give it all away, why don't you, Deku?" Shinso asked, but he sounded more amused than annoyed.
"You're, um, you're nothing like your son, Sir," Isamu said, then instantly slapped both hands over his mouth. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. But it was true. Shinso the younger was so talkative and energetic, and the Voice was so… not. He was afraid he was going to fall asleep just standing there watching them.
"Heh." The smallest possible smile he'd ever seen anyone make moved across Shinso's lips. "He certainly takes after his mother in that regard."
Isamu decided not to dwell on how a guy like the Voice had managed to marry a woman like Glamour. Some things were best not thought about. Though he supposed you could say the same thing about his own parents, with his easy going, goofy dad, and high strung mother.
The purple-haired Hero's eyes narrowed, highlighting the bags under them. "Still… Izuku was able to remind me that I do have a lot of wisdom and experience to offer. If somewhat unofficially."
"Okay, so, before we move on to the next exercise," Deku said, and Isamu could swear he saw a maniac energy in the man's eyes, "I have so many questions about your Quirks!"
Shinso! The Shiso! The Voice! Only one of the most famous General Education students turned Hero ever! There wasn't a student in the General Education course who didn't look up to him. It had been more than a decade before him that any General Education students had made it to the Hero Course. He'd ushered in a new era of giving General Education students a chance. To think, Koharu wasn't just following in his footsteps, but getting first-hand experience with him!
After giving her and Haimawari time to shower, Deku had taken the gawky boy off with him, leaving her with Shinso. Technically, all they were supposed to be doing was getting breakfast in the cafeteria. But this wasn't even reading between the lines. This was an advisory session, if ever there was one. The Number One Hero was certainly playing more fast and loose with the rules than she would have thought!
She'd been surprised by the number of food choices available in the cafeteria, especially the liquid options! She'd been a little worried about that and in fact had a few options packed away in her luggage. The two of them occupied one table, while various Sidekicks and other employees occupied others and left them in peace.
Shinso, as it turned out, also enjoyed pouched food. "So," he said, "I don't suppose I can interest you in being an Underground Hero?"
Koharu blinked her large eyes at that, slowly withdrawing her proboscis from the syrupy fruit pouch she was drinking. "I think I'm a little too distinctive for that," she said.
His shoulder went up in the slightest of shrugs. "Worth a shot," he said. "But you're right. The public will love you. You're distinctive. That makes you memorable. Camie says you're "trending" and "a hashtag." Whatever that means."
Koharu decided educating a Pro-Hero on the intricacies of internet terminology was not something she was interested in doing. Though being a hashtag was new. "I've tried not looking too much at what the internet is saying about me," she said. "But I haven't been all that successful. A lot of people seem real excited about me. The school, the public, even Deku. Feels like a lot of people are making a big deal out of me. Not sure if I feel like I deserve it."
There was certainly a subset of the internet that seemed to feel the same, coming up with all kinds of preposterous claims and accusations, saying she was just taking attention away from up and coming Heroes. And then there were the more vicious comments, from those who still held a lot of prejudice towards Mutant-Type Quirks. The former were annoying and chiseled away at her self-confidence. But the latter? Those hurt.
"You don't," Shinso said, and Koharu felt her mouth open in shock.
"What?"
"Not because of the Sports Festival win, anyway," Shinso amended hastily, as though sensing he'd been a bit too blunt. "People make more out of the Sports Festival than it really is. It's a chance to show off, but it's not the be-all or end-all of Hero-training. And it's still horrifically biased, if not quite so bad as the Entrance Exam still is. Though making a good impression is still important."
He fixed her with an intense stare. "The fact that you impressed Nezu and others in the faculty is what's significant. You're being fast-tracked, so they must think you have it where it counts. I had to train for months to just have the chance to try out for the Hero Course and I didn't get to join until the second year. If they're putting that out there, it means you have a real shot at doing something great. Of course, I was young and stupid. You're young, but I don't think you're stupid."
"…Thanks?" she tried.
"Besides," he added, "you've got me in your corner. I know how Aizawa thinks, and I know exactly what you're going to need to get up to Hero Course standard. And I'll share it with you, on one condition."
"What's that?"
"When you're a famous Pro-hero, you pass the torch, same as I'm doing now."
Isamu was honestly surprised by how approachable Deku was, even if he shouldn't have been. Between what he'd seen in interviews and how Midoriya had talked about him, it was obvious the Number One Hero was able to switch from "Hero Mode" when dealing with villains or disasters to some kind of "Civilian Mode" when doing practically anything else. As they'd gotten their food and taken a seat in the cafeteria (And Deku was just… eating in the cafeteria. Like he was some Sidekick or paper pusher, not the guy who literally owned the place!), it became rapidly clear that he knew the name of each and every person who worked for him, calling them by name and asking questions about their family or hobbies or other details that Isamu wouldn't have thought he'd have time or inclination to know.
Isamu took a bite of his breakfast sandwich (What could he say? Convenience store style foods agreed with him.), then a long swig of coffee. Probably more sugar in it than he should have, but he wanted to make sure he was fully awake and alert for the day.
"So," Deku said, in-between bites of his own breakfast, "can I ask you something, Haimawari? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
Well, that was a loaded statement if ever he heard one. Isamu felt his heartrate kick up a notch. What could Deku possibly want to know? "Ah, sure?" he said, wishing he felt more sure of himself, or that it sounded less like a question.
"Maybe I'm overthinking this," Deku said, "because that's kind of my thing, but after the Sports Festival, I couldn't help but think that you reminded me of something I'd read about when I was a kid, and then I went digging into some old files and newspaper archives and everything and…"
Isamu knew, instantly, what Deku was planning on asking. He wanted to run or use his Quirk to slide away, but he felt riveted to his seat, despite Deku's rambling, unassuming nature.
"Are you connected to the Crawler, who used to be in Naruhata?"
Yep, there it was.
"Mister Deku, sir, I…" he began, tripping over his words.
"You can just call me Deku."
Isamu swallowed hard, looking down. Mobility-enhancing Quirks were quite common, even Quirks which allowed mobility over various surfaces. The specifics, like his needing three points of contact, varied, but Quirks could easily be traced through family lines. He was an only child of an only child, not exactly hard to figure out where it might have come from if anyone did any digging.
"The Crawler?" he asked instead, hoping to buy a few precious seconds to think.
"A Vigilante who used to operate in Naruhata, starting about twenty-eight years ago. Mostly small scale stuff, just helping people on the street, though he and a couple other Vigilantes did get involved with some pretty big stuff on occasion too. But mostly he was kind of a local figure. A "Nice Guy" who helped watch out for people and kept the neighborhood safe. Not many people even know about him, since the press didn't like to give a lot of attention to that kind of thing, though a few U.A. teachers worked with them and even Captain Celebrity talked about them in his autobiography…"
U.A. teachers. Right. Like Mister Aizawa and Vice-Principal Midnight. Both of whom had to know about his parents. Dad had mentioned them often enough, when recounting stories of his glory days. Which was something he'd tried very hard not to think about since the start of school.
"And who disappeared about eighteen years ago. Just a couple years before you were born, as a matter of fact." Deku finished. "Took a while to find the archival footage, but what little bit there is of him in action pretty much lines up exactly with you at the Sports Festival."
He shouldn't have been surprised, he reflected for the second time. Deku was well known for his knowledge of Heroes and his analysis of Quirks. And you couldn't get to being the Number One Hero without being incredibly clever and intelligent on top of that. It's a wonder he'd thought it wouldn't come up.
"That's, that's my dad," he said, quietly. He looked up, pleadingly. "Please don't tell anyone." There wasn't a statute of limitations on Vigilantism charges. If he got his dad in trouble by going to U.A…!
"Relax," Deku said, holding up both hands in a placating gesture. "I just wanted to know if my theory was right, and I wanted you to know that I know. No judgements. Everything I've pieced together says your dad helped a lot of people."
Isamu let out a puff of breath. "That's, that's good," he said. "Thank you."
"So," Deku continued, "tell me about why you want to be a Hero."
Now that, that was a question he was more prepared to answer. Especially with more cards on the table. "I want the chance to do what Dad couldn't," Isamu said. "He spent, still spends, his life helping people. Big ways and small. But he missed his chance to be a Hero. And I think part of him always regretted that. He told me helping people was the best thing a person could do, no matter if they were a Hero or not. But I just figured that if I did become one, I could help a lot of people. In a lot of big ways."
At that, Deku nodded. "It's a good reason," he said. "I've certainly heard worse."
"I, ah," Isamu began again, "I just want to really thank you, for this opportunity. I didn't think somebody like you would ever notice somebody like me."
For the briefest second, he could have sworn he saw some faraway look pass over Deku's face. Then he remembered that Deku was, somehow, a very late bloomer, who hadn't manifested his Quirk until he was a teenager. Who'd gone to school with Shoto and Ingenium and Creati, scions of various Hero legacies of their own. Maybe he did understand a bit.
Deku smiled. "Just looking for someone who looked like they could use a shot. You and Kocho both."
The Number One Hero's grin got bigger. "So… how'd you like to go on patrol?"