Amajiki Tamaki stood in the crowd of students, trying to hide among all the faces as he watched Vlad-Sensei guide his three classes to their places at the assembly, wishing he could go hide behind Mirio until it was over. Oh, there was a cold breath on his waist, "Hi, Yamato."
The giant wolf wearing a UA's boy's uniform shifted, first rising to a bipedal wolf-human, then shirking down slightly, leaving Yamato at her towering eight foot frame, a thick layer of rime across their back. They rotated their shoulders several times, causing the ice to crack and fall off, "Hi, Tamaki! Have a good break?"
"Yeah," he said, "Mirio and me played some video games. Fat called me in a couple of times just to make sure I didn't get too rusty, how was yours?"
"I patrolled with Yoroi or Aizawa-Sensei most days, just to get out of the dorms," Yamato said, "and then there was one day Nejire showed up with Haya and dragged me shopping."
"How'd that go?" Tamaki asked.
"Badly," Nejire said, popping up from nowhere and nearly giving Tamaki a heart attack. He formed a clam shell over his face on instinct, before letting it fall off. Yamato bared their teeth for a second, before taking a calming breath, "Sorry, sorry! Should have thought about how jumpy you two can be before doing that!"
"You tend to fly into flight or fight when your dad used to beat you black and blue for wanting to be a hero," Yamato said in apology.
A too long silence stretched in the wake of that statement, Tamaki, Nejire and Yuyu all shared awkward looks. Yamato's tendency to mention the more… petty, evil things their father had done over the years never got any easier. There was a difference between knowing, intellectually, the concept of an evil warlord who had taken over a two and a half hectare section of Hong Kong… and knowing that the same monster had routinely abused Yamato. It was pettier, but it also made you wonder. If that was what he was willing to do to his family, how were the people trapped in what had formerly been the Kowloon Walled City fairing?
And nobody wanted to be the one to try and stop him after Operation Dragonslayer had gone… Well, "wrong" was too kind. "Horribly, nightmarishly wrong" was closer to the truth.
"So, uh," Tamaki swiftly changed the subject, "How'd it go wrong?"
"It didn't."
"It did."
"I got four new yukata!"
Oh, yeah. That was… "wrong", "You already own ten."
"And now I own fourteen," Yamato said cheerfully.
"Congratulations," Yuyu snarked, "You can do basic math."
All four of them laughed to some extent at that comment, the last bits of tension fading from the room.
"We went to buy Yamato some formal wear to wear to I-Island in a couple of months, you know because they're obviously going," Nejire said, slapping the white and teal haired on the back, "That invitation and all… anyways. Nothing! No dress, no suit, nothing but some extra yukata!"
"Kimonos are formal wear!" Yamato shot back. All of the other three fell silent at that, looking at each other. They… weren't wrong, Tamaki supposed.
"Do you own a formal kimono though, Yamato?" Yuyu asked.
"…We can buy one next time we go shopping," Yamato defended weakly, "I had one back in Hong Kong, a gift from Uncle Alber, but I had to leave it behind when I left."
Ran away, they meant. And Uncle Alber, they mentioned him occasionally, before always realizing their mistake and clamming up. They were probably someone high in the Beasts' hierarchy. Queen? Jack? King? It was hard to imagine A rank Hero Killers giving gifts.
"Hey," Yamato said suddenly, frowning, "can I ask you guys a question?"
"What's up?" Tamaki said, with Nejire nodding excitedly.
"...What was the casualty count of Operation Dragonslayer again? Twenty Heroes went in, how many came out?"
"Total," Tamaki said.
"Nobody made it out alive," Nejire said with a frown.
"Weird."
"What?"
"I met Shōnetsu's son on the way here," Yamato said as Nezu droned on and on about taking care of his fur, "He said his dad was on Hiatus. Which implies…"
"Either they kept it from him," Yuyu said, "which is cruel."
"Yeah, yeah! Who would let someone think their dad is alive when they're dead?" Nejire nodded.
"Or the report is wrong and Shōnetsu survived."
"I suppose that would make sense to do," Tamaki said, "Kaido might send a Beast out to assassinate a survivor. Send a message that nobody can invade the Kowloon Walled City and get away with it. So they added him to the death report until he's recovered enough to defend himself. It's… it's still a bit cruel to his fans, you know? But it's better than the other option."
— X Shouta X—
It took until the first trial for Shouta to realize a gaping hole in his logical plan to make Midoriya take things seriously.
Even not taking things seriously, Midoriya was capable of scoring too high to expel. Even if he had the lack of moral fortitude to rig the score, it would have been abundantly clear he had rigged it.
It had started with the ball throw, where Shouta had thrown the ball to Midoriya and given him permission to use his Quirk to throw it. Strings had slid out of the boy's hand, wrapping tightly around the ball.
"Hurry up!" The blond haired boy snapped as Midoriya shrugged off his blue sweatshirt and flung it towards the girl wearing glasses. She caught it one handed, and Midoriya stretched, "Seriously, Zukai, hurry the fuck up!"
Midoriya didn't respond, while someone muttered "Zukai?"
"Bakugo can't use people's names if their life depended on it," the girl said, "He just calls everyone nicknames. 'Zukai' from Ningyōzukai. You know, because of the controlling string-"
"632.6 meters!" Shouta's head snapped to where Midoriya was toeing on his red sneaker, the ball barely visible in the distance as a burst of dirt. Several glints of green hissed through the air before Midoriya caught the ball in the hand that had thrown it, unwinding his string and tossing it back to Shouta. Shouta quickly pulled up a camera feed, watching what happened.
Midoriya removed one of his high top sneakers as the conversation went on behind him, before taking off his sock and wrapping it around his free arm. Stomping at the ground, an explosion of strings burst from the bottom of his foot, scarring the sand as Midoriya was sent flying into the air. Snapping his hand forwards, the ball flew through the sky, describing a parabola as Midoriya landed, his hand outstretched. Then, he jerked his hand down in a sharp wave, and the ball came crashing down.
Oh, that brat, "Midoriya! Why'd you stop there, it could have gone further!"
"Strings were getting taunt," Midoriya explained with a shrug.
"I don't like people who don't take these tests seriously," Shouta's eyes flashed red, and Midoriya seemed to lock up as he did. Good, he could still intimidate him-
"Izuku?" The girl said, touching his shoulder. Midoriya didn't move, or respond in any way. He just stared at Shouta.
"Do it again, and take it seriously this time, or you can pack it up and go home," deactivating Erasure, Shouta immediately realized he had made a mistake.
Midoriya took a ragged, stuttering breath, and Aizawa had just enough time to see Midoriya's eyes flash red before a torrent of string became a whipping storm around him, forcing the girl to jump back to avoid being hit by one. Midoriya growled like a wild animal as he gasped for air several times, chest expanding and contracting unnaturally. Too wide. What the hell-
"I don't know what you just did, but do it again," Midoriya growled out with a layer of dread filling the air, "and I will defend myself."
"You'd threaten your teacher?"
"I'd threaten my assailant!," Midoriya snapped, "Do you regularly use your Quirk on students, Aizawa? That's abuse of your power!"
— X Izuku X—
Izuku glared at Aizawa as hard as he could, trying to hide the wild panic as the strings in his body untightened with the fading of his Quirk, allowing him to breathe again. Emotions warred through his body, fear, joy… anger.
"Do that again," Izuku hid the wince at his own voice as Tashigi reached out for his shoulder, "And I will defend myself."
"You'd threaten your teacher?" Aizawa demanded, causing Izuku to fight off seeing red. Keep calm, keep calm…
"I'd threaten my assailant! ," Izuku snapped, "Do you regularly use your Quirk on Students, Aizawa? That's an abuse of your power!"
Seriously. If it was Vlad King doing it, or Midnight, he would have heard about how they were arrested and put on trial for child and Quirk abuse years ago. Covering your students in blood or blasting them with knockout gas for no reason?
"I have my license-"
"A hero license doesn't give you the ability to use your Quirk indiscriminately," Izuku hissed, string pulling back into his body as he stood up, "I will talk to the principal about this if I have to. It's an abuse of your power."
Aizawa paused, before throwing the ball at him. Izuku stepped out of the way, "Do it again."
"No."
"Do it again."
"No," Izuku repeated, and Aizawa's eyes flashed red for a second, causing Izuku to lock up again. The minute he let go, Izuku pulled back a hand, only for it to be caught by Tashigi.
"It's not worth it," Tashigi said.
"Do it again or I'll mark you down at zero," Aizawa threatened.
"Try it, give me more ammo for my complaint," Izuku said, "I threw it six hundred meters. Everyone here heard it, Aizawa-san-"
Everyone tensed at once at the honorific, apparently only realizing how agitated Izuku was with that.
"-I'm sure someone here will be willing to back up the fact that you rigged my score because I didn't throw a ball to your satisfaction."
"You were holding back!"
"And that's a problem?"
"People die when you hold back,"
"And people can die when you don't hold back!" Izuku was acting irrationally, he knew, but this behavior reminded him too much of those idiots who, who, "Two and a half years ago, my father went into the Kowloon Walled City with orders not to hold back. Twenty seven people died, Aizawa, to him personally before he was blown right out of the Kowloon by Kaido! Your Quirk might be the convenient type where you don't need to worry about accidentally killing someone by activating it, but for the rest of the world we do need to know our limits. What would have happened if those strings snapped backwards while I let go of the ball? Speed up a string enough and it becomes a blade."
"I still had to train," Aizawa said.
"And how old were you when you started learning how not to kill or maim someone by accident?"
"Sixteen."
"Try Five, and maybe you'll understand why I'm not very happy with you for using your Quirk on me for holding back," Izuku said.
—