"So," Mirio started with a mouth full of food, a bit of rice stuck to his cheek while he looked at her. "Why do you think only some of your magic worked on me?"

Izumi looked at her own massive portion and shrugged before taking in a large bite of her own food and swallowing it. "I don't know. Maybe it's because Force isn't really a thing and is more like a…"

"A force?" Mirio finished for her. He paused, stopping to pound his chest before he grabbed his drink and took a sip. "Pshaaah!" He gasped and then sighed. "Stuff like gravity still affects me while I'm using my quirk, so maybe your Force is a force like gravity?"

Izumi blinked and tilted her head while she slowly chewed a bit of meat that was just a bit on the gummy side. "That makes more sense than my guess."

"Which is?"

"Quirks are bullshit, and mine is an extra helping of bullshit with some needless complexity on the side."

Mirio let out a laugh and slammed his hand down onto the table. "I like that answer more!"

Izumi gave a great big smile, in part because she was enjoying Mirio's company, but mostly because of who she saw coming up from behind her Senpai.

Tall, dark, leggy, and with some of the best boobs Izumi had ever seen, (and she was taught by Byleth-sensei and Kuro-sensei!) her lovely, very attentive and super duper amazing girlfriend Momo!

Izumi all but bounced in her seat and made room for Momo to sit down next to her.

"And here I was nervous that I had a lot of food." Momo laughed and placed her stacked tray of food on the table where it all but merged with Izumi's and Mirio's already impressive spread. If anybody glanced their way, they might assume they just sat down at the buffet and started pigging out. Momo glanced towards Mirio and nodded. "I take it you're the 'senpai she won against because he didn't want to get naked'?"

Mirio blinked and then glanced towards Izumi before letting out another laugh. "I suppose I am! I'm Mirio Togata! It's a pleasure to meet you; Izumi spoke a lot about you." He then held his hand up in apologies and lowered his head. "Also, I'm afraid I broke your gift."

"Gift?" Momo raised an eyebrow and glanced towards Izumi. "What gift?"

"My broom! The one you gave me this morning?"

"I made you that one because you broke one yesterday during practice."

"So? It was still a gift from you and something I should treasure."

Momo let out a sigh that made her blush look all the more cute. While Izumi understood why Momo didn't want Public Displays of Affection at school, it was so hard not to start gushing and showering her girlfriend with all the affection she could muster! "Well, I'm sure you'll be happy to know that I'm working on an actual gift for you."

"Really?" Izumi gasped and licked the rice from her cheek. "What is it? What's it for?"

"Well, it's more a practical gift, and something I've been thinking of for a while, but if you want it to be for something, you can say it's for passing your exam." Momo paused and glanced towards Mirio. "She did pass, right?"

Mirio shrugged with his whole body. "I don't know. I wasn't the one evaluating her, but if I was, she would have."

"Oh!" Izumi snapped her finger and pointed to Momo, her finger glowing for a moment. "What about you? How was your exam?"

A slight frown crossed Momo's face before she shrugged. "I think I passed, but I don't feel like I really did anything. I was paired with Inasa against Aizawa-sensei, and in the end, all I did was make a couple of flashbangs to blind him while Inasa did all the hard work."

Mirio hummed and drummed his fingers over the table. "Aizawa-sensei is tricky, and it sounds like you were able to pass precisely because of your abilities."

"Yeah, but still, it was Inasa that kept Aizawa up in the air and forced him to concede."

Screw the no PDA rule! Izumi hugged her girlfriend as best she could, all but squishing their bodies together and nuzzling Momo's shoulder. "Yeah! I bet you did awesome! Don't be so down on yourself! I bet Inasa would say that he couldn't do it without you!"

"He already did," Momo sighed and patted Izumi on the head, a light tinge gracing her cheeks. "But still, I don't know."

A tray slamming down onto the table alerted them to Itsuka joining the table. "Well, I'm glad you all are having a good time!"

"Uhhh," Izumi slowly let go of Momo and looked across at Itsuka, who was looking several degrees worse for wear. "Did something happen?"

Izumi had never seen someone open split their chopsticks with quite as much anger before.

"Oh, something happened alright."

"Did you get rejected?" Izumi asked.

"Again?" Momo casually went in for the coup de grace and then promptly slapped her hand over her mouth. "Sorry, that just came out."

Itsuka's smile held nothing but rage as she stirred her rice. She then pointed a rice-covered pair of chopsticks at Momo and glared. "I know where you sleep."

"Okay, but what happened?" Izumi bounced in her seat. "There's no way you failed, right?"

"Oh, I passed, but I'm not happy about it." Itsuka growled and took a massive bite of her food. "Because somebody," Itsuka directed her glare towards Izumi, "had to be special and get tested alone, that meant that I had to be tested with two other people."

"Oh." Izumi sucked on her bottom lip. "You got stuck with Neito, didn't you?"

"And Yosetsu."

"That doesn't seem too bad."

"Neito copied both our quirks and ended up welding both himself and Yosetsu to a car, and I had to push a car with both of them attached to it while our sensei just laughed."

Mirio stifled a laugh.

Momo just smiled and looked towards her own food. "Suddenly I feel much better about my test."

"I'm glad I could help." Itsuka grumbled into her own food.

There was relative silence for a few moments. Of their usual group, only Inasa and Setsuna were missing, but they were likely eating alone somewhere. Or as alone as one could eat at U.A. Then came Nejire to break that silence.

"Woah, woah, woah!" Nejire floated towards the table with no tray of food to be seen. Her feet touched the ground for half a moment before she was floating again. "Hey, hey, Mirio, Mirio, why are you here? What gives?"

"Hi Nejire." Itsuka waved.

"Oh, hi Itsuka!" Nejire waved back quickly before her attention was right back towards Mirio.

"I was Izumi's test, and we're allowed to come here for lunch early." Mirio leaned back in his seat and smiled.

"What? No fair! I wanted to go up against Izumi! We could have had a race and gone Nyooom, and she would have tried to shoot me with her zaps and I would have been like, boom and stuff!" Nejire gave a cute pout that had her brows furrowed. "Why do you get to do all the fun stuff?"

Mirio just shrugged.

"Don't be mean like that, Mirio! All I get to do is be the messenger for Nezu!" Nejire placed both hands on her hips and looked towards Izumi, her face instantly lightening up. "Oh, by the way Izumi, Nezu wants to talk to you before class! When I asked what for he just said it was a super duper secret for you which I think means he's going to give you something about your quirk or something, he is helping you with it right? He sounded super duper happy about it."

Nezu wanted to see her? That was great! That meant more new runes! What would she get this time? This felt like when she did super good in a video game and got a new ability or something for beating a super hard boss! Her quirk was great!

"Awesome!" She stood and started to grab her tray before Momo stopped her with a light tug.

"After school, can you meet me near the support department?" Momo asked with a sweet tone to her voice.

"Why?" Izumi tilted her head and blinked. "Why can't we meet where we normally meet?"

"This will make things easier for your present."

New runes from Nezu and a present from Momo?

The only way this day could be better is if Momo also said they were going on a trip to a tropical island!

"I'll look forward to it!"

Izumi gave a quick peck to Momo's cheek and darted off before she could get scolded for PDA.

XXXX

Every time she went into Nezu's office, she half expected there to be smoke, dim lighting, and a crystal ball or something. It was like she was going to some grand wizard for training or something. She mostly blamed all the wizard and witch stuff that she and Momo watched. That, and the fact that her hero name was Merlin and she was basically a witch really didn't help things.

Also, Nezu was a bear rat hamster thing and that just screamed magical familiar or something.

"Nezu-Sensei!" Izumi bounced into his office with one hand extended up into the air. "I'm here!"

Nezu looked up from his desk. His suit was undone slightly, and he looked crazy. Well, more crazy than normal. "Ahh, Izumi! Good, you're here! I had a breakthrough!"

"What?" She skipped over and saw that his notes on her quirk's language were all scattered over the desk. Much of it was gibberish, highlighting various parts of individual runes in an attempt to decipher them. "What'd you find out? And are you okay?"

"Oh yes!" Nezu gave a cackle, "I'm more than fine. You see, I had an epiphany while I was testing some students; there's something about tormenting youth that just gets my brain buzzing."

Those poor souls.

"Or it could be the extra strong coffee I had today. But I like to think it's the torture." Nezu smiled up at her for a moment before looking down at the papers again. "They failed, by the way."

"How?"

"I had a really big crane. It was fun."

"Ahh." After a moment of contemplating that alarming mental image, Izumi remembered why she was here. "So, what's the breakthrough?"

Nezu gave a short laugh. "Ever to the point! That's why I enjoy working with you, Izumi! But, tell me: what do you understand about your own quirk?"

"Uhh, I draw symbols in the air using my fingers, and if I have a broom or a stick or something I can instead channel it through that. If I draw symbols in the right order, I can do something, but it drains my stamina a lot, which is why I swim a lot." Izumi blinked. "Do I need to go into more detail about individual spells?"

"No, no, nothing like that." Nezu flipped his paw and kept looking at the papers carefully, stepping as he twisted and turned to get a better view. "Now then, what do you know about language?"

"I can speak Japanese."

"I mean what makes up a language?" Nezu stopped and looked at her, his small black eyes glimmering with anticipation. "Written, if you would."

"Uhh, well for Japanese there's Kanji, hiragana, and katakana."

"Exactly, and what are Kanji?"

"Why am I getting the language lesson?"

"Because your quirk is a language."

Izumi huffed. "Well, Kanji are words or concepts."

"Exactly, much like how your runes are words." Nezu shuffled a few papers and pulled an ink-stained sheet off of a stack. "And what do we do with words?"

"Talk?"

"Really? Do we talk one word at a time? Not one after another?"

"No, we make sentences, right?"

"If I could snap my fingers, I could." Nezu nodded and held up the sheet. "And what happens when you put a bunch of related sentences together?"

"You get a para—"

Nezu turned the paper towards her, and Izumi understood what he was getting on about.

If her individual runes were words, then her actual spells were sentences, and— "If I combine a bunch of spells at once, I'll have a spell paragraph."

"I believe rituals are an adept description." Nezu nodded and beamed while tapping on the paper he had given her. "This is the only ritual I could come up with in such short notice, but I believe it should work."

Izumi stared at the sixteen-rune-long spell and pondered for a moment. "I don't think I can actually do this and have it be effective. And it's a lot to memorize all at once."

"True, but that's only if you're only using your hands and arms. You've said it yourself that you can draw bigger spells using your arms than with your fingers, right?"

"So, what? Am I supposed to draw with my body?" Izumi asked, raising an eyebrow. It sounded super neat, and this looked like a great ability. "How's that work?"

"Dance." Nezu said firmly.

"Dance?" Izumi asked.

"Dance."

"Oh… okay."

AN: Izumi: So... pole dancing?

Nezu:... as a principal I can't suggest that... but given your broom, yes.