Okay, so, once again, THANK YOU!
Thank you to the followers, thank you to the favourite-ers (is there a word to use?), thank you to the reviewers, thank you to those who have been reading this story for a while now, thank you to those who have just discovered it and are binge-reading, just thanks!
I think we can all agree that Bakugou shouldn't be given One for All. I'm still not sure what I'll do with One for All, but I thought of some peculiar possibilities, like Hagakure with One for All. Can you just imagine? Invisible and stronger than any human, that would be one heck of a combination. And then I thought: Hmm, who else is someone that is rarely considered as a successor? And I had the funniest thought: Mineta! Oh Potato, NO! Never gonna happen. Anyways, I wanted to share that with you because I was laughing by myself about it.
So, without further ado, here is the chapter! Enjoy!
(Please forgive any careless mistakes and discrepancies, I almost never proofread as you must have noticed by now)
"Don't you think that putting your feet on the table shows disrespect for those who sat here before us?"
"Ha? What the hell are you going on about, side character?"
"Side character?"
Izuku scratched the back of his neck nervously. There were already two people that did not regard him well in his classroom, the first one being Bakugou, and the other being Iida Tenya, the one who had rudely accused him of taking everything lightly during the exams.
"Oh?" the tall, muscular boy with the boxy glasses noticed him standing awkwardly in the doorway. "You are…"
All the pairs of eyes in the classroom, of people that he did not have enough time to look at, turned to him. The attention he was receiving made his stomach ache form the anxiousness. He noticed some traits that stood out from the ones at the front rows; someone with spiky red hair, a guy with many webbed arms, a pink-skinned girl, another guy with a tail and-Too much attention!
"A-E-A-Good morning!" he blurted out. "My name is Midoriya Izuku. Nice to meet you!"
The boy with the glasses left Bakugou and approached him with steady steps. Izuku took a little step backwards, unsure of how to act. But the boy didn't seem to have any ill intentions. If anything, he was trying to be friendly, in his own austere way.
"Midoriya-kun… My name is Iida Tenya. We were at the same exam site during practicals."
Izuku's eyes darted around. "Yeah…"
Iida fixed his glasses, all serious. "Midoriya. You realized that there was something more to those exams, didn't you? I had no idea…And I made light of your convictions… I apologize!" He waved his hands around, always keeping his fingers together, which gave them kind of a square look. "It may be a bit frustrating, but I admit that you are better than me!"
"Sorry, I didn't actually realize anything…" Izuku mumbled.
"Ah! You're the plain looking one!-"
He turned around, coming face to face with… the nice person, with that bright smile and rosy cheeks, and- She looked good in that school uniform!
"-You passed, just like Present Mic said! Of course you did! When you brought down that huge robot it was amazing!" She raised her fist up, then tilted her head to the side. "Hey, what kind of quirk was that? Did you really not use it until the end of the exam with the zero points? Ah, I wonder what our teachers are going to be like…"
Izuku just listened to the questions and nodded without registering them. His cheeks were red like a tomato, and he was trying to avoid eye-contact as much as possible, slowly leaning away from the cheerful nice person. Next to him, Iida waited patiently to introduce himself at the first given chance. 'Is this… I'm talking to new people…' Izuku thought suddenly. He had been stuck with the same people since kindergarten before, but here he was, with new classmates that were treating him like an equal, so far at least.
"If you want to play friends go somewhere else," said a tired, flat voice.
The three heads slowly turned around like rusty screws, unsure of what they would see.
There was a long yellow sleeping bag lying on the floor, next to the girl's feet, like an overgrown caterpillar that was too fat to turn into a butterfly anymore, more probably into a pterodactyl. The zip slid down and the gloomiest face appeared, pale as a ghost's and short of dehydrated. Underneath reddish eyes, there were etched black bags. There was soft, barely noticeable stubble on his cheeks, and what appeared like the remains of a badly shaved of mustache and beard.
The gloomy man sucked the life out of a juice pack, which reduced into a miserable form of plastic, and then slowly rose, shedding the sleeping bag. It was not a pterodactyl, but, well, still a fossil… His clothes were black and plain. His greasy ebony hair was tangled and messy like a bush, and the scarf wrapped around his neck, or more accurately, covering him from shoulders to chin, if anyone could call it a scarf at all, looked as tattered as the rest of him. He was a man fed up with the world.
"It took you eight seconds before you were quiet. Time is limited. You kids are not rational enough." He stepped out of the sleeping bag completely. The worn out man took a look at the confused faces that stared at him from within the classroom. "I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shota." He informed them, and then added, out of obligation, "Nice to meet you."
The class just gazed back blankly. He didn't show to care for the lack of response and searched through his sleeping bag. Aizawa retrieved one of the many red-blue tracksuits that he had stuffed in there and held it up so that everyone would see.
"It's kind of sudden, but put these on and go out onto the field."
The teacher started to throw the clothes on the nearest desk, startling the student occupying it.
"Come on, we haven't got the whole day."
People stood up and went to the pile of tracksuits. Iida and the nice person went to pick one for themselves too. Izuku observed the crowd and felt the need to step away from all the ruckus. Bakugou was the first one to dash out of the classroom to head to the changing room.
"Here. I think this is going to fit you since we're about the same height…"
Izuku blinked with surprise. He looked down at the tracksuit that he was being offered. "Th-Th-Thank you!" he shouted, and his high-pitched voice cracked awfully. "Um…"
"It's Uraraka, Uraraka Ochaco. No problem!"She smiled at him and went on ahead.
Izuku's grip on the tracksuit tightened and he exited the classroom. He was excited about whatever had to do with hero training, and from the looks of it, they were about to start with something big. But first things first, he needed to put on the U.A. tracksuit and marvel at it for the rest of the day.
.
.
When the whispers died down, Aizawa motioned for the most tough-looking student, a boy who was smirking too wildly for the teacher's taste, to come forward and handed him the small white ball.
"Go."
Bakugou went to stand to the middle of the circle and did a little stance, like a baseball player, before crying out a horrifying "DIE!" and throwing the ball with an explosion that sent waves of hot air into everyone's face. Izuku patted his hair to make it settle down in place again.
Aizawa held up the phone-like device. 705.3
"This is what you should account for as average. This is the hero course. It is not a place for you to fool around. I expect you to put yourselves to work."
There were silent exchanges of stares.
"Oh, yeah, and whoever comes last in this assessment will be expelled. I don't need people who are not serious about committing to heroics in this class."
"Whaaat?!"
Izuku could almost feel the earth disappear beneath him. Quirk assessment, and he could barely activate his quirk at will, let alone control it. But he could not afford to get expelled.
"Expelled? Is that allowed?" Uraraka muttered beside him.
"Sir!" Iida held his hand up, waving it around with urgency.
Aizawa ignored the tall boy and pointed to a boy with yellow hair and a few strands of black, who flinched at the gesture. "You there. Kaminari, wasn't it? Your turn."
"My turn?... All right. I'll give this a try…" the golden-eyed student was quick to regain his composure and confidently entered the circle.
"Asui Tsuyu" Aizawa called.
A short, black-haired girl stepped front.
"You're up next."
They waited for the yellow-haired kid to throw, and then for the frog-like girl's turn. Kaminari appeared to have an electricity quirk, but it didn't seem to help with the rubber white ball… Asui, to everyone's surprise, revealed a long tongue with which she hurled the ball up into the air, and it landed quite far away. Izuku tried to make a mental note of their movements and the way the utilized their quirks, amazed by the skilled control they had over their gift.
"Sato Rikido."
A nervous muscular boy with brown hair and full lips stepped forward.
Just like that, Aizawa kept calling names.
Izuku looked around. The rest of his classmates were preparing by activating and deactivating quirks, stretching, trying to concentrate, or… just standing around with a hand on the hips, when it came to a specific blond with a flashy belt around his waist. Noticing the freckled teen's glance, the other student waved at him with a chuckle. Izuku awkwardly turned around.
"You look worried," said the pink-skinned girl to him suddenly. Her hair had the color of bubble gum, and two little horns were protruding from the top of her head.
Izuku tried to smile politely and keep the reddening of his cheeks to a minimum.
"I heard that you brought down the zero points at the practical exam."
"Oh, ah, um, kinda, I guess so…"
"Then there's not much to be worried about. Most of us couldn't put a dent onto that thing. You're going to do fine." She reassured him. "I'm Ashido Mina by the way."
"M-Midoriya Izuku…" he said, although it was obvious that she had already heard of his name.
"Ashido Mina!" Aizawa called suddenly, and the bubble-gum-colored girl headed to the circle.
Izuku felt the presence of something ominous and turned around, coming face to face with a short boy that had weird purple spheres for hair, a feature that probably had something to do with his quirk. Izuku got ready to introduce himself, but the smile froze on his face and he took a step back seeing as the other student just pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then at him, in a threatening manner.
Izuku felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder and turned around.
"Ignore him." Said the spiky-red-haired teen that was standing next to him and his hand shook Izuku's frail body with friendly pats. "I'm Kirishima. And you are Midoriya, right? I overheard."
"Y-Yes, nice to meet you."
"Yeah! Nice to meet you too. Man, my shoulder's stiff after that throw." He swung his arm in circles and then gave him a toothy grin. "I didn't do that well, but I think I'll be fine. What about you?"
"I uh, I haven't been called yet." Izuku scratched his cheek nervously.
"Oh, I see. Hey, aren't you hot with this weather? I mean, it's not summer yet, but the sun is shining, and we're exercising, so…"
He looked down at the sleeves of the shirt that he wore underneath the tracksuit, glad that he had thought ahead and shoved an extra set of clothes in his school bag in the morning despite his heavy eyelids and frequent yawning. "Is that so? I think it's still too cold outside. Sweating in cold weather is no good."
"That sounded like my mom. No offense, it was a thoughtful comment." Kirishima patted him again, and Izuku stumbled.
"Midoriya Izuku."
The green-haired boy gave a soft yelp and stood up straight in attention. The gloomy teacher with the droopy eyes looked up from his notebook with subtle impatience. Izuku let his legs carry him to the centre of the white circle on automate, with a stupid grin plastered on his face. Aizawa withheld a sigh and passed him a new ball, since the other one was too far away for him to retrieve. Izuku was amazed by the fact that he managed to catch the ball and not drop it from all the shaking that his hands did. Somewhere behind him, he heard a spiteful curse escape Bakugou's mouth, but that did not matter at the moment. What mattered was him getting a good enough score.
Izuku stared down at the ball in his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers around it. He needed it to fly up, as far away as possible. It was a simple task. Just like the carrot that he had sent up to the ceiling. A piece of cake, nothing to be worried about…
"Hey, Midoriya. Quit muttering and go at it already. Time's limited." Aizawa sighed.
Izuku closed his mouth, only now realizing that he had been mumbling again, and raised his arm. Simple, simple, simple… He just had to focus… He threw the ball.
The white round object flew straight forward, and all looked well for a brief three seconds before it changed course like a boomerang. Instead of slowing down, it was speeding up. Izuku tried to dodge, but it was too late. The ball hit his stomach, pushing all air out of his lungs and bringing him to his knees. He coughed violently, trying to catch his breath.
"What the hell was that, Midoriya? Do you think this is time for fooling around?"
"No sir, I w-!"
What looked like yellowish grey ribbons wrapped his legs and bound them together, then pulled, bringing him down to the ground, and dragged him mercilessly on the dirt up to the teacher's black boots. Izuku whimpered in dismay. Aizawa gazed at him with a look of disgust.
"You can't even control your quirk and you want to become a hero? Don't make me laugh. It's pathetic guys like you that make heroes look bad. You have zero potential, yet you want to show off. Listen here, kid. Control is everything. If a hero has immense strength, he should know how to hold a month-old baby and bring it to safety without squishing its head. It's absurd that you still have no control. If you go on like this, you're going to be a nuisance for those around doesn't need you to run around and cause trouble. We already have enough to deal with as it is."
The ribbons –bandages, Izuku corrected himself, loosened. He crawled back to his knees, panting.
The teacher still remained expressionless, despite the things he had said. He offered him another ball. "Now, try again. You only have one more chance to prove me wrong, kid. Make the best of it."
The ball rolled to the ground in front of him with a puff of dust. Izuku didn't take his eyes off it. He just breathed in and out, trying to calm himself down. The teacher's words had definitely been harsh, but they held true, and he was used to harshness. Reality was something that, just like ice cubes smashed between the tender gum and hard white teeth, he had to chew it with care and swallow it fast. The quicker you accept it, the sooner you will try to find solutions to your problems in different ways.
Izuku stood up and wiped the dirt off his tracksuit, with the ball in his now stable hand, and aimed, without hesitation, at the direct opposite of where he was supposed to. The rest of the class broke out in panic and disassembled to save themselves from the impending throw.
A few white teeth showed through Aizawa's thin, dehydrated lips. As if a mysterious breeze was blowing, his long black hair swayed, slowly rising up. There was a red glint in his eyes. "What do you think you're doing?"
The ball was flung forward with extreme speed, becoming a white blur that ripped the air abruptly. It didn't go far, however, as it suddenly changed direction, just like before. Izuku, anticipating the hit this time, rolled on the ground to dodge, and the ball flew past him with an angry whoosh, missing the green bangs on the side of his face by the width of a finger. It disappeared from view.
Aizawa glanced down at the measuring device incredulously. The numbers changed rapidly for a few slow seconds before the ball started losing speed. Finally, the screen stopped flickering, indicating that it had finally fallen down. The teacher's lips curled upwards. He smirked, which was unusual for the cold and distant pro hero.
"What's this, Midoriya. I'll be damned."
With wide eyes, Izuku stared at the number that had shown up. He had done it. He had reached Bakugou's score.
The rest of the students gathered back to the spot with happy smiles, glad that they hadn't been victimized by their classmate's throw. Izuku found himself smiling as well, unable to believe that what he did on a whim had actually worked out. There was only one particular face in the crowd that seemed to be anything but relieved, but Izuku tried not to focus on. Bakugou was not having a good time.
"It went so far! You've got a great quirk."
Izuku turned around to look at the approaching brunette with the gravity-related quirk and the tall bespectacled boy.
"You dealt with the matter in a very calm manner. Once again I see how wrong my initial judgment of you was." Iida told him with seriousness (seriousness was that boy's usual state, it seemed)
"T-Thanks, Iida-kun." He mumbled, unsure of how to reply to the statement other than with awkward gratitude.
"That was really clever, Deku-kun!"
He looked at the joyfully smiling girl with sudden nervousness. Why would she call him that?
"You didn't let what the teacher said get to you! And the score you got was above average for the whole class. Nice job!" she praised.
"Th-Th-Thank you… I-I'm sorry, but, actually, my name isn't Deku…" he tried to clear the misunderstanding with a nervous grin, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Eh? It's not?" her smile melted away and she tilted her head to one side. "But that's what your friend called you…" she glanced at Bakugou, who was sulking several feet away from them, not aware of her gaze.
"Deku is what Kacchan calls me to make fun of me. My name is Midoriya Izuku…" the freckled teen explained.
"I see… An offending nickname." Iida nodded and fixed his glasses.
"But…" Uraraka looked down with slanted shoulders "…'Deku' has a kind of 'you can do it!' feel to it… so it's not all bad, so I thought…"
Izuku's face lit like red Christmas lights and the smile on his face grew wide enough to be considered disturbing.
"I'M DEKU!"
"…Are you sure?"
"You accepted that pretty fast, Midoriya…" the tall blue-eyed boy remarked subtly.
"Ok, everyone. " The teacher shouted to be heard above the talking students "Follow me to the gym".
The students tried to stick close to the slouching man, whose steps seemed to get bigger and bigger, and the students had to trot, then later run and sprint, so as not to fall behind. When they arrived at the huge building, he stood silently above them, unbothered and not having broken a sweat, although the kids were trying to catch their breaths desperately. Izuku looked around while hearing the inhales and exhales that came from his own mouth. The lavish, extravagant equipment that he had seen advertised on magazines before was gone, probably to allow for space to exercise. It was spacious and bright, with a ceiling high above and windows with thick glass only at the second floor –why yes, there was a second floor, or rather, a narrow balcony-like structure that ran on the walls, a place for spectators to sit.
"Kids these days do not know what being a hero means." Aizawa muttered, then continued slightly louder (though his voice sounded flat both in whispers and shouts) "Alright, now that you made it, I want to test your strength." He pointed at a row of devices that were already waiting for them on the smooth brown floor of the gym. "Even if you don't know how to use one, I believe you're not so stupid as to not figure it out."
"HA! Bring it on!"
Of course, Bakugou was of the first ones to grab one and start yelling like some comic character as he forced his muscles to do his best. The vein on his forehead was bulging. Izuku gulped and timidly picked up the device from the floor.
"My quirk is not suited for this…" he heard a girl with dark purple uneven bangs mumble behind him.
'I don't think I even know what my quirk is…' Izuku thought with a desperate frown slowly forming on his face.
"I'm getting bored already. This is one of the quickest tests. What's taking you so long?" Aizawa told the class, and every student that still wasn't trying to squish a device with their hands rushed to the few remaining ones.
The green-haired boy pinched himself to collect his thoughts. So far, he had made the most progress with an ability… telekinesis? So, the first ability was telekinesis. The second, which he still wasn't able to activate at will, was levitating. The third was... did that dream about tomatoes even count as anything? And the fourth one, well, communicating with the dead, again not useful at the moment.
So, telekinesis it was. He just had to apply that invisible pressure like in the practical exam. Grip strength was what the test was all about. He looked down at the numbers that flickered on the small screen of the device, indicating how much power he was putting into it, and tried to concentrate on the thought.
Meanwhile, the boy with the bird-like features closed his beak with relief. His freckled classmate had been mumbling ominously for the past minute but had finally become quiet, allowing him the silence he needed to focus on the task at hand.
For a moment, nobody noticed a thing. Then one of the students noticed that something was wrong and the volume of whispers started to increase.
"H-Hey… Midoriya…"
Izuku didn't take his eyes off the screen but flinched at his name being called all of the sudden. "Y-Yes?"
"Midoriya… watch out, you might hit your head."
"E-Excuse me?"
"The ceiling." Iida mouthed the words slowly, as if not to startle him.
Izuku finally looked away from the numbers and gasped. Everyone was giving him a weird look - from way down below because he was currently hovering very close to the ceiling, and worse, not slowing down. He shut his eyes tightly and put an arm over his neck. He bumped lightly on the cold surface without any flashy side effects, non-majestically, like a stray balloon whose escape by the sweaty hands of a child was sadly prevented by the confinement.
Uraraka panicked. "Oh gosh! I'm so sorry! I must have accidentally touched you and subconsciously activated my quirk!" she said with a hand over her mouth and shocked wide eyes.
Izuku wanted to say that she didn't have to feel bad about it, but the only thing that escaped his throat was a frightened squeal as the girl got ready to put her hands together in the same manner she had done in the practical exam when deactivating her quirk, something that he happened to notice during the first few minutes of the exam.
"Release!"
"W-Wait!" he yelled and waved his hands around frantically, dreading the pain of the fall. He considered the slight possibility of getting his ankle sprained.
"Huh? That's strange… Nothing's happening…" the girl tilted her head with a clouded from confusion face. "Let me try again…Release!... I don't get it, why doesn't it work?"
Oh. So it wasn't her quirk. This was all Izuku's fault once again.
Something pink suddenly wrapped itself around Izuku's waist and pulled him down. He was gently placed back on the floor and everyone sighed with relief as if a fragile vase had made it safely back to its shelf. Izuku turned to face his savior with red cheeks. "T-Th-Thank you!" he told the girl that, if he remembered correctly, was called Asui.
The raven-haired nodded to him kindly. "Don't mention it."
"Ok, enough with the dramas. I've seen enough already to make me rethink my decision to accept this position as instructor. If they're paying me to teach you, I think I'll have to consider quitting."
Everyone was silenced, as the teacher that had spoken slowly walked up to the rosy-cheeked brunette, who trembled at the sight of the gloomy figure approaching.
"I don't know what you've come here to do when you can't even deactivate your own quirk."
She shrunk in place, wishing to melt away and seep into the floor and be forgotten, like a coffee stain that has mingled with the swirly brown spots on the wooden floorboards of a lonely cafeteria. Her cheeks turned even redder with embarrassment. "S-Sir, I-"
"It's not her fault!"
Curious eyes turned to the short boy that had abruptly raised his voice.
"That was not her quirk! It was mine! I was the one who was careless and let it get out of hand again!" he said, gazing into the black, droopy eyes with emerald ones that burned with passion and the need for righteousness.
Aizawa didn't back out of the stare that the student had initiated.
"So you have fused quirks, huh. You could give a decent explanation by saying that you've only used one of the two quirks in your whole life and that's why you can't handle one of them well. But seeing that both of your quirk's aspects that you've exhibited so far are beyond your control makes me wonder if you're doing this on purpose because you think it's a joke and you want to be the class clown, or if you have another ability you're proficient at but aren't using for some reason."
Three-quirked people, or people with three quirks that had fused, were very rare. Izuku recalled an article that he read a long time ago about the seventy-four people on the planet that, extraordinarily, had three quirks. There was only one person in the world with four quirks, and that was a very famous six-year-old living in faraway Brazil.
Izuku was not sure how to classify himself. He definitely needed to look into it more. Where could this peculiar quirk stem from? Sure, his mother's quirk could explain the 'moving objects' thing, but what about the rest? Rin had said that it wasn't a quirk at all but didn't provide an explanation.
He bit his lower lip and looked away.
Seeing the green-haired teen's uncertainty, Aizawa decided to let the matter drop. For the moment.
"Next up we have the one hundred meter run. Come with me."
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.
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Failure. A bitter word.
Every other test other than the first had gone terribly wrong for him. Izuku looked at the scores blankly. His name was last. He was at the end of the list.
"…Nobody is getting expelled! It was all a lie!"
Huh?
What?
A lie?
What a horrible teacher, making his students go through that much anguish! Aizawa smirked at the expense of the students without even trying to be subtle.
Slowly, the realization sank in and Izuku's heart rate returned to normal. He released all the air from his lungs and with it the pent-up anxiety. It scorched his throat as it came out, but it cooled down his overworking consciousness.
"That's great," Iida said and gave him a friendly pat, at which Izuku did his best not to flinch and instead gave a wacky smile.
.
.
.
Aizawa was not impressed by the bulky beast of a man that entered the room and his constant, silly grin.
"I am here! Ready to learn about my wonderful students!"
Too bright for Aizawa's standards. He sneered in disgust and turned back to the papers on his desk that needed sorting out.
All Might walked in, swinging his arms in large motions. Surprisingly, his steps were silent, and somehow his bulk didn't disturb the fragile nature of the teachers' office by sending sheets of paper flying around or random mugs dropping on the floor. Instead, it seemed perfectly natural when he plunged in his chair and took a sip from his red and blue U.A. coffee mug.
"You come in here just one day before your debut as a teacher with all of that enthusiasm… I honestly do not know if I should be positively or negatively surprised."
"Let's leave it to 'simply surprised' then, Recovery Girl…" All Might offered innocently.
The elderly woman's wrinkles got deeper, indicating that she was scowling. "Both of you are supposed to be competent teachers here at U.A., but I am starting to worry about the students' integrity. I can't have you showing that much irresponsibility when it comes to your duties." She scolded.
All Might's smile wavered nervously, and Aizawa thought it wise to avoid looking at her at all costs.
Recovery girl sighed and slowly trudged towards a drawer with the help of her weirdly-shaped syringe-like cane. Even though her knees were not stable, her hands were firm, and she had the sharp eyes of a doctor, thus easily locating and retrieving the binder with the folders of 1-A students. She had gone through each one carefully at least once, but it was time for the other two younger heroes to read.
"Here it is. I suggest you take into consideration every bit of detail when planning your lessons. I'd like to keep injuries to a minimum. Oh and, I'd suggest taking it easy with some of them… I'm saying this for you." She pointed at Aizawa accusingly with the tip of her syringe-cane.
The gloomy man calmly flipped through a document, still refusing to look at her. "They should get used to the pressure that pro heroes have to live with every day. Harsh criticism is a reality that they need to accept as soon as possible, wouldn't you agree?"
"That may be so, but they are still a bunch of kids. Your job is to introduce them to this 'reality' you speak of smoothly, not shove it into their faces. Some of them already know of it, and you should remind them gently. I'm sure you'll understand once you go through their folders."
Recovery Girl let the binder fall on All Might's desk, who started at the sound.
Aizawa made the mistake of meeting the elder's half-closed eyes. The message she was trying to convey was clear. With a sigh of defeat, he approached the ridiculously-dressed number one hero and leaned in to look at the folders. A pucker appeared between his eyebrows. All Might's hair's antennae were getting in the way. Was there anything not annoying about the man?
All Might opened the binder and grabbed the first folder.
"Put them back in the order you find them." Recovery Girl requested and silently exited the office.
All Might tried to ignore the uncomfortable knot that sat in his stomach because of the gloomy presence behind him. The teachers skimmed through the first couple of folders without stumbling upon anything particularly worth noting. They were, most of them, exemplary students, with average to good academic performance, and they had never gotten into trouble. Learning about their quirks would certainly prove useful for the future. The teachers could already get an idea of where effort for improvement was needed.
Some folders were slightly thicker than the rest. Curiously, All Might reached for one. 'Todoroki Shouto' the name read…
Aizawa's dry reddish eyes darted from line to line quicker than before.
"Young Todoroki…" All Might mumbled.
"He seemed quite serious in class today. One of the few that knew what they were getting at." Aizawa suddenly spoke.
The muscular man quietly picked up another folder. "Oh? This is the one that passed only with rescue points." He remarked and nodded to himself as he gazed at the smiling freckled face on the small square picture at the top. During the exams, he had thought that something about the boy was familiar… Maybe he was a fan whose notebook he had signed? He couldn't quite remember…
Then there was complete silence in the room as they read the rest of the folder. All Might's nervous tapping with a pen, which had been going on for quite a while without any of the two noticing, suddenly stopped and with that, a heavy wave of tension came reigning down on the pro heroes' shoulders.
This morning, Aizawa had naively come to the conclusion that the boy was simply wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath the tracksuit because of the weather. The way he had smiled at everybody, cheerful and polite, would not suggest anything about the incident that had occurred less than a year before. It was now obvious why Recovery Girl had gotten angry.
"Young Midoriya was registered as quirkless just until now." All Might put a finger on the word 'quirkless' that was shown in a box on the document. "His quirk manifested fairly recently. That would explain why he had trouble with the exam…"
'Quirk: Unspecified' Aizawa read with a displeased frown. "Something's been bugging me since this morning." He admitted, with dismay, to the number one hero. "Midoriya tried to use his quirk in a reckless way, so I tried to stop him but for some reason, my Erasure didn't work on him. He exhibited some kind of telekinetic and levitation abilities too. It's almost as if he was given a bunch of quirks as a free gift."
This was all too shady. Quirkless since birth even in puberty, suddenly got a quirk shortly before the U.A. entrance exams, a quirk that was too vague and complicated, and erasure hadn't worked on him.
"We should make sure young Midoriya learns to control his quirk then." All Might abruptly closed the folder.
The situation was bugging the number one hero too. Having a private talk with the young boy was going to be placed on the top of his priority list.
.
.
.
Izuku rubbed his face against the wooly blanket and settled comfortably in his cocoon. It was very quiet and dark in the house, and the furniture's were seen as dark shadows in dark shades. His mother had gone to sleep an hour ago. But he just couldn't force his eyes to close. There was so much to be done that sleep seemed impossible. He needed to improve, to gain better control.
The round light bulb above him flickered rhythmically. Izuku tried not to lose focus.
One-two-three, one-two-three…
It skipped a flash. Izuku sighed with frustration. The next flicker was brighter and made his eyes sting. He stopped. Maybe it was time to try something different.
He sat still for minutes, listening to his own breath and heartbeat. The shrill sound of a siren came and went. Something tiny snapped in the walls. A rustle, a mosquito, the buzzing fridge. The sounds of the apartment at night were terrifying at first, but the longer one heard, the more it seemed like a strange lullaby. Everything was moving even in stillness. There is never absolute silence in life.
"I'm…Deku…" Izuku mumbled to himself as he recalled the incident that morning. It filled him with happiness how simply she had overturned his fortune by giving a different meaning to the two syllables. He had felt a weight being lifted from his shoulders.
His emerald eyes opened very slowly. The ceiling was closer than before. The warmth of the bed was gone, leaving his back exposed to the cold. The blanket slid off his body.
Izuku looked at his pajamas' sleeves as they swayed in large, slow motions, and played with one of his green bangs that floated over his eyes as if in water. He giggled with wonder like a child that had put a lollipop in its mouth for the first time. He had done it!
Fascinated, Izuku flipped himself over like a burger, with a yelp out of fear that he might end up falling on the ground, but he remained airborne.
Ready to take things a step further, Izuku tried to swim through the air to reach his desk. He moved his legs up and down awkwardly, not sure what would work. Very slowly, he moved forward. He felt like an astronaut.
With another chuckle, the freckled teen extended his arm and picked up an All Might comic that he had left on the desk. The lamp turned on and shed bright light to define the shapes around him. Izuku opened the comic to a random page. Would reading break his concentration and cause him to fall?
"Nice going, Peter –or should I say Deku- Pan."
"GWAH!"
Izuku's chin slammed on his desk and greeted his teeth at the pain. "What the hell?" he cursed, which was very unusual, and immediately smacked both of his cheeks with open palms, guilty of the angry outburst. His neck hurt from the violent fall. He rubbed the aching spot and scrambled back on his legs with a groan.
Someone was laughing hysterically. Izuku frowned with annoyance and glared daggers at the ghost that was sitting on his bed with folded legs.
"What did you do that for?"
"It's fun to mess around with the living from time to time." Rin flicked her hair over her shoulders with a teasing smirk. The yellow cardigan shifted as she stood upright. "You know, I'm amazed that you still haven't come to see me. I was sure you'd have a lot of questions by now."
"I do have a lot of questions, yes… How long have you been here?"
"Long enough."
He sighed, deciding to get to the point right away. "What else can I do with this quirk?"
"…Didn't I tell you not to call it that?"
"Well, what else can I do with it?" he repeated the question with impatience.
"That depends on you. How far would you want it to go? So far, you wanted for things to move, for something to happen, you desperately wanted it, so there you have it, you can move things without touching them now. You wished for your fall to stop, so there you have it, you can fly. Talking to the dead, now that's because of my intervention…"
"I also think that I saw the future…"
"Oh, that one is annoying. Happens to the best of us." She waved her hand dismissively. "While I was still alive and kicking –though I assure you I am still kicking now- I dreamt for at least three weeks every night that my neighbor's dog was peeing on the mat at the porch. Turns out the animal had been doing it every day, I just hadn't realized." she burst out laughing.
"R-Right…" Izuku put up an awkward smile, watching the ghost as she gurgled and snorted with amusement. "Um… So what else should I be looking forward to? Shooting laser out of my eyes or something?" he said and gave a nervous laugh, half-joking.
"No, no. The worst one would be… let me think…" She held up a finer suddenly "Probably telepathy."
"Telepathy?!" Izuku squeaked at the word. His fanboy-side awakened and his face got red from the excitement. "That is like the quirk of famous communication heroine, Maru-"
"Whatever, it's not as amazing as it sounds. I bet you're going to hate it, telepathy that is. It sucks. Especially after you become so good at it that you advance to the next level. It's not going to be fun at all. What you're going to like, I'm certain, is the ability to..."
Rin went quiet.
"Hm?" Izuku made an incomprehensible sound to try to get her attention again, but she stared blankly at the wall behind him.
She got up and smiled at him. "You know, I'd love to stick around for longer, but we won't be able to talk anymore. Your mother's coming, Peter Pan."
"Peeta… Pan?" he titled his head to one side, very confused. " ...eh?…Bread?"
The ghost girl bit back the nasty laughter and made due with just the violent snorting as she phased through the wall. "Don't kids these days know a thing about fairy tales? Get some sleep, Deku Bread. You'll need it."
Izuku was not sure what to think of the atrocious nickname that she had cooked up for him, and he really didn't understand what this Peeta Bread was and how it fit in all of that, but Rin disappeared before he could say anything.
Just a second later, the door creaked open and a concerned, still drowsy Inko Midoriya entered. Her green hair was a tangled mess. She blinked with worry upon seeing her son leaning on his desk and approached him ready for any hugs or tears that might be needed.
"Izuku? I thought I heard something… What are you doing up so late? Are you ok?"
He felt bad for worrying her so much – again. "I'm fine mum, I just fell out of the bed… Sorry for waking you up."
…He was going to tell her everything… at some point.
So there you have it. A long chapter, longest one yet. Truth is, I intended to write only the first incident during the assessment, (the one with the ball-throwing), but I just felt that something was missing and wrote an extra scene (the one with the levitating).
Teachers are supposed to plan out lessons beforehand, right? And the students of the hero-course have quirks according to which the lessons should be planned. So naturally, the teachers would need to know about the students' quirks, and, of course, because the teens are going to become heroes, some details about their lives.
Oh, and that incident with Rin at the end, that was a sort of teaser for you. Izuku has yet to discover the perks of being an Esper. And, this scene was created for the sole purpose of throwing in that stupid pun. In case you didn't get it, パン (pan) means bread in Japanese. That's why Izuku was so confused and thought that she was calling him 'bread'. In the Boku no Hero Academia universe, the year is, I think, 2060 at the least, (I'm probably wrong and it's way after that) , but my point is, it could make sense for the name Peter Pan to be unknown to a teenager after such a long time and so many shifts that occurred in society. Who reads about a boy who can fly with happy thoughts, when there are literally children controlling the weather, breathing fire, or turning mice into cups? (harry potter reference)
'Kay, that's the monologue from me. Thank you for reading!
Until next time!
Deku Bread! (I'll be finishing with this from now on because I think it's cute although it makes no sense whatsoever for it to be used as a close)