Tenko's master was fond of him, regardless of how little he might show it. Tenko knew this because he let the boy go for far longer as a Ghost-Wolf than he should have, and much longer than he told him he would let the boy. Said master had his cruel and vindictive streak; he had offered all three Pure Tribes as an option, in spite of knowing that Tenko had a Forsaken ancestor and wouldn't be allowed in the Ivory Claws, though he'd probably have learned that after a brutal Initiation if he hadn't been paying attention to the minor details. That was probably the intended lesson.
Regardless, neither the Fire-Touched nor the Predator-Kings particularly appealed to him. The latter would demand that he give up on human civilization, which meant no more of his favorite amusements. No more gaming. He liked their other philosophies, about the strong being allowed to do whatever they wanted so long as their strength allowed, but going out to live in the woods or as some street rat didn't appeal to him in the slightest. Neither did listening to endless sermons about the glory of Rabid Wolf. Everything he read about the Fire-Touched came off as creepy and deranged, and his master was usually giving him propaganda made by the Fire-Touched themselves, so it should have been portraying them in the most positive light possible. They actually liked how they came across.
Sighing, he looked to Kurogiri, the closest thing he had to a friend (not that he was interested in something so banal as friendship). The man was the result of one of the few successful attempts to save the spirit trapped within a human from whatever had caused them to give humans quirks. This man was once a human, but was now a proper Ridden, completely under the spirits' control.
"Which of Father Wolf's loyal offspring would you pledge yourself to, if you were one of us?" Tenko asked.
"The Fire-Touched recognize spirits like me as gods, therefore they're clearly the smartest. But the Predator-Kings live properly, like spirits do, so they're the wisest."
Tenko appreciated that he hadn't bothered to bring up the Ivory Claws, presumably having the same knowledge as himself in regards to how they would take him in. Not that his advice was any more useful. Scratching himself, still not used to the idea that he should have fur, but then get rid of that fur, but then bring it back again…being a werewolf was so irritating, but thinking on that wasn't helping him choose a Tribe. He needed better advice.
"Are you sure that you can't take me to see the other Pure?"
Kurogiri shook his cloud-head-thing. "It's part of my pact with Master. One of the orders I accepted was to keep the rest of the Pure from swaying you."
Tenko scratched himself more furiously before another idea came to him. "Can you take me to see the Forsaken?"
Kurogiri's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because I want to see the wrong way for an Uratha to live, so that I can better understand the right way."
Kurogiri seemed completely unconvinced, but eventually said, "Master said nothing about preventing this, so I must obey."
The swirling mass of darkness that made up Kurogiri's body shifted and solidified into intersecting straight-lines, resembling the Pathway-Spirit's namesake if one looked closely, and presented Tenko with a short stretch that would have taken him anywhere the spirit wanted him to go. The very concept of 'location' was under Kurogiri's influence, which got Tenko thinking philosophically. Did location function as it did, and spirits got the ability to change it, or did spirits originally make the concept of location and could change it because it was just an illusion they caused in the first place? If the latter, what did that say about the nature of reality? Was humanity itself just a figment of a spirit's imagination? If so, didn't that make them part of the Spirit World?
Getting plopped somewhere in the middle of Otheon of all places, if he was to judge by the signs, snapped him right out of that delusion and back into the mission.
--
Izuku glanced at the doorway, nerves freezing him up. It was somewhat ironic that he had developed Inspiration out of all the Gift Lists, for he needed a lot of it himself at the moment. You can do this, Izuku, you are going to be a Hero! When that didn't quite fix his nerves, he gulped and tried again. You can do this, Izuku, you are a child of Father Wolf! Somehow, that comforted him more.
Taking a step forward and opening the door, he was greeted with the sight of two boys yelling at one another.
"Oh, so you're some stuck-up rich kid who thinks he can tell me what to do!"
"I am telling you that you need to behave yourself. How could someone with this level of decorum deal with villains?"
One of the boys', Bakugo as Izuku noted to his dismay, expression darkened. "I've seen villains before, spoiled brat. They don't care about decorum when they're ripping your friend's stomach open."
Izuku's stomach clenched in guilt. While Kacchan still had no idea that that was Midoriya's fault (and that was even more reason that the Herd must not know), the fact that he was responsible for something like that night…no, he wasn't in full control of himself then and couldn't get down about it.
The tall boy who had been accosting Bakugo looked equally taken aback, albeit for presumably different reasons. "I see that you have had some unpleasant experiences, but regardless, it is your duty as a future Hero to represent the best of what humanity has to offer, and so…"
"Can it or I'll kill you!"
"Really, now you're talking like a villain! We have to show mercy to our enemies!"
"I'll toss them into prison if they don't put up too much of a fight! That's the only 'mercy' they'll get from me!"
Izuku briefly wondered if this was his fault, traumatizing his childhood companion…no, Bakugo had always been like this, he had to remind himself. Plus that Flare Jaggling inside of him was influencing the boy. As an Elodoth, it was his duty to judge right from wrong, and he realized that he had to have more confidence in himself if he was going to do it for others. He had to be stronger, to stifle his doubts and insecurities.
That, was, of course, much easier said than done, but still he was ready to be a new man, the type who wouldn't jump at the first surprise…"excuse me," a girl said from behind him, causing him to jump in surprise. "You're one of the boys who helped me in the exam, right?"
"Yeah," Izuku force himself to sputter out, rubbing the back of his head and trying not to focus on the fact that a girl was talking to him, "I mean, I didn't do a whole lot, but the three of us were there."
She smiled. "You talked them into doing it, I saw that even in my panic. I don't know, but I got the sense that they wouldn't have done anything without your words. A woman's intuition, I guess. So, anyway, thank you."
She bowed before Izuku's reddening face. Before his nerves allowed him a response, Bakugo noticed him and had to shout about it.
"Deku, what the hell are you doing here? You don't have a quirk!"
Both Ururaka and the tall boy looked at Bakugo, confused. "Yes, he does," the latter responded, "he heals quickly."
Bakugo glared at his long-term victim, knowing full well that he healed no faster than the average person; being the one who gave him so many of those injuries in the first place, he would know. A small part of him did wonder about what that fact said about him, but another suppressed it. As one of the only real people, what he did to the NPC's wasn't that important.
"What's this about?" He demanded.
Izuku, gulping, held out his hand. "You can…see for…yourself."
Glaring, Bakugo put his own hand over Izuku's, flaring up a decent-sized spark, and leaving a notable but not permanently damaging mark on the back of the other boy's hand, which, sure enough, began to restore itself before his eyes. It was gone in three seconds. His eyes widened. The way it healed, it was just like….no, he was panicking over nothing. There was no way in hell that there was any relationship between Deku and that Wolf-thing. Unless he was hiding that as well?
Once he eliminated the possibility that Deku was some sort of villainous wolf-monstrosity, he thought through whatever other possibilities this might entail. The most logical scenario he could come up with was that Izuku had this quirk his whole life, but hid it because he didn't think Bakugo was worthy of knowing about it. Clearly, he had been looking down on Katsuki this whole time.
The thought that he was a late-bloomer also occurred to him, but that didn't make sense as it didn't apply to his own life in any way. As the protagonist of this story, he didn't countenance the idea of the extras having their own lives, struggles, and issues that would interact with his unless they were directly related to him. Everything was related to him. Thus, this bastard had obviously been laughing behind his back every time Bakugo noted his quirkless status, understanding full well that Katsuki Bakugo was utterly wrong and not bothering to inform him otherwise, leaving 'kacchan' to look the fool. Shaking, he glared at Deku, worthless little Deku, and shouted at him. "How dare you!"
Izuku, having no idea whatsoever as to what Kacchan could possibly be offended by, stepped back a little, but Bakugo was having none of it and stepped forward, only to have Ururaka and the tall boy step into his path. Although Bakugo hadn't noticed it, Koda also showed up right behind him, his hands outstretched in a threatening gesture.
"I don't know your history, but this behavior is even more inappropriate than before…" the tall boy tried to reprimand him, but Bakugo merely shouted, "out of my way, extras, before I kill you all!"
His hands sparked up, which prompted the others to glare at him more aggressively. Izuku realized that the Spirit inside Bakugo was sharing his emotions with the others, escalating the already tense situation. Something had to be done before Class 1-A turned into a war zone, but what?
Luckily, he didn't have to come up with a solution. Class 1-A was part of a school, which meant it had disciplinary staff. Their teacher happened to be hiding away when the whole thing started, watching his new charges without them knowing that he was there, helping him create this 'mysterious mentor' vibe, but Aizawa finally decided that it was time to intervene.
"The first one to throw a punch, kick, or use their quirk will be expelled," he stated, calmly yet projecting his voice. All four stopped what they were doing and bowed.
"Yes, sensei," they all answered in unison.
The rest of the class, who had stopped what they were doing to watch the spectacle forming at the front of the classroom, gazed at their teacher with awe.
"Where did you come from?" Someone asked.
"Is it an invisibility quirk?" An invisible girl asked with both awe and envy.
Jurota Shinshida hmmphed. "He was standing in the corner where the light didn't touch. Was I really the only one who noticed him?"
Aoyama laughed in Shinshida's direction. "We don't all have your sense of smell, monsieur."
The two looked to one another as if sharing a private joke. Izuku and Koda also looked to each other, communicating without words their respective embarrassment at not having noticed the man's scent before the Pure did.
Aizawa took the time that the students were getting back into their seats to take special note of the four that Nedzu had inexplicably forced into his classroom. Jurota really had noticed him before the rest of the class, and Aoyama did too, even if he was hiding the fact. What was with these four? Well, that wasn't his problem until it interfered with their potential.
"So, this is typically the point where we go to orientation, have our little entrance ceremony, get you used to the facilities. I personally think that it's a waste of time, and since you're all so ready and willing to use your quirks already, I guess that you're strong enough to not need it. Instead, meet me outside, and get into your workout clothes. Trust me, you'll need them."
--
Izuku looked around at his classmates, some nervous, some calm, all of them determined to face whatever challenge their teacher had prepared for them. When he had Bakugo step forward and throw a baseball using his quirk, the force of the explosion making an impressive increase in its potential, he informed them that they would be performing a series of tests, not unlike the physical assessments they'd done throughout Middle-School, but this time they were not only allowed but encouraged to use their quirks to raise the scores in whatever manner they saw fit. When some of them started to get excited about this, he shut it all down by pointing out that he would expel whoever got in last place.
Everyone was now terrified, except a few of the most confident, but Izuku was just confused. His Half-Moon Gifts informed him that Aizawa wasn't lying about expelling someone, but was when he said it was the person who placed last. So there was a different criteria for expulsion, then? What was it? He didn't get a sufficient amount of time to ponder the manner before they were all brought up to the first event, getting set into pairs and racing one another. Aizawa set his stopwatch to score them based on how quickly they got across, and unlike a normal race it was only the time one took to get to the other side that mattered, not how they did so.
The teacher was pleased to see them all taking his words about using their quirks to heart. Most of them did the obvious thing, like Jurota bounding across on all fours and Iida using his jet boosters to, well, boost himself, while others were genuinely creative, one girl exploiting her immunity to her own acid to make her feet slippery and frictionless while another created a bicycle and rode it across.
Then there was Izuku Midoriya. He wouldn't be the only one to merely run across, not apparently seeing a use for his quirk here, and he didn't even do badly by a normal human's standards, but he was also one that Aizawa had his eyes on. The boy was here because Nedzu wanted him here for some reason, not because he earned it in the entrance exam. That alone tempted the man to expel the boy, but even more he was the exact type of would-be Hero that Aizawa hated the most; the martyrs.
The ones who placed no value on themselves, who risked everything and trusted in their ideals to save them. The ones who made him bury too many coffins that were far too small. He had no doubt it was because of the boy's quirk; super-regeneration would make anyone develop an unrealistic standard of their own durability, but he was not about to let the kid who thought voluntarily getting hurt and letting his quirk take care of the consequences was a sound strategy get anywhere near a Pro-Hero's License. Was it rigging? Sure, he guessed so, but life wasn't fair.
--
Tenko stumbled about, still not used to the smells of Otheon, with all its strange cuisine and filthy streets. He suspected that this would be dangerous, considering that he was supposedly in the middle of Forsaken territory, so he did what he could to overcome his ebbing and flowing bouts of nausea, until his stomach threatened to upend itself and he finally decided to call on his Weather Gifts and scatter the foul aromas into nothingness. That immediately turned out to be a mistake.
"I thought that I smelled one of our kind here," someone snarled from immediately behind him.
They were surrounded by the Herd, so Tenko was certain that this werewolf wouldn't hurt him immediately, but that would only buy a small amount of time if he didn't do this right.
"Rahu Ghost Wolf," Tenko lied through his teeth. "I'm relatively new to this. I must have missed the territorial markings."
If they stepped sideways, it would be a fight. If this werewolf had any way to see if he was lying, or smell the signs of the Pure on him, it would be a fight.
"Cahalith Bone-Shadow," the other responded, "and not too fond of babysitting an idiot Rahu who can't even introduce himself before stepping on another pack's turf."
The low respect the high, Tenko thought bitterly as he bared his neck to the Forsaken. "I am no threat, and I recognize your claim to this land."
Were he Pure, Tenko could call on a favor as a fellow member of the Confederacy, but from what he recalled from his lessons the Forsaken were more-or-less autonomous, letting their Packs squabble amongst one another, not to show who was strongest as would be proper but to let them claim what was theirs, for their Pack alone and not the People. It was foolish, as to be expected of the Bitch-Mother's slaves.
"Well, you at least try to have some manners, even if only after the fact. What is your business, pup?"
"I…don't think the path of the Ghost Wolf is working out, and I wanted to see how the other Uratha live. I want to see…if I can find a Tribe to join."
The Bone-Shadow invited Tenko to either follow him or leave the bounds of their Territory, then walked toward the center of the city without checking to ensure the Ghost Wolf's choice. In spite of a thousand reasons as to why he shouldn't popping into his head, Tenko followed the Bone-Shadow. They weaved through several crowded streets, passing by street vendor after street vendor and through labyrinthine alleyways that made his head hurt just thinking about trying to navigate them on his own, which was probably the point. Can't let the newcomer retrace his steps easily. He might be a threat.
Still, they eventually came across a large yet nondescript building, the Bone-Shadow saying something in the First Tongue to get a door opened up, and walked inside to the smell of a dozen Forsaken. This situation was getting more and more precarious. He didn't like it, but he pushed forward. There had to be some value to this.
--
Izuku was horrified. He wasn't making any progress whatsoever with this obstacle course. If he could shift forms, then this would be simple enough, as Shinshida was showing over and over again, but that was impossible while the Herd was surrounding him, and he couldn't see any way that Half-Moon or Inspiration would help him. Neither would his sense of smell, or his official 'quirk,' for that matter. How would people who actually had quirks that did those things and nothing else do this, he suddenly found himself wondering? Would they fail?
If they gave up, the realization hit him as thought on what Aizawa-sensei had said, and how that last part was a lie. The whole test was about seeing the potential of their quirks, after all. One clearly got expelled if they couldn't find a way to use theirs. He didn't need to worry about his overall score, just whether or not he could find a way to use his quirk to cheat one of the obstacles…there!
As he stepped up to a pulley-based strength test, the answer came to him quite simply. While others would use their natural strength or some quirk-based enhancement, he would simply keep pulling hard enough to wrench his arm out, doing much better at its peak than he could without a quirk and showing its worth. It wouldn't put him on the same level as the boy who pulled on it with four arms, or the boy who summoned a crow-spirit to pull it for him, or a lot of others, really, but it should put him above most who were stuck relying on their physical strength alone.
Aizawa saw a look of determination on the boy he had his eye out for, and prepared himself. He was not about to let the kid prove something by hurting himself.
As Izuku grabbed the pulley, pulling on it with all of his might and then forcing it further than should be healthy for any human to let it go, he felt strange. It took him a second to figure it out, but it was like his Essence was being messed with. The air around him was suffocating him, not through air quality but through something more spiritual…something was strengthening the Gauntlet, separating the human world and the Spirit World even further than they were normally. He was nowhere near a locus, and so couldn't step sideways anyway, but its would have been impossible now if he could normally. Moreover, the effects of his Half-Moon Gifts vanished, and he felt inexplicably certain that his Inspiration Gift was worthless also.
As scared of whatever could possibly be causing this as he was, Izuku forced himself to thank the stars that his regeneration wasn't dependent on Essence and pulled with all his might, suppressing the pain as the arms in his muscles were pulled and continuing as they healed themselves, pulling further then his strength allowed, until his arm popped out of its socket, accidentally dropping the rope and suppressing a curse at both the pain and the fact that he could have kept going as his body forced it back into place.
Looking around to see what could possibly be messing with the Spirit World like this, his eyes stopped on Aizawa-sensei and the faint outline of a…spider? Ignoring that and noting the man's hair, he realized that this was Eraserhead. He had the power to erase quirks…apparently by cutting off his target's connection to the Spirit World and suppressing its Essence. Izuku wondered whether he suspected that. Would it change how he used his quirk if he did?
Before he could think of several things to stick into a notebook later, he considered the fact that Aizawa had apparently erased his quirk, and that it still activated. At least, that was how it would look to anyone else. His teacher looked stunned.
"How…" he started to say before composing himself. "So it's a Mutation Quirk, tied directly into your body. Good to know. What isn't is how you're doing this. Destroying yourself doesn't help anybody."
"B-but, it's how my quirk works. How can I use it if I'm not allowed to, well, use it?"
Aizawa sighed. "As much as people mistake the two, martyrdom and heroism aren't the same thing. I can't let someone who's so willing to get himself killed, quirk or not, pass, I'm sorry."
Something within Izuku growled at the teacher's words, though he kept the actual growl inside. Externally, he just shouted out, "would you have passed this test with your quirk?"
It was a random idea something that popped into his head, and he was sure that he was going to be groveling and apologizing for this outburst later, but right now the stress of the test, the competitive spirit it encouraged, and his Elodoth instincts feeling like this was just wrong wouldn't let his normal anxiety do its work.
"What advantage would it give you? The only way you could have passed this test was by sabotaging the others to lower their scores. Is that any more heroic, breaking down other Heroes to make yourself look better? Martyrdom is a lot closer to heroism than that."
Aizawa looked at him angrily. "I never got through my schooling by sabotaging others-"
Izuku continued. "Yes, for a normal person what I'm doing would be stupid and self-destructive, but you yourself gave us that whole lecture about not everyone being equal. I'm not equal to others; my quirk lets me survive things that would incapacitate most people, and what kind of Hero would I be if I didn't use it to its fullest potential? Don't you want to see our potential?"
Once the effect on the Gauntlet vanished, he may or may not have infused his Inspiration Gifts into his words, enhancing whatever confidence Aizawa-sensei might have in his abilities. After all, he wanted to prove his worth, not cow the man.
