Be The Hero, Like A Wizard!

by MaskedEngineer

Having a Quirk that allows you to control and create a mundane, non-fantasy object isn't exactly the most exciting ability. To Yosuke Nendo however, it is all he needs to achieve his childhood dream. With video game knowledge, unchecked delusions and his hapless friends, nothing shall stop Nendo on his quest to become the greatest wizard of all time! Rated M for future events.

7. The Full Wizarding Getup, At Last

A/N: To answer your question, Zetazero246, Nendo wasn't inspired by Arthur from Fire Force. I do, however, see some similarities and frankly, they are quite hilarious to an uncanny degree. Well, except for the 'getting stronger as he grows more delusional'.

With that done, please proceed with the story.

-0-

Chapter 7: The Full Wizarding Getup, At Last

If one were to ask either Kinoko or Tetsutetsu about which statement easily wins the prestigious and coveted Understatement of The Year award, 'Guess I got some explaining to do' would be their final and definitive answer.

Despite the relatively short time they have both spent in the spirited, if frankly bizarre company of Nendo, Tetsutetsu and Kinoko have both come to the same conclusion that any other human being that has to stay in the same vicinity as the so-called wizard would have come to as well.

Yosuke Nendo is a good person.

Silly, a bit dumb and just a few bricks short of a complete wall, yes, but ultimately a kind and gentle soul at heart who will stay by his friends' side until the bitter end.

So to think that Nendo has served time in juvenile detention at all is a baffling thought for the both of them. It becomes even more startling as the fact that he didn't get landed in a correction center because of some minor crime like shoplifting or vandalism, but straight-up beating someone brutally enough to send them into a coma, sinks into their minds. And to further compound their shared bewilderment, he also apparently hospitalized other people while serving his time.

How could someone who looks and acts so friendly and childishly enthused about virtually everything in life commit such shocking acts of violence, more than once? Or even, at all?

How could someone who willingly, without any ulterior motives, befriended a social recluse like Kinoko and spared Tetsutetsu from having to suffer an ignoble defeat for the sake of a fair fight also be the one to render another person bedridden and sent several more to the infirmary with injuries so severe that it requires the need for intensive medical care?

"Y-You're lying! Nendo-san would never do such things!" Kinoko rebukes in the harshest tone she could muster, to which the brick-gagged delinquent replies by frantically shaking his head along with a series of feeble grunts. After all, it is his words against Nendo's, and if Nendo denies them, then it is indubitably false. Considering how he has no evidence to back it up and how out of the blue the accusations were, Kinoko firmly believes that it was all a poor lie, a desperate attempt to get his revenge on them.

Which is why the silence and sad, almost pained look in Nendo's previously lively eyes scares her more than anything else. Did he not say anything because he was stunned by the sheer audacity that this guy has to accuse him, or did he not say anything because it was true?

Tetsutetsu was equally as shaken at first, but anger quickly overrides any sense of shock as he marches over to the fat punk and pulls him up by the shirt. "Hey, those are fighting words you're spitting! Unless ya got proof, don't be accusing people if you don't wanna eat porridge for the rest of your life!" Tetsutetsu snarls, baring his teeth like a rabid hound before raising his fist, making his intentions of punching out what little teeth the thug still has very much clear.

"Tetsutetsu!" Nendo places a hand on Tetsutetsu's shoulder, even if it does little to quell the steel-clad brawler's justified anger. "Don't. It's not worth it."

"What?! This fat bastard just spit out all that shit 'bout you, and you're gonna let him get away with it?!" Said an apoplectic Tetsutetsu, still bridling as he raises his tightening fist once more. "Not on my watch! If he doesn't take it back right now, I'll turn his face into burger meat-"

Just as Tetsutetsu is about to make good on that statement, Nendo interrupts him with a soft smile and eyes that hold seemingly repressed pain. "I did say I got some explaining to do, right?"

Tetsutetsu's grip on the obese delinquent falters and his fist slackens ever so slightly, but he remains firm if a bit shaken in his resolve to deck the thug in the face. "Look, Nendo. I get that you're a real nice guy and all, but taking this punk's side ain't the way to show it!" He said with conviction and equal parts denial.

Being tenacious, upfront and intense, Tetsutetsu approaches almost everything in life with maximum effort - and that includes making friends. Had Nendo been a ferocious sociopath hiding under a good-natured facade, he would have sniffed it out right away! So to him, Nendo could not have beat someone up as savagely as said unless there was a genuinely good reason.

"I'm not taking anybody's side! I just think that… it's about time you guys know. I was never a good liar anyway." Nendo replies in a quiet voice, biting his lip in trepidation. He is so close to doing it: dropping the metaphorical nuke that will put the strength of their friendship to the test. After a long, heavy sigh, he finally decides to press the big red button. "I… did do those things."

There doesn't exist a lot of things that could make the aggressively confident Tetsutetsu flinch, but what Nendo just drops on him effortlessly proves to be one as he drops the fat punk like a sack of bricks, his eyes blown wide open and his mouth gaping like a fish. "Y-You serious? No joke?"

It was already hard enough for him to look at Tetsutetsu. When Nendo glances at Kinoko, whose hair has parted to reveal her unique peepers shaking in sheer horror, he feels even worse. "No joke."

The following silence was so utterly choking that it feels as if all the air has left the area. All that's left is a vacuum, a dark void that sucks the life out of anybody inside not strong enough to withstand its crushing presence.

"W-Well, half of it is true." Nendo, quickly seeing just how oppressively uncomfortable he has made things for the three of them, backpedals in an attempt to lessen the impact. "I know it's hard to take in, and that there's a lot of things to unpack, but I promise there's a good reason."

Kinoko gawks at him, incredulous as her brain essentially blue-screens from having to process the revelations that have been thrown at her with all the subtlety of a dumbbell. "T-There's a good reason for putting someone in a coma and hospitalizing more people afterwards?"

"For why I was in juvenile detention." He then notices his friends' confused faces. "No, I mean… fuck. Okay okay, look, I'll explain everything. But before that," With a wave of his hand, the brick that was serving as a makeshift gag for the overweight ruffian disappears from his mouth, restoring his power of speech.

"Take your friends and get out of here, will you? If I hear anything like this from you guys again, I'll come back and smite your asses a second time!" Nendo said as he pointed a finger at the thug, with half a dozen bricks floating behind him just to make a point that the delinquents' future attempts at extortion will be met with fierce retribution.

"Y-Yes!" The rotund ruffian, one cheap jumpscare away from soiling himself and wanting no more trouble with the kid who neutered the toughest gang in Musutafu Juvenile Training School that fateful day, grabs his fellow scoundrels and hauling them over his shoulders with grace unbefitting of a body like his before running away as fast as his chubby legs will carry him. The limbs of his unresponsive friends flap around with every step he takes, much to the mild amusement of Nendo.

Now that the punks are gone, there is no one else in the park but Nendo, Kinoko, Tetsutetsu and a couple of birds littered across the park ground.

Tapping his staff on the ground twice, several bricks spawn out of thin air and arrange themselves into the shape of a chair which Nendo sits down on. "Just… try to stick with me on this one, alright? It's a long story. Let me know if I start rambling or something." Nendo speaks softly as he twiddle his thumbs together, resting his staff on his thighs. He hasn't told anybody but Izuku of this, so naturally he is a bit anxious about it.

Tetsutetsu said nothing as he leaned against the tree where Nendo retrieved his staff from, crossing his arms and giving the self-declared wizard an approving nod.

Kinoko opts to remain close to Nendo, making a seat for herself in the form of a mushroom half her height with a caramel brown cap grown right next to his brick chair. "We're not going anywhere. So, Nendo-san… hit us with it."

Sighing in a drawn-out manner for the second time, Nendo looks down on his feet as he begins his story starting with how he was born in and spent the first five years of his life in a brickworks…

"So when my mom never came back, the owner took me in as his own, and the employees practically raised me. Society thinks they're all just a bunch of uneducated peons, but I couldn't care less about that."

Then, the story takes a more somber turn as he goes on to retell how after the brickworks went out of business, he ran away from the orphanage shortly after being admitted and began drifting from place to place in Musutafu as a little kid, merely six years old. For nearly an entire year, he was hungry, confused and getting into trouble without any regard for the consequences, resorting to whatever means necessary to support himself.

"If I can't get something from begging, I'll steal it. I got away plenty of times, but every now and then I got caught and beaten up until I couldn't even move. It only hurt for a couple of hours though, so I got back on my feet pretty quick."

"T-That's horrible!" Kinoko couldn't help but gasp, covering her mouth in shock at just how much Nendo had been through at such a tender age. All of the sudden, what Nendo said to her about how life teaches him that 'food is food' now makes sense: living on the streets must have meant that every drop of water and every piece of edible food is worth their weight in gold to him.

"Damn… you had it rough, huh?" Tetsutetsu's tone of voice may not have betrayed much, but deep down he was just as taken aback by Nendo's difficult past. Who would have known that a goofy fantasist like Nendo has so much baggage on his back?

"I thought I was just gonna keep living like that for the rest of my life. But then one day, I stole a bag of chips from Dad's place!"

"Your… dad?" Kinoko asks, a little confused by this apparent piece of trivia about Nendo stealing from his own father.

"Sorry, force of habit. Back then, he's not actually my dad yet." Nendo coughs, before continuing. "Anyway, I got the bag. But what do you know, karma always catches up to a dumb, desperate kid. Thinking back to it…" He smiles. "I'm glad that it did."

-That day, nine years ago…

A young boy of seven, who then was known only as Yosuke, wandered through the streets with an uneven gait. His small, thin body moved from place to place without much of a goal in mind other than one question concerning the most basic need of all living beings.

"When is my next meal coming?"

He had already put on his best acting chops and puppy eyes to wring some money out of some bleeding heart goody two-shoes (or people with some basic human decency) that may show up in the faceless masses, but so far, none of the people around him had given him even a penny!

"No wonder they call it 'Penny-Filter' District! What a bunch of stingy jerks! Can't even spare some food for a kid…" Yosuke bemoaned to himself as he shot a dirty glare toward the shopkeepers and store owners who had so rudely brushed him off.

He was about to throw profanities at them too, if not for the fact that he had to preserve every bit of energy he had left if he wanted to survive until tomorrow morning.

Pressing a hand against his flat tummy, Yosuke frowned as he felt his stomach throwing a tantrum again. It only made sense, given how there hasn't been anything in it since yesterday, unless an old half-eaten onigiri he found under a bench counted as a source of sustenance.

He ended up puking it back up though, so it most likely doesn't.

Bracing himself against the hunger pangs, Yosuke continued his search for something to satiate his immature stomach. Dashing through the masses and ignoring the half-second glances of uncaring passersby and pitying looks of working-class laborers, the street urchin found himself standing in front of a lot occupied by countless small shops huddled right next to one another.

While on the look for some easy prey, Yosuke stumbled across a shop placed right at the lower corner of the lot, with a giant board atop of its roof spelling out 'NENDO CONFECTIONARY' in brightly-colored plastic letters. In spite of the name, the shop obviously offers a far bigger menu than just sweets if the cabinet filled with cigarettes right next to the counter is any indication.

However, Yosuke could not give any less of a deep-fried lump of turd about any of that as his ravenous stare had landed on the grand prize of today's venture: an extra-large bag of Onomichi Tater Chips on display alongside many other off-brand snack items, completely unguarded and ripe for the taking. All he needed to do was to jump in, take it and haul ass with his loot before anybody noticed. Judging from the size, maybe the bag will last him another day.

Unfortunately, his plans of undetectable thievery that would have made Arsene Lupin bow in respect were dashed when a stern-faced man dressed in gray slacks, a white shirt and an apron emerged from a door inside the shop. He looked around the place with a scrutinizing gaze, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Before he caught a glimpse of Yosuke however, the young boy had already scampered behind a nearby utility pole. After a couple of seconds, Yosuke peeked his head out to see if the shopkeeper had left.

No such luck. The man seemed to have somehow sniffed out that ill intentions were afoot and was dead set on remaining at the counter.

"Dang! How am I gonna get it now?" Racking his undernourished brain for a solution, Yosuke at first came up with a classic move that any seasoned urchin can do: poke himself in the eyes for some tears, bend over at just the right degree and scrunch up his face to convey the image of a tender child wracked with brutal hunger (which he already suffered from anyway) then going right up to the shopkeeper and asked in his most tearful voice if he could have the chips.

However, after a quick look at the man's face, Yosuke doubted that kind of stunt would work. He had that typical 'meanie' face: furrowed eyebrows, wrinkles around the cheeks, a mole under his right nostril and lips pressed into a flat line. However, there was a dull, almost uninterested look in his eyes.

Still, that leaves him only one option left: petty theft.

But first, he needed some kind of distraction. Just a brief moment of carelessness from the mean-looking man would be enough for him to snuck in and steal the bag. Though, where could he find himself a proper distraction? It needed to be loud, messy and, the most essential quality of all, heavy enough to give whoever unlucky enough to be in the way a stunning concussion.

With briskness in his steps, Yosuke headed over to the local garbage container not too far from his point of operation and began rummaging through whatever putrid contents that were left to marinate inside. Resisting the urge to gag as a fierce smell assaulted his nose, he dug his way through a veritable mountain of trash all while holding his breath.

It took focus, it took commitment and it took sheer lung capacity, but at the end of his arduous journey (reaching the bottom of the pile), Yosuke found the perfect item to be used as a distraction: an empty wine bottle in mostly mint condition.

'Mostly' was because it was covered in the kind of gunge that would repulse even a kid who had eaten things off the pavement like Yosuke. Regardless, his first step of his plan was accomplished. Quickly, he leapt out of the garbage container and made his way back to the shop, the vile-smelling brownish liquid running down his arms and feet and the looks of revulsion in the eyes of onlookers doing little to hamper his excitement.

After all, he could always just look for a park and bathe in its fountain.

Once there, he again made himself hidden with the utility pole, its width being barely enough to obscure his weedy body. Holding onto the bottle and raising his arm, Yosuke prepared himself to throw the second the mean-looking shopkeeper turned his head in another direction. Five whole minutes went by, made excruciatingly slower by anticipation…

And at last, the shopkeeper looked away from where he was standing. 'Now or never', Yosuke told himself as he threw the bottle with as much force as his scrawny arm could muster.

The bottle sailed through the air, flying past the counter, completely undetected by the oblivious shopkeeper…

Before going into the open door where he emerged from and made a smashing impact.

"What the?" The middle-aged man turned around with an alarmed look, the sound of broken glass proven enough to catch his attention. "Mukoda, is that your cat again? Get that damn thing under control! Put a leash on it, at least!"

As the man called out for the unseen person and their innocent cat, Yosuke wasted no time in getting out of his hiding spot and skittered over to the shop, body hunched over and knees close to the ground like a sneaky little cockroach that he was. Hopping over the counter, the boy's hungry eyes and drooling mouth never lost focus on his prize as he slided open the glass pane and took the bag of chips from its place.

Silently laughing to himself for coming up with such a brilliant tactic all the while vaulting over and back out of the shop with his plunder, Yosuke gleefully made his escape. Normally, this would be where the story ended, with the poor, impoverished orphan successfully committing a crime just to live and see another morning, thus paving the path of a career criminal…

If Yosuke hadn't failed to notice the shopkeeper's return just as his tiny figure disappeared over the counter, the bag of chips gone and a grubby handprint on the glass pane that he cleaned not too long ago.

"HEY! Get back here!" Yosuke heard the man's yell from behind him and, as if a switch had been flipped, immediately began to panic as his legs shifted into full gear and ran as fast as humanly possible. He hadn't an idea of how long he could run for on an empty stomach, but he wasn't about to stick around and found out. As far as his experience with failed heists went, it often ended with him either simply getting handed over to the police so that they could place him in another orphanage…

…or if he was unlucky and messed with the wrong person, getting the seven shades of black and blue kicked and beaten out of him until he wetted himself from the pain.

Determined to never let himself be subjected to either outcome, Yosuke sped up even further, grinding his teeth together to ignore the growing, burning pain in his calves. He heard the shopkeeper's footsteps getting closer with every second passing by, and it only drove him to get away even more.

A child, young and full of energy, would often be the obvious winner in a race on legs against a man who was pushing forty. However, when one is healthy and fed while the other is starving and bony, the tables swiftly turn.

After only roughly a minute of running, Yosuke was already breathing like a drowning person. But to give up when he had such a delectable meal in hand was not an option! Sucking in a big breath, Yosuke once again broke into a wild sprint-

Only for his clumsy, slippered feet to step on a particularly smooth pebble on the road. Time seemed to slow down as he lost his balance and fell face-first at the asphalt. Closing his eyes, he braced himself for a painful impact.

Yet the pain never came. Instead, a jerking motion around his neck that almost choked him came instead. Then, he was lifted up until he was dangling about half a meter off the ground. "Got you. I knew something was fishy when the bottle looked like it was thrown from outside."

Looking back, he saw the shopkeeper holding him up by the back of his shirt with one hand and the other placed on his hip. Even though his face was slightly red from being out of breath, the man looked more annoyed than mad.

"L-Let me go!" Yosuke struggled the best he could, flailing his bony legs around hard enough to throw off his cheap slippers to no avail. His arms remained firmly wrapped around the bag.

"I will, only if you return what's mine." Said the shopkeeper in a demanding voice, keeping a tight grip on the boy's shirt.

Return the bag? After coming this far? And spent the rest of the day hungry until he passed out? He had to be a massive idiot to think Yosuke would yield so easily. "Nuh-uh! Finders keepers!"

The man's frown changed into an amused smirk. "Finders keepers, huh? Read the fine print on the bag. You'd see that by the rules of finders keepers, I got to it first."

Unwilling to give up, yet suddenly filled with curiosity, Yosuke looked down on the bag with tentative eyes. 'IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO NENDO CONFECTIONARY', written in bold black letters so utterly microscopic in size that it can only be read using a magnifying glass.

Yosuke, even with his rubbish reading skills, could guess that the letters probably said something about the man being the rightful owner (which he was) of the bag. But just because the shopkeeper was right doesn't mean he was wrong!

Regardless, he had to find a way to get out of this situation fast.

So far, running failed him and violence via flailing his limbs around hadn't done much either, and with Yosuke himself being suspended off the ground like a doll tied to a string, it seemed as though the boy had no other option but to accept defeat.

"Like heck I would!" He didn't survive for the past seven months because he gave up! No, he survived because of his will to do whatever it took to live. Perseverance and determination got him this far, not crying and lamenting about his fate.

Unbeknownst to the shopkeeper, he still had one last card up his metaphorical sleeve. An underhanded one without a doubt, even by Yosuke's standards, and that's saying a lot from a kid who has eaten literal bugs off the ground when hunger overtakes him. But between his honor and his stomach, he chose his stomach. Honor wasn't going to keep him alive.

Taking a deep breath, Yosuke smiled as he charged up his final, ultimate skill, guaranteed to never fail and always crit on hit!

SPECIAL SKILL: ESSENCE OF FALSE ACCUSATION

"AAAAAH! HELP ME! THIS CREEPY GUY IS MOLESTING ME!" Screaming as loud as his voice allowed, Yosuke wrapped his arms around his body to further sell the illusion that he was subjected to the bad touch by a big scary adult. "HE'S GONNA DO BAD THINGS TO ME! HEEEEELP!"

Beneath his teary screaming visage, Yosuke was celebrating. This shopkeeper had proven to be quite a daunting foe, but none had stood before the might of his final skill and lived! Soon enough, some good samaritan would step out and force the man to let him go, restoring his freedom as he watched the shopkeeper get hauled away to the police station under the assumption that he harassed a poor, underprivileged child.

All while enjoying his chips. Any second now…

Any second now…

Any second now! His well-intentioned but unwitting saviors may be a little slower than usual this time, but they will come nonetheless.

…

"Why wasn't anybody coming?"

Before Yosuke's prepubescent brain started producing smoke from trying to process this apparent illogicality, the shopkeeper's amused smirk transformed into a short, but mirthful fit of laughter.

"Oh- ho ho ho, you actually thought you're the first brat to cry wolf around here? Trust me, we're used to that kind of stunt by now." The man explained after seeing Yosuke's confused face, pointing a thumb at the apathetic crowd of Penny-Filter District who merely gave the two of them a bored look before turning their eyes elsewhere. "You wanna steal from THESE streets? You need to be a lot better than this."

All the air escaped from Yosuke's lungs. His desperate last resort… failed? But it never failed before! "No… no!"

Unable to cope with such a shocking loss, Yosuke slumped his posture and relaxed his grip on the bag, the reality that he was well and truly caught sinking in as all the will to struggle left his soul, leaving behind naught but hopelessness and sadness.

"So, are you going to give it back?" The shopkeeper callously said, oblivious to the street urchin's feelings. Without a word and with a great deal of hesitation, pondering whether or not he should just slip out of his shirt and run off, Yosuke ultimately decided that potentially dying of hunger was a better alternative than definitely dying of hypothermia and handed the bag back.

He made sure his frustration was noticeable by pushing the bag into the man's hand as hard as he could, though. "See, that wasn't so hard. Though, I'm having a hard time understanding why you decided to steal around here, of all places. You're lucky it's me: anyone else would have eaten you alive."

"I'm hungry, what's your excuse?!" He angrily snapped at the shopkeeper. His mood was fouler than ever thanks to a combination of an unsuccessful hunt and a stomach that kept growling like an unruly dog.

"Right. And also…" With the back of Yosuke's shirt still held tight in his hand, the middle-aged man brought the boy up closer to take a sniff at his unkempt hair. He immediately winced and reeled his head back, nose scrunched up. "Good lord, when was the last time you took a bath?"

Yosuke, who has gotten used to the brutal dog-eat-dog nature of the streets, regarded the question with naked suspicion and no small amount of apprehension in his body language. "Why ask?"

"Just curious. That's one hell of an attitude from a little thief who got caught in the act." The shopkeeper snarked at him, which only further irritated the boy. What was with those weird questions? "So, you're hungry. That explains why I could pick you up with one arm. You're practically skin and bones!"

"Just get me to a police station already! Or beat me up, I don't care which!" Yosuke, confusion and frustration reaching its boiling point, exploded. "Stop asking as if you give a damn about me!"

"...Excuse me?"

"You heard me! I know you probably think I'm just another worthless stray, so either you drop me off at the police station so they can dump me at another orphanage, or you beat me up! That's what you do to thieves and burglars around here, right?!"

The man lost his smirk with almost eerie quickness. "And what makes you think I'll do either of those things, especially the latter, to a kid?"

Yosuke brushed his nose with a finger, getting some breath back after his outburst. "I dunno, you look kinda mean. Besides, if you change your mind, you won't be the first to give me a thrashing."

"Ouch, kid. I have feelings too, you know." The shopkeeper jested, all while staring at him as if he was an item to be appraised. If one chose to stare back, they could see the gears inside his mind turning and twisting as he thought of what to do with the street urchin. Then, sighing as he ran a hand over the neatly-combed mat of charcoal hair atop his head, he released his grip on Yosuke and turned back towards his shop. "Oh well. Come on."

Yosuke, feet on solid ground after so long, wobbled a bit before giving the shopkeeper an uneasy look, partly to see if this whole act was some kind of ruse, and mainly because… what exactly did the man mean by 'come on'?

"Well?" The middle-aged salesman stopped in his tracks to turn back and face Yosuke again, as if waiting for him to follow. "Are you just going to stand there, brat? If you're a moron, blink once for yes and twice for no."

"W-What do you mean by 'come on'?" So far, all of this was very strange to him. For the first time since he has been fending for himself on the streets of Musutafu, someone who he very blatantly stole from wasn't doing anything to him after they caught him.

"It means exactly what it means. You're hungry, yeah? Wouldn't have had to steal otherwise."

"Yeah?"

"Follow me." Was all the man said, before turning around and resumed making a beeline to his shop.

Yosuke openly blanched at his suggestion. Anybody with even a modicum of self-preservation knew far better than to follow a stranger with unclear motives into his home, and while he may be desperate, he is far from an idiot. Hunger did a lot of things to him, but killing off his brain cells wasn't one of those things.

Yet. "Are you going to k-kill me?" His foster father had always told him that he was a brave boy, and now he was trying his hardest to live up to that praise in spite of feeling like a bucket of icy water had just been poured down his back.

The shopkeeper stared at him again, this time for even longer, before bursting into a fit of raucous laughter. "Kill you? If I wanted that, I'd have wrung out your little neck when I still got my hands on you." Then, he crossed his arms, his hip veered at an angle that reeked of passive-aggressive condescension. "What's the matter? You were spitting fire not even a second ago, and now you're acting like a kid your age?"

Hearing no response from Yosuke, the man sighed and knelt down to the street urchin's height. "Look, I'm not forcing you to do this. You can follow me, or you can run away and keep being hungry and filthy. Your choice."

Standing back up, he returned to his shop… but not before having one last thing to say. "The way I see it, you got nothing to lose by following me anyway."

Living on the streets begging and oftentimes resorting to petty theft had given Yosuke the perk of ignoring the less-than-flattering comments from pedestrians, and by all means he should have regarded the shopkeeper's words with casual flippancy.

But he can't.

Because, without ever resorting to the usual 'you're the trash of this society' insult, the shopkeeper has driven home the point of his entire being: nothing. He had done basically nothing with his life but struggled to get by, caring about no one but himself and doing whatever it took to survive.

He had nothing to his name. No money, no future, nobody to turn to. And the scant few people who did show even a fraction of kindness to him were also people who had lost everything. So really, what did he have to lose? Except his own life maybe, in case the shopkeeper planned to silence him.

But… even that sounded like a good idea. If he died, then it would be all over. No more going to sleep hungry. No more getting sick.

He would be free from this life.

Wordlessly, he tailed along with the shopkeeper. The man's constant smirk changed into a smile, though it diminished before Yosuke could get a clear look. Opening the door, the salesman took off his shoes and walked inside, prompting the young boy to do the same.

Stepping around on uncharted ground, Yosuke felt lost even inside this small place. When was the last time he had a roof over his head?

"Hey, kid! Get in here." The shopkeeper's voice came from the kitchen. Where all the knives were at.

He was right! This man was going to kill him, then the people of Penny-Filter Distract will hide his body to avoid police scrutiny! Despite wanting to run right there and then, Yosuke found his legs propelled towards the kitchen as if he was under some sort of hypnosis.

Shutting his eyes tight with his arms raised in an attempt to keep his frail body guarded, Yosuke walked into the kitchen-

And found out two things. One, he was still alive. Two, the man didn't have a knife in his hand. What he did have, however, was a broom. "Clean up your mess." Pointing at the fragments of the glass bottle that Yosuke threw, the shopkeeper tossed the broom at the boy along with a tray.

Confused, but secretly thankful that the man hadn't stuck him with anything sharp, Yosuke got to work sweeping up the broken glass. Though, there was a question on his mind: did the man call him here just to clean? If being forced to sweep was considered an appropriate punishment for stealing, he would steal everyday.

After he swept up the last couple of glass shards that escaped the initial brushes of his broom due to their miniscule size, Yosuke placed it against the wall and emptied the tray into a nearby bin before taking a seat on a plastic chair in silence, waiting if the man had any further need for him.

It felt odd to be helpful towards others after so long. Odd… but not exactly unpleasant. As he indulged in his favorite pastime of hitting his knee so that his leg jerked up, the sounds of water running and hitting against a tub entered his ears. "Is he… taking a bath?" Yosuke scoffed, shaking his head. The man sure was careless if he thought he could take a relaxing bath with a strange kid who literally stole from him just moments ago in his house.

It was so, so easy and so, so tempting to just ransack the place then run off with more food and some money from the cash register-

"Oh, I forgot!" The man's voice came from the bathroom, snapping Yosuke from his dreamy thoughts of petty theft. "Whatever it is that you're planning to do… I'll know."

Just for the added effect of scaring the hell out of a child, the shopkeeper's head peeked out from a sliding door, matching Yosuke's gray eyes with his darker ones in a death stare. "I'll know." Then he went right back inside, closing the door.

"Nevermind, then." The fear of getting chased a second time overpowering his hunger and greed, Yosuke decided to just sit still until the middle-aged man finished his hygienic rituals.

When the shopkeeper finally emerged from the bathroom, Yosuke was already snoring. For a seven-year-old, five minutes felt like five hours without anything to do. "Kid!"

"What- huh?" A startled Yosuke leapt off of his chair, searching for the source of the disturbance, only to find it looking down at him. Remembering that he had just done unpaid labor for this complete stranger, Yosuke scowled. "Oh, it's you."

"Not happy to see me? That's fine. Anyway, the bath's ready." Said the shopkeeper who walked over to a set of drawers situated just outside the bathroom and rummaged through its contents before throwing a towel at Yosuke, which the boy barely caught. "Hot water is a precious commodity, so I suggest you get in while it's still steaming."

Yosuke blinked once. Then twice. And then thrice, just to make sure his nutrient-starved brain wasn't playing tricks on his ears. "I thought… I thought you were bathing!"

"Me? Was planning to, but I figured you need it more than I do. Phew, I'm surprised there are no flies around you!" The shopkeeper jokingly waved his hand in front of his nose, before his eyes watered at the realization that the lingering stench of Yosuke's unwashed self extended to his shirt as well. "Anyway, leave your clothes outside so I can wash them."

And with that, he left for the kitchen, most likely in search of rubbing alcohol to disinfect his offensive-smelling hand.

Yosuke stood in the middle of the shop-cum-house with an utterly bewildered look on his face. To repeat a point that cannot be emphasized enough, he STOLE from this man, and what did he do as payback? Offer him a bath.

His mind running out of things to say, the boy decided to just take advantage of the situation before the shopkeeper started having second thoughts. Cleanliness wasn't very high on his list of priorities compared to food and water, but keeping the flies away would certainly help with sleep. He thought he could get used to it, but the constant buzzing had proven to be far, far too annoying for any human being to endure for any length of time.

Looking at the ceiling, Yosuke used the trail of faint steam to guide him to the bathroom. Upon opening the door, the hot and humid air that came out reminded him of better days. The brickworks wasn't exactly an ideal home by any conventional standards, but it was one to him. He was warm, fed, protected from the outside world and most importantly, loved.

His first orphanage, however, can burn to the ground for all he cares.

Not willing to go down that lane of memory, Yosuke quickly stripped off, tossed his clothes into the hallway outside as instructed before diving into the filled bathtub, feet first. The pleasantly hot liquid surrounding him was a pleasing enough sensation to nearly knock the street urchin into a bliss-induced haze. The water was far warmer than that of a fountain, and it certainly did not stink like that of a pond.

While in the midst of his bath, he failed to notice that the door slid open to reveal the shopkeeper's… hands, placing a set of clean clothes on the marble floor before leaving.

After drying up with the towel (and leaving the water in the tub stained with a questionable dark color) and changing into new clothes, a simple red T-shirt with tan shorts, Yosuke timidly stepped out of the bathroom…

And was immediately greeted with the smell of something delicious getting cooked. Already, his mouth watered as if the floodgates holding back saliva were opened. "Are you done?" He heard the man called out for him once more from somewhere he couldn't see.

"Um… yeah?"

"Good. Come to the table and eat." The shopkeeper entered his field of vision again and, on his hand, a plate of something yellow and red. On his other hand was a glass of cold water. "I made it myself, so you damn well better eat all of it."

For who knows how many times today, he was gobsmacked beyond belief. Letting him bathe was one thing already, but to go as far as to cook for him? Him, a good-for-nothing beggar and thief of a child who had lied, cheated and used others' kindness for his own ends? So why, just why did this man keep being…

So kind to him?

The feeling of gratitude bloomed in his heart, and it took every fiber of Yosuke's being not to just break down and weep like a baby. He'd cry if he thought any more about the shopkeeper's benevolence, so he left all the thinking for his stomach to do and took a seat without a word. Looking down on his plate, he recognized the dish as omurice. To others, it was a simple meal for children. To Yosuke, it might as well be a blessing granted from the gods themselves.

And it was what his foster father used to cook for him too.

Having noticed Yosuke's quivering lips, the shopkeeper coughed into his fist to get the boy's attention. "I don't do a whole lot of cooking so I don't know what you like, but since a lotta kids liked omurice, I figured you would too." Disappearing around a corner, he quickly returned with Yosuke's original clothes, wet but clean of grime, before walking over to what looked like an ironing board made from a wooden table wrapped with layers of fabric. "Also, what the hell did you do to get your clothes this dirty? I went through three buckets of water, a bar of soap and half a bottle of detergent just to get rid of the smell! The water bill's gonna kill me."

Yosuke listened to him quietly, picking up a spoon with a bony hand. In spite of the shopkeeper's complaints, his tone did not betray any kind of annoyance or irritation at having to wash the clothes of somebody he wasn't even aware existed until recently. He sounded more… nonchalant, than anything. He was about to iron his clothes as well-

"Wait… how are you going to do that without an iron?" Asked Yosuke, looking at the man laying his clothes out on the makeshift board without anything to actually iron it with.

"What kind of world do you think we live in, kid?" Was the man's sole reply, before he brought up his right hand. With Yosuke as witness, his palm began to glow orange and heat up. As soon as the optimal temperature was reached, the shopkeeper pressed his hand down on the wet clothes and began flattening them out much like a regular iron. The sharp hissing of water evaporating rang through the air, accompanied with plumes of steam.

Yosuke watched the man in mild awe as he cutted the omurice in two with the spoon, exposing the rice and chicken underneath. So he had a Quirk… lucky stiff. "If I had a Quirk, things would have been way easier." he thought, memories flashing back to all those times he got caught and got roughed up afterwards. "I could even protect myself… or make stealing less of a hassle."

"Or even… protect people who cared for me." It was a thought that barely took a second to cross his mind, yet it was enough to bring back the horrors of his first orphanage. He shutted those terrible images out before they could root, however. The less he thought of those days, the better.

Maybe some real, good food would help him forget. People eat when they feel sad, yes? It's odd how his motives have changed: he was hungry, but now he was just… melancholic.

Holding up a spoonful of scrambled egg, fried rice and bits of chicken, Yosuke brought it to his mouth and began to chew noisily. It was tasty, delicious even. A far cry from his usual diet of fountain water, soda cans and snack foods for sure. But more importantly, the way the egg melted in his mouth and how well the rice and chicken mixed together… It reminded him of home.

To think, just a year ago, he could have this every day…

His tongue and stomach was feeling pretty happy, so Yosuke had no idea as to why his eyes were welling up with tears with fat droplets already rolling down his gaunt cheeks. Was it because he finally got to eat? Or because the reality of his current, wretched existence and how things used to be so much better have finally sunk in for the poor boy?

Yosuke couldn't tell. He was too busy shoving more rice into his mouth to care. But eventually, as silent cries turned into ugly sobs, he dropped the spoon to wipe away the tears that kept on coming.

This shopkeeper- no, this… this great man, he was being kind to Yosuke. He got cleaned up and fed a good meal. He did something for him that nobody else would do for a pathetic street rat. So why was he crying?!

In the end, Yosuke's mind could never find the answer as he cried and cried into his hands. The shopkeeper, still in the middle of ironing Yosuke's clothes, stopped for a moment and went behind the boy to give him a consoling pat to the back…

…with his left hand, of course. His right was still glowing hot.

After his brief bout of hysteria was over, everything just sort of became blurred to Yosuke. He finished his meal and drank the water with all the emotion of a granite slab, the shopkeeper finished drying his clothes and handed them back neatly folded in a nylon bag, and now he was escorted to the front door of the shop.

"There you go, looking like a brand new kid already. And don't worry about the clothes, you can keep 'em. I got plenty more at the back." The shopkeeper said to him with a marginally happier voice, before realizing just how suspicious his statement sounded and instantly backpedaled to explain himself. "If you're wondering why, then let me clear my name by saying that a good friend of mine got scammed into buying a bunch of kid clothes, and he gave them all to me. I don't have kids and nobody I know has kids, so they've been collecting dust. Good thing you came along, huh?"

Yosuke said nothing, only staring at the ground as his grip on the nylon bag tightened. Then, his mouth opened. "Why?"

"Why what?" The shopkeeper replied, unsure as to what he was talking about.

"Why are you doing all of this for me? None of these people would ever do what you did for me in a million years. I'm just some random punk kid who stole from you. Y-You could have just ignored me, or something…" Yosuke then covered his eyes, not wanting the man to see him cry the second time. "J-Just, why? Do you want something from me?"

"Why, indeed." The salesman huffed, before reaching into his right pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. "I didn't just do it for your sake, and certainly wasn't because you can give me something either."

"I-I don't get it." Asked a confused Yosuke, his mind again filled with questions about this mysterious man and his apparently inscrutable motives.

"It's a matter of pride. If I just leave you there on the streets, starving and dirty, my pride as a man might as well be finished. No man does that to a kid, regardless of what you did to me before." Putting a cigarette in his mouth, the shopkeeper held up a glowing orange finger before pressing it against the cigarette, lighting it with sheer heat alone. "The least I could do is to give you a little pick-me-up for the long run."

He then took a long drag of his cigarette. "And besides…" Exhaling thick smoke from his mouth, the shopkeeper flashed Yosuke a small grin. "Maybe I just wanted to look cool in front of a kid who has the gall to rob my place. Clever trick with the bottle."

A few more drags went by, and the shopkeeper crushed the butt beneath his heel. "Anyway, keep your nose clean from now on, and don't steal any more. They'll pay you if you wash cars or clean windows, so do some honest work for once."

With those parting words, he went back inside his shop and closed the door. Yosuke stood there, in stunned silence. A feeling that he honestly thought he would never feel flowed through him; the feeling of his life's path clicking into place…

And leading towards this man.

-Back to present times…

His gray eyes glimmering with nostalgia and emotion as he finishes retelling the snippet of his past, Nendo looks at his friends. "That's when I knew, I gotta pay him back somehow. So I stand in front of his shop every day for two months, helping him with the groceries or whatever else he needs. Eventually, he adopted me. Giving me an education and an actual roof over my head… he was always so modest about it, but Dad basically saved my life!"

"WHAT A STORY!" Tetsutetsu slams the back of his fist into the tree as his other hand was busy wiping away the little droplets of tears that were gathering around his eyes. "Now that's what I call a real MAN! What a guy, helping a kid he doesn't even know!"

Kinoko was likewise touched by the story, her bangs parting to reveal a glistening eye and a soft smile. "If your dad was like that, is it any wonder that you're such a nice person?"

"You don't even know half of it." Nendo gives his friends a grateful smile for showing the proper amount of respect that his late adoptive father deserves, before continuing the story of his life. After spending the next few minutes reminiscing about the relatively idyllic life he had up until his dad's passing that resulted in him dropping out of middle school, he finally gets to the crux of the matter: his uncles and how he has taken the fall for one of them.

Though to avoid any possibility of his honorary uncles, wherever they are right now, getting dragged back in handcuffs, he deliberately avoids mentioning their names.

"W-Wait, so they make you take the blame?" Kinoko asks with her voice becoming increasingly high-pitched with every word, having a hard time believing what she has just heard. A weird, yet boiling hot feeling pools inside her head. "I can't even- why would they- HOW could they even think of asking you something like that?!"

"Like I said, he has his own family to take care of. Unlike me, there are people that depended on him. If I just let him serve what could be years worth of prison time, what kind of son would I be? He's a friend of Dad after all." Nendo reasons, keeping his tone gentle. Though he does have regrets about missing out ten months of his life, he doesn't regret helping uncle Ushio out at all. "After all, it's just ten months. What's one kid's happiness compared to many-"

"THAT AIN'T AN EXCUSE!" Tetsutetsu marches over to tug Nendo upwards by the collar of his blazer. In spite of the aggressive movement, Nendo could tell that the metal-skinned teen is only so angry because he cares. "It just ain't right! If that guy has the balls to commit a crime, he should have the balls to face the results too! Making someone else take the rap for 'im… that's some real cowardly shit! He doesn't deserve to be anybody's uncle, let alone yours!"

Badmouthing those Nendo considers family is usually a surefire way to get on his nerves (and getting smacked over the head with a flying brick if he's having a particularly bad day). However, he empathizes with Tetsutetsu's anger: Who wouldn't get mad after hearing something like that happened to a friend? As much as he dislikes uncle Ushio's name getting dragged through the mud, he still considers his friend's reaction perfectly justified.

"Don't say that, Nendo-san. You're just as deserving of happiness as anybody." A saddened Kinoko rests a hand on Nendo's back as she scooches closer to him, now sitting on the edge of the mushroom cap. "I get that you wanted to help your uncle, but… in the end, you're a human being as well. Don't forsake yourself so easily."

"You guys don't understand, it's… it goes further than just him being my uncle. When Dad died-" Nendo's mind briefly went blank, his breathing speeding up as the memories of that horrible day rushed back to him. The surprised gasp from Kinoko and the audible gawk from Tetsutetsu became muffled as if there was water pooling up in his ears.

Closing his eyes and gulping audibly, he calms his breathing. Even if it has been a long time, the topic was still a raw wound for him. However, now isn't the time to break down: he has a story to tell. Jiro Nendo isn't the kind of man who would have wanted his son to cry. "When Dad died, I didn't know what to do with my life. Dad taught me everything I know. How to be a man, how to treat others, how to live… without him, I just felt like the lonely street urchin all over again."

"Not gonna lie, I even thought of just giving up… but then those two came through! They cheered me up, and told me that the best way to honor Dad's memory is to keep on living…" Nendo recalls the events with passionate fervor, his hands moving animatedly. "Whether you like it or not, my uncles stopped me from doing some stupid shit that'll end up hurting a lot more people. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here talking to you guys right now! And for that, spending time in juvie is just a way for me to pay back what they did for me."

Of course, Kinoko and Tetsutetsu' collectively bad impression of Nendo's uncles is something that can't change at a whim. What did change, however, is that there is a new perspective: as scummy as it is to make Nendo take the fall for what should have been an uncle's responsibility, they at least did some good by encouraging Nendo to continue living thus retroactively paving the way for the three of them to come together as friends.

That, and the fact that Nendo has had such a difficult life as a child, in addition to having to spend nearly an entire year in such a brutal and oppressive environment, and yet he still remains the same goofy fantasist with a vivid imagination that they have come to know only increase the respect Kinoko and Tetsutetsu already have for him.

"He may be younger, but he's already twice the man his uncles will ever be." Kinoko thought to herself, twirling her hair with a finger while hiding the creeping blush on her face with her sleeve the moment she realized just how physically close she and Nendo are. She could even make out what he smells like! "Like dried clay, cheap detergent and bricks, with a pleasant dash of mustiness. A scent unique to- Stop! What are you doing, Kinoko Komori? You don't just sniff a friend and be able to instantly tell what they smell like!"

"So where are those two now?" Tetsutetsu asked innocently, and definitely not because of an express desire to track down the cowards Nendo called his uncles to give them a good ol' can of whoop-ass. He even smiles just to further drive home the point that he doesn't want to do anything that involves his fists!

Nendo, seemingly able to detect the malicious intent in Tetsutetsu's question, replies instantly. "Well, I'm not sure but they're not… around here anymore. Uncle Ushio's out of Japan, and uncle Yoshino moved back to his parents' place." He then laughs joyously. "But it's fine! Wherever they are, I hope they're doing well for themselves."

"A-Anyway, I'm glad you're innocent." Kinoko allows herself a breath of relief, a pleased sensation blooming from the pit of her stomach and spreading throughout her body, as if a huge weight has just been released. It is so pleasing that she didn't even think about what she was about to say next. "But what about those guys while you were in juvenile detention?"

When his laugh suddenly halts to a complete stop and his lips curling into a small frown, all Kinoko wants is to swallow an entire fly agaric just to shut her big fat mouth. "Oh Amanita muscaria, let your poison take me away!"

Before she could make good on that morbid thought, Nendo's frown shifts into a self-deprecating smile. "Ah… that. Well, that one, uh… it's complicated. Actually, it's not all that complicated but-"

"Yo. It's cool if you don't wanna tell us." Said Tetsutetsu, his usual rough voice now overlaid with an unexpectedly gentle tone as he gives Nendo a light nudge on the elbow. "We all got our secrets. You're already damn brave to be tellin' us about your past. Most folks don't even have the guts to tell about the day they crap themselves at kindergarten! If you think it's too much, I ain't gonna pry. That right, Komori?"

Kinoko nods, discreetly throwing the poisonous mushroom over her shoulder. "U-Um, yeah! If it's something personal, you can a-always tell us when you feel like it. O-Or never! I'm fine with either…" She trails off, before smacking herself in the face. Of all times she could have stuttered, why now?!

Nendo lowers his head, looking at the ground with a contemplative glint in his dark irises, before his expression hardens. "Nah." And then it softens just as quickly. "If I lie to you guys, I'm no friend at all. You two deserve the truth, so that's what I'm gonna do."

Rubbing his hands together and realizing just how moist his palms have become, Nendo licks his lips. "Yeah, I did put three people into the infirmary. And this time, I'm not taking the blame for anybody: I did it myself." Before either Kinoko or Tetsutetsu could say anything, he raised a finger to stop them. "But, like half the side quests in Arcane Quest, context is important for you to understand what's going on."

Whether it's because he has long since been desensitized or actually deriving some sort of pleasure from it, Nendo describes in detail, without once flinching or appearing the slightest bit ashamed, about the chain of events that lead to him giving Takeda and his thugs a taste of their own medicine.

Only a hundred times worse than what they did to him.

"So you got every bone in his hand crushed…" Tetsutetsu said with one hand on his chin, sounding somewhat impressed.

"A-And you literally defang the other two." In contrast to him, Kinoko only sounds scared. The fear did not last long however once she realizes that she isn't being a very good friend because of it. Thus, satisfaction replaces fear. She may dislike violence, but nothing feels better than hearing about jerks getting their just deserts.

"Not to mention, broken bones and ugly bruises too! But you don't need to know about that." Nendo forces a chuckle. "So, uh… yeah. I'm not as innocent as you think. I mean, I didn't want to mess them up that bad. But then they start mocking my dad, and I just get so fucking mad, I-!"

Clenching his fists to the point of his knuckles turning white, it takes a few seconds of deep breathing for Nendo to not blow up at the memory of what the scarred delinquent said about his dad again. "Sorry. It's just… Dad meant a lot to me. That's why I just couldn't stand it when someone talks shit about him. Like, do they have the slightest idea what he has done for me, some punk kid he isn't even related to?"

The mushroom mage and the teen of steel nod in unison, understanding just how pissed off Nendo must be to send those delinquents to the infirmary. After all, there are three things a wise person fears: a stormy sea, a moonless night, and the anger of a kind man. With Nendo's disposition, he has far fewer buttons than most people… but the second the right ones are pressed, it is bound to be explosive.

"But then karma strikes again, because right after that I get two more months. That's about it, really. Ten months later, I got out, applied for U.A under the suggestion of a good friend, then I met you guys." A snicker filled with self-loathing escapes his mouth, before he looks at his soon-to-be ex-friends with a wistful gaze. "Not even becoming a wizard is gonna erase that kind of stuff from my record. If you guys want nothing more to do with me, I understand. I doubt being friends with the likes of me looks good."

Hearing no response from either Kinoko or Tetsutetsu, he afraids that they have already made their final decision. Sighing heavily, Nendo pulls out his phone. "Before you go… a picture for the memories?" He said with a bright, hopeful smile, even if his voice sounds like he's about to cry.

Luckily, Tetsutetsu saves him from having to go through such indignity by landing a firm smack on one side of his head. "Ow!" Nendo cried indignantly. "If you don't want to, you could just tell me!"

"The hell you talkin' 'bout? Why would we stop being friends with you over little stuff like this? So what if you landed your ass in juvie?" Tetsutetsu looks genuinely offended that Nendo thinks so little of him and Kinoko. "It's all in the past now! I don't sweat stuff like that. What matters now is the current you, the guy I asked to be my buddy! Everybody does stupid crap at least once in their life, and your stupid crap is that you let those guys beat you up at all! If I were you, I'd start putting feet up asses once they start cornering me!"

"You don't have to beat yourself up because of that, Nendo-san. If you ask me, those people deserved it. Not only did they hurt you, but they also speak ill of someone close to you. They're practically asking for it!" Kinoko rarely, if ever, gets angry. When she does, however, it is plain to see. "We don't always do the right thing when we get mad. But the thing is, what do you feel after beating them up?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you… enjoy it, or something like that?"

"I don't! I just wanna teach those guys a lesson for mocking somebody's dad! I'm fine with it if they just get some punches in and then leave me alone…" Nendo clicks his tongue, annoyed at both himself back then and fate screwing him over. "But some cosmic force must have been really bored that day, because those guys just HAVE to bring my dad into the conversation."

The brunette's frown disappeared. "Then that's good. You know it's wrong deep down. That's what separates you from the rest of them. That's why…" Every girly instinct Kinoko has is being fired up, telling her that what she is about to do is a very bold move that would probably bring about an irreversible change in the dynamic between her and Nendo, but she couldn't care less. He needs comfort, and that's what she will provide as his friend.

"Oh, why did that sound so mushy?!" Screamed the niggling thoughts in her mind, which she quickly stamps out.

Reaching out, Kinoko gingerly holds up Nendo's hand with her smaller one. "I'll still be your friend. Without you, I would never have made it to U.A. At the very least, being your friend is a way to repay my debt. Not that I don't want to even if you hadn't helped me, of course! You're a good guy." Giving herself a mental pat on the back for making through that entire speech without dying of acute embarrassment, Kinoko smiles warmly at Nendo.

As if that isn't already enough to make his eyes widen in shock, Tetsutetsu also reaches out and takes Nendo's other hand and gives it a good shake. "Same here! Ya could have just tossed me out of bounds with your Quirk, but no! You saved me and gave me a good fight like a true man, and you didn't look down on me afterwards! If anybody talks shit about you just because of something that wasn't even your fault, they better start running before I get heavy on their asses!" Then, using Nendo's own arsenal against himself, Tetsutetsu smiles toothily while raising a thumbs-up. "We're friends 'til the end, through sickness and health!"

"Isn't it 'through thick and thin'?" Kinoko interjects in an attempt to help Tetsutetsu repair the meaningful phrase that he has so carelessly butchered.

"Whatever! It still works!" The gray-haired young man retorts, though more out of playfulness than any kind of hostility. "Point is, we're still your friends Nendo. And you ain't ever shaking us off!"

The aspiring wizard could only stare incredulously at the two. Looking down at his hands being held by both of them, a moved smile slowly begins to spread on Nendo's face. "So does this mean… you both would still call me a friend?"

"Of course!" Kinoko replies chirpily, nodding at him.

"Isn't that obvious? Boy, you're dumber than I thought!" Tetsutetsu chuckles goodheartedly.

"You guys…" Feeling as if the summoned spirit of Izuku has placed a status buff on his tear ducts, he turns away and pinches the bridge of his nose in hopes of stifling the waterworks, as futile as it is. Despite this, a smile is well on its way to split Nendo's cheeks apart. "Goddamn it, you guys! Do you have to look so cool saying all that sappy stuff?!"

Kinoko giggles gently at Nendo's failing attempt to preserve his image. "It's okay, you can cry. We're not going to say anything about it."

"Sappy? Look at who's about to cry!" Tetsutetsu lets out a jovial guffaw, amused at how Nendo is all but clawing at his eyes to stop himself from crying. "Just let it all out, man. I ain't gonna make fun of you, 'cause it's perfectly fine for men to let loose every now and then!"

Cornered and relentlessly attacked by both of them with their unwavering camaraderie, the already wafer-thin walls that Nendo tries to put up around his heart crumble to dust. "KOMORI! TETSUTETSU!" Blinking back the oncoming wave of tears, Nendo cries as he lunges forward and embraces his friends, arms wrapped around their waists and squeezing with surprising strength. "You two are the best friends a guy like me could ever ask for! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!"

Kinoko and Tetsutetsu, blindsided and currently suffocating from Nendo's almost crushing hug, could only feebly pat him on the shoulders.

"Too… tight!" Thought Komori, feeling her lungs getting forcibly compressed and her cheeks puffed out due to air being literally squeezed out of her body, courtesy of Nendo's arm wrapping itself right around her waist.

"Where the hell is he getting all this strength from?!" Pondered Tetsutetsu, unable to believe that the same person that he managed to pin down with minimal effort when they spar could exert such crushing pressure with one arm. "Maybe he has a second Quirk and it's some kind of strength enhancer fueled by emotions?!"

Fortunately for them, the great and powerful Nendo is known for his mercy as he lets the two go before they could turn fully purple and pass out from a lack of air.

"This calls for a celebration!" Exclaimed a re-energized Nendo as he wipes away tears with his sleeve and picks up his fallen staff, raising it to the sky. "But I don't have any gold to take you guys to a tavern, so I've come up with something else for you guys to feast upon!"

Leaning against his staff, he flashes a suave smile. "So, have either of you heard of the mighty Thor?"

"Thor?" Tetsutetsu is the first to recover from Nendo's asphyxiating hug, replying to him while thumping his chest to get his breath back. "The Norse myth one or the-" He gasps, taking in another big gust of air. "Comic one?"

"The one from the comics! You know how he calls his hammer back by just raising his hand? I'll do just that!" Holding up his staff and aiming it like a spear, Nendo pours every bit of strength into his good arm before throwing the staff as hard as he could. He may have had the style of a professional javelin thrower, but sadly enough not the skill as the staff only manage to cover a rather lackluster distance before unceremoniously dropping and clattering on the ground.

Still, Nendo is quite pleased with himself. "Make way, god of thunder! For the wizard of bricks is about to hit the scene!" With a grin on his face after making such a blasphemous boast, Nendo raises his clenched fist and closes his eyes as he calls forth the immaterial forces of the ancestral bricks to guide the spirit he imbued into his staff back to its chosen wielder…

Then, opening his eyes, he thrusts his open palm towards the staff and yells the staff's newly-christened name with maximum dedication. "Staff of Bricks, TO ME!"

Kinoko was perfectly content with just watching Nendo being himself, until a horrific realization came to her: Nendo's control only extended to bricks. And since the only brick on the staff is located right at the crown… "Wait Nendo, I don't think that's a good idea-"

But alas, she was too late. By the time she manages to voice her concerns, the staff was flying towards Nendo much like the mythical Mjolnir.

Unlike the Mjolnir of legend however, the staff seems to possess emotions of its own and is very much upset at being rudely discarded on the ground back when its owner leapt up to hug his friends. Thus, as due punishment…

The staff sails right past his hand and aims for his head instead.

Flying at the speed of a moped going full tilt, the crown clocks him right in the forehead, thankfully with the blunt side. As his treacherous staff drops to the ground, so does Nendo with his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

"NENDO-SAN!" Kinoko shrieks in terror at the sight, rushing over to the fallen wizard in order to assess his status fearing the worst. Her worries only worsen the second she sees blood leaking from the reddened spot on his forehead as Nendo begins to babble nonsense. "Please stay with us! Don't walk towards the light!"

"Nendo, you crazy dumbass! Wake up!" Tetsutetsu accurately sums up Nendo's entire being in two words as he grabs onto the unconscious teen's shoulders and starts shaking him back and forth, causing Nendo's messy afro to sway along. "If you die from something as stupid as that, I'll kill myself and kick your ass in the afterlife!"

Naturally, the trio of friends' shenanigans attract quite a lot of bemused gazes from passing civilians.

It takes a couple more minutes of vigorous shaking and constant encouragement, but eventually Nendo returns to the realm of the living with (thankfully) no loss in memory save for a bump on his forehead. As Tetsutetsu's home is only a five-minute walk away from where they are standing, he bids Nendo and Kinoko goodbye and gives them some more dried apricots (which he seemingly has an infinite amount of from his bag) before leaving. Thus, the mushroom mage and the brick wizard go back the way they came.

"A-Are you feeling okay, Nendo-san?" Kinoko asks, her fingers intertwining nervously. Even though the bleeding has stopped thanks to the revolutionary invention known as tissue paper, the bump still looks rather raw and red. "That looks bad."

Nendo's reply comes in the form of finger guns and a reassuring smile. "Oh, it's fine! 'Tis but a scratch! My HP increases with my level, so mine's high enough to take some scratch damage!" He then rubs the sore spot, wincing a bit as a finger brushes over the now-tender skin. "Besides, this is my first time! With some practice, the staff shall perfectly obey my every command!"

"Well… if you say so." A slightest bit of doubt lingers in her heart still, but she decides to trust Nendo's judgment. If he is honest enough to tell her about his past and his time in juvenile detention, then he has no reason to lie about something like this.

With the topic of Nendo's self-inflicted head wound finished, the two continue their walk in silence. Well, at least with Kinoko's case as Nendo whistles the main theme of Arcane Quest again for the nth time.

Without much else to talk about, Kinoko unknowingly begins to whistle with him as well.

"So…" Feeling as if the lack of conversation between her and Nendo is becoming a little uncomfortable despite their overall friendly relationship, Kinoko decides to try and strike up another conversation. "Um…" Clearly, she is quite unsuccessful at it.

"Anything on your mind?" Asked Nendo, gently nudging his fungi-loving friend with one end of his staff.

"Nendo-san, I-" She utters his last name… and raises her unseen eyebrows as if something finally comes to her mind. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but why do you always refer to yourself by your last name? I don't think I've heard anyone calling you by your first name. Maybe you just prefer your last name?"

Then, realizing how weirdly personal that question is, Kinoko immediately adds: "N-Not that there's anything wrong with your f-first name, of course! 'Yosuke' is a pretty nice name too…" She trails off, mumbling unintelligibly under her breath.

Nendo chuckles a bit at Kinoko's little panic attack, before giving her a light tap on the shoulder. "Hey, you're good. You know, I had a feeling somebody's gonna ask me about that some day."

Stuffing a hand into his pocket while twirling his staff around with the other, Nendo gazes at the sky. "It's not like I prefer any name more than the other. In fact, it's not because of preference at all!" Looking back down to see Kinoko tilting her head in lack of understanding, he sighs. "Well, think of it this way. Dad never married, so when he adopted me and made me his son, I technically became a part of the Nendo family. Because Dad's… gone now, as far as I'm concerned, I'm the last living member of the family. He never mentioned any relatives, so yeah."

His smile becoming somber, Nendo looks at the sky again. Deep down in his heart, he hopes that he could see the man who saved his life among the clouds. "And if I were to die, the lineage is finished. So I just think that everybody calling me 'Nendo' all the time is a way of keeping the family name alive, you know? Even if they're talking about me, it feels like Dad is still around…" He then breaks into another short fit of self-deprecating laugh. "Dumb reason, I know. But that's what I believe."

"It's… it's not dumb at all, Nendo-san!" Kinoko is quick to retort, albeit in her usual soft, endearingly high-pitched voice. "W-Well, others might think so, but I think that's really nice of you. I can't even begin to think of a reason like that. You're not related by blood to your dad, but yet you chose to keep his family name alive… it's so you, Nendo-san."

Nendo is taken back, to say the least. Scratching the back of his ridiculous hair, he couldn't help but blush a bit. "Oh, really? Aw man, you putting it that way makes me sound like some kinda holy saint, Komori-san. But still… thanks for the good words." And just like that, the somber smile that shows up every time he reminisces of the past disappears and a more cheery one takes its place.

"You're welcome, Nendo-san. And on the topic of names…" Kinoko was about to trail off again into incomprehensible mumblings before she hardened her resolve to continue talking. Nendo is her friend, a very good and kind one at that - there's no reason for her to be so bashful about this. "D-Do you think you can c-call me by a certain name as well?"

"Whoa, you have a nickname?! That's so cool! What is it?" Nendo reacts with a hyper response. 'Komori-san' has always been a little too formal for his tastes anyway, but he wouldn't want to call her anything else unless she wants to.

"E-Erm, it's not exactly a nickname…" She twiddles her thumbs, voice growing quiet as her face turns increasingly crimson.

"Oh? That's alright! I'll just give you one." His brain running with efficiency and speed that are unheard of, Nendo points the finger of judgment at Kinoko as the light of the sun reflects off his teeth, displaying his impeccable dental hygiene in the process. Taking in a big breath, his lips part.

"Kino-chan~!" He said, in the most cutesy voice he could muster.

In a fraction of a nanosecond, the shade of red on Kinoko's cheeks goes all the way from a mild scarlet to deep maroon. "K-K-Kino-chan?!" She stutters, steam practically hissing from the pores of her scalp. As pins and needles prickle her heart, her mind tries and miserably fails to adapt to such… such…

Such unexpected intimacy!

However, to say that she is outright unhappy would be wrong; if Kinoko isn't busy drowning herself in embarrassment, she would be jumping for joy. She would have been satisfied nonetheless if he just called her by her first name, but this is far, far better! She could already imagine the reactions of their classmates when Nendo inevitably calls her that: shocked gasps and unblinking stares galore, followed by gossip. By all means she should be mortified about it, but instead she just feels so happy that she could scream.

Or make a really creepy smile, which is what she settles for instead. Luckily, Nendo thinks nothing of it.

"So, what do you think about that?" Nendo, still blissfully unaware of the effect he has on his female friend, asks for her opinion as he beckons a hand in wait.

"I, um… I like it. I really like it!" Kinoko replies with an unusually giddy tone, her embarrassment slowly fading as a smile that almost matches Nendo's own in terms of high light reflectance value. "Nobody ever gave me a nickname before, so… thank you, Nendo-kun."

"Looks like you already got one for me!" Nendo beams at her, not even caring about the fact that 'Nendo-kun' isn't a true nickname. "Now we both got nicknames for each other!"

"Yeah… yeah, we do."

Kinoko and Nendo then look at one another, and things swiftly go quiet between them. Once more, her bangs part to let her exotic eye connect with his gray orbs. A feeling, born of friendship and perhaps some unrecognized affection, blooms in their hearts like a sunflower in fertile soil on a summer morning. Kinoko feels her knees growing weaker as she gazes at Nendo with an entranced look. The self-proclaimed wizard likewise experiences the same sensation, finding Kinoko, with her outwardly timid nature contrasting the subtly impish smile that she wears whenever she is excited to be oddly hypnotizing, like someone has placed a charm upon him.

Lowering himself to her height, Nendo leans in…

And stops just before their noses can touch, a manic smile rapidly spreading across his face. "You know what this calls for?"

"Um…" She hesitated, not out of discomfort but rather out of the sudden close contact. "Celebration?"

"Celebration! And since I still don't have any gold in my inventory, allow me to perform this sick trick again!" Said a peppy Nendo, standing back to his full height and raising his staff to throw it again, clearly learning nothing from his traumatic head injury. If anything, getting hit on the head only exacerbates whatever it is that influences his thought process.

"Nendo-kun, no!" An exasperated Kinoko jumps in front of him with her arms flailing, praying that she is a big enough roadblock to stop him from throwing the staff and knocking himself out cold trying to recall it like the godly superhero.

"Nendo-kun, YES!" Sadly, she is not for she only reaches up to his shoulders. And thus, the two again attract the strange looks from pedestrians as Kinoko jumps around in vain and Nendo laughing like a maniac as he chucks the staff through the air. However, they feel no shame; only the warm feeling of friends messing around with each other.

And better yet, there is no angry dog hot on their heels this time.

-0-

"Mom, I'm home!" Izuku announces his return with a cheerful smile, taking off his shoes and throwing them onto the rack instead of carefully placing them in a perfect symmetrical order like usual, further highlighting just how elevated his mood is.

Not that anyone could blame him either. Sure, his first day had him overwhelmed a fair bit, but he has also made some new friends (one of which is a cute girl, in case Izuku forgets to remind himself of that whenever he talks to her), passed the Quirk Apprehension Test even if the whole 'lowest score gets expelled' thing turned out to be a tactical sham orchestrated by his homeroom teacher, and most importantly… Katsuki left him alone!

Mostly, anyway. Izuku, Ochako and the straight-laced student whose name was revealed to be Tenya Iida stumble upon the explosive blonde while on their way home, something Izuku berates himself later for failing to take into account given how he and Katsuki live practically a stone's throw away from one another. Other than being subjected to another round of profanities and colorful insults, Katsuki did not touch him which was something Izuku silently thanked the gods above for.

If anything, he was almost certain that upon seeing him, his former friend would give him another Katsuki Klassic, a term he and Nendo coined for Katsuki's favorite method of dealing with someone he dislikes: a full-body explosion.

Considering the blonde's infamously volatile temper, many victims, both innocent and deserving, have suffered unduly from this cruel method. But other than that little encounter… His first day at his dream school went surprisingly well, of all things considered.

"Izuku!" Come his mother's equally merry reply, peeking her head out from the kitchen to greet her one and only child. "How was your first day?"

"It's great, mom! Everybody got to show off their Quirks, and All Might is teaching at U.A! The apprehension tests are a bit demanding, but I still made it without a scratch!" Well, except for his poor finger thanks to One For All, but that is something his mom doesn't need to know lest the poor woman starts making him go to school in full body armor. Not that that would have helped much. "And our teachers are all renowned Pros!"

"That's good to hear. As a reward for having such a wonderful first day, I'm making katsudon tonight! Should be done by the time you're done taking a shower." Inko said with a twirl of her chopsticks before giving her son a wink.

"Woohoo! You're the best, mom!" Izuku pumps his fists excitedly, though he quickly stops once the absence of a certain someone whose dictionary does not include the word 'subtlety' starts to become noticeable. "Huh… did you see Nendo anywhere?"

At the mention of Nendo, Inko's already bright mood somehow intensifies. "Ah, he came about fifteen minutes before you! Nendo's in your room, though who knows what that boy is up to in there, what with all the banging." Finishing her answer, Inko returns to her culinary duties. Izuku is about to leave, if not for a couple of odd things about his mother that catch his attention.

Her bun is done a little lower than usual…

She's humming a tune that he heard was his father's favorite, with her cheeks faintly pinkish…

And the way her hips bounce left and right as if dancing to a number…

All points to a more jolly mood than usual. His mother isn't an inherently moody person, but ever since that fateful day where he was declared Quirkless, she has been more prone to days where tear-inducing sadness just comes to her for no reason. Thus, seeing his mother so utterly joyful is quite a sight. "Say, mom, did something happen? You seem pretty happy about something." He shouldn't have to explain the reasoning behind his question - just a son caring about his mom.

"It's nothing! Nothing a woman my age should be blushing like a schoolgirl about, at least." The Midoriya matriarch sheepishly waves her hand while covering her mouth with the other in a lazy manner to cover the redness on her face, which only further rouses Izuku's interest.

"If you're so happy, then surely it has to be something good, right? Come on mom, you can tell me anything. I'm your son!" With his curiosity reaching an all-time peak, Izuku presses on with his question, even going as far as to use the family card against his mother.

However, Inko refuses to budge. "Nooo! It's because you're my son that I feel so shy to talk about it!" And with that, she turns around and focuses fully on her cooking, her cheeks puffed out as she pouts.

Recognizing the pouting as his mother's nonverbal way of saying that she will not divulge anything, Izuku walks back to his room all while scratching his head. "Wonder what it was that got mom all secretive? Maybe Nendo knows something." With that line of thought bouncing around the walls of his brain, Izuku reaches for the doorknob…

Only to jump back a bit when an undoubtedly loud noise emerges from inside the room. Though, it doesn't sound much like a bang to Izuku. If anything, the noise reminds him more of a piece of plastic getting skewered with a knife. A shink, to be specific.

"Just what is Nendo doing?!" Twisting the handle, Izuku throws the door open, mentally preparing himself to witness his Arcane Quest-obsessed friend taking his desire to become a wizard to its logical extreme by performing some sort of demonic ritual with a glowing pentagram on the floor to make a deal with the Devil and grant himself actual magical powers-

But to Izuku's relief, it is nothing of the sort. Instead of Nendo ritualistically sacrificing an innocent soul, it is Nendo, still dressed in his school uniform, sitting on the floor while wearing his old bike helmet, currently trying to remove what looks like a pole of bamboo with four metal trowels attached to one end that is embedded into the helmet. Upon closer inspection, Izuku could see a brick being caged inside by the four trowels.

"Uh… Nen-chan, what are you doing?" The words coming to him as naturally as his adoration for All Might, Izuku asks his eccentric friend the same question he had asked Nendo all the way back when they first met in elementary school. They would never have had a meeting, if Izuku hadn't decided to investigate who exactly had stolen the janitor's mop and paraded it around like a staff.

"Hey, Izu-chan! How's your first day?" Nendo turns around to greet the green-haired teen, waving at him with a beaming grin. Though with the staff's crown still stuck quarter-way stuck inside the helmet, he looks like a unicorn that a three-year-old tried to draw strictly from memory.

"It's… fine enough." Izuku replies, raising an eyebrow in sheer confusion at what he is seeing. "Er, what about you?"

"Oh, just wonderful! My party got two new members, a mage who I befriended and a barbarian whom I bested in combat, and we embarked on a quest given to us by the wise sage of the spectral realm. It was a long and arduous journey, filled with all kinds of challenges and hardships, but we persevered nonetheless and found a treasure at the end of the quest, lodged in a great tree! Some local thugs tried to pick a fight over it, but with the power of mushrooms, steel, bricks and camaraderie, we defeated them!"

Izuku's only response to Nendo's uninterrupted retelling of his day is a dead stare that lasts for an entire minute, with very slow blinks in between to further emphasize how utterly baffled he is. "I… have… so… many… questions." He said, trailing off with every word for extra dramatic effect. In actuality, he only has two:

First, what the actual hell is Nendo on about?

And second, assuming that the cobbled-together mess that is stuck to the helmet is the so-called treasure, why would anybody, save for Nendo, fight over it?

Feeling as if the answers to those questions will just cause him to further spiral down the rabbit hole, so in the name of sanity, Izuku settles for a simpler inquiry. "So, uh… what are you doing, Nen-chan? And what is that?" He asks, pointing at the ugly-as-sin amalgamation of random objects in the shape of a staff.

"It's my very own magic staff! I just got it today from said quest." Nendo explains in a casual tone, as if any of what he just said is something that can be understood without proper context. "But before I can learn to channel my magic more effectively through it, I gotta know how to call it back first! You know, in case it slips out of my hand."

"Oh…" As Nendo's explanation slowly sinks in, Izuku's eyes went from narrow to wide in understanding. "Oh! So, uh… that's your staff. It looks cool." That is, of course, a lie. The staff, in contrast to what fictional media often portray their appearances as, is a rather unsightly contraption that is the polar opposite of everybody's first thought when thinking of a wizard's staff. But if Nendo likes it, then who is he to judge his friend's tastes?

"It is cool! But I kinda call it a little too harshly and… as you can see," Nendo points to the staff embedded in the helmet he's wearing, before moving his head around resulting in the staff shaking left and right like a horn. "I'm now a unicorn who dreams of becoming a wizard!"

A half-formed smirk creeps onto Izuku's face before the teen bursts into a small round of chuckles, shaking his head at Nendo albeit not out of malice. It is simply that everything Nendo does is just so positively absurd that they always loop back from corny to being worth a laugh. "Ho, so the greatest wizard has found a staff to call his own. Which quest will you undertake next to lead you to the bountiful coffers that your pockets so desperately need?" Said Izuku with a flowery, teasing tone.

Nendo snickers at Izuku's admittedly good attempt at mimicking the manner of speech of characters in the magical world of Arcane Quest… before stopping to scowl once he realizes that Izuku is poking fun at his abysmal financial status. Not willing to just take it lying down, Nendo shoots back a mischievous smile.

"And what about thee, whose company is a beauteous maiden of pure-hearted allure? Hast thou slain her heart as easily as thou hast slain monsters like the hero of legend we tell stories of, or did thy own heart stutter with naught but the sight of her lips?" Nendo unabashedly waxes poetic, and with countless hours of playing Arcane Quest as well as meeting the mysterious Reiko Yanagi today, he delivers his overly-verbose reply with effortless ease.

It takes Izuku a couple of seconds to decipher the wall of antiquated vocabulary that Nendo just sent his way, but the second he does, the greenette physically recoils as his heart and soul suffers a critical hit. "W-W-WHAT?! T-There's n-nothing like t-that between us! Get your head out of the gutter!" Izuku protests, face already turning into a color that would allow his head to easily pass off as a particularly large tomato.

"That's what they all say! Give it a few months, and I'll probably catch you guys making out in the bathroom." Nendo seems like a different person altogether around Izuku as he relentlessly teases the poor boy. "But that's not gonna happen unless you make the first move!"

"Nendo, we knew each other for less than a week! You're taking this way too fast!" His flustered state providing him a surge of superhuman strength, Izuku grabs Nendo by the arms and begins shaking the aspiring wizard back and forth like a boneless ragdoll. "That kind of thing needs time and nurture, and I'm not ready!"

"Not ready?" Nendo coos, a shit-eating grin already spreading like a wildfire on his face. "So you ARE interested in Uraraka! Don't worry man, you saved her from that superboss of a robot after all. If she doesn't have at least SOME feelings for you, I'll eat a brick!"

Izuku claps his mouth shut at his verbal blunder. Then, gulping and taking a deep breath to calm his steaming nerves, he faces Nendo again with what he could only hope is a poker face. "Well, she just became my friend, so we technically became closer… but not romantically! I just think she looks cute, and she likes my 'Deku' nickname, that's it!"

Processing that last sentence, a gleeful smirk makes itself known on Nendo as he has gotten another round of ammunition to exact his vengeance with. "She likes the name Katsuki gave you?" He slaps his knee and presses his cheeks together with both hands. "I swear, that is so adorable! I'm telling you, that's true lo-"

He stopped himself however, before he could deliver the knockout blow. As much as he likes to mess with Izuku, the guy is still his best friend first and foremost and it would be cruel to keep raising Izuku's blood pressure like this. Besides, the joke would lose its charm if he pushes the envelope too far.

Thus, he chooses to be merciful and drops the topic. "Alright alright, I'll let it go." But not before taking one last shot. "But let me know when you guys are going steady, m'kay? Better yet, invite me to the wedding reception!"

"I- Nendo, stop! Just stop or else I swear, I'll never talk to you again!" Izuku sputters, his fist shaking in a mixture of futile rage and ineffectual frustration. Nendo may be his closest friend, but he also has the dubious honor of being one of the very few people that could genuinely get on Izuku's nerves.

"Never talk to me again? Dude, we literally share a room and a home. You can't avoid talking to me forever!"

"Then I'll, uh, tell mom to never cook for you again! You're buying your own lunch and dinner!"

"Pfft! You're using that threat with someone who used to live on the streets and dug through trash for food! I can survive off of a sandwich under a car if I have to! Even if I can't, I'll just annoy you until you give me food!"

"I'll just lock you out then!"

"Too bad your door isn't immune to getting busted down with a giant ball of bricks!"

"I'll report you for breaking and entering!"

"It's not breaking and entering if I already mark this place in the admission papers as my residence!"

Then, as if compelled by some sort of cosmic force, the two suddenly adopt dramatic poses, with Nendo leaning all the way back until his back barely touches the floor while pointing at Izuku and Izuku edging out his hip at an exaggerated angle and crossing his arms.

"I'll expose you at school!"

"Expose me for what? Wanting my best friend to get laid?"

"I'LL DO IT! DON'T TEST ME, NEN-CHAN!"

"DO IT THEN, IZU-CHAN, AND SEE IF I CARE!"

"ALRIGHT!" His face beet red, Izuku raises both hands and claps as hard as he can. "This discussion ends right here, right now! Say another word and I won't help you with that!"

Nendo looks at the fuming Izuku, boiling steam coming out of the green-haired teen's ears, with surprise and wonder in his eyes. "How did you know I was gonna ask?! Are you secretly psychic?"

"Isn't it kind of obvious that you need help?" Replied Izuku as he gives Nendo a tired look, albeit one with an angry frown that is rapidly disintegrating. Even when they were children, Izuku never found it in his heart to stay mad at anybody for long, least of all someone like Nendo.

Nendo looks up at his 'horn'. "Right. Good point." He mutters under his breath, scratching his chin in thought… before jerking his head at Izuku at such a breakneck speed that he would have smacked his green-haired friend in the face with the staff if not for the latter stepping back quickly. "Oh wait, why don't you use that OP Quirk of yours? If you can insta-kill that superboss back at the entrance exam, pulling out my staff should be easy!"

"M-My Quirk? Oh! Right, erm… yeah. My Quirk." Having been Quirkless for most of his life, Izuku still finds it a little odd for others to refer to a Quirk as his own in spite of it coming from Nendo, the one person in his life who never once bends in his refusal of Izuku's Quirkless nature.

That being said, the feeling is far from unpleasant. It is strange, sure, but also uplifting and heartening.

Sort of like his relationship with Nendo. It's odd and oftentimes confusing to deal with the wizard-obsessed teen, but their friendship is something Izuku wouldn't trade for the world.

His good mood now returning in full, Izuku flashes an awkward, but good-natured smile. "Well, uh, do you remember how I broke my arm after using it the first time?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still working on that problem. I can help you, sure, but I think I'm gonna break something in the process." He hasn't exactly explored the uses of One For All outside of combat situations, so that came off as a partial lie. 'Partial' because one thing remains true: using his inherited Quirk is pretty hazardous to his body. "And then mom's going to kill me…"

"Oh, it's fine! Legendary and Mythical items have pretty high level caps, so you just need to level up some more before you can handle the power of such a top tier Quirk! It's like that time where I found the Blighted Dagger of Kochytheneth for my rogue, and it was forty levels above her!" Nendo nerds out again as he explains his logic in RPG terms, much to Izuku's amusement. "Even though I have to grind her like crazy at the Hellish Dungeon just to use it… the fact that it does Fatal Poison on-hit is totally worth staying up all night!"

"I get you, Nen-chan… really." Izuku replies with an unsure tone, nodding dumbly at his friend spouting vast amounts of in-depth knowledge about a game that he hasn't even done as much as consult its wiki, let alone playing it, for years now.

Luckily for him, convincing Nendo about anything related to Arcane Quest doesn't usually take much effort. "Nice! We can play it together sometimes if you want."

"I'll hold you to that." Izuku smiles kindly at Nendo, before grabbing the staff and begin pulling it out with all of his might. Nendo summons a pair of bricks and commands them to stand completely still in the air in order for them to act as handles for him to hold onto so that he won't get pulled along with Izuku's motion.

"So…" Izuku starts, grunting with exertion as he gives the stuck staff multiple yanks, slightly jerking Nendo's head along with every pull. "Do you know why mom's acting the way she is?"

"Could you be a little more specific? Inko-san seems the same to me." While Nendo's reply may sound casual and collected to an outsider, Izuku could tell there is just a smidge of nervousness to it.

Seeing this as a chance to get revenge for the earlier teasing, Izuku gives the staff a particularly hard tug, pulling Nendo a little closer to him. "Hmm? Then why did she blush when I mentioned your name?"

Now, it is Nendo's turn to be flustered. "Oh, er… it's nothing! You know, I helped her out with something earlier and maybe she's just grateful about it!"

Izuku squints and chuckles upon hearing Nendo using the same phrase as his mom. "If it's just 'nothing', then why does Mom think it's so shameful that she can't even tell me, her own son?"

Nendo, completely unprepared for a vengeful Izuku hitting him with such irrefutable proof that he and Inko have done something, physically recoils as if receiving a solid punch to the chest. Unlike Izuku, Nendo has far more difficulty holding up a lie when under pressure.

And to him, the kind of pressure Izuku is subjecting him to could be compared to the same pressure needed to make diamonds.

Praying to whatever deity overseeing his existence to grant him the strength to survive what Izuku is about to do to him once he unveils the truth, Nendo brings up his arms to guard his most important asset, the face, all while screaming "I CALL HER INKO-CHAN! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, I SWEAR! I DIDN'T MEAN TO FLIRT WITH YOUR MOM, MAN! I APOLOGIZED RIGHT AFTER THAT!"

Squeezing his eyes shut, Nendo braces himself for the oncoming superpowered punch from Izuku with glowing red eyes that will send him flying through walls…

Only to find himself still sitting on the floor, unharmed. There are no sounds of his bones and organs being reduced to gristle upon receiving a punch that almost folds a giant robot's head in half. Just the noise of his staff finally getting removed from the helmet. "...Izu-chan?"

Opening one eye, he sees Izuku, his hands still tightly holding onto the staff, looking down on him. Instead of a look of disgust or derision however, Izuku has one of bemusement. "Is… that it?"

"Uh… yeah? She told me she liked it though…"

"Oh! No wonder her spirits are so high. Nobody has called her that for a long time… aside from Dad." For just a fleeting moment, Izuku's voice turns somber… before it shifts right back to being cheerful. Nendo doesn't have to worry about that kind of matter. "Anyway, I got your staff out!"

Nendo didn't expect Izuku to take the fact that he calls his mother, a married grown woman, so intimately in stride, but he isn't about to complain lest he has a death wish. "Thank you, Izu-chan!" With the jerry-rigged staff in his possession once more, Nendo uses it to stand up.

It was then that Izuku took notice of the state of the helmet. While he hasn't had many reasons to use his bike given how All Might encourages him to run on foot instead to build stamina, he could have sworn that the helmet was in a far better shape than the… misshapen horror that it is right now, in Nendo's possession.

It looks like someone has taken a sledgehammer and gone to town on it, which, considering that his mom mentioned banging noises, isn't too far from the truth. However, the state of the helmet is merely secondary to Izuku; his primary concern is how much Nendo's brain has been jostled around because if he is being honest, he does not need his friend to be any crazier than he already is.

That's the last thing anybody in the world needs, he imagines. "Uh, Nendo?"

"Yes?"

"Are you… like, okay? Not that anything's wrong, it's just that the helmet looks like it's gonna break. Is your head hurting anywhere?"

"Thank you for the concern, Izu-chan, but I am completely fine!" To show off his supposed invulnerability to brain damage, Nendo taps the helmet's thoroughly abused shell. "Your helmet has some pretty hefty Defense and HP! I don't even remember how many times my staff crashed into it, and it's still in one piece. Guess all that dust that was gathering where I found it buffed its stats-"

The sound of plastic snapping interrupts Nendo, followed by a crack forming at where Nendo has tapped the helmet. The crack extends vertically and goes all the way to the back… before the familiar wavy strands of Nendo's unwanted afro come into view as the helmet breaks off in half.

Izuku, expecting something like this to happen given the sheer abuse the helmet went through, simply snaps his fingers. "Called it."

Nendo, though, is nowhere near as relaxed. In fact, with a gaping mouth, shaking hands and eyes blown wide open, it is made clear that destroying his friend's possession brought upon him extreme distress. "Oh shit, SHIT! Izu-chan, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to break it, I- uh, just point me at the nearest helmet shop, I'll go right away!"

"N-No no, you don't have to! That thing was pretty old to begin with. Hell, I didn't even remember it existed until today." Izuku is quick to stop the apologetic Nendo from running out of their home to buy a new helmet with the money he doesn't have. Though, the green-haired teen appreciated the thought. "And besides, if I want a new helmet I can always order one online."

Instantaneously, Nendo's remorse and regret transform into the purest confusion. "Order… online?"

"Why do you sound so unsure?"

"Order online. Ordering things… online. That's a thing you can do?"

Izuku gawks at Nendo in stark disbelief of what he just heard. If the phrase 'are you for real' is to be converted into a look that someone can physically pull off, Izuku's face would be wearing it right now. "Nen-chan. What do you mean by that?"

"Huh? I mean exactly what I said. I didn't know you can order things online!" Came Nendo's innocent reply.

"Do you know what the internet is?"

"Of course I do!" Nendo snaps at Izuku, though the tone of voice and speed of response makes him sound more insecure than angry. "I just… don't use it a lot. Or at all."

Izuku's mind is officially blown. What kind of person living in this century, this time and age, doesn't use the internet? And it's not like Nendo hails from a countryside lightyears away from modern civilization either, so he doesn't even have the excuse of having the technological blindness passed down from family members.

"Wait wait, so you don't use the internet. How do you get your console and your games?"

"Eh, Dad bought them for me. I have to stay behind to guard the shop, so I don't even know where he got them from."

"Okay… how do you refill your stocks then? I haven't run a shop before, but I definitely know that that kind of stuff needs to be ordered!"

"Ah, that. Well, Uncle Ushio and Uncle Yoshino handled that for me after Dad died. I remember Dad owning a laptop that, I think, he ordered goods with…" He trails off, reminiscing the memories with a wistful smile. "But I was too busy screwing around with my Quirk to ask him about that, though."

"Then what do you use your phone for?"

"Erm… calling and taking pictures, mostly?"

"What year were you even born?" Asked an exasperated Izuku, rubbing his eyes in sheer disbelief.

"Well, I'm a year older than you, so we're not that far away." Replies a blissfully ignorant Nendo, missing the point.

Izuku facepalms, a totally justified reaction after receiving such… understandable, yet asinine reasons. Not only did the circumstances actively seem to prevent Nendo from learning about the world wide web, Nendo himself isn't even bothered about such a glaring lack of crucial knowledge. And he doesn't even have the excuse of being old and senile.

And that is something Izuku will not stand for. As Nendo's friend and closest confidant, it is his responsibility to make sure the future 'Greatest Wizard of All Time' has at least a cursory grasp on how to use a computer and a smartphone.

"Nen-chan, come on." Feeling himself becoming less of Nendo's friend and more like his caretaker, Izuku lets loose an old man's sigh and walks over to his table where his mid-end PC resides. "You have a lot to learn. And I'm willing to teach, so you better thank me."

"Ooh! Is this going to raise my Intelligence stat?" Replies an excited Nendo, already eager to learn more about the wonderful things this internet can offer him, as well as the secrets of his phone that have gone unexplored for years.

Izuku takes a pause, before smiling in the most wooden fashion possible as he boots up the computer. "Yes. It will. Massively."

"Hell yeah! Let's go!"

-One intensive, high-speed technology course later…

"Okay, so we covered search engines, social media, online stores, game websites, wikis, photoshop tools, translation softwares and…" Izuku lists off a meticulous list of the various sights Nendo could visit in his notebook, crossing off the names of various online services and softwares with a red pen. "I think that's it! How was it, Nen-chan?"

Hearing no response after five whole seconds have passed, Izuku turns around. "Nen-chan?"

Nendo is longer standing behind him. Instead, he is floating about half a meter above Izuku's head, having ascended into a higher plane of existence upon achieving intellectual enlightenment…

And with the help of two bricks under his feet. "My eyes… have been opened." He speaks with an overly deepened voice, his position remaining static in the air. "My mind has been touched by the formless entities whose incorporeal existences permeate throughout the vast and unnatural plains of Internet. I have been reborn, as-!"

Dissolving the levitating bricks, Nendo makes his dramatic landing complete with a screen of imaginary dust. As soon as the dust settles… he strikes a pose, turning to Izuku with his lips pursed, his cheeks sucked in and his shining gray eyes fixed to his best friend's emerald greens. "Yosuke Nendo, greatest wizard AND internet connoisseur!"

Truly, it is a pose that would make even the most accomplished of supermodels keel over to bask in his glory. But to Izuku, it only seems like Nendo is trying way too hard at making a duck face. Regardless, he laughs. "Says the guy who literally didn't even know what a search engine was twenty minutes ago."

"Screw you! I'm still right, am I? It's an engine that you use to search for things, and you can't convince me otherwise!" Nendo retorts with fiery conviction in his definition of the word, which only succeeds in making Izuku's laughter grow.

"Yes yes, you're absolutely right. I'm sorry for following the official Japanese dictionary written by people who study our language for a living." Said Izuku once he manages to stop laughing, utterly lackadaisical in his attempt to placate Nendo's immature anger.

Nendo, being Nendo, grins as the sarcasm in Izuku's statement completely flies over his head. "Great! Also…" Edging his face closer to the monitor, Nendo scans through the multitude of multicolored icons and tabs, before landing his eyes upon a select few. "You play games here too, Izu-chan?"

"Yeah… not always though, and even less now that I'm busy with training myself to use my Quirk. You can borrow my computer if you want! Heroes of Valor 3 just got released this year, and it's pretty good." Izuku, the biggest fanboy of heroes this side of Japan, would obviously be interested in a fighting game whose roster consists of his favorites.

"They made a third game already? Dude, it's so easy it's not even fun! All Might's easily the most powerful character in the entire cast; fantastic specials, solid mix-ups, good normals that you can chain combos with by just mashing buttons and a big hitbox that means he has the longest reach out of all the roster… All Might's literally immune to power creep! Just pick him and congrats, you win the game, and god help the poor bastard running anyone against a half-decent All Might player." Nendo launches a tirade against the Heroes of Valor trilogy and the developers' blatant favoritism towards All Might, conveying his every argument with passionate fervor.

He stops, however, once he realizes that blank look on Izuku's face that signifies the greenette's brain loading up information at the pace of a snail. "Anyway, I'll pass. I'm more of a console-and-controller kind of guy."

That last one is easier for Izuku to process. "Console-and-controller, huh?" His analytical eyes then peek at Nendo's hands. It is a very minute detail that most people would miss, but he could see that along the aspiring wizard's fingers lie the slight marks and thin calluses that only a true console gamer could have from clutching a controller day in, day out. "I can tell. Maybe you use my computer to buy some new games for your console?"

"I can do that?!" Nendo exclaims gleefully, before clearing his throat with a very theatrical 'ahem' upon realizing the stupidity in his words. "I mean, I can! But where?"

"Easy! I found this website called Vapor, and it has all sorts of games on sale for both PC and console." Tapping the keyboard a few times, Izuku types in the URL and opens up a black-and-gray interface with an icon that looks like a rod connected to a crankshaft, like what steam-powered trains have, and a relatively simple layout that brings attention to the most important part: the games themselves. "Here it is."

"Woah…" Nendo's eyes dart from one game cover to another, wholly entranced and in awe. "Cool."

"So, what console do you have? I heard you talk a lot about it, but I never actually saw the thing itself. "

For the first time in his life, a question related to video games has him stumped. It's not so much that he is afraid to answer as he is genuinely having no idea what to say that would make sense, and that is because the console his dad has given him doesn't look anything like the mainstream ones; in fact, it is probably one-of-the-kind: a unique but rather ugly-looking hybrid between a regular console of indeterminate brand and what looks like a pop-up toaster, allowing him to run both modern games on disc and the antique ones on cartridge. When asked about what kind of console it is, his adoptive father only had one thing to say:

"I got it from a guy I know."

As hard as he tried, Nendo could never track down who this guy that Dad knows is, nor could he come up with a proper name for the combiner mecha of a console he owns. But he does know one thing for sure, and that is that the guy is a goddamn genius. Wherever the guy is right now, Nendo hopes he is doing well for himself as an inventor and innovator of game console design.

However, he still has Izuku's question to reply to. So, Nendo goes with the one that will solve his problem instantly. "Yes."

"...Yes?" Understandably enough, the vague response confuses Izuku.

"Yes. Anything goes."

"Your console accepts ALL games?"

"Yep."

"Huh… okay." Normally, the inquisitive streak inside Izuku would have flared up and driven him to pursue a proper answer to the ends of the earth. But, since he is dealing with Nendo, the green-haired teen deemed simply accepting the things his friend said instead of disputing them is far easier on his mental health.

Clicking on his mouse a couple more times, Izuku then stands up from his chair. "Alright, here's the complete list of games released this year. Take a look for yourself!" With a flair of his hands, Izuku makes an inviting gesture towards Nendo.

"Don't mind if I do!" Sliding past Izuku and hopping into the chair with all the grace of a smoothened rock, Nendo takes control of the mouse and starts scrolling up and down. As much as Nendo adores video games, a lot of these didn't actually entice him. Some are too boring for his tastes, like job simulators and real-time strategies. Others are too much for him, like horror games whose covers alone are enough to make his palms sweaty.

Eventually, Nendo reaches the section where RPGs and open-world sandboxes lie, and his enthusiasm immediately spikes. But then, it dissolves just as quickly when he realizes that none of these titles have the right amount of substance in their plots that he desires, judging from what the description said. "Man, nothing seems to be clicking with me!"

"Are they that bad?" Izuku peeks his head over Nendo's shoulder, looking at the list from top to bottom.

"Oh, no, they're not bad bad! It's more like, I just don't feel a connection to any of these games. I'm sure they'll give me some hours of fun… but they just don't awaken the passion inside me."

"Passion?"

"Yeah! The stuff that keeps you coming back to a game. These look cool and all, but I think I'll just drop them after a single playthrough. Classics like Arcane Quest, though? I can be sleeping and my hands would still crawl towards the controller if Arcane Quest is booted up!"

"Knowing how much you like that game, I won't even be surprised if something like that happens." Izuku chortles at Nendo's excitable tone, before looking at the list again. While he isn't as savvy as Nendo when it comes to video games, Izuku does have one thing over his friend: a good eye for details and an excellent memory.

And it is also what helps him to, unwittingly, unearth the treasure that Nendo did not even know he desires. Catching a glimpse of just the top half of the cover and recognizing the logo, Izuku takes control of the mouse and scrolls down. "Hey, look at this! Arcane Quest 2, how about that? Sounds right up your alley?" He nudges Nendo, flicking his eyebrows with a smug grin that he rarely, if ever, gets the chance to use with anybody else. "You know, I'm surprised there's a sequel after so long. What was it, eleven years since the first?"

As Izuku's words leave his mouth, they enter Nendo's ears, bounce around the inner canals before sinking into his eardrums and transfer the information up to his brain. In the time it takes for the acoustic vibrations to jostle his neurons, everything seems to stop moving for Nendo. His hands slacken. His tongue feels as dry as a strip of sandpaper under the sun. Every pore of his skin tightens, and every hair on his body stands on end from shock.

And then, his eyes dilate as his mind dissociates from reality.

"Uh… Nen-chan? Earth to Nen-chan! Hello?" Izuku waves a hand in front of Nendo who appears to have been rendered catatonic by the revelation of Arcane Quest having a sequel eleven years after its initial release. He expects the number one fan of Arcane Quest in the entire country to be screaming his lungs off, bouncing off the walls and running through Musutafu announcing the existence of a sequel for the whole city to know, not giving his best impression of a granite statue.

If he has the monetary means to do so, Izuku is sure Nendo would have the logo of Arcane Quest tattooed across his chest too.

After what seems like ages, Nendo finally opens his mouth to say something. "Ah."

"Ah?" Izuku, confused, repeats what he said.

"A-A-A-A-A-Ah." Came the incoherent response.

"Nen-chan, are you alright-"

"ARCANE!" Nendo suddenly breaks out of his stupor and squeals, the volume of his voice easily putting a banshee to shame as he grabs Izuku by the shoulders, lifts him off the chair and pulls him in close. "QUEST!"

"TWOOOOOOOO!" Screaming the word as if it is his war cry, Nendo shakes Izuku back and forth with such intensity that the green-haired boy becomes a blur, creating multiple afterimages with varying expressions ranging from surprise to just eye-swirling dizziness from having his brain subjected to a round of pinball inside his skull.

"ARCANE QUEST 2!" If Izuku's ears have not yet been thoroughly violated, they certainly are now thanks to Nendo screaming at point-blank from his face.

"Y-Yay?"

"Arcane Quest." Nendo's voice, for a second, quiets down… "TWO!" Before the volume kicks from zero to a billion again.

"Erm… yay?"

"YES! YAY! IT'S REAL, IZU-CHAN! IT'S REAL!" Letting go of the stunned Izuku, Nendo nearly falls flat on his face stumbling back to the chair and stares at the monitor with a gaze that reflects an almost ineffable euphoria. "When did it even come out?! And how did I not know?!"

His excitement reaching feverish levels, Nendo clicks on the cover of Arcane Quest 2 to get a more comprehensive reading. "Two months ago?! You're telling me I've gone through the past two months without even knowing Arcane Quest has a sequel? How can I even call myself a fan?!"

"Weren't you still incarcerated two months ago? I don't imagine the wardens letting you guys know anything about the outside world." As always, Nendo's obliviousness to his own circumstances at times forces Izuku to act as the straight man.

"Oh right. But nevermind that!" Resolutely, Nendo brings his hands down on the table with a slam to show just how serious he is of this matter. If the narrowed eyes and defined cheekbones are anything to go by… very serious. "We need to know if it's still available for purchase!"

Scrolling down, the two of them see that Arcane Quest 2 is, much to Nendo's exhilaration, still on sale. "IT IS! BUY! BUY BUY BUY NOW HURRY BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES!" His mouth running off at a rapid pace, Nendo's hand snaps the cursor towards the icon labeled 'Add To Cart'. Before he could bring his finger down on the left mouse button with the force of a thousand suns, however, Izuku blocks it with a finger of his own.

"Nen-chan, I get that you're excited, but this is MY account! If you're going to buy anything, it's straight from my pocket!" Said Izuku, struggling furiously to keep Nendo's finger from touching the mouse button. "And I don't have that money!"

"I need it, Izuku! My life depends on it! I NEED IT!" Nendo, tragically overtaken by his addiction to Arcane Quest, lashes out like a rabid animal against his friend in their intense match of finger jousting.

"You… need to… fight it!" Izuku pushes upward, eyebrows scrunched together.

"I can't!"

"Think of… our friendship!"

"I am! That's why, as your longtime friend, I'm asking you to do me a favor! C'mon, buddy!"

"I don't… have… the money!"

"It's Arcane Quest! According to my sources, it's only ever released in Japan AND the playerbase is less than 200! How expensive could it be?"

Then, in the middle of their finger-only scuffle, Nendo brushes the scroll wheel by accident thus moving the page down by a smidgen…

A smidgen too much, revealing the price of Arcane Quest's long-awaited sequel.

"Six thousand-" Nendo starts.

"Five hundred-" Izuku continues.

"Yen?" And they both finish together.

Staring at the number that seems insurmountably gigantic to any teenager not holding down a proper job (or not anymore in his case), Nendo feels his world, his fantasies and thoughts of being able to continue the adventure that was left on a 'To Be Continued' back in the first game, all shatter to thousands of shards, crushed to millions of pieces and disintegrate into billions of atoms.

Izuku, having first-hand experience of how much Arcane Quest meant to Nendo, could tell that he was devastated. What he didn't prepare himself for, however, is Nendo looking up at him with a broken smile hiding repressed pain and that same tearful, dejected gaze that he sported so many years ago.

"Izu-chan… please." Nendo utters softly, his breathing uneven and shuddering. "Please tell me you can afford it. Please, Izu-chan, please…"

Izuku couldn't do much but shake his head sadly. "I…" He wanted to lie, oh how he wanted to lie to protect Nendo's feelings. But lying will only hurt his friend more when it all falls down, and Izuku could never hurt anyone he is so close to willingly. Reminding himself that Nendo would have done the same, he delivers the cold truth. "I can't. I'm sorry, Nen-chan, but I just don't have that kind of money on me. My allowance is next month, and even then… it's just 2000 yen."

Nendo says nothing as he stands up and walks away from the computer, picking up his staff on the way.

Coming to a halt at the center of their shared bedroom, what happens next is a scene straight out of a cheesy drama occurs as Nendo drops to his knees, his head pressing against the floor and his staff falling to the ground with a slow, dramatic thud. Then, raising his hands to the air while looking at the ceiling with agonized tears leaking from his eyes like twin waterfalls, he unleashes a skyward cry so full of grief, sorrow and suffering that even the most heartless of individuals will balk at.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

-Elsewhere, on grounds that none but spirits had tread before…

"Hmm?" Reiko Yanagi, disturbed by what she perceives as the anguished wail of a desolate soul denied of their utmost desire, opens her eyes. Looking to the left of her room, the ghostly maiden realizes that the incense sticks that she has just lit have stopped burning.

Clapping her hands together with a slow sigh, the wise sage of the spirit realm mutters a silent prayer. "Somewhere on this corporeal plane, there is a spirit crying out against the injustice performed against it. I could only hope they find deliverance from whatever it is that is the source of their torment."

-0-

"If f(x) equals 2x + 1 and g(x) equals 3x - 2, then what would the composite function be? Basic algebra like this should be fairly doable for your level, so I implore you all to try."

Usually, a math question like this would barely raise an eyebrow at a normal school. But U.A is anything but a normal school, which is why so many students were taken by surprise when their second day at school starts off with neither elaborate obstacle courses nor mock villain fights, but rather with normal, non-action classes where students sit down and spend the next hour or two staring at a whiteboard as the teacher drones on and on about whatever garden-variety subject that is marked on the curriculum. The reason for making superpowered youths study such mundane topics is simple: U.A may be responsible for training the next generation of heroes who will defend mankind, but it is still a school at the end of the day.

The main subject, Foundational Heroics, is promised to be much more exciting. But before any of the freshmen classes could get to that, they must first run the gauntlet of English (cue dramatic thunder!), modern literature (cue distant explosions!), mathematics (cue dark classical piano!) and Modern Hero Art History (cue sharp violin strings!)

And right now, the class of 1-B is being taught mathematics by the Pro Hero Ectoplasm. In contrast to his frightening appearance, the man is actually quite a noble soul whose only want is for his students to do their best.

But since this is mathematics, 'do their best' simply isn't something a bunch of teenagers with pent-up energy to spare could do. While some are diligently taking notes and solving the exercises given to them such as Ibara and Jurota, the majority of class is either dozing off, slacking off, a combination thereof or just looking at the board with a stare that indicates absolute nothing of substance is going on between their ears. It's not like Ectoplasm is a bad teacher either; making a subject as dry and tedious as math interesting is just plain unfeasible.

"Ugh, this is putting me to sleep…" Tetsutetsu groans out loud in his mind, resting his chin on his blank notebook with his eyes half-lidded. He has been in many middle-school brawls before, and not a single one of them has ever succeeded in dampening his fighting spirit… except every time he fights math. Mathematics has always proven to be his most challenging opponent, thanks to its fearsome ability to sap away his physical might to the point that even a mere pencil feels like a boulder in his hand. "I'm here to kick ass and take names, not crunch boring numbers dammit!"

"Ah, I know this one! I just need to multiply the two functions together." Thought Kinoko, writing down the solution in her notebook which already has its first two pages filled out with mathematical notions. A mind knowledgeable in mycology must also be well-versed in the battlefield of numbers, which is why unlike Tetsutetsu, the fungi expert has little trouble with slaying his hated adversary. "And done! I wonder how Nendo-kun is taking this subject?"

To answer her question, Nendo can be found sitting at his table with his back straight, his posture refined and firm, and his eyes facing forward… giving the board the most braindead gaze known to man. Some thought it was only a myth, but here Nendo is, being the first person in decades, perhaps centuries, to have no brain activity at all. Voluntarily.

"What the fuck am I looking at?" is Nendo's one of only two lines of thought as he lapses in and out of consciousness, his notebook having nothing but his name, the date and today's topic written down. Being a shopkeeper meant that while Nendo could perform equations concerning the four basic operations fairly quickly, his mind draws a total blank when it comes to more esoteric stuff like what is shown on board. "Why do we have to learn these?! Why can't it just be about addition and subtraction? HOW DOES THIS HELP ME BECOME THE GREATEST WIZARD?!"

The other line of thought is essentially Nendo imagining how fun it would be to play Arcane Quest 2. Hell, just thinking about it is enough to overcome him with the need to prostrate and lament to the heavens about the unfairness of life again. "No! Izu-chan spent all night trying to lift my spirits. If I'm back to being sad, that would be spitting in his efforts! Happy thoughts, Nendo! Happy thoughts!"

Veering his thoughts away from Arcane Quest for now, Nendo's mind turns to his favorite hero, the one person he deemed to be even more awesome than his late father, and most importantly, the secret target of his affection… Ryukyu, the Dragoon Hero. He still vividly remembers the day his twelve-year-old self saw her during the starting point of her career on television, her dragon form clashing against an equally towering villain. One minute and twenty seconds was how fast it took for him to become enamored with the heroine.

Oh, the lengths he has gone to just to beg Dad to buy him her merch back then, only for the man to firmly deny his requests on the basis that action figures and posters are something 'kids mess with for about a day then forget all about it', and that he would never waste money like that. No matter how many dishes he washed or how many customers he drew in, Jiro Nendo was a man of his word. So really, all Nendo has of Ryukyu is in his imagination.

His mood somehow taking a downturn again, Nendo shakes his head and thinks of the one positive that slightly dispels his 'without Arcane Quest 2' phase this morning: his staff, proudly standing up at a discreet corner of the classroom. What, just because his classmates look at him weird means he has to leave it or hide it? Ha! As if he would leave home or anywhere else from now on without his trusty staff.

This morning, he comes to U.A, fully prepared and ready to put up a fight against his own homeroom teacher if he has something to say about him bringing the staff along. He expects heated arguments and angry squabbles…

Only to be greeted with a nod and a thumbs-up from Vlad King.

As it turns out, the reason for his leniency is that if Nendo truly believes the staff could help him use his Quirk better, then he has no need to stop him. Even though the Blood Hero had a few disparaging comments to be made about the staff's appearance, he said that Nendo should be fine as long as the staff doesn't actually provide any unfair advantage to him and that he doesn't use it to whack people since that would have it categorized as a 'third-party weapon', which is inhibited under U.A rules.

Though for whatever reason, he overheard his homeroom teacher muttering something about 'a one-on-one session with Hound Dog' under his breath as he left. What did he mean by that?

"Man, Kan-sensei is such a cool guy. Maybe I could ask him to join my party? Nah, he's probably too busy… oh wait, maybe he's an important mentor NPC meant to teach me a special skill later on to advance the story mode!" Nendo thought to himself as he daydreams, numbers and equations flying away from his head as he puts on the RPG-tinted glasses again and looks at life like a turn-based RPG. "Man, imagine if I can get Ryukyu as a summon… I'd die the happiest man alive! A dragon summon that would deal massive group damage AND applies Fear to surviving enemies!"

After math class comes the rest, and opinions on which of them is the least boring are mixed at best. Cementoss is in charge of modern literature, and unlike Ectoplasm, he actually manages to bore even the more academically-inclined members of the class. English with Present Mic turns out to be quite exciting even if it is just modern literature but in a foreign language; no doubt thanks to the Pro Hero's hype-building skills making things more interesting than they actually are. In the end, it is Midnight's class that provokes the most enthusiastic reaction from the class, particularly the male population, though most likely for completely different reasons considering how much the R-rated Hero likes to intersperse her sentences with innuendos and flaunt her body around.

At long last, lunchtime comes. As students burst out of classes like bees from a broken hive, Nendo meets up with Kinoko and Tetsutetsu again. The trio quickly exchanged greetings before heading towards the cafeteria, chatting all the way.

"You know, I never imagined Pro Heroes would take the time out from the day to teach us. I thought they would much rather be out there, fighting villains." Noted Kinoko, walking between her two male friends with her hands clasped behind her back.

"Maybe they're all washed up and needed to keep food on the table? I'll be honest, I've never heard of half the Pros around here." Tetsutetsu, as blunt as the kind of physical trauma he specializes in, offers his theory.

Unfortunately, his hypothesis only makes Nendo laugh and Kinoko shake her head. "What?"

Nendo smirks. "You call All Might washed-up?" The knowledge that only he and Izuku are privy to appears to be unheard of Kinoko and Tetsutetsu, given how wide their eyes go in the span of a second.

"Wait, what?! All Might, like THE All Might, is teaching here?!" Exclaimed the metal-skinned teen, unable to contain his sheer astonishment. "ALL MIGHT IS TEACHING HERE?!" He then repeats All Might's name a second time, only a hundred times louder in order to confirm if what he just heard is true.

"W-Wow… to think, All Might of all people is here." Kinoko lets out a breathless gasp, placing a hand on her chest. "I feel like we're undeserving to be around him somehow. But maybe that's just me talking. I'm sure he's a fair person underneath all that glitz."

Nendo, after unveiling the revelation to his friends, looks down on his sneakers in deep introspection. Millions of thoughts swirl inside his mind like walls of storms surrounding an eye, with his brain performing extremely advanced, complicated and high-level thinking that the most brilliant minds of this century could only dream of. Once done contemplating, Nendo looks up with an inspired look in his eyes. "I realized something, guys."

"Hmm?" Both Kinoko and Tetsutetsu turn to look at him.

"If someone as popular and well-known as All Might could spare the time to be here, then by definition, others who are less so could teach here as well, right?" Receiving slight nods from his friends, Nendo continues, his voice growing deeper and deeper and his vocabulary becoming more dramatic with every word pronounced. "So according to my theory… it is entirely possible for the Dragoon Hero, Ryukyu, to make an appearance here! So where the hell is she?!"

With how serious Nendo sounds, Tetsutetsu and Kinoko half-expected the wannabe wizard to make a revolutionary observation that will forever change the way they see society, from the subtle but palpable elitism of Quirks and the indistinct discrimination against the Quirkless masses, to the problem of the expanded definition of what is and isn't illegal being partially responsible for the increase in number of villains each year. But instead, they hear the rantings of an indignant fanboy.

"Um…" Feeling more than a little bit confused, Kinoko raises her hand. "Context?"

"It's all very simple, Kino-chan!" Nendo replies to her question with a smile and the nickname he has bestowed upon her, prompting Kinoko to blush vibrantly and Tetsutetsu to raise an eyebrow looking back and forth at the two. "There are three things in this world I love more than anything else, and those are Arcane Quest, my friends, and last but certainly not least… Ryukyu!"

"May I ask why?" She inquires, partly out of curiosity as Nendo has never mentioned this apparent fondness towards the famed dracomorphic heroine, and mainly because of an odd feeling. Kinoko hasn't a word for it, but something about how borderline worshipful Nendo is towards Ryukyu (who, from the pictures she has seen, is a very beautiful woman) that irks her on a deeper level. It's not quite jealousy, as that implies Nendo is already hers to begin with, but it isn't envy either, as that implies he belongs to the Dragoon Hero in both body and spirit. To put it in a concise way, it's… an unspecified feeling of possessiveness towards her friend.

"Because she turns into a literal dragon, Kino-chan! I mean, how awesome is that?! Yeah, she doesn't breathe fire, but she's already so cool even as a human that if she gets any cooler, she's gonna explode!" With passion and with zeal that have only been seen when Arcane Quest is involved, Nendo goes on to give a verbal essay about how through his eyes, Ryukyu is a goddess descending from the higher realm to bring forth righteous justice upon the villainous sinners. "She's an actual, real-life weredragon! Her body may be human, but her spirit and blood is that of a noble dragon! Oh, and did I mention she's cool as all hell?"

"Yes. You did." Kinoko said with a snap, her usually melancholic temperament being pushed to its limits simply by the virtue of Nendo talking so much about another woman. "Multiple times."

Tetsutetsu, despite being the most hot-headed one of the trio, isn't nearly as irritated. If anything, the venturesome teen actually seems smug. "You sure talk a lot 'bout her. Got a crush?" Anticipating a red-faced Nendo to deny his accusation, followed by plenty of stutters, Tetsutetsu breaks into a series of chuckles-

Only to be swiftly silenced when Nendo starts laughing. "Oh, absolutely! It was love at first sight, I tell you! The way she just laid waste to any villain stupid enough to fight her directly and strikes terror in their hearts as she takes off with those majestic wings… oooh, man." He said, performing a pirouette and switching his tone from 'infatuated admirer' to 'lovestruck casanova'. "Actually, that's one of the reasons why I want to become a wizard. By becoming the greatest wizard of this century, Ryukyu will be impressed by my prowess and no longer see me as a child needing to be rescued, but as an equal! And once I've earned the respect of a dragon, it won't be long until that respect grows into friendship, and friendship with nurture blossoms into love!"

Cradling his own cheeks, Nendo gazes dreamily into the nothingness of air. "God, I wish her dragon form would step on me."

"What?" Asked Kinoko, snapping out of her not-jealous thoughts to give him a flat stare that shows how utterly, incomprehensibly and beyond-the-understanding-of-science baffled she is by Nendo's absurd statement.

"What?" Tetsutetsu likewise shares the sentiment, squinting at Nendo with a face that either suggests skepticism or that he just ate something odd.

"You heard me! Ryukyu is the best!" In a show of blatant refusal to elaborate any further, Nendo merrily power-walks ahead, laughing all the way. Kinoko still looks blindsided and Tetsutetsu is still wondering why and how getting stepped on like a rug could possibly be pleasurable in any way, before they both shrug, file the whole thing under a section in their minds titled simply as 'Nendo' before speeding up to match his pace.

Arriving at the already-crowded cafeteria, the trio squeeze their way through the horde of students who, like them, are enticed by the promise of delectable delicacies done dirt cheap. If the satisfied expressions of those who have already received their meals are anything to go by, the chef (appropriately named Lunch Rush) easily delivers that promise.

After each of the party members have acquired a tray filled with their respective food of choice, the wizard, the witch and the fighter begin walking around the vast ground of the dining hall in search of the one thing that will allow them to finish the 'Lunchtime Litany' questline: a table with spare seats.

"Guys, look over there!" Pointing his staff at a table occupied by nobody but a familiar pale face with dead eyes and snow-white hair playing around with what seems like a bowl of vegetable soup, Nendo happily exclaims for the party to know. "It's Yanagi-san, the wise sage of the spirit realm! I haven't even thanked her for giving me the staff!"

"Who, the creepy chick who pranked us last time?" Tetsutetsu makes no attempt to hide his prejudice against Reiko, her cryptic way of talking and abstruse manners being the polar opposite to his forward nature and one-track mind.

Kinoko, while not outright disdainful, isn't exactly pleased to see the girl again either. Not only is she indirectly responsible for exacerbating Nendo's delusions by leading him to that staff, but she had also put all three of them through all that trouble just for said staff yesterday.

Nendo doesn't seem to share his friends' frankly-justified hostility towards Reiko as he confidently marches over and plops his tray down on the table, before flashing the pale young woman a charming smile. "Hi, Yanagi-san! What a nice day it is today, eh?"

Well, as charming as a guy with a botched perm-turned-afro holding a malformed fusion of various objects conceived from the mind of a madman that he calls a staff can be. Luckily, Reiko does not seem to mind such superficial details. "Greetings again, Yosuke Nendo and friends. I had a feeling our next meeting would not be far. It appears that I was right."

Before Nendo could reply, Tetsutetsu butts in and takes a seat to the brickmancer's right. "Oi! You pulled a fast one on us yesterday! That's real uncool, you know that?" To further show Reiko how miffed he was, he gently places his tray down… before whipping out the inox spoon and using it to skewer a stack of burger steaks. Bringing the entire stack up to his mouth, Tetsutetsu takes one big, sharp-toothed bite out of it, glaring at her the entire time. "I ain't gonna sugarcoat it. The next time ya pull another stunt like this, I'm gonna… ooh, I'm gonna give ya a taste of your own medicine!"

Most would have been disgusted with table etiquette as brazen as that. Reiko, on the other hand, merely regards Tetsutetsu's thinly-veiled threat with an inhumanly blank stare. "If it helps soothe your anger, then allow me to say that mischief was not my intention at all. Whatever misfortune that has fallen upon you and others are all products of ill luck and unfortunate coincidence. That being said, I am still at fault for providing the impetus that ultimately resulted in your suffering and distress. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, you have my utmost regrets." And with that, she bows.

Assaulted with a string of words that would be an outright Sisyphean task for him to simplify even with the help of a thesaurus, Tetsutetsu turns to the smartest person he knows. "Yo, Komori! What is she saying?"

Sighing, Kinoko sits down next to Nendo's left before picking up a pair of chopsticks and putting a sauteed portobello into her mouth. "She's just saying that she's sorry."

"Oh! Well, if you're honest 'bout it… apology-!" Tetsutetsu, formerly so antagonistic towards Reiko, is now giving her a toothy grin. "Accepted. But ya better not do it again or I'm gonna stomp ya!"

Reiko nods at him, before her attention returns at full force towards Nendo who is busy carving away at his meal of choice, a mountain of gyudon about half a meter tall. Looking at the staff in his right hand, her full lips twist into a ghost of a smile. "I see you have found the treasure at the end of the quest."

"Hmm? Oh yeah!" Nendo looks at her with a mouthful of rice and beef before chewing faster and swallowing all of it in one gulp. Then, inhaling deeply… "I forgot to say thanks, so thanks a lot, Yanagi-san! Without you, I would never have discovered the next path to my destiny of becoming the greatest wizard! Even when I've become great and powerful, I'll never forget what you have done for me, ever! You'll always have a special place in my heart!" His soul boiling with excitement and vigor as his speech grows more and more impassioned, he takes Reiko's hands and holds them up with both of his own.

Even though the meaning behind Nendo's words is innocent enough, if a little intense, the fact that their hands are touching and his gray eyes that twinkle with sincere emotions are staring straight at her face is more than enough to convince the students walking (very, very slowly) past their table that a passionate love confession is in progress. A suggestive whistle from someone out of sight only serves as the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae.

Remarkably enough, Reiko remains calm if only thanks to her mastery in maintaining a poker face, an ancient art that is notorious for being easy to learn but difficult to truly grasp. Unfortunately however, even though she is highly proficient…

She is not yet a master. Which is why, despite her best efforts, the barest hint of pink shows up on the pale skin of her cheeks.

"You need not go to such lengths to show your gratitude. Like I have said during our first meeting, I guide others to a treasure I cannot possess. None of those who came before you could remove the staff, for it only accepts a true wizard among us." Her blush then vanishes as quickly as it has appeared. Taking back her hands from Nendo's grasp, Reiko's tie oddly feels tight, prompting her to loosen it a bit and exposing the ivory skin of her neck. "However, I would be committing an act of dishonesty if I were to say that I'm not glad to hear that you show great appreciation for those who have helped you. It is a virtuous quality, Yosuke Nendo. Do not change, for it may just reward you one day."

"Aww, I'm not that great really! Well, except in the magic department!" Nendo sheepishly fusses around with his wild hair, ignoring Tetsutetsu who is trying his damndest to fathom what Reiko just said and Kinoko who is staring at him with one unmoving eye, the spoon in her hand slowly getting folded in half. "Does this mean you still have quests for me to do?"

"Yes. Perhaps when I unearth another treasure that I cannot possess. Worry not, you shall be the first to know." Raising her hand, Reiko gives Nendo an 'OK' sign. Such a gesture would normally be interpreted as an unambiguous positive, but Reiko's face is so unerringly emotionless when doing it that it seems like she is saying 'good luck with that' to someone who is about to get the electric chair.

Luckily for her, one of Nendo's character abilities include a natural 75% resistance against sarcasm of both intentional and accidental type. "It's a promise!" Picking up his spoon again, Nendo goes right back to the momentous mission of demolishing the stupidly huge amount of gyudon on his tray.

Legend has it that a man once obliterated an entire mountain, with nothing but a spoon as his tool of destruction. Will Nendo be the first to replicate that feat?

Before the legend of Yosuke Nendo, world's greatest competitive eater can begin however, he suddenly drops his spoon. Looking up to the ceiling as if sensing something he couldn't possibly ignore, Nendo glances over his shoulder.

Sitting with his fellow classmates while geeking out about Lunch Rush's cooking skills, is the one and only Izuku Midoriya. Ochako sits next to his side, quietly listening to her new friend's fanatical ramblings with an awkward but kind smile. "My Izu-chan detector never fails!"

Despite having no athletic skills aside from being able to run slightly faster than an average person, not only does Nendo somehow backflips out of his chair, but he also manages to execute the landing with near-flawless technique and class. "Excuse me guys, but I gotta go meet up with someone real quick!" Giving his friends a grin and a wave, Nendo adopts a crouch start. Exactly one second later, he takes off to meet up with his favorite totally-platonic couple. "Uraraka-san!" He calls out their names with a sing-song tone, his arms flailing like an inflatable tube man. "IZU-CHAN~!"

As Izuku and Ochako both turn to look at the excitable child in a teen's body that is Nendo rapidly approaching them, the latter having a surprised smile and the former having a gasp of horror and mortification, Kinoko uses his absence to get some much-needed answers. "Yanagi-san," She starts, leaning forwards with both hands on the table in an attempt to make herself look taller and therefore, more intimidating. "When you're giving Nendo-kun his quest, you're not actually being serious about the whole thing… are you?" She asks, half-hopeful and half-suspicious.

To be honest, her suspicion doesn't have a lot of legs to stand on, but she is fairly sure that the legs it does have make sense. First, Reiko had popped out of nowhere the moment Nendo mentioned the need for a staff. Second, the map had her signature verbosity written all over it. And third is simply Kinoko's guts telling her that something was amiss from how oddly focused Reiko was towards Nendo, talking and referring almost exclusively to him.

In conclusion, all of them point towards her main theory: Reiko Yanagi must have planned the entire quest from the get-go. And now, she hopes the pale maiden will grant her the answer.

The tiniest of smirks form at the corner of Reiko's lips upon hearing 'Nendo-kun', before it fades away as ethereally as the ghosts she loved to read about. "Yes. I may have unrealistic beliefs in the supernatural and take pleasure in reading horror fiction, but I am not afflicted with schizophrenia of any type." She said, completely unperturbed even as she witnessed the sight of Nendo getting tackled to the ground by Monoma just seconds before he reaches 1-A's table happening right behind her interrogator's back.

Kinoko was taken aback, not expecting Reiko to be so forthcoming about it. She had thought Reiko would at least dance around with words for a half-hour before confessing - well, technically she is dancing around with words given her way of talking, but still. "Oh. Erm, o-okay. Then why? Why did you do it? You're not leading him on or anything, are you?" She asks another question, being so into her role that she is oblivious to Nendo and Monoma arguing in the background, with both 1-A and 1-B as the audience.

"It is nothing out of the ordinary, really. My father is a member of a non-profit committee that specializes in renovating and refurbishing public spaces. They have largely restored the park where the map has led you all to…" She trails off momentarily, eyes looking behind Kinoko to see Monoma resorting to copying Nendo's Quirk, allowing him to summon and throw bricks in an effort to drive him back, all while shouting something about 'no fraternizing with the enemy'. "Except for the staff in the tree. Why was it there? Nobody knows. How did it end up there? Not a soul. Who made it? A figure long lost to time was everyone's best deduction. But one thing was for certain: no one could remove the staff."

Even though she doesn't want to, Kinoko couldn't help but listen. As terribly idiosyncratic as Reiko is, she can be a captivating storyteller. So beguiled was Kinoko that in spite of Nendo causing a commotion behind her by calling Monoma, in a comically high-pitched voice, a 'heinous impostor' and waves his staff around to flex his superior experience with brick-based magic, before creating a small tornado of bricks around Monoma that quickly converges into a cocoon at the squeeze of a hand, trapping the blonde and immobilizing him. "And so… you decided that Nendo would be the one to pull it out?"

"It was a last resort. Many have tried their hand at removing the staff, and just as many have walked away with empty palms and bruised egos. Cutting the tree down simply wasn't an option. My father asked if I could do something with my ability and, for all of my effort, the staff did not accept me. So, when I heard Yosuke Nendo wanting his own staff as I walked home… I took my chances, and thus our story begins." Reiko finishes, recalling Nendo's zeal-filled speech about wizards and their staves while her eyes focus at a point ten meters behind Kinoko.

From what she could see, the self-titled wizard has returned to his previous good mood as he pat the seething Monoma on the head, winks him goodbye before skipping towards Midoriya and Uraraka, leaving Monoma to stew while Kendo, ever the responsible one, smacks him over the head before rolling the binded blonde back to 1-B's side. The uneasy glances 1-A collectively shoots at Nendo (except for Bakugo, whose default expression is a death glare) did very little to hamper his cheerfulness, the intensity of the handshake he gives to the green-haired teen and the volume at which he shouts his greeting at the brunette maiden. Reiko's scant smile returns for a second.

Kinoko stares at her, then blinks twice, then gulps and closes her eyes before finally releasing a breath she has been holding for twenty whole seconds. What is a sane human being supposed to even make of that story? "I… see." Nodding wordlessly at Reiko, Kinoko returns to her own seat in order to contemplate.

So, she can't pull the staff out. No problem with that, since Kinoko was never particularly physically strong anyway.

Tetsutetsu can't pull the staff out either. Again, no problem since there are things even his strength can't accomplish, like uprooting trees or wrestling with giant robots. Maybe the staff simply is just that stuck inside.

But for a stick stuck in a tree to make a whole group of people with clear access to power tools give up? That's when Kinoko's perception of reality gets seriously challenged. Just what kind of backwards logic is in effect here? She couldn't do it, Tetsutetsu (who is stronger than both her and Nendo) couldn't do it, goodness knows how many more have tried, and then suddenly Nendo waltzes up and pulls it out with minimal effort.

Rubbing her head, Kinoko shoves another stuffed shiitake into her mouth before her brain drives itself to the ground trying to make sense of it all. As the old adage goes, bliss is ignorance. Maybe it is for the best… to not think about it too much, except to acknowledge one thing:

Life has gotten a lot weirder ever since she met Nendo. But hey, if it meant being by his side, then this is the kind of weird she is more than willing to get used to.

-0-

"Everyone! I has just heard that All Might will teach Foundational Heroics!" Pony, one of the two foreigners of Class 1-B, announces in slightly choppy Japanese due to her mother tongue being explicitly English.

Though, it might have been better if she had delivered the news in English; with All Might being an internationally recognized icon and a shining beacon of heroism that practically everybody and their grandmother adore, just the disclosure of the fact that someone like him will be teaching here and passing down his experience and knowledge to them is more than enough to set off the powder keg of cheers and hollers. Even the less energetic members of the class are visibly pumped by the good news. The only exceptions to the rule are Yui, Reiko and Ibara who all keep a calm facade.

"All Might's gonna teach us?! NO WAY!"

"HOLY SHIT!"

"Awesome!"

"This is splendid news, my fellow classmates!"

"You think we can get his autograph? Like, more than once?"

The trio of Nendo, Kinoko and Tetsutetsu, already aware of the shocking revelation, simply nod at one another in mutual knowing. Deep down however, they are just as excited as the rest of the class at the prospect of being taught by the legendary Symbol of Peace.

After the initial excitement died down, all of Class 1-B united for a single purpose: impressing All Might with their appearance and discipline. Straightening out their ties, smoothening the wrinkles in their uniforms and sitting down in perfectly straight rows, the students of 1-B finished dolling up and began to stare at the clock mounted on the wall. Bondo is mysteriously absent from their attendance, but there isn't enough time to go searching for him.

With every movement the second hand makes, they inhale and exhale.

With every movement the minute hand makes, they gulp.

With every millimeter the hour hand makes, a drop of sweat rolls down their foreheads.

And then, after five whole minutes of waiting in complete silence, the clock finally strikes and Foundational Heroics class is now in session. Nearly all of 1-B exploded in glee as the door swings open and the Number One Hero, Vlad King walks in-

Wait, what?

Instead of the larger-than-life figure of All Might busting through the door and striking a pose, it is their homeroom teacher calmly walking towards his desk with a confident swagger and his perpetual frown on full display. Seeing the unadulterated joy in the eyes of his students fizzling out like a fire doused with an ice bucket, Sekijiro deflates a bit before shrugging it off. "If you are wondering why All Might isn't here, that is because he's currently teaching 1-A."

"But before you all start accusing him of favoritism, allow me to say that it is entirely out of his hand." The Blood Hero is quick to add an explanation, just in case his class of slack-jawed students transform into a raging crowd of fire-spewing students. "While All Might is the Foundational Heroics teacher, there's only one of him and plenty of classes to go around. Obviously he can't be everywhere at once, so he had asked the homeroom teacher of each class to alternate our schedules. That is, I'll teach you Heroics today, and then it'll be All Might next time. 1-A is the first in his schedule, so there's no getting around that. Hopefully, that clears things up!"

Listening to their homeroom teacher's explanation, most of the class quickly simmer down, even if they are all more than a tad disappointed that All Might couldn't make an appearance. A select few however, with Monoma being the most vocal, still think that they have just been done a grave injustice as they grumble in their seats.

"How come 1-A gets to be first?"

"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense! We're every bit as good as those posers!"

"Perhaps it is because 1-A is directly above us in the alphabetized list, ergo gaining All Might's attention first?" Despite not feeling any sort of envy for 1-A, Reiko decides to enter the conversation anyway just for the fun of it.

"Nepotism! I call nepotism!"

Unlike the rest of class, Nendo remains fairly happy and gleeful, passing his staff to and fro from hand to hand. Why? Because he knows exactly the reason All Might chooses 1-A first. "Izu-chan is his disciple, so of course he would go there first! It's nepotism alright - but it's the kind of nepotism I support! Take this opportunity to get stronger, Izuku!"

And besides, All Might is going to be here nonetheless, so no harm no foul.

"Why the long faces? I'm no All Might, but I still have more than enough know-how to whip all of you into shape!" Outstretching his arms, Sekijiro turns around and strikes a three-quarter back pose made famous by an Austrian bodybuilder, deeming it to be heroic-looking enough to start off the class as his imposing physique becomes hyper-defined. "Not to mention, isn't this what you all have been looking forward to all day? To learn what it means and what it takes to be a HERO?!"

1-B, so utterly drained and starved for excitement from having to endure the mind-numbingly boring classes beforehand, all respond to his question with a loud hooray. Vlad King may not be All Might, but he sure knows how to hype things up.

"But before we could get started, I have some unfortunate news!" Taking out his tablet, Sekijiro swipes at the screen before looking at the class again. "Kojiro Bondo is unable to attend this class, regrettably. Just two hours ago, he came down with a severe cold. While a cold is nothing but a pebble in the path of becoming a hero, I realize that every time he sneezes, glue goes all over the place. As this is a rather debilitating disadvantage, I had him sent home early. Worry not, he will take a special individual test once he comes back to make up for the class he missed, and his hero costume will also be mailed to his home."

The class listens in silence in respect for their missing comrade, with Ibara clasping her hands together and praying to the Lord above to bless Bondo with a speedy recovery… until the words 'hero costume' come along. In less than a second flat, the Blood Hero felt as if he was standing up to his chest in a pool of hungry piranhas as all eyes turned to him.

"Hero costume, Kan-sensei?" In a display of like-minded synchronization, the class asked their teacher in unison. Poor Bondo was swiftly forgotten.

His frown morphing into a proud smirk, Sekijiro's eyes look across the room to see that the previously disheartened faces of his students have all changed into heart-thumping anticipation. Crossing his arms again, Vlad King slowly walks over to the left side of the class. "That's right! I'm sure you have all heard the saying, 'clothes make the man'! If you want to be a hero that will inspire hope in the common folk and strike fear in the hearts of villains everywhere, you have to make sure they recognize you! If you want to do the part, you must look the part!"

Placing his hand on a seemingly nondescript part of the wall, Sekijiro presses a hidden button, causing the board and the wall behind it to recede into a secret compartment like a revolving door, revealing rows of metallic shelves carrying large boxes marked with a corresponding student's number. "Here are your very own hero costumes, designed based on your requests and Quirk registration forms and customized to fit with your individual abilities!"

The reaction of the class can only be described as something that will put even a battalion of diehard baseball fans when their favorite team scores a homerun to absolute shame. Shouts, hurrahs, clappings and happy roars fly through the air.

To further show just how infectious the joy is, it's enough to make the constantly-frowning Vlad King smile as he takes the boxes and hands them out to his student. "Gear up, take a moment to admire yourselves in the mirror, and then head to Training Ground Alpha! I look forward to seeing all of you no longer as students, but as heroes-in-training under my wing!"

More than eager to obey their teacher, everyone grabs their respective boxes and rushes out of the room, leaving only their teacher and… Nendo in the classroom.

"Nendo? What are you still doing here?" Vlad King asks, justifiably confused by Nendo's presence. Not only is the designated troublemaker (according to what Nezu told him, anyway) still sitting at his desk with his legs propped up, he is doing it with an immensely smug grin plastered on his face.

"Waiting for the others to finish dressing up, Kan-sensei! Then I'll go. You know what they say…" Nendo then stands up and strikes a pose with finger guns pointing at himself, his self-confidence reaching truly uncharted levels. "Always save the best for last!"

"As capable as you are, it would serve you well to know that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." Sekijiro lightly reprimands Nendo, before sighing. "Oh, and Nendo? A word about your costume."

Nendo turns to him with an eyebrow perked up. "What about it, Kan-sensei?"

"Well, you see, when U.A receives the admission sheet, they also send out a form for admittees to sketch in their own costume designs. This is usually done about a month before school starts." Stated Vlad King, walking around the now-emptied class with his hands behind his back. "But the thing is, we received your admission sheet literally a day before the entrance exam. It's too late to send out another form, so all the costume department has to work with is the extra information you provided in the sheet. I'm saying this because I'm not sure if they have enough time, or detail, to make your costume the way you liked. Don't be too upset, alright?"

Nendo nods at his teacher's words, before giving the older man a kind smile. "Why would I be upset, Kan-sensei? I mean, it's my fault for being so late with the form. Blaming other people for something you're responsible for is kind of a jerk move, so whatever my costume ended up looking like, I'll wear it! Somebody put their heart and soul into making it for me after all; not wearing it feels like I'm spitting all over their effort!" Grabbing his box, Nendo makes his way out of class, but not without one last thing to say.

"Besides, all I ask for is to look like a wizard! How hard could that be?" Then, he scampers off like a spirited three-year-old, tee-hee-heeing all the while.

Vlad King, not expecting Nendo to be taking it in stride, couldn't resist an impressed chuckle. So far, the teen has shown to be nothing but respectful, supportive and kind to his teachers and his classmates. Sure, he is a little arrogant, but given what he is capable of at the entrance exam, Sekijiro doesn't exactly blame him.

But that begs the question: how does a good kid like Nendo end up in juvenile detention, of all places?

Musing over this question, Sekijiro turns off the lights and heads towards the training ground.

-Ten minutes later, at Training Ground Alpha…

"Where is he? Everybody is waiting already!" A worried Kinoko asks nobody in particular, looking around the area for any possible sight of her friend. Not that it is hard to find him either, especially with that distinctive hairstyle of his.

And no, she doesn't find it ugly.

"Who knows?" Tetsutetsu shrugs, standing next to her and joining in the lookout for Nendo by squinting at the distance as hard as he physically can. "Wanna bet he's plannin' some sort of flashy entrance?"

Kinoko gives him a disapproving look for even suggesting that they bet on something inconsequential. "I'm sure he's just taking some time to prepare himself. I don't think he had ever imagined himself to be in this position, so wearing his own hero costume probably comes off as a huge moment for him."

A hearty laugh escapes Tetsutetsu as he wipes away an invisible tear. "What? Nah, our boy's probably been waiting his entire life for this moment! The costumes are based on our requests, right? So whaddya think his costume looks like?"

"A wizard's robe?"

"Yep. Like I said, he's either planning a, uh, dynamic intro… or he's kissing his new costume in the changing room right now."

"Huh…" Thinking about it, Kinoko realizes that Tetsutetsu's theory makes more sense. Oh, how could she ever call herself Nendo's friend now that she doesn't even know the most basic thing about him? "Okay, I'll bet."

"Really? Thought you were against it?"

"Well, I got nothing better to do than wait for him anyway." 'And I don't want to go through the rest of the day with the knowledge that you know him better than me', she wanted to add. "I'm willing to bet he's… kissing his costume."

"That's the spirit! How much?"

"1000 yen."

"Deal."

As soon as Kinoko and Tetsutetsu shake hands in agreement of mutually partaking in the most minor of bets, a dull, repeating sound reminiscent of something brittle hitting against the floor can be heard from the hollow tube-like entrance.

"Hey… does anybody hear that?" Juzo Honenuki, a soft-spoken teen whose Quirk allows him to liquefy any inorganic solids with a single touch, asks with a slightly muffled voice due to his full-face helmet.

As if in conjunction to his question, the sound grows louder. Then, just when it becomes loud enough for everybody to turn their heads toward the entrance, a single brick hops out from the shadow.

Another one follows it. And then another one. And then another one.

In no time at all, an entire company of bricks make themselves known. Unlike their usual style of flying around chaotically however, these bricks are clearly disciplined and trained given how they politely shoo any student standing in front of the entrance to the side. The entirety of Class 1-B, out of profound befuddlement than fear, wants no trouble with a bunch of bricks who may or may not be sentient and quickly makes way.

Once a sufficient amount of space is cleared, the bricks then place themselves piece-by-piece flat on the ground. As the last brick bravely laid itself down for its yet-to-be-seen master, it is revealed that the grand masterpiece at the end of the process is a mason's rendition of the red carpet, complete with a small ceremonial gate forming at the entrance.

"For thousands of years, I have laid dormant…" Comes a voice deepened to a silly degree from the obscuring shadows of the entrance, which for some reason doesn't seem to have any kind of internal lighting. "My powers, restrained. My mind, locked away from my body."

"But now…" The voice then makes a reverberating chuckle, before footsteps are heard. "I am free, at long last! Enemies of mankind shall witness their gore glisten in the soil, and the weak and the innocent shall rejoice, for the true wizard of the century's end…"

The footsteps keep growing louder, until it suddenly stops. Then, slowly and dramatically, a knee-high boot steps out from the darkness.

"HAS ARRIVED!"

Moving like a blur, Nendo bounces into the air before landing on both feet on his (brick) red carpet. Dusting off an invisible layer of dust on his shoulder, he raises his head, grins and stands up straight to let the whole class have a detailed view of his state-of-the-art costume.

With the restraint that is his school uniform no longer present to hold back his nonexistent magical powers, Nendo now sports a long, flowing vermilion coat that is patterned from head to tail with the recognizable one-over-two style that are often seen in brick walls, with its buttons done at the neck to give it some passing resemblance to a wizard's cloak while still maintaining the appearance of a superhero's cape. Under the coat is a gray vest composed of a classified fibrous material, stylized to look like a medieval-era tunic with a charcoal undershirt beneath. As for his lower garments, a combination of loose-fitting crimson pants and tall steel-capped boots the color of dark brown gracefully emphasizes both style and functionality. At least according to him.

Additional accessories such as red fingerless gloves, a standard-issue utility belt, straps with silver clasps around his boots and numerous gold studs decorating the coat's cuffs, sleeves and chest are also visible. However, the most noticeable of them all would have to be a hood of matching color and pattern to his coat, connected at and can be detached from the collar with a simple zipper. The hood is slightly slanted at the end so that it forms a V-shape over his head.

All of this, combined with his fashionably hunched posture and the hood being pulled over so that it obscures his eyes and his terrible hair, Nendo actually succeeds in looking cool for once. But of course, he just had to go and ruin the moment by turning around and extending a hand towards the darkened entrance, yelling "TO ME!" with the most theatrical voice this side of U.A.

In response to his command, his staff flies out from the shadows… very, very slowly. It is moving so slow that even Recovery Girl could outrun it. But Nendo has learned his lesson from yesterday, and decided that slower speeds would serve him well for now.

Eventually, after what seems like the time it takes for the universe to achieve heat death, the staff falls into Nendo's open hand. Twirling it around while strutting on his red 'carpet', the aspiring wizard then plants it to the ground and beams at his classmates with a shining smile. "Yosuke Nendo, wizard-in-training, at your service." To cap off his sentence, he winks, expecting his classmates to compliment and talk about how great he looks, with his teacher saying that he was like the son he never had, and that Ryukyu will see him on TV and fallen head over heels for him, and all will end with him being forever immortalized as the greatest wizard in the world!

In reality, though?

Sekijiro is shaking his head and rubbing his eyes, Nendo's antics giving him symptoms of a mental whiplash.

Kinoko is pouting as she begrudgingly hands over a pair of 500-yen coins to a triumphant Tetsutetsu.

And the rest of the class just stares at him in awkward silence. The sole exceptions are Setsuna, who is trying to contain a laugh, and Kendo who is the only person to give something akin to a positive reaction by clapping as enthusiastically as she can, but after seeing that nobody else is doing it, the redhead slows down before coming to a complete stop.

"Haha! They're so wowed by me that they can't even say anything! And thank you, Kendo-san, for the positive reception." Satisfied with his entrance, Nendo dissolves the bricks before joining the rest of class. Ironically enough, it is him who is effortlessly wowed by everybody's costumes.

"Woah, you look stylish as all hell!" He said to Monoma, having forgotten about their previous scuffle as he played with the blonde's coattails.

"Damn, your costume reminds me of those cool old shows with giant monsters and heroes!" He compliments Yui, to which the taciturn girl only replied with a curt nod.

"Dude! Very nice design." He shoots a pair of finger guns at Manga, to which the teen with the speech-bubble head replies with a thumbs-up.

Then, he stops before his two friends. Looking at them from top to bottom, his admiration turns into all-out awe. "You guys…" Clapping his hands together, several bricks spawn from thin air before gathering to form into the word 'AWESOME', in huge letters as he gives the two double thumbs-ups. "Look at you guys! You two look so cool right now!"

"R-Really? Thanks! I think you look good too." A sheepish Kinoko said, pulling down the dangerously short skirt of her fly agaric-inspired turtleneck dress that doesn't even reach the knees, exposing most of her creamy legs. Atop her head is a wide-brimmed hat shaped like a mushroom cap, granting her the appearance of a witch if there is a subclass that focuses exclusively on mycology.

"Hey, your threads ain't half bad either!" Tetsutetsu gives a shark-like grin as he pats Nendo on the shoulder, not even bothering to cover his mostly bare chest whose toned musculature is made very obvious to the teen wizard. Various pieces of metallic alloy cover his jumpsuited body, including the soles, heels, parts of his chest and the lower part of his face. Though considering the nature of his Quirk, it's not as if he needs all that armor anyway, so they are most likely there just to look nice.

"I know, right?! You guys have no idea how long I've been dreaming of looking like this one day! I thought they were just gonna give me a robe, but this? This is way, WAY better! When I opened the box, I swear, I never knew I could squeal like that." Nendo animatedly recalls his reaction upon seeing his hero costume for the first time, all alone in the changing room. "I think I even kissed the coat! Oh wait, I actually did kiss it."

Kinoko and Tetsutetsu stare at Nendo, wide-eyed. Then, with a devious smile directed at the steel-clad young man, Kinoko raises an open hand. "Split?"

"Fine…" He grumbles and groans, but decides to capitulate and drops 500 yen in her hand anyway. Kinoko quickly stuffs it into a hidden pocket under her skirt, gleeful over this small victory.

In the meantime, Nendo is still going on about how his costume is the next best thing that has happened to him. How could he stop? He has all the requirements to ascend from a mere magician to a full wizard: magical aptitude, a staff and now, the clothes to match. Just look at the rich, yet subtle orange-red coloring of his coat. The tasteful thickness of the synthetic fibers being used to make it.

Oh my goodness, it even has a hood.

Watching his students stretching and mucking about in their brand new costumes, Vlad King coughs into his balled fist before breaking into a short sprint towards where most of the class gather. "Now that you have all gotten used to your gear, shall we move on to the next order of business?" He booms, placing one hand on his hip. "The main activity of your very first class of Foundational Heroics?"

As all eyes bounce towards him once more, Sekijiro raises his hand and clenches it. "For those of you who have participated in the sparring match yesterday, this should be fairly familiar! For those who are not as fortunate, this will be one heck of an eye-opener! Regardless, it will be a valuable lesson!"

"As some of you may have already guessed by this point…" Pointing his fist at the vast expanses of the training ground filled with fake buildings with varying levels of structural damage simulated in a way that is accurate to life, Sekijiro roars. "We will be doing some old-fashioned indoor combat training! LET'S SEE WHAT YOU HEROES ARE REALLY MADE OUT OF!"

Like before, the students of Class 1-B are all motivated by their teacher's words. All… except for Nendo, surprisingly enough. Instead of pumping his fists in the air like most of class, he was crossing his arms and frowning in visible displeasure.

However, Sekijiro seems to have figured something out with just one look at Nendo. "Er, I mean, ahem!" Taking in a huge gust of air, he roars again. "LET'S SEE WHAT YOU HEROES ARE REALLY MADE OUT OF! AND YOU, WIZARD!" He points at Nendo, red eyes locking onto the shorter teen. "LET SEE IF YOUR MAGIC CAN STAND UP TO THE CHALLENGE!"

And just like that, Nendo is back to his usual happy mood, skipping and bumping hips with Kinoko and Tetsutetsu.

Sighing as he watches Nendo, the so-called delinquent, bouncing around as if he is nothing but an excitable child, the Blood Hero facepalms with a small smirk. "Oh, the things I do for my students…"

-0-

And that concludes Chapter 7. Considering that nothing particularly substantial to the plot happened, you might be thinking 'Wow, this is one long filler'. That is because this chapter originally wasn't meant to be filler. I was going to write out the battles, Nendo gaining a new party member as well as more details of Nendo's ongoing battle with untreated schizophrenia…

But then I looked at the word count and realized that if I write any more, reading this chapter will just become a chore. So I stopped, and left it on a cliffhanger again. I am truly sorry for my inability to stop writing everything with so much detail to the point of clogging up the word count, but I promise the next chapter will be juicier.

Other than that, I have not much else to say. Enjoy the character interactions in this chapter, I suppose, and thank you for the support you have shown this story. Like always, make sure to leave a review and let me know what you think so that I may acquire validation and thus transform it into more motivation for writing.

More to come, so stay tuned.