When they met in Principal Nedzu's office again the next day, after another uncomfortable day of school with the wrong homeroom teacher, they found that the desk had been pushed off to the side and that there were six chairs arranged in a circle inside.
"Don't worry, I talked him out of icebreakers," All Might muttered as they entered.
"That's right!" Nedzu exclaimed. "A much better description of today's activities would be role-casting!"
"I don't think I understand," Tsuyu said.
"You're going to start becoming your characters," Nedzu explained enthusiastically. "Since you're going to be commercialised and put everywhere, you all need to have simple and easy to understand personas that everyone can latch on to easily. Of course, we had it planned so that they correlated with your pre-existing personalities, as well as your role in the group." Pausing briefly to allow for questions, but being asked none, Nedzu gestured to All Might.
The hero began reading off of a notebook he had been holding. "Iida Tenya, you will be the leader. You should always be composed, have a plan, and follow the rules strictly. You will also be the one commanding everyone and giving orders, but you must remember that you aren't the main character and that everyone is of equal importance. Todoroki Shouto, you're going to be the stoic but powerful fighter. You shouldn't talk much and you should be quick and curt when you do, and you should always present yourself as cold and aloof, but with a strong code of honour. You're responsible for being the darker character, so you should be prepared to become popular. Otherwise, make sure you keep strengthening your quirk, you're going to be the main fighter. Asui Tsuyu, you will be the supporter, both in character and in combat. Your ability to traverse difficult terrain and large distances quickly while bringing along everyone else is your main job. You will have to strengthen yourself physically to ensure that you can do so. While presenting yourself to the public, you should seem kind and caring, and act like you're the pillar that everyone leans on when they need help. However, your archetype isn't the most favoured so you shouldn't expect too much fame. Kirishima Ejirou, you are the fun-loving, energetic close-combat brawler. You must always maintain a spirited and dynamic demeanour. It's okay to be slightly crass and it is encouraged that you constantly tell jokes and always act like you're ready for a fight. Personality-wise, you're there to keep things upbeat in a more vigorous manner than Tsuyu. You're likely to be the favourite of younger boys and those who were obsessive fans of All Might. You should hone your speed and reaction time to be more effective in a fistfight."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Is that it?" Kirishima asked.
All Might scratched the back of his head as Nedzu stared at him wryly. "I suppose it is. I'll have more planned for tomorrow."
"Hold on!" Nedzu called out. "I have some homework for you all! By tomorrow, I want you to have several hero names ready, and to be able to talk and act in your characters accurately, and we'll be doing some activities where you have to play as them. For the next week, we'll be familiarising you with your new identities, then we can begin physical and teamwork training."
As the four students left, Nedzu said slightly more quietly, "And All Might, I'd like to have a word with you. We have to take this more seriously, you know."
Hey, you guys wanna go for a run?" Kirishima called. "It'd be good for us to get started training ahead of time!"
He was rejected thrice, on the grounds of having siblings to take care of, not wanting to neglect studies even during times of great excitement, and a simple "no".
"Aw, c'mon," he whined, "can't you study later, or at least tell me what you have to do? I mean, I get the little kids to take care of thing and all, but you two seriously have no excuse."
Deeply flustered already, but still with a light, humorous tone, Iida cried, "Of course I can't! Yaoyorozu is three percent higher than me in all subjects on average, and my mark won't rise if I neglect my homework!"
"I'm busy." Oddly enough, Todoroki was staring at Iida, not Kirishima, when he answered.
"Well, don't blame me when you're a mile behind!" Looking back and waving, Kirishima set off at a jog almost too fast to be called a jog, bright, energetic, and still grinning widely.
The other three began walking home, coincidentally in the same direction. Iida made several attempts at conversation with Tsuyu, all his promptings shut off by obliviously brief and unanswerable replies, until Tsuyu said something voluntarily, but not directed to him.
"You're not busy."
Behind them, Todoroki shrugged and looked away, although his companions couldn't see.
After pausing for a moment, she continued with, "I heard that exercising is good for taking your mind off of things."
Hearing that there was still no reply from Todoroki, Iida added, "That's right. Exercise refreshes the mind and the body, and it's important to take breaks in between bouts of work. Additionally, if you feel stressed out by your new commitment, the time you spend mindlessly running can be used to think through everything and to understand how important it is to fulfil your duties, even if it requires personal sacrifices.
There was a quiet snort, and Tsuyu could see Todoroki's glaring scowl even though she was looking in the opposite direction.
"Hello, this is Mimori Nagato of the JG News, and I'm here today, interviewing Principal Nedzu of U.A. Academy, and pro-heroes and teachers, All Might, Present Mic, and Midnight about some recent villain attacks on their school. Several days ago, the school faced an intrusion by several villains during a class trip to one of their nearby facilities designed for rescue-training. One student received minor injuries but has now recovered. Additionally, one staff member was killed and another staff member was injured and is currently in a coma. Principal Nedzu, do you have any words on this matter?"
"Ah, yes, of course." From his seat in the row of podiums, Nedzu took his microphone from his stand and stood on his chair to raise his small stature. "As you can see, U.A. Academy has faced a terrible tragedy that will be remembered as an event to grieve for and an example of mistakes we must avoid in the future. However, we would like to assure you that additional securities measures have already been placed to prevent this from happening again, and we have coordinated with the police to track down and arrest the perpetrators." He looked to the reporter, nodding.
"Thank you, Nedzu." The reporter scanned down the notes she had placed on her own podium. "Now, do you have any information on how the villains managed to infiltrate your school?"
"Unfortunately, they found information about our plans by sneaking in two weeks ago, using the cover of the media hounding us as cover. Through that information, they were able to strike using a combination of a warping quirk and a signal-jamming quirk."
"Of course. Obviously, it would take the most advanced of methods to break through U.A. Academy's top-tier security, wouldn't it?" The reporter was suddenly glaring, tone sharp and ridiculing rather that upbeat. "Now, how do you think this reflects on you?"
"Ah, I do believe that this was only the most exceptional of occasions," Nedzu said after a brief pause. "We had not foreseen an event where such a large and diverse grouping of villains would cooperate against us. We have installed additional security to prevent a repeat of this incident."
"Right. Now then, they say you were the first on the scene, All Might," the reporter said, glowering through the corners of her eyes. "Can you describe the scene you arrived to?"
He was caught off-guard by the sudden question, as the reporter had intended him to be. "Er- it was nothing much actually. My colleague, the pro hero Eraserhead, had already taken out most of the villains, and there were only a couple left. They all fled when I arrived, and the rest were taken into custody," he said stiffly, clearly struggling to follow the instructions of speech patterns and things to say that he had been given earlier by Nedzu.
"And you have no other information about what happened?"
"I don't think that-"
"-Actually, we do," Nedzu interrupted. "While signals were jammed during the invasion, our security cameras remained live and we were recently able to access the recordings. We would like to show a few clips from it, as the events were chaotic and explaining them verbally would be confusing and time-consuming, but in essence, the villains arrived, our teachers went to fight them, the children escaped, and the rest of U.A.'s staff went to defeat the villains. Please note that the video feed has been cut and censored, as there are multiple sections of it which were deemed inappropriate for the viewing of the masses."
After tinkering for a moment under his podium, a large screen above them all came to life, showing several minutes worth of the key points of the attack.
When the video finished, Nedzu shut it off, ignoring the agape expressions of most of the audience, and said politely to the reporter, "Are there any more questions?"
"Of course," she said quickly, looking back to her notes and asking sternly this time, "The two teachers in the beginning of the video were Thirteen and Eraserhead, correct? We were unable to contact them for this interview, are you able to disclose any information about the two of them?" Hastily and in afterthought, she added, "Present Mic?"
"Uh- yes- That is, the two of them were teachers at U.A. Academy, and-" For once in his life, Present Mic was stumbling and at a loss for words, only barely able to bluff and buy time to think.
"I'll take this one, actually," Midnight interrupted. "I've been handling most of the teacher replacements, so I think I've got the most information with this anyways. So, you said it yourself earlier, before you started having to think of questions to ask," she began pointedly, "Thirteen was killed, unfortunately, and Eraserhead is currently in a coma and under the care of Recovery Girl."
"I fail to see the relation between you filling in for their classes and you having more information about their situations," the reporter said, disdainfully.
"It's not like Present Mic knew anything about this at all," Midnight retorted. "I'm rescheduling their classes so I know what's been going on with them behind the scenes. There isn't anything to talk about. One was killed and one is injured. That's it."
"Fine, then. Now, how do you think parents will feel, sending their children to a school where their children could be the victims of a terrorist attack?"
Perfectly and calmly, and even still smiling, Nedzu began to explain his thoughts in response to each question thoroughly and slowly, not allowing any members of his faculty to answer, taking up as much time with each monologue as he could in order to close out the interview with fewer things said.
"Sorry guys, I lost my temper," Midnight said as she threw on a coat over her thin hero outfit. "The reporter was getting on my nerves."
"That's alright, but watch yourself next time. I was the one who doomed the interview by a slip of the tongue, and you didn't say anything important," Nedzu reassured.
"Man, this is going to be all over the news," Midnight complained. "I mean, U.A.'s still the best and all, but it's pretty bad publicity."
"That's true, but I've set it up to turn things around. The video was edited to show off Aizawa and Thirteen's heroism. Even if we take a fall from this, it should be counterbalanced by the populace seeing the selflessness of our teachers."
"D'you think so? Midnight asked, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "I know you're the smartest being in existence and all, but I kinda doubt it. Anyways, are you sure Aizawa's going to be okay with being all over the news when he recovers? He's always been pretty anti-media."
"Not to worry. I doubt he'll ever find out."
Midnight jerked forwards from leaning on the wall suddenly. "Are you implying that you don't think he's going to wake up? He's with Recovery Girl and she's giving him her best treatment, there's no way he won't!"
"Ah, you see," Nedzu said, shaking his head, "he's with Recovery Girl to keep up the good image that he'll be okay. It's easier for me to keep track this way, and I can keep the matters covered. I haven't told her, of course, and his body has healed already, but the damage he took was quite significant, a bit too much, I'm afraid."
"You're a heartless little rat sometimes, you know that?" Midnight sneered.
"Of course not. This is only logic. Heartless is when you shut a poor, sentient creature in a cage to be experimented on without any heed for their well-being."
"Yeah, whatever," Midnight said, waving him off as she turned and began walking away. "What happened to you doesn't make what you're doing okay. I'm checking up on Mic."
"Hey," Midnight said as she entered the infirmary, "You all right, Mic? And who's that?"
"I'm good," Mic replied without looking at her. "This is Iida Tensei. Ingenium. We were friends when we were at school. He was watching the interview and all. He's visiting Shouta right now, too."
"Gotcha. Sorry about what happened at the interview, Mic, I didn't think you could take it." She sauntered up behind them, looking at her colleague for only a split second before looking away, upset.
"I was fine," Present Mic snapped, "but thanks, anyways."
"I think the reporter was being a bit aggressive," Tensei agreed quietly.
"Yeah. Did Recovery Girl say anything?" she asked distractedly, eyes wandering even further away to look at the door that the nurse's office was behind.
"Yeah," Present Mic answered despondently. "She said she's already done everything she could physically. We're just waiting, now."
"Yeah, well…" Midnight was still staring fixedly at everything else. "To be honest, there's something I think I should tell you, er-"
Present Mic and Tensei both turned to her slowly, Mic's eyes drooping and half-lidded. "Yeah?"
"N-nevermind, actually. It's nothing. Nothing important. Pretend I didn't say anything."
"Hey," she continued after silence fell again, all three of them contributing to the low atmosphere, "I don't think feeling sorry any more will do anyone any good. You two want to go for a drink, to cloud your minds for a bit?" She smiled bitterly. "I'll treat."
"Shouto!"
The livid roar snapped a resentful expression onto Todoroki's face, intermingled with fear and anger. Brimming with ire, he continued to work on his homework.
"Shouto!"
He scratched out an obsolete coefficient and replaced it.
Footsteps.
He underlined his answer and moved on to the next.
His father stood at his doorway, lit with flame. "Shouto. You did not tell me about the attack on the USJ."
Todoroki set down his pen and turned slowly. Cooly, he said, "I thought a hero as famous as you would be in the know."
"You dare to taunt me?" Endeavor strode up to his son and pressed his hand onto Todoroki's right shoulder, searing it with only a fraction of his power.
Immediately, the singed area was crusted over with ice, and Endeavor sneered. "The future number one hero can't take the pain of an attack not even meant to hurt?"
Todoroki scowled, staring back up but not melting the ice.
"I saw the news. I know that you couldn't beat a villain outnumbered three-to-one."
"There were two of them, and Aizawa-sensei could barely move."
"You're claiming that it was an equal fight then, with a pair of lowlife scums against a hero made and raised to have the most powerful quirk. Funny that the one who should have been incapacitated was the one doing the fighting." Endeavor snorted. "Not that your teacher was any use, of course. A professional who can't protect his students or himself is only laughable."
Todoroki could barely stop himself from shouting at Endeavor, whether it be to attack him or defend his teacher or just to make him go away. Instead, he gritted his teeth and glared, struggling to think of something he could say calmly enough to not wind up screaming. "There were too many," he hissed after a pause, "and he was was too busy protecting us."
"There are always too many enemies. You will always be protecting someone. That fool has no excuse. He deserves to be where he is now." He stared at his son with disdain and disinterest. "The weak heroes die. They do every day. You cannot cry about it."
"What do you want?"
"I saw the video of you fighting. You were not injured enough to justify two days in a hospital bed. Where were you."
"I was with friends."
"Friends." Endeavor laughed mockingly. "When your body couldn't take using your quirk four times."
"I've already asked my teachers for extra help!" Todoroki shouted, face flushed as he jerked upright erratically enough to topple his weak-based chair.
"I see. I will be tracking this."