Disclaimer: I do not own MHA nor am I earning money from writing this. As a rule of thumb, if you recognize something in this fic, I probably do not own it.
"I might be going insane" – Normal speech
'It isn't normal to have voices in your head' – Thoughts, Writing
True – The voices in your head
"You will never forget this day" – Remembered speech
Chapter 20
The day blurred by for Midoriya Izuku. He woke up before anyone else, showered, and then prepared breakfast for himself and whoever woke up early enough to get to it before it was all gone.
Afterwards, he just sat on one of the many seats around the TV and opened a rhythm game, slowly working his way through harder and harder levels until he was confident that M4 was creating new ones on the fly to keep him entertained.
About half an hour in, he had unintentionally dropped into a state of focus that he normally used when sparring against All Might or Katsumi. He was subconsciously aware of the rest of his classmates waking up and greeting him, returning their greetings without thinking.
As the hours passed, more people arrived, carrying boxes or furniture as they made their way to their respective rooms. He was unconcerned with this, introducing himself as the faces cycled by. Melissa's arrival was a break in the action, happening around lunchtime. Accompanying her was none other than Yagi Toshiko in her unpowered state, carrying an All Might-themed lamp with an exasperated smile on her face.
She greeted Izuku before he introduced himself, the two of them using the alibi that Izuku had been hired to help plan her training before the entrance exam. For the people that remembered that both of them were in the top five in the practical exam, it made sense. Even for those that didn't, seeking out the advice of the first quirkless person to make it into the Hero Course at UA clearly sounded like a good idea.
It certainly caused some confusion for her to refer to him as 'Izuku-sensei', but the others soon got used to her using the honorific.
The afternoon soon came, and Izuku changed into slightly more formal clothing in preparation of the first party that he was going to before school officially began. His backpack of nanobots slung over his shoulder, Izuku said his goodbyes and let Katsumi know where he was going before leaving the dormitory into the setting sun.
Bakugou Katsumi POV
Katsumi was slowly losing her patience with her classmates. The knowledge that she and Izuku had known each other and were in a relationship had spread, and now that Izuku had left the building she was the sole focus of the attention and questioning of the other nineteen residents of the building.
Izuku had a certain level of separation from the girls in the building due to his gender, one that no doubt would be overcome with time but was currently holding strong. Because of that, the girls were hesitant about approaching him and asked less intrusive questions. It was certainly different from how most men and boys were treated, but it could not be said that he was weaker than any of them. His first-place ranking on the entrance exam had caused a shift in how they would have viewed him from a housecat to a tiger.
Their hesitance about asking him questions, however, was not conferred to her. Sure, she was ranked second, but she was one of them, and more importantly, the perspective that she had was closer to theirs.
And so, as Katsumi sat at the larger table eating dinner, the questions began to build up and wear down her patience.
Fortunately, Katsumi had a few allies in the crowd. Tooru, her roommate, already knew about their relationship enough to answer a few of their questions. Sadly, her invisibility and lack of social presence didn't do much to help share the burden.
Melissa Shield, however, was an unexpected boon. Despite having never met her before, something that she had chewed Izuku out about that afternoon, the American girl had a surprising amount of knowledge about Izuku's capabilities. As she described her spars against him while training, she lightly vented about how annoying he was to fight, telling them about his style of swordplay that involved predicting one's motions and deflecting or redirecting them.
Ochako Uraraka and Iida Tomoyo, who had been in his testing area, told their perspectives of his takedown of the zero-pointer, but that did little to satisfy them. The knowledge that it was just M4 simulating Izuku put her mind at ease while listening to the description of him throwing himself at the intentionally unbeatable obstacle, but the rest of her classmates were simply not satisfied by their words.
It was, after all, incredibly unrealistic that a quirkless boy had taken down the massive robot with nothing but a sword. A one- or two-pointer, perhaps, but the difference in size between the two-meter-tall Izuku and the hundred-meter-tall colossus that they had also experienced was simply too large.
Excusing herself from the table to use the bathroom, she made her way to one of the stalls and sat down. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she opened the non-UA messaging app and scrolled through her contacts, trying to find the number that went directly to M4. After a few seconds, she found it and began to type.
'Hey M4, it's me, Katsumi'
'Could you come downstairs and help? Nobody believes me when I tell them that Izuku only uses a sword and armor to fight, and you know him almost as well as I do.'
M4's reply, as always, came less than a millisecond after she asked her question. 'Of course, Katsumi. Would you prefer my displaying the recording of the practical exam as well? I will arrive downstairs in a physical form at an appropriate interval after you return to the table regardless.'
Katsumi latched onto the offer like a lifeline, clinging to the physical proof of her words. 'Yes, please. That will make things so much easier, thanks!'
Before she turned her phone off and made to stand up, M4's near-instant reply appeared on her screen.
'It is, as always, my pleasure to help.'
Midoriya Izuku POV
Stepping into the Macroeconomics building, Izuku followed the signs pointing him to the stairwell and lecture room that had been repurposed for the celebration. His entrance into the room itself immediately drew the attention of Kei, who disengaged from the conversation he had been having and made his way over to the door.
"Hello, my name is Sakamoto Kei and I'm the president of the UA Boys organization. What's your name?" As he spoke, he was holding up a clipboard with a list of names on it, almost all of them checked off.
"My name is Midoriya Izuku."
Those five words, spoken in a normal tone of voice, were clearly audible throughout the room and drew the occupants' attention to him. He gave the room a small wave, before returning his focus to the president standing before him. Kei found his name on the list and marked his name, setting the clipboard back on the desk once he was done.
"Well, I'd like to welcome you to our semi-prestigious organization and congratulate you again on making it into UA. We'll have some announcements once everyone arrives, and if you're okay with it I'll ask you up to the front of the room to say a few words after we finish the official things. You don't have to say anything in particular, I know that some of your senior classmates look up to you already since we got the news that one of our members was in the Hero Course."
"It may help to avoid the number of people asking you questions if you go over how you made it into the Hero Course, but that's entirely up to you. The other freshmen this year are in that group, so I'd recommend introducing yourself to them while we wait. Again, welcome to UA!"
Kei then turned his attention to the student who was standing behind him, greeting him like an old friend as Izuku walked over to the freshmen. Looking around the room, he was once again reminded of how abnormally tall he was. One of the boys milling around the room was nearly as tall as him, but he still stood out among the rest.
Arriving at the pair of freshmen, Izuku waited for a good moment to introduce himself to the group. At a lull in the conversation, Izuku stepped forwards and introduced himself. "Hello, my name is Midoriya Izuku. I'm a first-year in the Hero Course, and it's a pleasure to meet you both."
A round of introductions later, and Izuku learned both of their names and courses. Their names were Chiba Hideyo and Miyashiro Shin, both of whom were in the General Studies course. Shin was of the opinion that the courses would start slowly and then get harder over the first few weeks to give them time to adjust to being at a university, while Hideyo was lightly panicking and thought that they would be thrown into the metaphorical deep end on the first day of classes.
The two of them were just stubborn enough to not listen to each other, which meant that their argument was only solidifying the beliefs that they already held instead of actually challenging them. Before they could keep going much longer, however, Kei stepped up to the lectern at the front of the room, two other boys accompanying him. A few calls for quiet later and the speech began.
"Hello everyone! My name is Sakamoto Kei, and I'm a senior in the Business Course here at UA. On behalf of everyone, I'd like to welcome the newcomers among us! This year, we have three freshmen, which breaks even for the number of seniors that graduated last year. Though none of the three of you are in the Business Course, I'd still like you to know that if you ever need or want to talk to me, my door is open. For those of you who are returning students, welcome back! It's great to see that all of you are still here, and I can't wait to catch up with some of you."
At a nudge from the tall boy standing to his right he stepped aside, flourishing dramatically with one arm as the attention of the room shifted between them.
"Hello. My name is Oyama Yoshihiro, and I'm a senior in the General Studies program at UA. I may not be able to help some of you with higher-level classes, but I'll do my best to help anyone who asks. As my co-leader said, it's wonderful to see all of you."
The difference between the two leaders was stark. Kei had an exaggerated personality, cheerful for even the most mundane of things to say. His enthusiasm, if not his seniority, would likely have earned him the position of leadership he held.
On the other hand, Yoshihiro's words almost felt lifeless. It was as though he was reading from a script in his monotone voice, and though the look in his eyes clearly spoke the message that his words should have conveyed, it was almost demoralizing to listen to him speak. Izuku had seen a similar behavior from one of his classmates before, who built a shell of a personality to protect himself when he wasn't with people he trusted.
Nevertheless, their personalities contrasted each other in a way that made their leadership more effective. Similar to a "good cop, bad cop" routine, the difference made one predisposed to treat one of them more like a friend, allowing for close personal relationships with the members of the small group while the other one could be the one that laid down and enforced the rules.
As he was pondering this, Kei moved back towards the lectern, putting a hand on the opposite shoulder of his co-president. "Now that we're done with that, we have a few announcements to make! First of all, we'd like to continue meeting weekly as a large group, so as soon as you receive your schedules please post them in the group chat! If there's a time during the week that we can make work, we'll try to meet then, but if there isn't a time we'll try to meet on the weekends."
"Additionally, we're happy to say that we'll be having a joint event with our sister organization, 'The Fifteen Percent' in two weeks! It's an excellent chance to meet fellow quirkless people, and it should be a low-stress event for everyone! We still haven't determined exactly what we'll be doing, but we'll be sending out a form in the next few days to collect your suggestions."
"Last, and most certainly not least, I'd like to announce a historical event. For the first time in the history of the school and our organization, one of our members hails us from the Hero Course! Everyone, please welcome Midoriya Izuku to the stand!"
The applause he received was sparse, but most certainly not halfhearted. Each of the twelve people in the room were clapping enthusiastically as he took the few steps to the lectern that Kei and Yoshihiro had vacated, giving him the floor.
"Ah, hello everyone. My name is Midoriya Izuku, and I'm a first-year student in the Hero Course. I didn't exactly have anything planned to say, so I'll tell you a bit about myself and then explain how I got into the Hero Course. After that, I'll do my best to answer any questions that you have."
"Some things that I like to do are train, build, and play chess. I don't dislike many things, but I hope to one day end the cycle of violence and discrimination in the world. As for my immediate goals… I'd like to learn. After all, why else would any of us be here?"
The last sentence got a couple of chuckles from the audience. "As for how I got in, that's entirely too long of a story to tell before all of you get bored. If I can use the projector, however, I can show you the video that UA took of my practical exam, and I'll try to explain what I was doing at various points."
A minute of setup later, Izuku had pulled a nanobot-created laptop from his backpack and plugged it up to the larger screen, sending a message to M4 about what he wanted to do.
Bakugou Katsumi POV
Shortly after she exited the bathroom and returned to the dining table, the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming down the stairs resounded, calming the conversation down significantly. As M4's puppet body rounded the corner, however, her expectations were immediately thrown out the window.
Instead of maintaining the form of Midoriya, the artificial intelligence had chosen to replicate the avatar that he occasionally used. A featureless body of various shades of blue formed into rigid polygons on his skin. His eyes were the same shade of green as Izuku's, to be sure, but there would be no mistaking the clearly inhuman body for her boyfriend.
M4 took the empty seat at the table with grace, sliding into the chair in a single fluid motion that drew the attention of the few people that hadn't reacted to his presence. Minerva looked anxious, hiding behind the larger form of Eiko who sat between her and the figure that had haunted her nightmare last night.
"I don't mean to intrude, but I was informed that some of you have questions about Izuku's entrance exam. However, though you heard the answers provided you chose not to believe them. It is understandable, given my creator's lack of quirk, but Izuku was never one to let something like his genes dictate what he could and couldn't do. Once you all are done with your meals, I would be happy to show you the recording of Izuku's practical exam and, should you wish, a copy of his written exam answers."
Whether or not M4 intended it, the rest of dinner was a rather subdued affair. His presence dampened the conversation around him, and his odd appearance drew stares from the people that hadn't seen him yet. There were also the little things that threw people off, like the fact that he wasn't eating or moving at all.
Once everyone was finished, M4's head turned towards the television on the other side of the room and it flickered on, showing the paused video of Izuku's practical exam. The people that were interested in watching, namely everyone but Katsumi, moved over to the couch, leaving her to get more food and eat it at a leisurely pace.
The video started, showing Izuku running into the exam area and accumulating his swarm of robots following him. While he was just running, there were a few jeers, deriding him for not taking out the robots and running away.
When the video reached the point where he turned around and faced the robot horde, however, such comments faded away. Over the next two minutes, as his sword carved through hundreds of points of robots, the room was silent but for the sound of the video.
Melissa was perhaps the only girl watching who wasn't surprised, having trained with him and watched him hold off All Might with the same equipment he was using. The other girls, however, were watching in varying levels of shock. In that same situation, with over a hundred robots bearing down on them, only Katsumi, Melissa, and Shoko held any hope of doing as well as him. Perhaps, with enough time to prepare, Momo could do just as well, but the difference between them and Izuku was that Izuku wasn't relying on a quirk to destroy the robots.
The rest of the video played out smoothly, Katsumi's jaw clenching at the sight of her boyfriend throwing himself at the zero-pointer before she reminded herself that it was merely Midoriya. Seeing the robot with Izuku's appearance walk out of the resulting cloud of dust with Uraraka on his back was a mixture of relief and jealousy that she quickly smothered.
As she took another bite, Katsumi realized something. Perhaps showing them the video wasn't the best idea, because now instead of asking the same questions about what he had done over and over she would have to deal with them asking how he had done what he did, and the questions wouldn't end.
Grabbing her bowl and cup, the explosive girl made her way upstairs as stealthily as possible to finish her meal in the relative peace of her room. Her decision was made not a moment too soon, as she had not locked the door for ten seconds before the sound of the video cut off and the voices began anew.
Katsumi slipped on her noise-canceling headphones and started playing a relaxing piece of music. While the sounds of knocking and questioning came from her door, she simply didn't notice them as she ate her dinner in peace. Perhaps she would have to deal with them sooner or later, but by the time she planned on leaving her room Izuku would be back, and she could push all of their attention and questions onto him. In her mind, this was a fitting punishment for making her suffer through dinner alone with them.
Midoriya Izuku POV
Izuku stood before a silent room, the scene of him walking out of the cloud of dust frozen on the projector. After a few seconds of silence, Kei began to clap, snapping the other boys out of their state and bringing applause much louder than when he had walked to the front of the room earlier.
Once they died down, Izuku spoke up again. "If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them."
Hideyo spoke up first. "How did you do… well, everything with the massive robot? The flying towards it, the part where you stabbed yourself and the sword got bigger, and how did you knock it over?"
Izuku nodded. "For the first two parts, it was entirely support gear that I built myself. The machine that I used to fly towards the robot was one of the sphere floating behind me, the one that creates strong waves of magnetic force to push metal objects away from it. My sword and a thin layer of armor that I was wearing were made out of small interlocking machines, which were repelled and carried me with them."
"The stabbing myself was to disrupt the structure of the armor, drawing the unnecessary machines into the sword to make it bigger. As to how I knocked the robot over, I first cut through its armor and then several of the components that it needed to function and from there, physics did the rest of the work for me."
Yoshihiro quietly raised a hand before speaking. "How long did it take you to reach the point where you could take on the group of smaller robots."
It took Izuku a moment to consider the question. In terms of skill, it had probably only taken him a few years. Without his nanobots, however, it would have been much harder for him to take out so many robots as quickly or efficiently as he had.
"I have been learning how to use a sword since I was four years old, but I don't know whether I could have taken that many a year or two ago. I'm sorry if that doesn't answer your question, but I can't really point to a specific point in the past where I suddenly became strong or skilled enough."
There were a few more questions after that, but they were much more off-topic. They were asking about Uraraka, about his classmates, what his dorms were like, and other questions that Izuku was happy to answer but weren't exactly relevant. Izuku left the front of the room and returned to his seat as Kei took the lectern.
"Thank you, Midoriya-san, for telling us your tale! We didn't have much more planned for tonight other than generally introducing ourselves and doing a few icebreaker activities. Once again, welcome to UA! I hope that you all have a great year to come."
As the sky darkened, Izuku found himself playing an interesting card game with Kei, Shin, and two other students. One of them would remake the rules as they saw fit and then sit out every round, and the players would play until one of them correctly guessed what the rules were. There were only ever two or three rules in any given round, so it often wasn't too hard once you got used to the style of play of the rule maker.
The title of rule maker was rotated clockwise between them, meaning that the time that people spent playing compared to sitting out was roughly equal. Sometimes, however, one of them would make a rule that was rarely broken, so the round continued until the rule was broken enough times to figure out what it was.
Izuku, to play fairly, was not using his quirk to confirm whether a rule was what he thought it was or not. The five of them got to know each other better, with the punishments for breaking various rules being things like sharing your favorite book or a sport that you liked to play.
Late that night Izuku left the building and walked back to the hero dorms under the dim light of the waning moon. It was slowly nearing a new moon and would likely fully fade from the sky the night before his first day of classes. It was certainly auspicious, and it brought a smile to his face as he walked back to the dormitory.
Two days later, as Izuku was watching the sunset along the horizon from the roof of the building, Izuku pondered about how the weekend had gone. He had spent most of his Saturday answering questions at odd intervals from his classmates, whom Katsumi and M4 had apparently shown the video of his practical exam at the exact same time as he had shown it at the 'UA Boys' meeting.
Every time he was asked a question, no matter how mundane, Katsumi gave him a look that he long recognized as her sadism showing through. Not for the first time, Izuku wondered what had happened on Friday night.
Tonight, however, was different. It was the night before classes started, so he was soon to be on his way to the '1-A of 1-As' induction. The party was to be held at the administration building, and despite the time he was supposed to leave soon approaching Izuku was sitting on the roof, watching the sky redden.
It wasn't even that hard to get onto the roof, he mused as he sat there. The door to the roof access was near the stairs leading down to the first floor, and with security being entirely electronic it was less than a challenge. Most of his classmates could make their way up fairly easily as well, it only being two stories up.
Katsumi could fly using her explosions, Shoko could make a stairway out of ice, Melissa and Tsuyu could simply jump the height with the use of their quirks, and most of the others could make their way there in one way or another.
The problem for a few of them was that they couldn't do it without breaking the door leading to the roof stairwell. Eiko or Mina could easily punch or melt their way through the wooden door, though Tooru or Jirou likely stood no chance of making it up there without assistance.
But despite their ability to come up here, without the drive to do so Izuku had a solitary view of the nearby campus and the sunset.
When the far edge of the sky began to darken, Izuku turned around and re-entered the building, making his way to the ground floor before leaving the dormitory for the party. It was a shorter walk to the administration building than the Macroeconomics one, though that was due to the dorms for specific courses being placed closer to the buildings that taught classes for them than unrelated buildings. The administration building, however, was nicely placed in the center of campus between the Hero and Support Courses and the Business and General Studies Courses.
While the division of land may seem disproportionate due to the fact that there were maybe four hundred students in all years of the prior two courses, it was actually fairly even. While the Business and General Studies students were much more numerous and needed many more classrooms, lecture halls, and dormitories, building upwards was cheap and easy with the right set of quirks. What wasn't easy, however, was getting more area.
The Hero and Support side of campus was filled with large testing ranges, practice fields, mock cities, and various other types of terrain. Even then, the indoor facilities took up more space, having to contain the same range of areas while also providing warehouses for Support, facilities to manufacture robots and uniforms, and much more.
Fortunately, the Macroeconomics building was relatively close to the Hero and Support side of campus. In the worst-case scenario, the walk from his dormitory to the farthest building on campus from him would take a little under fifty minutes.
Arriving at the administration building, Izuku was surprised to find Toshiko in the lobby with a featureless mask in one hand. At the sound of him pushing open the door, she quickly made her way over to him.
"Izuku, it's great to see you again! How are you doing, adjusting to UA and all?"
Izuku shrugged. "It's definitely a new experience, though I don't know whether I'd call it particularly good or bad. Some of my classmates are better than others, but I'm still waiting to make any solid opinions."
Toshiko nodded along with his words. "That's good to hear. Listen, the reason that I'm waiting out here for you is that I realize you haven't taken the lessons on Hero Courtesy, and I need to give you a brief crash course. It won't be long, but I need to go over this with you before you go in there because I realize you've only interacted with me so far, and I'm not the best at that."
Izuku was apprehensive but nonetheless willing to listen. "I'm all ears, Toshiko."
The number one heroine winced slightly at that. "Okay, so this would normally be at least two weeks of classes but I'm rushing through it. First of all, when we're in there, some people will use their alter egos instead of their normal identities. All of us have our eccentricities, and we try our best to accommodate them, especially for those of us who have retired or want our true identities to remain secret. Speaking of which, if you'd rather keep your identity a secret, you can use this mask."
With a shake of Izuku's head, Toshiko placed the mask on the front desk beside her and continued speaking. "Speaking of eccentricities, when I said everyone in there has some I meant it, myself included. For instance, I split myself between Toshiko and All Might, using those names to keep a very clear line between my heroic self and my civilian life."
"I'll just let you know a few of the more important ones before we head in. Perfect Order is, as her name implies, a perfectionist and extremely controlling. If she places something somewhere, don't move it. Her quirk is somewhere between feng shui and a Rube Goldberg machine, and everything that she places like that has a purpose."
"Tread lightly around Aftershock, and I mean that literally. Her quirk returns vibrations transmitted through solids at a much higher strength, and you don't want to start tomorrow with shin splints or a broken leg."
"Aquarius is the class grandma, and though none of us are exactly sure how old she is she treats everyone like they're her grandkids. Expect to be the center of her… grandparental attention for at least some of the time."
"On one of the walls is a list of Writ's rules, which enforce themselves automatically and are somewhat unconsciously generated. The penalty for breaking one isn't too bad, you just feel weaker for a few minutes, but if you break one while under the effect of another, the effects compound and the duration extends. The most anyone has broken at the same time and lived to tell the tale is eleven, but try to avoid breaking any if possible.
"And last but not least, if anyone asks you for a duel, spar, demonstration, offers to give you pointers or advice, refers to themselves as a teacher or a mentor, approaches you while visibly using their quirk, or expresses anything more than an academic interest in your abilities, make sure to go the are marked by Caritas's boundaries and the tape on the floor. Did you get all of that?"
Izuku nodded. "Don't pry into identities, stay away from objects that I've confirmed are Perfect Order's, walk softly, follow Writ's rules, only fight inside the tape, and be prepared for the class grandmother. I don't know what I was expecting from all of you, but it certainly wasn't this."
Toshiko laughed, reaching up to grab Izuku's opposite shoulder and steering him towards the room where the celebration was being held. "Trust me, Izuku, if you thought we were a group of elite heroines, you were most certainly correct. Unfortunately for you, this is where we re-live our high school days, so any expectations about how we act should be thrown out the window."
A minute of walking later, and the two of them arrived at a set of double doors. Toshiko removed her hand from Izuku's shoulder and pushed open the door, not looking back as he followed her into the room.
As one could expect, it was barely-contained chaos.
Two heroines, both looking near his mother's age, clashed in the duct-taped boundary. One of them was throwing glowing orbs while the other dodged them effortlessly, letting them splash into nothingness on the air above the barrier. The heroine who was dodging paused for a second to look over at the two of them and was immediately punished, an orb connecting with her and imploding, throwing her out of the marked boundary. Her landing was graceful, but she immediately charged back, yelling for a rematch before her voice cut off as she entered the boundary.
Two of the women in the room very intensely, one of whom was clearly Aquarius, the class grandma judging from her age. The other, however, Izuku couldn't place. She looked to be older than most of the heroines, her solid grey hair showing a refinement from her age.
A few objects were placed in seemingly odd places on the various tables and on the floor, which he quickly used his quirk to confirm were left there by Perfect Order. None of them were placed near the entrance, and so Izuku put that off of his mind for the time being.
As he was wondering what he should do, the woman who had been looking at him that he couldn't identify walked over, never breaking eye contact. When Toshiko noticed her appearance. She turned and angled herself so that she could see both of them at once.
"Izuku, I'd like to introduce you to the current highest-scoring member of our group, the retired heroine Ferra. Ferra, this is the newest member of our group, Midoriya Izuku. I hope the two of you get along-"
Her introductions were cut off with a wave of the older woman's hand. "Do you think I couldn't tell that the person I've never seen before is the new member, Toshiko? I may be old, but I'm not crazy. What I'm interested in about our newest member is unrelated to you, so leave us be."
Toshiko's face soured. She had never liked dealing with Ferra, at their meet-ups or when they had to work together before they retired. The woman had a quirk that gave her the ability to sense and control magnetic fields in a nearby radius, something that she used to great effect in her career as a heroine.
Throwing cars around, pulling the support gear of her opponents away from them, dismantling escape vehicles, and more made her a powerful area-of-effect and control-focused heroine, not to mention her ability to simulate a railgun or manipulate the magnetic fields of the earth to allow her to fly for short distances.
The kind of power that came with such a quirk had definitely affected both her personality and the way she looked at problems that arose before her. She was unwilling to cede control of anything to anyone that she didn't recognize as stronger than her, and while she was still working as a heroine that list didn't include Toshiko. The only women in the room that she would listen to were Caritas and Aquarius, both of whom were able to counter her abilities in one way or another.
So when she approached their newest member in a state of interest that she had never before seen, it couldn't possibly spell good things for Izuku. Toshiko stepped away from the two of them, making sure to keep an eye on the two of them while they spoke. Unless Writ's rules had cycled through too far since she left, the one about not harming those younger than you should still be in effect.
As she looked up to the whiteboard, however, she confirmed that that was indeed the case. The five rules currently affecting everyone in a hundred meter radius of the woman, written plainly for all to see, read as follows:
Pointing at other people while they are not facing you is forbidden
Do not jump more than a meter in the air
Do not bleed on the floor
Duels must be proposed at a volume of no more than eighty decibels
Sneak attacks are forbidden
Her attention was drawn away from the whiteboard as the Ferra started to speak. "Well, Midoriya Izuku, do you care to explain what you're doing?"
Izuku was confused. He hadn't done anything more than walk into the room, and he couldn't remember ever meeting her before, so this wasn't likely to be his fault. "I'm afraid I don't know exactly what I did or am doing to have attracted your attention, Ferra."
The heroine scoffed. "What a bold claim. Did you honestly expect to walk in here with that odd fluctuation surrounding you and not have me sense it? Would I be able to call myself the Mistress of Magnetism if I couldn't sense such a blatant anomaly right in front of my eyes?"
At that point, Izuku caught on. He had come to the event wearing his suit of nanobots, having checked whether or not it would be a good idea to bring them with him. When he was wearing the suit, there was always electricity flowing through them, creating magnetic forces that held the armor together. If her quirk allowed her to sense magnetic fields, Izuku would be glowing with them.
"Oh, you mean my hero outfit. It uses some basic magnetic principles to hold itself together, so that's probably what you're sensing. I'm sorry if it's disturbing, I could probably tone it down for the next time we meet."
Ferra shook her head. "To waste so much energy on something as insignificant as armor. If I had as much power as you are using to power that suit, I could wipe this province from the map in a day. Why would you even need armor if such power is in your hands?"
Izuku thought about how he should respond for a few seconds. Eventually, he decided on a mixture of politeness and his normal attitude. "First of all, the conversion rate between Onaic energy and electrical energy isn't stable enough for me to even try to use it like you do, even if such technology existed. I also enjoy living here, and I'd enjoy not blowing up the area if I do something wrong."
"Also, because I lack Onaic energy, I kind of need that armor to protect me. I can't just tank hits like the rest of you, you know."
Ferra was confused, but her expression remained unchanged. "What do you mean by 'Onaic energy'? I've never heard of it before, but I will concede that protecting oneself is a necessary priority… for the weak."
Izuku shook his head. "Onaic energy is the name that I gave to the energy that quirks use. And even if I'm not as strong as most of the people in this room, I certainly wouldn't call myself weak."
The heroine gave out one last parting shot. "It doesn't matter if you're stronger than them. If you aren't stronger than me, what else can I call you but weak?" With that, she turned on her heel and walked away, headed over to the table laden with food while avoiding the model train running around the room, no doubt set up by Perfect Order.
He barely had time to think about what had just happened before he felt his cheek being patted through his armor. Looking around the room, his eyes fixed on Aquarius, who was walking over while making a motion with one hand identical to the one he was feeling on his cheek.
When she got in earshot, he could hear her voice cutting through the din of the room. "Hello there, sweetie! I'm sorry that you had to deal with Ferra first, but you know how children can be. I keep telling her to brighten up, but she never remembers. What was your name again?"
Izuku was still reeling from the conclusions that he was drawing using his intuition and quirk. From her name, he could guess that she either had an air- or water-related quirk from the origin of her name, but the sensation being felt through his armor was nothing to joke about. While she was apologizing for Ferra's actions, he had found out that she was indeed a hydrokinetic – however, her quirk wasn't limited as almost every similar quirk was. She was a true hydrokinetic, able to affect the water inside people's bodies, able to condense it from the air, and able to control it in a solid or gaseous state equally well.
The implications were, in a word, terrifying. Izuku was already finding out how long ago she had been an active heroine so that he could research some of her feats after the party. Fortunately for them, and the rest of Japan's population, the woman was a kind, retired woman and not an active villain.
"My name is Midoriya Izuku, it's a pleasure to meet you."
Aquarius's smile widened. "Oh, how polite! My name is Teramoto Ren, but you can call me grandma Aquarius like everyone else does. Come on, let's get some food in you. A growing boy like you needs to eat, after all."
Toshiko breathed out a sigh of relief as the elderly woman slowly led Izuku over to the food, picking out pieces for him and adding them to his plate as he acquired his own meal. As long as he was with Aquarius, none of the more… violently inclined heroines would approach him. Nobody wanted to get on her bad side, because she could halt the motion of all of the water in your body and force you to sit there as she lectured you on the error of your ways. Truly, a fate worse than death.
While she sat at her table, watching the party as a whole, another woman arrived and joined her at the table. She was the shortest of them all, her quirk having frozen her in time when it activated at four years old. Her appearance subjected her to more attention than normal from Aquarius, but none of the other heroines in the room would dare antagonize her.
First of all, anyone who attacked her would receive the immediate enmity of everyone else in the room. Out of them all, she was the most heroic and caring individual by a large margin. Her quirk specialized in the creation of invisible intent-based barriers, one of which she had set up around the designated sparring area. However, the specificity of her quirk as opposed to 'Magnetism' or 'Hydrokinesis' gave her a much larger range.
In her entrance exam, she had been ridiculed for her stature, but when the practical exam came around she had simply snapped her fingers, creating a barrier between the swarming robots and the battle-thirsty examines. Because they shared a similar violent intent, none of them or their attacks were able to cross the barrier. When the students turned on her, demanding that she lower the barrier, she had simply surrounded each of them with a much smaller barrier.
The university, in confusion at the results, assigned her two hundred rescue points and repeated the exam, this time keeping her out and allowing her classmates to prove themselves.
She was perhaps the single least violent person in Japan, often calling for reforms of the prison system and the treatment of villains after arrest. After an incident where she had protected a villain from the violence of other heroines and eventually let her go with a warning to leave the scene and province, her license was revoked by the government. Still, she continued acting as a heroine in her civilian life, providing an unnoticeable aid to ongoing battles that she was near.
So when Caritas sat down next to her, Toshiko gave her full attention.
"Welcome back to the party, Toshiko. How are things going with our newest member? I noticed the confrontation he had with Ferra, and thankfully they didn't escalate too much."
Toshiko shook her head. "The armor that he wears has a magnetic effect, and apparently it was quite noticeable to Ferra. I'm just happy that they didn't escalate too far, seeing a Quicksilver and Bullet Hell are still going at it. We'd need another arena to contain the two of them."
Caritas sighed in frustration. "It's already bad enough that they have to fight. We only meet a few times a year, and yet those idiots only want to fight. Can't we just enjoy each other's company in peace?"
Leaning back in her chair, balancing it on two legs, Toshiko was quickly stopped by one of Caritas's fields. "I'd prefer it too, but in a way it's how they express their friendship. Besides, Bullet Hell's on her way out tonight, so they probably want to get this in while they still can. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw them sparring on the news a few months from now."
The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the other heroines go increasingly over the top. Aquarius kept adding food to Izuku's plate, dispelling all questions with her ever-present smile as he ate faster and faster to keep up with the food that he needed to "grow big and strong".
Perfect Order and Lawbreaker kept arguing over the arrangement of the cups on the table, a dark aura slowly accumulating around Lawbreaker as she kept moving her drinking glass out of the spot Perfect Order kept returning it to. The two of them were old rivals, having been in the same class. Had the two of them been in the same examination area neither of them would have made it into UA with the way their quirks interfered with each other.
Perfect Order, as he had told Izuku earlier, had a quirk that had to do with the precise arrangement of objects. She could cause butterfly effects strong enough to take down a zero-pointer or collapse a villain's lair, but there was a secondary aspect to it as well. If she placed objects that had a relation to each other in a particular arrangement, she could cause random beneficial effects for herself. If they were disturbed, the dark aura currently surrounding Lawbreaker would accumulate, causing random negative effects.
If Izuku were to investigate it, he would find that the heroine was imbuing the objects with her Onaic energy and then causing said energy to build up by linking it in her formations. When the bonds were broken, the stored energy would lash out, disrupting that of the breaker. When they held, however, the current of energy could calm one's state of mind or the flow of their own Onaic energy.
However, such strict requirements were the bane of Lawbreaker's quirk and personality. Lawbreaker as her name implied, passively ignored any quirk-based effects on the environment and could actively choose to break certain physical laws at the cost of large amounts of Onaic energy. Having to obey such a strict set of rules and not disturb things irked her, especially when one of said things was the cup she was trying to drink out of.
This inevitably led to the two of them clashing, but due to the overly destructive potential of either of their quirks, they refrained from fighting physically.
Quicksilver and Bullet Hell had finally finished fighting, both of them panting with their exertion. Despite the difference between their rankings in the group, with Quicksilver ranked second and Bullet Hell ranked twenty-first, the two of them were rather evenly matched. Quicksilver had remained at the same level with her quirk over the years, while the other heroine had grown much stronger and more versatile since she entered UA.
Writ stood up, suddenly leaving her conversation to update the rules on the wall. This action caused everyone in the room but Lawbreaker to freeze in place, waiting for the newest rule to be made known.
The third rule, which was about not bleeding on the floor, was erased and replaced by
Every fourth step must be a hop
The new rule resulted in more than a few groans from around the room. It wasn't that the rule was especially debilitating, but rather that it would be easy to break on accident. Lawbreaker, being immune to the rules her quirk made, only looked smugger about being able to ignore the rules.
Noticing that Bullet Hell and Quicksilver had stopped fighting, Ferra used her quirk to vibrate the nearby metal at a specific frequency to get everyone's attention.
"Now that everyone's here and undistracted, I'd like to begin this official meeting of Class 1-S. I'd call for attendance, but since all of us are here I'll skip that. We only have two pieces of official business tonight, so let's not make them last too long."
That declaration was met with noises of approval from the audience of heroines, so she moved on. "First of all, we have a new member for the first time in six years! Everyone, please welcome Midoriya Izuku to UA with an entrance exam score of three hundred and seventy points, putting him at rank four!"
A few of the heroines in the room started clapping for Izuku, though as Aquarius looked around the room more and more of them joined in, most of them of their own free will. Izuku wasn't sure how to react, so he gave the room a small wave and turned his attention to Ferra.
"Yes, yes. Now that we've welcomed him, unfortunately the weakest of us must leave. Bullet Hell, though you may be leaving us, don't take this as a personal failure on your part. Rather, take it as the strengthening of the future, now that a prospective member has surpassed his limits and achieved a spot at our metaphorical table. There's more of this spiel, but I don't particularly care to read it. Even though you've left, you can always contact us if you want to."
The heroine lowered herself from the hovering position that she had taken for the speech. "Now then, Let's get to the real part of inducting a new member – giving him practical knowledge!" As she spoke, her expression turned from the solemn one she had taken as she went through the official proceedings to an almost feral grin.
A look of alarm appeared on Toshiko's face, but before she could do anything Izuku had already been corralled into the border set up by Caritas and Bullet Hell was entering the other side. Conjuring a few of her signature attacks beside her, she raised a hand and smiled.
"Even if you're quirkless, kid, I expect you to put up a good fight."
Reaching towards the backpack that he had left on the other side of the room, Izuku clicked his tongue to signal M4. Several of the heroines in the room looked on in surprise as a swarm of nanobots slithered across the floor and up Izuku's body, forming into a blunted sword in his right hand. Ferra watched with her electromagnetic sense, getting a feel for the way his equipment worked when it was actively moving instead of simply holding a position
"Even if you have a quirk, there's no reason that I can't defeat you."
Bullet Hell laughed. "Bold claims from the rookie! But enough talk."
All of the orbs floating near her flew towards him, more appearing by the second. The spread of the attacks was even across Izuku's half of the arena, and the further they got from the woman the larger they grew, and from Izuku's observation of her earlier fight with Quicksilver he knew that they grew more powerful as they did so.
Experimentally, Izuku asked a question, knowing that M4 would catch on. "So those bullets of yours, do they implode when they come into contact with any solid object?"
With that, he swung his sword at one that had yet to approach him. Under M4's direction, one of the nanobots disconnected from the network and flew at the sphere. Sure enough, the moment it touched the surface, the bullet imploded, pulling the nanobot to the center and throwing it out in the opposite direction.
After a few more trials, Izuku felt that he had nailed down the mechanics of her quirk fairly well. The more energy the heroine put into the orb did not affect the rate that it grew, but rather the speed of the collapse. Whether the sphere was a meter in diameter or a centimeter it would take around 0.05 seconds to collapse, and based on the distance the object was pulled it would achieve the resulting speed. The proper way to fight her, it seemed, would be to get close to her so that the bullets had no time to expand.
Taking advantage of this, Izuku dashed towards the woman, covering the distance between the two of them in seconds before grappling, using his greater size and near-equal strength to restrain her until she yielded.
With the first match out of the way, the floodgates opened for the rest of them to challenge him. Lawbreaker, who was now twentieth, stepped up first, causing the rest to sort themselves by class rank.
Unfortunately for Lawbreaker, her quirk was much better suited for taking down others with quirks, otherwise training herself in a method similar to Izuku. With the natural advantage that she had from her Onaic energy, however, she was physically much stronger than the current Izuku. When the choice for Izuku was between engaging in a battle of strength or a battle of skill, the choice was obvious.
Their match took longer than the first one, but in the end it was Izuku's victory.
After that, the matches flowed by like water. Most of them he won, with some heroines like Writ choosing to surrender before fighting him. Others, like Perfect Order, had quirks that required too much time to bear any effect before Izuku rushed them.
When Aquarius stepped into the arena, Izuku promptly surrendered. Rank fifteen she may be, but Izuku simply saw no future where he won against her as soon as she started using her quirk. He would be frozen in place using his own blood and then be helpless against anything she wanted to do.
Despite his wishes, however, he wasn't allowed to leave after surrendering to Aquarius, and the next heroine entered the area.
Against Caritas, Izuku wanted to try something different, so he gave control of his nanobots over to M4 as soon as he was surrounded by one of the woman's signature barriers. Sure enough, the robots were able to leave the barrier, but upon encountering the barrier that she had set up around herself they were halted, only able to form a shell around her but not actually touch her.
After the stalemate continued for a few minutes, the two of them agreed to a draw and the challenge continued. The low teens and high single digits flew by, most of them victories or draws for Izuku. Against the fifth-place heroine, however, Izuku was beginning to get annoyed.
The fifth-place heroine was a blonde woman with the alias Timepiece. As her name suggested, she was a time manipulator, and was the second-newest member after him. Though she couldn't hit him hard enough to win, her ability to jump through time and therefore space as she wished was irritating. Izuku had determined the nature of her quirk simply enough – she could use a small amount of energy to create an autonomous copy of herself anywhere up to ten seconds in the past, with no limit to the number of copies that she could create other than her own energy. She could also send herself to her position at any point in the past ten seconds while maintaining continuity.
The copies were distinctly different and fragile, shattering from a single solid hit, but in the amount of time it took him to dispel one while holding off the others she had already created a replacement from the future.
For anyone, really, this human wave strategy would be hard to deal with. The truly difficult part, however, was that the future copies had their own knowledge of what Izuku would do in the next ten seconds. This led to Izuku rapidly changing his style each time a new copy appeared, trying to confuse the copies and make some progress.
After nearly half an hour of their stalemate, one of the clones from the future wasn't replaced as it fell apart, glass-like shards rapidly dissolving into the air. Realizing what was about to happen, a smile grew on Izuku's face. One by one, the copies surrounding him shattered, leaving only the original Timepiece panting on the far side of the room.
Toshiko, who was next, brought some water into the arena, giving him time to drink and rest before they fought. Their spar went as they normally did, with Toshiko slowly ramping up and Izuku holding a solitary position. For the heroines watching, however, they were shocked as the fight progressed.
For them, All Might was similar to Aquarius and Caritas. You simply couldn't defeat her, no matter how hard you tried. Sure, when she held back some of them could hold their own, but the feeling of success that came from equaling the number one heroine in Japan was tempered by her saying that she was only using thirty percent of her power, and all of them knew that her power increased non-linearly with the percent.
With All Might helpfully calling out the percent she was using each time she raised it, the number of heroines who could match her in the room dropped significantly. Once they reached fifty percent, only Ferra and Aquarius could match or surpass Izuku's performance. Though Caritas could certainly restrain her at lower percentages, once Toshiko passed forty percent her barriers simply couldn't hold back the force of her movements.
Despite being able to push himself further, Izuku called the match then, yielding to Toshiko so as not to waste all of his energy before the final two fights.
Quicksilver entered the arena faster than he could track, striking a pose while Izuku returned to his spot. "Best of luck, Midoriya!"
Izuku nodded slowly. This fight wasn't one that he could let continue or stretch out. Super speed may sound like a basic power, not one that could be ranked second out of all of the quirks present, but the fact remained that someone moving faster than you could observe would be nearly impossible to hit.
Mapping out the first move she would make with the use of his quirk, Izuku stabbed his sword point-first into the ground at a calculated point and shook his arms out before moving them into a ready position. "To you as well."
Even as he spoke, he was turning, swinging his arm to build up momentum for the only chance he would get at winning the fight. Unfortunately for him, it didn't, his arm too slow to catch the heroine as she struck, only protecting himself.
"A clever move there, but I'm afraid I'm different from All Might. She may be faster than me, true, but everything about me is fast, including my perception. It's like time slows down, rather than merely moving faster I also perceive and think faster. That trick won't work on me again! Do you yield?"
Izuku nodded, knowing that while he could certainly block the next three attempts, he simply couldn't think fast enough to keep up with her. "I'll yield."
Unfortunately for him, Ferra was up next, the final challenge of the gauntlet he had been running through for the past hour.
"Well, Midoriya, I'll be fair. You can take that armor of yours off before we begin, just to even things out. Seeing as it can make its way through some of Caritas's barriers, you should be able to get it out. Unless, that is, you're going to surrender?"
Izuku took a second to consider the offer. On one hand, it was a downright stupid idea to fight someone who could control metal in a suit of metal armor, using a metal weapon. On the other hand, her comment at the beginning of the party about the amount of energy running through his armor might indicate that he could overpower her control in some way.
'It is a good idea to use my armor and weaponry in this spar.' False.
For some reason, Izuku got the feeling that if his quirk were more verbose, it would be insulting him over such a stupid question. Anyhow, it was better to ask and be rejected than to not ask and find out later that it would have helped him.
Over the next few seconds, his skin, clothing, and sword fell to the ground, moving away after he stepped out of the puddle of nanobots on the floor. Underneath his armor, he was wearing an incomplete version of his undersuit, which covered his entire body except for his neck and head.
"Now that you're ready, allow me to give you some pointers." With that sentence from Ferra, she unclipped her cape from her shoulders, which split into many copper threads before their eyes. "As the third-oldest heroine in this room, I have accumulated much experience throughout my life. Though I may now be retired, I cannot and will not stand for weakness in the future heroines of Japan. Though you may be male, that doesn't make you an exception."
The fight truly began then, orange metal streaming towards him as he fended off as many separate attacks as he could. "Though you have trained yourself well, there are still many areas where you are lacking. Without access to your support gear, which is quite impressive in and of itself, you are merely another quirkless boy that happens to be stronger than the rest."
For a few seconds, Ferra was silent as the threads re-wove themselves into a few strips of metal fabric, allowing them to hit him much harder. "You are capable when fighting against a single strong opponent, as can be seen in your duel with All Might. Truly, you did better than many of us ever have. However, you struggle when facing multiple weaker opponents as we saw with Timepiece. Never mind those of us above her, even Bullet Hell could defeat her when she first joined us. You simply don't have the ability to fight on the scale that you need to when compared to strong heroines."
"When I first saw your practical exam, I was impressed with how quickly you understood how the robots worked and how you dealt with them. It spoke wonders of your ability to plan and think on the fly, but you can't plan for everything when you're in the real world."
At this point, Izuku had managed to slowly redirect the copper strips so that he would be between them and Ferra, so he made a dash to attack the woman. Unfortunately for him, the aged woman was anticipating this, a part of her cape that she left behind her at the start of the fight knocking him back into the fray before orbiting her.
"And while it's good that you can think beyond the first step you take, something that weak heroines and villains lack, it simply isn't enough when you get to the big leagues. Any of the women in the top ten in this room would have at least been able to touch me by this point, and yet there you are, suppressed by a fraction of the metal that I could use against you in the real world."
"That brings up another good point – though you may have won against quite a number of us, you do so under optimal conditions for yourself. Our space is limited, our supplies are limited, and we aren't allowed to injure you too badly. If we were to café each other in the training grounds, I doubt you'd beat five of us. If we all went all-out, maybe you'd win a fight or two. Just because you did well here doesn't mean that you should become egotistic."
Izuku was already tired before the fight began, but this spar was far more intensive than any of the others had been. Having to keep track of All Might as she blitzed him was easy by now, having trained with her for a long time and her only being one person. The copper, however, posed much greater difficulty. The relatively soft, ductile metal was somehow enhanced by the woman's quirk, either being forced to hold its shape with magnetic force or imbued with Onaic energy.
The fact that there were eight bands attacking him at once, moving in ways that a human opponent simply wouldn't be able to, made it significantly harder.
"You did make the correct choice removing your armor before we began, seeing as I would have simply tossed you around the room until you surrendered otherwise. However, now that you have only your own body to rely upon, you're slowing down. As you said to me when we first spoke, you can't take a hit like I could. Without that bodysuit, you'd be bruising and you're going to exhaust yourself in a few minutes regardless."
"Here, I'll give you a chance." The copper bands froze in mid-air. "I won't use my quirk, so we'll be on even footing. If you can land a hit on me before you collapse, I'll call it a draw. If you don't, it'll be your loss."
Izuku took the opportunity to slowly walk over, relaxing for a moment before moving in to strike. Despite his years of training, the grey-haired heroine wasn't bothered by his assault. With strength far greater than his, she dismantled his tired efforts without thinking. Just before he collapsed, however, he made to attack with three of his limbs at once, leaving one leg planted out of her reach behind him. His other leg and arm were blocked, but his left fist scored a solid blow on her ribs, knocking her back as Izuku fell to the ground.
While he lay there, panting, Ferra approached him, looming over his fallen form. "While one of the most important lessons for a heroine to learn is when to run away from a battle, the mindset and tenacity to push beyond one's limits is something that cannot simply be taught. This was a good fight, Midoriya. Maybe the next time we meet you'll be stronger."
With those parting words, her cape re-formed behind her back and she walked off, the barrier collapsing as Caritas judged the competition to be over. Before Toshiko could get to him and make sure that he was okay, Izuku felt his body being lifted from the ground and puppeteered over to Aquarius. The grandma of 1-S looked at him with an inquisitive expression before pulling water from one of the unopened bottles to his mouth, forcing him to swallow enough that she could make it quickly re-enter his bloodstream. Over the next two minutes, she used incredibly precise hydrokinesis to bring him back into a reasonable condition. During this time, however, he had passed out, settling closer to sleep as the seconds passed.
Ignoring Toshiko's requests, she picked up the boy's backpack with an errant tendril of water and used her quirk on both of them, flying them back towards the dormitory that she had lived in so long ago. Toshiko followed them, running ahead to see if anyone was awake.
Aquarius and Toshiko arrived at roughly the same time, making their way inside only to see that Katsumi was sitting on one of the chairs, watching the door. Upon seeing Izuku's unconscious body floating through the air, she jumped up, the telltale pops of her quirk building up sweat for her to use.
"Who are you two, and what did you do to Izuku!"
Before Toshiko could tell her anything about the scenario, the elderly woman turned her kind smile on Katsumi. "What a feisty child! It's natural to care for one's classmate, but there's no need for such violence, dear. Izuku here just tired himself out at the party, so I took it upon myself to carry him back to his dormitory. If you could, would you mind taking him to his room? I'm sure he'll be able to tell you all about what happened tomorrow."
As Katsumi was about to give her response, the elderly woman floated Izuku over to her and set him down, leaving her to catch him before he fell over.
"Aww, the two of you look so cute together! I'll leave you two lovebirds alone, but make sure that you get enough sleep for tomorrow!"
With that parting sentence, Teramoto Ren, more famously known as Aquarius, left the building, and a few seconds later the campus of UA. This left Toshiko alone to briefly explain what had happened at the party to cause Izuku to get into the state that he was now. Needless to say, Katsumi was not pleased.
"What do you mean, 'He fought all of us in a row'? Aren't you all supposed to be the elite of the elite, pro heroines who've been working for years? As much as I believe in him, that's too much to expect of anyone with a quirk, let alone without! That's just bullying him with a different name!"
Toshiko laughed nervously. "If it makes you feel any better, he did pretty well. He beat eleven of us, three of us forfeited, and there was only one draw. That's better than anyone other than the big three of us did when we were joining, and they… well, you've already met one of them. Listen, as much as I'd like to explain this to you, I need to teach tomorrow and you need to be in class. Like Aquarius said, he should be fine and able to explain tomorrow morning. If you'd like my help taking him to his room I'd be happy to, but now isn't the time for drawn-out explanations."
Biting back her first and second responses, Katsumi formulated one that was almost diplomatic. "I'll take care of him. Good night." With that, she changed her grip on Izuku from merely supporting him to actively carrying him, carefully walking upstairs and to his room. When she got there, she shifted her grip again and tried the doorknob. Unsurprisingly and unfortunately, it was locked.
For a few seconds, she patted down Izuku's pockets trying to find a key. She was halted in this search by the door opening before her, Midoriya's inhuman form standing on the other side. Greeting him with a nod, she carried Izuku over to his bed and set him down, tossing the covers over him before leaving to bring his backpack upstairs.
When she returned, Midoriya had tucked Izuku into bed and dissolved back into the barrel of nanobots. She set the backpack next to the door, gently closing the door behind her. Once she had finished, she sat down with her back to the door, closing her eyes for a few seconds before snapping them open.
Standing back up, she walked the short distance to the door to her room. Slowly and quietly unlocking and opening it, she tip-toed her way inside and closed it behind her.
Looking over at Tooru's bed, she could make out the lump in the covers that signified her presence and hear her quiet breathing. As quietly as she could, she slipped into bed and formed the cocoon of her covers that she had made nightly for as long as she could remember.
Despite the thoughts flying through her head, Katsumi quickly fell into an uneasy sleep. She didn't know what tomorrow would hold, but it wouldn't do any good to worry or stay awake. Only tomorrow could she find out what had happened tonight, and it would be the start of her education as a heroine.
Author's Note: Many thanks to my beta reader, The_Bisexual_Otaku_Slytherindor.
As promised, here's the long chapter. Please let me know what you thought of the OC heroines, as I fully intend for them to come back and would like your honest opinions on them to help writing their characters. Next chapter, we finally get to the first day of classes!
If you are interested, here's the roster of 'Class 1-S', sorted by points scored in the entrance exam. Format: Name | Quirk
1. Ferra | Magnetism
2. Quicksilver | Faster
3. All Might | One for All
4. Izuku | Truth
5. Timepiece | Ten Seconds
6. Caritas | Benevolence
7. Aftershock | Vibration Control
8. Lawbreaker | Defiance
9. Storybook | Role
10. Imperator | Dominance
11. Archenemy | Escalation
12. Oathkeeper | Sacred Promise
13. Confluence | Fate
14. Chaos | Unstable Genome
15. Dreamer | Nightmare
16. Aquarius | True Hydrokinesis
17. Perfect Order | Domino Effect
18. Teamwork | Crowd Control
19. Writ | Lawmaker
20. Afterimage | Repetition
21. Bullet Hell | Implosion
And in case anyone's wondering, here they are listed in order of strength, under optimal conditions, as of this chapter.
1. Chaos | Unstable Genome
2. Aquarius | True Hydrokinesis
3. All Might | One for All
4. Archenemy | Escalation
5. Ferra | Magnetism
6. Quicksilver | Faster
7. Dreamer | Nightmare
8. Lawbreaker | Defiance
9. Writ | Lawmaker
10. Storybook | Role
11. Aftershock | Earthquake
12. Perfect Order | Domino Effect
13. Imperator | Dominance
14. Oathkeeper | Sacred Promise
15. Confluence | Fate
16. Izuku | Truth
17. Timepiece | Ten Seconds
18. Teamwork | Crowd Control
19. Afterimage | Repetition
20. Bullet Hell | Implosion
21. Caritas | Benevolence
I'll post the quirk library for them in a separate work in the series on AO3 in the near future.
Please leave a comment or review if you have any questions or if there's anything you'd like me to know.
UPDATE: Hey everyone, it's me. I had this chapter written a few days ago and the next one is nearly half-done, but recent events have affected the upload schedule. There was a shooting at my university yesterday, and I'll be taking some time off of writing to recover mentally. I am physically fine, and do intend to keep updating this after I'm back to normal. Still, though, I don't think I'll be updating for the next two weeks at the least. Take care everyone, and stay safe out there.
-SoulCraftsman