"What'd I tell you about Quirk-fugues, nerd?" Kacchan demanded, still grinning even as he dragged Izuku toward the building they were meant to be getting themselves set up in.

Apparently, the pair of them would be protecting a mock-up nuclear missile from the Hero team that was going to be trying to bring them in, or to "disarm" the fake missile, before the time-limit expired. Or else they could stalemate the other team, bouncing them around the various floors until the time-limit ran out on them and they one. With Kacchan's Quirk and his own stockpile that would be the best way to deal with them… and, it would be pretty fun, too.

"All right, nerd," Kacchan said, face-eating grin still firmly in place. "Let's get this thing up to the top floor and then go kick some ass."

He chuckled softly. "Right."

Narrowing his eyes, Izuku pulled up the Quirk that Kurogiri-sensei had given him when he was about seven, wrapping the Warp Gate around himself, Kacchan, and the mock weapon the pair of them had been given, warping to the top floor so that they could drop the thing off, and then back down to the ground floor again. Uncle- All Might's voice came through the radio in his ear just as he and Kacchan came out of his Warp Gate.

"Villains, your time is up!" his voice announced, and Kacchan's face-eating grin somehow managed to widen.

As the pair of them set up a search pattern on the ground floor, Izuku called up another of the Quirks, a sensory-enhancement type that Dad had given him when he was five.

"You got 'em, nerd?"

"Yeah, Kacchan," he said. "They're just about to come in through the door, right in front of us."

Just as he'd finished saying that, Yaoyorozu and Mineta came charging right in. The first to do anything was actually Mineta, pulling one of the purple balls off of his head – Izuku watched as another one grew in its place almost immediately – and threw it at the both of them. Instinctively, Izuku opened a small Warp Gate for the ball to fly through, hitting Mineta in the face and making him jump backwards as Yaoyorozu dodged past Kacchan, grabbing Mineta and pulling him out of the way before Kacchan could turn and explode the both of them.

Grabbing Kacchan's left wrist as Kacchan grabbed his left shoulder in turn, he wrapped the both of them in a Warp Gate, moving them right in the path of Yaoyorozu and Mineta as they tried to run deeper into the building. Once the slight sensation of vertigo he always had when going through a Warp Gate – whether it was one he'd made, one of Dad's, or one of Kurogiri-sensei's – had passed, Izuku called up Gravity Nullification.

"Nice work, nerd!" Kacchan laughed, blasting the pair of them up toward the ceiling.

Taking a few seconds to breathe now that they were out of the line of fire for anything more that Mineta might throw at them, or whatever other kinds of things that Yaoyorozu's Quirk could to; he'd seen her pull a whole scooter out of her stomach, so the question of just what her Quirk could do-

"Not the time, nerd!" Kacchan said, grinning even as he slapped Izuku upside the head.

"Right, sorry," he said, feeling his cheeks flushing again.

He really had to remember not to do that when he wasn't with Dad, or at least back home in his room.

The rest of the battle was mostly handled by Yaoyorozu, who pulled out several flash-bangs, a few smoke bombs, and even what seemed to be a bazooka that fired cement pellets, but with Kacchan's Explosion and his own stockpile by way of All For One, he and Kacchan managed to hold them off long enough for the time limit to run out. Pinning them down on the lower two floors of the building, bouncing Mineta's purple balls right back into his own face through his Warp Gate, and buzzing them from the ceiling with Gravity Nullification.

"So that's what those things actually do," Kacchan muttered, as Yaoyorozu stepped on one of the balls that had bounced away from Mineta when he'd thrown them through Izuku's Warp Gate, sticking to the floor and having to quickly shift her balance so that she didn't end up falling flat on her face.

"Yeah, that was interesting," he said, though his own focus was more on Yaoyorozu's Quirk rather than Mineta's.

Yes, those kinds of non-lethal restraints would be useful in more than a few situations he could think of, but the sheer versatility of Yaoyorozu's Quirk was what really drew his attention. Still, Kacchan would slap him in the back of the head if he started over-analyzing anything, so Izuku lowered the both of them back to the ground and pulled Gravity Nullification back into All For One.

"You're learning, nerd," Kacchan said, his grin distinctly calmer than the face-eating one he always wore when the pair of them practiced with their respective Quirks, or when they were fighting the way they were now.

Laughing softly as Kacchan dragged him back to the room that All Might had directed them to come to once they'd finished with the exercise, Izuku looked around at all of the other students gathered in the room with him. Pulling his latest notebook out of his backpack through a Warp Gate, Izuku smiled even as he heard Kacchan laughing beside him.

"You never change, ya nerd."

Ducking his head as Kacchan ground his knuckles into his scalp, Izuku laughed, even as he looked back at the huge monitoring screen that displayed his classmates and what their Quirks could do.

~MHA~

Once class had let out for the day, with Izuku having filled out his thirteenth Quirk analysis notebook and started on his fourteenth during the time he'd been watching the rest of his fellow students, Izuku jogged to the door where the General Studies classes were being let out. Looking over the crowd as they all spilled out onto the grounds, Izuku searched for a familiar figure: tall ears and a long tail, with markings like a tabby cat visible on the parts her uniform didn't cover. Finding her walking next to a purple-haired boy – one whose hair was somehow even messier than his, which Kacchan was probably going to say something about – Izuku hurried over to meet up with the pair of them.

"Bambaa-chan! Hey, sis!" he called, smiling as his friend and adopted sister made her way over to where he was standing.

Bambaa-chan waved to him, jogging over to where he was standing, waving as the pair of them came into each other's direct line of sight.

/It's good to see you again Izu-chan,/ Bambaa-chan called back, even as she and the purple-haired boy who was obviously one of her fellow classmates in General Studies came over to meet up with him.

"So, you two know each other," the purple-haired boy said, looking from Bambaa-chan to him and then back again; now that they were all standing so close, Izuku noticed that the bags under his eyes looked more than a little like Aizawa-sensei's. "But you don't look anything like family."

"She's adopted," he clarified, nearly at the same time that Bambaa-chan spoke up, herself.

/I'm originally from Rosaru, Shinsou-san,/ she said, her idly-waving tail going completely still for a long moment.

"Ah, sorry about that," the now-named Shinsou said, nearly wincing with his whole body once Bambaa-chan had said those words.

/It's all right; it's not like I go out of my way to advertize it or anything,/ Bambaa-chan said, smiling gently as she purred to try to reassure him.

"Still, that's not the name on your locker, Bambaa-san," Shinsou said, side-eyeing Bambaa-chan in a way that suggested he was both curious and a bit wary.

Izuku didn't quite know what to make of that last thing; he hoped Shinsou was doing all right.

"That's because none of these lazy extras can be bothered to pronounce Bombalurina correctly," Kacchan said, coming up behind the pair of them.

Kacchan, of course, managed to pronounce the distinctly foreign name better than pretty much anyone else he'd ever heard trying to; Izuku knew he'd probably been practicing that kind of thing as much as he could, since that was what he did with all of the other things he wanted to get right.

"You're still being rude, Kacchan. Besides, it is kind of a mouthful," he said, feeling himself flushing again as Kacchan wrapped one arm around his neck and the other around Bambaa-chan's neck.

"Yeah whatever, nerd," Kacchan said, grinning. "You guys're waiting for that secretary guy, right?"

"Yeah, Uncle Toshi's meeting up with us, and then we're going to be heading back home with Dad," he said, smiling at Kacchan even as he looked over at Bambaa-chan.

Her ears were moving, so he knew that she was searching for Uncle Toshi's distinctive presence. Before he could turn and start looking for Uncle Toshi on his own, Izuku felt a very familiar pair of hands on his cheeks.

"Neito-kun, stop feeling me up for Quirks," he said, turning to frown back at the blond he'd met during the specially-tailored version of the entrance exam that the both of them had needed in order to show what their respective Quirks could do. "I'm not using any."

"Come on, I find my perfect partner in our shared exam, and I can't even spend time with him outside of class?" Monoma demanded, smirking in a way that almost seemed calculated to be annoying.

Luckily, Uncle Toshi showed up not soon after that, and the three of them met up with Dad for the drive back home, with Bambaa-chan leaning against him once the pair of them had settled down in the back seat of Dad's car.

Bambaa-chan – Bombalurina Midoriya, though she'd had another name, one that he couldn't remember – had come to live with them six years ago, after the Rosaru Ward had been burned to the ground by a mysterious Villain group that the Police were still searching for even now. Uncle Toshi had made his public debut as the Pro Hero All Might only a month before that horrible night, but seeing the mass destruction and loss of life had also lit a fire under Dad. His debut as the Underground Hero known only as Sensei had been that very night.

Using a combination of Quirks he called Panacea, Dad was able to heal anyone he made it to before their bodies gave out entirely; he used it to help people who'd been caught up in natural disasters, or the aftermath of large-scale Villain attacks.

Turning at the soft sound of Bambaa-chan's purring, Izuku smiled softly as his sister leaned her head against his left shoulder. Smiling softly as he wrapped his own left arm around her neck, he turned to look out the tinted window on his right, watching the city go by as Dad drove them back to their estate. Once they'd all made it back to the Midoriya estate – Dad had had the name changed once he'd married Mom, something about wanting to make a new start for this part of his life – Izuku smiled as he made his way out of the car, following Dad and Uncle Toshi up to the main house.

The sight of Mom, smiling as she waited for them at the top of the steps, brought a wide, answering smile to his own face, even as Dad leaned down to kiss her deeply. He'd always thought it was funny, each time he saw just how much taller Dad was than Mom, but Izuku also found himself hoping that he'd end up inheriting more than just Dad's curly hair as he grew. Being short all his life wasn't something that he was looking forward to at all.

Still, since Dad was taller than pretty much anyone else he'd met – only Uncle Toshi's powered-up form came close – Izuku held at least some hope for not being short all his life.