With the library open and students having just gotten back into the swing of classes, it was no surprise to Izuku that the entire library was suddenly awash in activity as students roamed about, trying to get books to help with new assignments or just looking for something to help ease the boredom of renewed classes. Some students were sleeping in chairs, using books to strategically cover their faces, while others were keenly interested in what they were reading. For Izuku, right now was an opportunity to switch out a few books on Aura that he'd finished reading in order to swap them out with some new books, ones that would hopefully advance his own notes all the further once he was finished with them. As he did that, however, Izuku took notice of one student in particular who caught his eye...
Mirio. The third year student seemed to have a book or two out in front of him, the blonde young man squinting slightly as he took in the pages in front of him. It was rare to ever see Mirio without his trademark grin, but the flat line that was his lips seemed to suggest that he was focusing...
'Man…he's really focusing…' Izuku thought, and then, a small little voice suddenly began to prey on him a bit, 'Well...I could just maybe walk up on him quietly, and maybe spook him. He's done it to me so many times, that it wouldn't be so bad would it?'
His path set, Izuku quietly walked over to his senior, doing his best to keep his breathing under control. Izuku finally reached him and, with a smile, he put his small joke into motion-
"Hey Mirio, how are you?" Izuku didn't shout, it was a library after all, but he spoke suddenly and quickly enough that he knew it'd be a bit of a shock to himself if the situation was reversed. Izuku waited for the reaction... only for Mirio to turn his head his way, the flat line of his lips curling into his usual, friendly grin as his eyes shine slightly.
"Ah, Izuku! Good to see you! How are you holding up?"
...
Izuku just 'barely' managed to keep the disappointment off his face as he internally sighed, perhaps it shouldn't have been too surprising that Mirio hadn't been all too stunned by his own trick being pulled against him, as Izuku slid out a chair opposite him and sat in it. Even though he was a tad disappointed that it didn't work like he had thought it would, Izuku still smiled back at his fellow Team Leader shrugged.
"Oh you know how it is; everybody woke up pretty tired earlier today now that school's started back up but otherwise I'm doing fine. Just coming by to exchange out some books I've been reading for some new ones." Mirio nodded in understanding as he, politely, closed his own book, setting it off to the side.
"Sounds about right; I know that coming back from breaks was pretty rough on my team too... it's just hard to 'not' sleep in over a holiday!" Mirio said with a smile and a chuckle while Izuku took notice of the title of the book he was reading. 'Graucus III: The Fall of The Monochrome Empire'. Taking notice of his underclassman's wandering eyes, Mirio just chuckled as he scratched the back of his head. "I've been doing a bit of reading myself; after what you told me before break about who exactly was involved with the attack on Mountain Glenn, I wanted to learn a little bit more about what we were potentially up again. I'm actually a little surprised; I asked my own teacher about this Monochrome League when I went to check in with him over break, but he seemed to be as in the dark as you were. Apparently they're just as new as you and the authorities thought they were... though he did suspect that they were a Monochrome Cult." Izuku nodded; in idle conversations, he'd heard similar things whispered too. There had just been one problem for Izuku…
'I don't even know what the Monochrome Cult even is? They probably venerate the Monochrome Empire, but are the religious or something? Do they worship some ancient gods...or the old emperors themselves...actually those both sound creepy to me.'
"Yeah, I've heard that to... though, for all the good it does me. I don't exactly know a lot about Monochrome Cults." Mirio nodded, apparently having been in very much the same boat.
"Yeah; from what I hear they're not supposed to be too common in Vale, mostly they're set up in Mistral or Atlas. According to my teacher, they aren't supposed to be usually too active when it comes to... well, stuff like The Tunnels. They're usually sort of secret-societies and stuff like that, more ceremony and weird hats and less active dissidents... though that apparently doesn't stop the Four Kingdoms from working themselves up over them and looking to crack down when they know they've found a group."
"Well, can't say I'm too surprised." If Izuku was a member of the Governing Councils, he wouldn't take too kindly to groups that looked at one of his predecessors as some kind of guiding example... "So what, the Cults want to restore the old Empire, right?"
"Uh, like I said, I'm kind of as in the dark as you are, so I've been doing some research. Teacher said that the fact that this new group was a Monochrome Cult wasn't as important as the actions that it took. Like he said, most Monochrome Cults don't go through with this kind of stuff which lead him to suspect that it was some kind of extreme outlier, so he thought it'd be a waste of time to focus on that. But I figured maybe if we understood something about them and their purpose then maybe we could try to figure out what they might get up to, right?" Izuku nodded, that sounded reasonable enough to him. "Which got me doing a little bit of reading." Mirio looked down at the book and picked it up, flipping through some pages. "Like... well, let's start with this; what do you know about the Monochrome Empire, Izuku?"
'... Uh…'
'Shoot. I'm really glad that Professor-Doctor! Doctor Oobleck isn't here right now.'
Yeah, Izuku was really just drawing a blank here if he was being perfectly honest. So, with a slight sigh, he sheepishly scratched the back of his head as he looked off to the side. "To be honest? I really only know what everyone else knows about the Monochrome Empire. It predated the Four Kingdoms by quite a bit, the practice of enslaving Faunus started under it and that under Emperor Canus... the something, the population of humans and Faunus reached its peak." Mirio nodded slowly, the young man having given a quick smile as he shrugged himself.
"Yeah that was about the extent of my knowledge as well; outside of Oobleck's History classes and its derivatives, you really don't get much about the Monochrome Empire outside of that. I guess people just don't like bringing it up too often." Mirio motioned for Izuku to scoot over toward him and, in short order, Izuku did so. "Still, I figured maybe if I figured maybe that gap in knowledge was what was keeping me from being able to figure out motives." Izuku tilted his head slightly to the side, a slight bit of confusion passing over your face.
"Well I figured their motives would be pretty obvious; they'd want a restoration of the old Monochrome Empire, right? That's what all these Cults should be about?" Mirio nodded slightly, though he offered a slightly goofy grin to go along with it.
"Like I said, I thought that too, but when I looked back at the history it became pretty clear that such a thing wasn't the reason." Izuku blinked in surprise as Mirio pointed down to the pages. "I mean, it sounds like a good enough motive; the old Empire was... well, I'd hate to call any period that included enslaving Faunus our 'peak' but if you were mostly concerned about keeping the Grimm at bay and prosperity, then the Monochrome empire was that peak. The Empire controlled most of the continents, the Grimm were absolutely decimated and major attacks on settlements were pretty much nonexistent and because there was just the One Empire, aside from some minor states left in its periphery that it couldn't get to, it was just all handled together." A map flipped by and, indeed, verified Mirio's words: sprawling across the expanse of Remnant was a great, grey blob, one that swallowed the borders of much of the Four Kingdoms he knew today: Atlas, and the old Kingdom of Mantle, were entirely subsumed into the Monochrome Empire, as was Vale. The coasts of Mistral were almost entirely under its controls and, in Vacuo, spots of civilization dotted the desert as it seemed like most oasis were under its control. Even the badlands in the continent Northwest of Vale seemed to be mostly under the control of the Monochrome Empire.
It was only the highly mountainous regions of Mistral or, indeed, the vast deserts of Vacuo that seemed outside its reach. "Jeez, how do you even manage to put together something like that?" Izuku asked, a bit unnerved. Mirio, however, seemed utterly nonplussed as usual, Izuku's senior giving a slight frown as, again, he just shrugged as he looked down at the book.
"Well I really don't understand that either. There isn't a lot about what exactly let the Empire hold itself together. Soldiers, armies, sure, but well Mantle had that and it fell apart in a much smaller area." Mirio flipped the pages again until a stunning figure was shown on a page. An outfit of grey and the odd highlights, with jewels dotting the man's fingers, sat underneath a cloak of Nevermore feathers that fell from his shoulders down to the ground. A mane of silver hair was adorned with a crown of black and white, silver having been forged around it to decorate it. The man's skin was lightly tanned and his eyes a shade of grey... though, that wasn't the eye in the picture he was looking at, necessarily. No, the portrait had been painted with a great eye sat above the man, a shimmer of silver, black and white emanating from it as it looked out from above and behind him. "There's the occasional reference to what the book refers to as 'The Eyes of Empire' but it never really goes into detail about it. The way it's titled it kind of sounds like some kind of Semblance... and considering how this all fell apart, maybe that explains a lot."
"Right, so why was it clear that putting the Empire back together wasn't the reason for the Cults?" Izuku shook his head, getting back on track as Mirio rounded back about to the point as well.
"Right. So it'd make sense that some types of people might want to go back to this considering how bad off things have gotten since then, especially with the Grimm having killed so many people, but... well, even if people wanted that, it wouldn't be possible to get." Mirio flipped towards the end of the book and, again, another painting of another figure is presented. This one wasn't nearly as intimidating however. Round, red cheeks rolling into a soft chin as a pair of grey eyes stare plaintively into the distance, presumably towards a painter. While his clothes underneath the regalia were fit for his size, a tiny thing he was, the regalia looked like it was ready to slide off of him within moments; the cloak of Nevermore feathers pooled on the ground behind him and the crown was held in his hands rather than on his head and, even then, his hands seemed barely large enough to hold it.
'Graucus III, Emperor and Autocrat of The Monochrome Empire, Son of The First Man, First Among Men,' the title of the portrait had helpfully pointed out who this was.
"You mentioned population peak and Canus; well, that was this kid's father, Canus VII. He died about a month before this portrait was made... and Graucus III was dead two months after at five years old. Killed by advisers and guards in his ranks that sympathized with the growing dissident movements in the various areas that would later unify into the Four Kingdoms. The rest of the Imperial Family was hunted down in the following months and, well, the entire Empire just collapsed into the Pre-Kingdoms warring states. That's why I don't think it's about bringing the Empire back together with these Monochrome Cults in general... why bother? The Imperial Family's dead and this 'Eyes of Empire' probably went with them. After all, if the only window they had available to do this would be while the kid was so young, then it makes sense if it was some kind of Semblance that ran in their genes; even if he had it, he probably had no way of knowing how to use it properly."
"That just seems..." Izuku frowned slightly, having to avert his eyes from the portrait of Graucus III, "... kind of extreme, doesn't it? Killing someone that young?" Izuku saw Mirio dip down into seriousness for perhaps the first time he'd ever met him.
"I really couldn't condone it myself either but, if you think about it, it probably was their only chance. The Empire had faced upheavals before but the Emperors always seemed to have this uncanny ability to crush them underneath their heels. Even the most secretly held conspiracies were ousted, rebellious forces ambushed in kind, and anyone who even spoke treason was arrested and... well, you get the picture." Izuku nodded, grimly, as Mirio folded his arms together. "Plus I can't say that I'd blame Faunus who might've helped with this for being unsympathetic to this kid and his family, considering they were the ones who started using them as slave labor. So... as sick as it is, killing him, doing so was probably their only shot at bringing down the empire." Izuku gave nod, though not very enthusiastically, as he looked over to Mirio.
"But... yeah, I see your point now. No point in trying to take political action if there's nothing to go back to... so what, Monochrome Cults are just..."
"Social groups of people with too much time and money on their hands? Yeah, sounds like it. I suppose in that vein that my teacher was right; it being some kind of Monochrome organization really doesn't matter. After all, the attack on The Tunnels basically breaks entirely with other Monochrome Cults activities... so it has to be something else... but what..." Mirio rubbed his chin slightly and Izuku did so in kind as well.
"Well, maybe the name's just meant to trip people up?" Mirio looked up to Izuku, looking down at the pages. "I mean, if you and your teacher are right, then these guys aren't acting like members of the usual Monochrome Cults at all and... well, their actions are kind of pointless if that's what they are. There's no Emperor to put back on the throne so why bother with the attacks? Maybe they're just using the name as a smokescreen; a way to obfuscate what they're actually up to?" Izuku saw Mirio smile a bit as he spoke, the smile growing wider before he chuckled.
"It's funny, while my teacher didn't say it in so many words, I think he suspects much the same thing; if they aren't a legit Monochrome Cult, then they have to be using the name for a reason, right? Pretty sharp there Izuku."Izuku smiled a bit at that.
"Well thanks Mirio... gosh, being in line with an older, more experienced hunter..." Izuku grinned at Mirio as he tilted his head to the side. "Who is your teacher anyway Mirio? Maybe I could meet him?"
...
Izuku watched as Mirio's expression tightened a bit, his smile drifting into a flat line as he quietly hummed to himself.
"... Mirio?"
"Hahaha, ah, maybe. I'd say give it some time though." Izuku blinked, tilting his head to the side.
"Huh, really? Why?" Mirio hummed again, putting his chin in his hand as he tilted his head down.
"Well... gosh, how do I put it? It was really very strange; when I brought up that you were the one who brought the Monochrome League to my attention, and when my teacher saw the news reports... hmmm... it was very odd. It was definitely subtle, as so many things are with him given how reserved he is, but he was... upset? Upset I think is the word I can best put to it. Which I didn't quite understand." Well now Izuku was confused. Some guy Izuku never even met was upset when he was brought up? The fact that it was an apparently experienced Hunter put him even more off; did someone he look up to not like him... just off of reputation? Why?
"Well... I'm just as confused as you are then, Mirio. I don't think I've ever crossed anyone in a way that they'd be upset with me... except maybe Kacchan but, well, that's a whole kettle of fish in and of itself." Izuku admitted, nervously, though Mirio nodded in understanding.
"I wouldn't have expected so given how you behave Izuku, but it is what it is. When teacher cools down... well, if he does, but Teacher always eventually evens out so I know he will, maybe I'll introduce you then. For now, it might be best if we wait on that." Izuku nodded in understanding while Mirio closed his book. "Anyway, seems like teacher was right, this was a bit of a dead end." With that, Mirio just gave a wide smile as he scratched the back of his head. "Well, I can't say that much; I did learn a lot of interesting new stuff! So it wasn't a total waste of time, hahaha!"
He couldn't help but grin at that; Mirio's enthusiasm seemed to be rather infectious like that.
"Anyway, I'll see you around Izuku, I've probably spent enough time spinning my wheels here, best get back to my team." Izuku nodded in agreement and gave Mirio a quick wave, ready to get back to the business of getting his new books himself.
He was right; it might not have been a big breakthrough, but it was interesting stuff to learn about...
Oh!
"Mirio, wait, before I forget!" Mirio turned his head to look over at Izuku, watching his junior fiddle around with his pockets and then Izuku's bag as he looked for something. With a grin he eventually brought it out; that Toshinori figure he'd carved from wood. While his own work was adequate as before, with its dynamic pose, the paint job was as professional as he had expected; the little details were there and none of the colors ran together or across lines. It all looked really good, in his opinion.
Apparently it looked really good to Mirio too as the young man's eyes practically glimmered as he phased through the table that had separated the pair of them to get over on his side. "Oh wow! You weren't kidding when you said you could do this! This looks amazing Izuku! Did you do the paint job on top of the carving?"
"No I didn't, but I know these really reliable people who do. I did do the carving myself, even picked out the pose!" Mirio nodded his head as he spoke, a wide smile on his face.
"Wow you picked such a cool one! Isn't it amazing how Toshinori can just 'jump' and then he's basically soaring through the air like a superhero out of one of those comic books?"
"I know! It's great! You should've been there on the first day of Live Exercises for First Years, he actually jumped in from somewhere to land in front of everyone."
"Oh no way! Gods, that would've been so cool to see!"
"It really was!"
And so despite the fact that the pair really did have things to do, they devolved into lightly nerding out over their shared hero, Toshinori Yagi, the man who inspired them both on their path to becoming Great Huntsmen and Heroes.
The rest of the library just stared, deciding that they didn't particularly want to get involved with one of the most famous Third Years by telling him to be quiet, especially when he seemed so excited.
"... Gods, what's happened this time?" Izuku was struck from his thoughts as he heard a familiar voice ring out nearby, a turn of his head turning his attention over to one Velvet Scarlatina. The young woman, was currently anxiously waiting in some spot in the hall, the rabbit Faunus having bit her lips slightly as she tucked a strand of hair behind her head. "Something must've come up again... wish I knew but, well... that's-"
"Hey Velvet."
"Oh!" Izuku watched, somewhat humorously, as Velvet jumped in spot, the suddenness of his entrance spooking her.
'Well at least there was one senior I can do that too, if not Mirio.'
Izuku offered a friendly smile as he walked over to the rabbit Faunus, the young woman heaving a relieved sigh as she saw him on the approach. "Oh, Izuku, it's good to see you. I wasn't expecting you around here; classes ended a little while ago, after all."
"Yeah well I guess I've kind of lost track of time." Izuku admitted to her, the young woman nodding understandingly while he glanced around. "Anyway, I could ask you the same question Velvet; why you hanging around here?" Velvet frowned slightly as she looked around.
"Well... I'm not so much hanging around here as... well, I'm waiting for Coco and the others to show up." Izuku blinked, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly as Velvet chuckled. "Right, you haven't been hanging around us that long yet." Velvet seemed sheepish for not having realized that before she moved into an explanation. "Well, you see, because most of Team CFVY is on the Second Year Schedule, our classes don't quite line up right; they get out earlier than I do. It's supposed to give us time to train or handle official team business like getting ready for a mission..." Velvet sighed as Izuku start to see the picture forming. "Well, that's what it's 'supposed' to do. Because of my situation, we're effectively on two separate schedules that can be off by anywhere up to a an hour or so. Coco being Coco she just rolled with it and decided that we'd arrange for a spot where we could meet up after my own classes were done, that way we wouldn't waste time 'just' looking for each other."
"I mean, think about it; Beacon's such a massive campus and, even knowing where they generally are at the end of their classes, they'd have something like a full hour to move around before I'd even be out of my own classes. They rarely ever head back to the dorm immediately after classes too, especially now that Coco's been doing the Leadership Council with you all and hanging out when she can... Yatsu always ended up going out to try and... hrmmm..." Izuku watched Velvet blushed slightly as she brought up her fingers. "'Court' some fellow students and Fox... well, Fox usually ends up tagging along with one or the other. So we all decided that it'd be easier on everyone if after my classes I'd just head for a pre-arranged meeting spot and we'd group up there." That sounded like a really solid idea to him, honestly.
"Alright, so you're waiting for one of them to show up then, I take it?" Izuku saw Velvet frown slightly at that.
"Well... no. You see, our usual time for meeting up was... well... as soon as I get here..." The shy Faunus slowly shrank as she spoke.
"Oh... something come up?"
"Yeah; Coco usually just messages me real quick if they're going to be late and it's never usually long on specifics. Usually a professor's kept our Team after a class for a while, some trouble got stirred up by someone or another or Coco got called in for something official. It's usually no big deal, someone will pop by eventually... but... well, that usually means I'm on my own for a bit..."
It doesn't take much imagination to figure out what Velvet's getting at; she gets left on her own, able to get picked off by someone like Cardin like on the day Izuku met her.
"Oh jeez, I'm sorry to hear that." Izuku saw Velvet sigh as she reached a strand of hair behind her hair.
"Thanks Izuku but... it's not something to be sorry about... it... it really is my own nest to roost in." Velvet seemed slightly nervous about saying that for some reason. "This wouldn't really be necessary if I didn't end up screwing everything up in our First Year. Everyone besides me managed to get their acts together and pass that Semester... and it was rough on all of us, to be perfectly honest. I was the only one who ended up just dropping the ball entirely, despite..." Velvet frowned, her eyes downcast as she shook her head. "Well, that doesn't matter so much; you've seen me when tutoring. I have a tendency to choke... and it was worse last year. A 'lot' worse." Velvet shrugged her shoulders at that.
"It's my own fault that this situation ended up like this, I really can't be mad at my Team if things pop up before they can get here that they have to deal with. They do try their best, after all. So I... I just have to grit my teeth and bear it. Try to cause as little trouble as possible, you know?"
"That might actually be causing the difficulties." Velvet blinked slightly, the rabbit Faunus turning to him as he spoke. "I know firsthand how nerves can get in the way. What methods have you tried already? My own method is to focus entirely on the task instead of the consequences, which tends to make me a little tunnel visioned at times, but it helps delay the panic until AFTER everything is done."
...
Instead of being met with much of a direct answer, Velvet instead looked at him confused for a moment, the young woman tilting her head slightly to the side. Finally it seemed like Velvet started to follow him, a quick 'Oh!' escaping her lips as she shook her head.
"Ah, no, Izuku, that's not exactly what I meant." Izuku blinked as Velvet brought her hands down in front of her, wringing them together as she looked at him. "I'm not saying that I should just accept my nerves and take my lumps from them, goodness no... that's... that's what got me into this situation in the first place. Obviously I need to move past them. That's why I've been studying with you and getting what help I could; I want to learn to get over that so I can pass these classes and join the rest of my team. I don't mean that I just have to grit my teeth and bare through that; if I do that, then I'm not changing anything and I'll just... fail all over again..." Velvet sighed as she shook her head.
"Oh, I see... yeah, I guess that does make sense..." Izuku murmured slightly as he sheepishly scratch the back of his head. "So... what did you mean then, Velvet?" The rabbit Faunus turned her head back up to look at him, her brown eyes meeting his emerald ones. However, what little resolve that he often found in Velvet in social or anxious situations seems to melt a bit as the young woman just offered a nervous smile and shook her head.
"Oh... don't worry about it. That was just me wandering off mentally, I guess. It's not a big deal, Izuku." She coughed into her fist slightly, slightly nervous and embarrassed, as she looks off down the hall. "Let's... let's just move on. This... this is a bit of a dreary subject to stay on..."
"Wait, Velvet just... look, I'm sorry I didn't understand what you meant there." Velvet paused, her cheeks a little red while he looked down a bit. "You were trying to say something and I kind of missed what you were saying by a mile, went right over my head. It probably didn't look all that great and I am sorry for that... but I do want to know what you meant. You're my friend too Velvet and I would like to be able to help you in what ways I can. So... well, what did you mean?" He saw Velvet pause, a bit of nervous energy built up in her as she looked down to the side. She hesitated, it's clear she didn't want to talk about this too much... but she sighed in the end.
"It's just like I said, it's my nest to roost in... and I don't want to cause more trouble for them, or for you now that you're part of this." Velvet just sadly shook her head, "Izuku... I messed up. The reason you're tutoring me so I can pass, the reason why Coco and the others have to take time out of their day to meet up with me after my classes... it's because I messed up. I have to own that... it isn't pleasant to own but, it is what it is. Everyone in our team had it rougher in the First Year and we all did what we could. The fact that I'm here while they all passed... that's on me." Velvet frowned as she continued to shake her head, an embarrassed look covering her face. "Despite that... everyone else has to be inconvenienced by it. If it were just me that had to go through all this stuff and be bothered by it, then it'd be fine. I earned this, these are the knocks I have to take... but in the end, it's just wasting everyone else's time too."
"My team has to deal with this constant back and forth, of essentially being a leg down in most of their classes. More than that, it's not exactly easy managing two sets of class schedules for your team and having to go through all the busy work with two different years worth of teachers. Before you came in, Coco and the others were doing everything they could to get me up to snuff so that I could pass this year... because Gods, there was an actual threat that I might just end up flunking out this year too because I'm such a nervous wreck and Coco, Fox and Yatsu really have been doing everything they can to help me..." Velvet heaves a sigh as she shakes her head.
"They're good people... and I hate that I've been such an imposition on them. So... I do the best I can to try to ease that. Coco's running a bit late because she got stopped by one of her own teachers to talk about an assignment, apparently we have a mission coming up sometime soon, and that's why she's not here. When this all started, Coco actually suggested just dropping part of her schedule and waiting in a spot for me to come to. It would've been easier on me but it would've stopped her from doing her own business in the meantime... so I just thought I'd do what I could and take that burden myself…"
"It's... why I was a little hesitant about you and Coco coming to help me deal with Cardin." Velvet smiled at Izuku as she nodded, her ears flopping a bit. "I really did appreciate it, Izuku... but at the same time, I felt bad. I'm only there for bullies like them because I messed up. I put myself in that position... and to have to be bailed out by others who put themselves out there to help me..." Velvet practically shrunk, the girl's nerve folding in on itself.
"I can't stop you all from helping me; you all wouldn't let me even if I tried. That's the kind of people you and Coco are. You just want to help people, and you have your own ways of doing it. It was something people didn't realize it during our First Year about Coco because she could be a little rough around the edges." There was a moment where Velvet smiled at that, though that smile quickly turned into a frown. "... Even I didn't realize it during my First Year with Coco..." A look of deep shame crossed Velvet's face as she spoke. While he'd seen Velvet be abashed or shy before, this was the first time she looks very much 'upset'.
"Hey, Vel, you there?!" Izuku and Velvet immediately stiffen up as Coco's voice calls out from around a bend, the stylish Huntress practically skidding on her heels as she made a quick turn. "Oh good, you're here... well I mean, of course you're here, you never wander off no matter how long I keep you waiting. Really sorry about that Vel." Velvet just smiled over at Coco, nodding her head as she turned to face her.
"Don't worry, nothing happened this time and Izuku even came by to keep me company." Izuku saw Coco's head swivel over to him, as the beret wearing Huntress just grinned at him.
"Awww, isn't that sweet. Thank you Deku, I really appreciate it!" He nodded head slowly, a bit flummoxed by the previous moments in his conversation with Velvet while said rabbit Faunus just nodded.
"I appreciate it too Izuku... sorry if I kept you from something else though." Coco scoffed at that, lighting flicking Velvet on the back of one of her ears in a playful manner, which caused the rabbit Faunus to jump a bit.
"Pssh, com on Vel. Even if Deku did, I'm sure he didn't mind spending some time chattin'. Now come on; we're gonna have a mission here in a week or so, so I need to start briefing you all on what details I got." Velvet nodded in firm understanding as Coco turned over to look at Izuku, giving him a slight wink. "Sorry Deku, need to know basis only. Once you get to be a big, tough Second Year, you'll understand. I'll see you around though, okay?"
"Y-Yeah, sure thing Coco." Before Izuku could get much more out, Coco and Velvet quickly moved along, the brown eyed Faunus tossing him an appreciative, if slightly apprehensive, smile over her shoulder as she and Coco waved him goodbye.
'Well...I suppose it makes sense that they also have some history to deal with.'