By Friday Izuku had yet to think of a good hero name. He had spent so much time focusing on what he didn't want to be: weak, worthless, useless, Deku. His journey to becoming a hero had been less building from a firm foundation and more a desperate attempt at escaping from where he'd been. He had a vague idea of what kind of hero he wanted to be, someone who inspired quirkless people to believe in themselves. How to brand such a desire into a marketable package was something else entirely.

Relatedly, he also hadn't picked an agency to intern at. Aizawa had been more than correct, and he had discovered upon looking at his list that it was mostly agencies that specialized in long-term, covert operations and intelligence gathering. Important work, work worth doing, but Izuku wasn't sure if it was the kind of work he wanted to do. The heroes who worked there were mostly underground as opposed to spotlight, which he knew would suit a quirkless hero better. However, it didn't quite fit with the picture in his head of the hero he wanted to be.

He had one idea, one agency that had caught his attention, but he wasn't entirely sure he was allowed to make a choice like that.

Instead of considering, like he ought to have been doing, Izuku dragged his supplies to Training Ground Beta. Hatsume had given him a duffle bag to put it all in, but he still went slowly and carefully, not wanting to break any of the delicate equipment by jostling it. As such when he reached the gate he found Hitoshi and Todoroki already waiting for him. Both of them, like Izuku, were dressed for combat: Todoroki in his hero uniform and Hitoshi in his gym clothes. They were leaning against the wall surrounding the training ground, apparently in complete silence, but as he approached he saw each of them dart at least one glance at the other.

"Thanks for waiting!" Izuku said, shifting the strap of the bag higher on his shoulder as he came to a stop before them.

"What's all that?" Todoroki asked, eyeing the bag with interest.

"He has theories to test," Hitoshi informed him cryptically. "There's some he won't even tell me about, in case they're dumb."

"I don't think a theory can be dumb," Todoroki speculated as they all swiped their cards to get inside. "It's only clinging to it past the point when you have proof that it's wrong that shows a lack of intelligence."

"That's what I said," Hitoshi huffed good-naturedly.

They walked a little ways inside, Izuku examining the buildings critically. The rain from yesterday had evaporated in this morning's bright sun, so everything was suitably dry. Eventually he found what he was looking for: a building with small windows so most of the outer wall was blank, and

lines in the brickwork to indicate floors. "Here," he said, and set his bag on the ground.

He pulled out a small folding table, with a collapsible top so that it was only a small square in his bag. As the other two set that up he pulled out a little stool, then a tripod camera, then a tablet. After setting up the tripod opposite the stool he place the tablet on the table, along with the electric tape measure. Hitoshi and Todoroki watched expectantly as he at last pulled out his notebook and a pen, and opened it to a fresh page.

"Now," he said, setting his open notebook on the table and turning to Hitoshi, "first I want you to brainwash me. I want to know what it feels like firsthand, and I want to try a few things. There's also some stuff I want you to do."

"Like what?" Hitoshi asked, looking at Izuku with wide eyes.

"We know from what you did to Mineta that you can make people talk," he explained, "and generate things to say from their own mind. I want you to ask me three things: my mother's name, where my father is, and what the circumference of the moon is."

Hitoshi frowned in confusion. "You know the circumference of the moon?"

"Nope!" Izuku said brightly. "Not anymore anyway. I knew it once, I did a project on the moon in elementary school, but I tried and tried and I can't remember the information. I want to see if you can help me access that memory."

"OK," Hitoshi nodded, still frowning like he was trying very hard to keep up. "What about your father?"

"If I don't give a specific answer, or say something vague like a country, then tell me to be more precise," Izuku instructed. "If I don't answer, ask me where I think he is instead."

"OK," Hitoshi repeated. "You ready?"

"Wait!" Izuku said, holding up a hand. He didn't feel anything change, so he supposed Hitoshi hadn't brainwashed him. "Once you're done with that, order me to run into that wall as fast as I can."

Izuku pointed over at the building on the far side of the street. Hitoshi looked at it dubiously. "That'll hurt," he said simply.

"Probably," Izuku agreed, "but I need to test something out."

"If you're sure," Hitoshi said, still looking uncertain. "Ready?"

"Ready," said Izuku.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Izuku felt a wave of calm overtake his mind, like opening a door on a scorching summer day to be met with a blast of heat. Dimly he was aware that he could still see what was in front of him, but it was blurry and out of focus, colors and shapes rather than people and things. His head felt fluffy, like it was full of cotton, and try as he might to hold onto them all his thoughts were quickly lost in the fog.

"Is he out?" asked Todoroki. His voice sounded like it was coming from very far away.

"He's fighting," Hitoshi told him, "but he's under."

Fighting. Yes, he was supposed to be fighting. Izuku put all his concentration into seeing through the fog, into making the colors and shapes that swam through his field of vision back into recognizable objects. It was hard to focus, what with the cottony feeling. He tried to lift his hand to rub at his eyes, but moving was impossible.

"Tell me your mother's name," ordered Hitoshi, and his voice filled Izuku's brain, echoing through his head like the voice of some divine being.

Disobeying was out of the question, and Izuku was opening his mouth to speak without having made any decision to do so.

"Inko Midoriya," he said, voice sounding distant to his own ears.

"OK," Hitoshi went on, and strangely this didn't have the same ineffable quality as his instructions. His next commanded, however, did. "Tell me where your father is."

This time Izuku tried to fight, tried to think about what he would say before he said it. He only had one piece of concrete information, one thing he knew, and he focused on giving only that.

"America," he said.

Success!

"Be more specific," Hitoshi pressed.

Izuku's mother had never told him where his father worked exactly. She had always just said 'America' and left it at that. He had, a few times throughout his childhood, asked for more information. Every time his mother had cleverly changed the subject. Now Izuku focused on that, focused not on his suspicions, but on what he knew for sure.

"I don't know," he said, but it took effort. He wanted to say what he thought he knew, but the urge wasn't impossible to ignore.

Vaguely he could see the outline he'd identified as Hitoshi glance at the outline he'd identified as Todoroki. He thought he might have heard Todoroki whisper something, but he couldn't make it out.

"Tell me where you think your father is," Hitoshi asked next.

This was too much, too defined a question for him to wiggle out of. Izuku tried to think of something else, to grasp wildly at another theory he could say instead, but the suspicion he'd harbored for a while bubbled unstoppably to the surface.

"I think he's back in Japan, in another city, probably at least an hour away from Musutafu," Izuku admitted.

"Damn," said Hitoshi.

Izuku wasn't sure if it was the time passing or Hitoshi's focus waning, but his vision was getting clearer. Things were still a bit fuzzy around the edges, but he could tell what he was looking at, at least. He could see Todoroki, looking vaguely surprised. He could see Hitoshi, looking shocked.

"OK," Hitoshi cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Uh, tell me the circumference of the moon?"

"10,921 kilometers," Izuku recited. He didn't even have to think about it.

Now Hitoshi hesitated. He rubbed the back of his neck, and glanced at Todoroki. Todoroki merely shrugged. They knew what they had to do next, but neither of them seemed happy about it.

Finally Hitoshi sighed and turned back to Izuku. "Run at that wall," he ordered, pointing, "as fast as you can."

Izuku turned and began to run. He couldn't stop his body from moving any more than he could initiate movement before, and not even the fear of the collision could regulate his steps. He couldn't stop, and he couldn't slow down. As his footfalls ate up the distance he tried to focus on what would pull him out, on anything that might snap him back to reality. Something shocking? He'd just told his friends the truth about his deadbeat father, something which he knew should fill him with cold dread, but his mind was still full of fog. The only thing he knew for sure would work was pain, and there would be no pain until he hit the wall at full speed. That would hurt a lot, and he would take the hit with his face. There would be a brutal impact, a sickening jolt to the skull and the brickwork rough on his skin and-

With a gasp Izuku skidded to a stop, face inches from the brick wall. The toe of his shoe had hit the base of the building, but he had managed to stop before he cracked his head on the hard surface. The fog was gone, the blurriness to his vision was gone, and as he took a step back he found he could move normally again.

"What the-" came a voice from behind him, and Izuku turned to see Hitoshi pointing at him, eyes wide and mouth open. "You broke out! No one's ever broke out! You were fighting, and I was focusing just on keeping hold of you, and then suddenly you were fighting so hard you completely threw off my control!"

"Really?" Izuku asked excitedly. "You didn't let go?"

"No!" Hitoshi shook his head, eyes still fixed on Izuku. "I didn't let up at all, but you still broke free! That was amazing Izuku!"

Izuku felt himself blushing. He couldn't very well minimize his own role in what had just happened without calling Hitoshi weak, so he weathered Hitoshi's praise with as much dignity as he could muster.

"Impressive, Midoriya," Todoroki agreed. "I remember being under Shinsou's control. I didn't try to fight, but I can't imagine how I would have."

"You can try again!" Izuku insisted, running over to the table with his notebook to scribble down his findings. "I think what helped me was imagining the pain of hitting the brick wall. Just let me get down what I learned, and we can run the experiment again with you."

"What did you learn?" Hitoshi asked interestedly.

"Now we know that not only can people be compelled to give information, but they can be compelled to speculate as well," Izuku told him, still scribbling. "I avoided your first question about my father by focusing only on the information I'd been given directly, and it was only when you worded it as speculation that I was forced to tell you my suspicions about the truth. You'll need to word your questions carefully if you ever use this for interrogation. Plus, now we know that it can recall any information stored in the memory, even if the person can't remember it consciously. That has a lot of practical applications, maybe for questioning witnesses or even just-"

"Izuku," Hitoshi interrupted. "Who told you your father was in America?"

"My mom," Izuku said, not looking up. "Don't worry about it."

"Too late," Hitoshi protested. "I'm worried about it."

"Don't," Izuku said, pausing in his writing to glance up at Hitoshi. "I'm over it."

Hitoshi nodded, and Izuku went back to putting his discoveries to paper. Once he was through with that he turned to Todoroki.

"Now it's time to put you under," he said. "I'm going to be doing a few things, but I want you to be concentrating on the sensation of pain. If you can break out, then we'll just try again, but I want to see if you can do it."

Todoroki nodded solemnly. "Ready?" Hitoshi asked. "Ready," Todoroki replied.

Immediately Todoroki went still, even stiller than he had been before. His eyes were blank white, like his pupils and irises had vanished, and his mouth was slightly open. For a moment Izuku and Hitoshi waited, giving Todoroki time to break free if he was able. After about a minute though, Izuku decided it was time to move on. Apparently his methods wouldn't work for Todoroki.

"Make him sit on the stool," Izuku said, then went to the camera and tried to remember how to turn it on.

Eventually Todoroki was seated on the stool and the red light on the camera began blinking. Izuku angled it so that it was focused on his face and zoomed in on his eyes. He watched the viewfinder until he had a few good seconds of footage, then left the camera running and went to the tablet.

"What are you hoping to find?" Hitoshi asked, coming to look over Izuku's shoulder at the tablet.

"It's a high speed camera," Izuku explained, bringing up the feed that was being sent automatically to the tablet, "which means if I'm right, then slowing it down should show us . . ."

The video slowed to a crawl, and Izuku and Hitoshi both gasped. In slow motion they watched Todoroki's pupils flick back and forth, much faster than the unaided eye could see. His eyes weren't blank or still, they were moving so quickly that the color has vanished.

"A hyper-REM state," Izuku breathed.

"What does it mean?" Hitoshi asked.

"It means you don't brainwash people," Izuku told him, "you put them to sleep."

"Sleep?" Hitoshi repeated, sounding nonplussed. "Why would they obey me if they're just sleeping?"

"Not just sleeping," Izuku shook his head, turning to his friend with heart bursting with excitement, "sleepwalking. People who are sleepwalking often act normal enough to pass for awake, even having their eyes open, but do things they wouldn't otherwise do. What you do is put people into a hyper-REM state, a sort of super sleep where they have the ability to move and speak, but can't control their own actions. However, because your quirk maintains a connection to their brains,

instead of taking instruction from their subconscious, they take instruction from you!"

"So . . ." Hitoshi stared at Izuku, face just as slack as Todoroki's. "I don't . . . really brainwash people?"

"Functionally this is just how you brainwash people," Izuku said, turning back to his notebook and beginning to scribble down his findings. "It might have some interesting applications though, for whether or not you can more easily control people when they're already asleep, maybe even without a response? Or you could probably put someone into regular sleep pretty easily, which could be useful if you need to neutralize an opponent before moving onto another-"

"Shinsou," came Todoroki's voice from behind Izuku.

Izuku turned, to see that Todoroki was free of Hitoshi's quirk and had stood up from the chair. He had come over to take Hitoshi by the shoulders, and was peering into his face with a look of intense concern. Izuku could see why. Hitoshi was crying.

"Hitoshi!" Izuku exclaimed, dropping his pen and moving to stand beside Todoroki. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," Hitoshi sniffled, tears still streaming down his cheeks. "It's just . . . it's a lot, you know?"

"What's a lot?" Izuku asked. He honestly couldn't understand what was making Hitoshi so upset. Wasn't this a good thing?

Hitoshi wiped at his streaming eyes with his sleeve. "It's just . . . sleep? That's it? All my life people have been scared of me because I make them sleepwalk?"

"Hitoshi," Izuku breathed, heart sinking.

Of course Hitoshi would upset about this. About anything to do with the quirk that had caused him so much pain. To Izuku it was just a unique ability, a fascinating puzzle he could figure out. For Hitoshi it had been the cause of so much grief. Izuku wondered how he could have thought they would get through today without tears.

Careful not to force Todoroki aside, Izuku insinuated himself into Hitoshi's space and wrapped his arms around his friend's neck. Hitoshi hiccuped, and his arms went around Izuku's middle. Izuku could feel Todoroki still close at hand, although he couldn't see him with his chin resting on Hitoshi's shoulder. He heard a small sound of skin hitting skin, and wondered if Hitoshi and Todoroki had put their foreheads together.

Eventually Hitoshi sighed and disentangled himself from his two friends. "Thanks," he said, pulling out Yaoyorozu's handkerchief, cleaned of blood, and wiping at his face with it. "Did you, uh, have any more experiments?"

"Just one," Izuku said, "but we can do it another-"

"No," Hitoshi cut him off firmly, shaking his head. "I want to do it now."

"OK," Izuku said quietly, then took a step back and looked at Todoroki. "I need you to do something first."

Todoroki nodded, then allowed Izuku to take his hand and tow him over to the wall Izuku had almost run into.

"I want you to use your fire on the wall," Izuku instructed. "Make it as high as you can without discomfort, alright?"

Todoroki nodded again. He placed his left side to the wall, shoulder close but not quite touching, and then fire sprang up from his arm. The flames licked up the side of the building, about four stories high, scorching the brickwork and leaving a large sootmark in their wake.

"Good," Izuku said, examining the mark. "That should give us a reference point. Now Hitoshi, use your quirk on him again."

"Ready?" Hitoshi croaked.

"Ready," Todoroki replied, and then went slack.

"Tell him to step over here," Izuku indicated a spot a few feet away from Todoroki's original position, some distance along the wall. "Then have him do it again, but phrase it just like I did."

"Stand where he's showing you," Hitoshi instructed, and Todoroki went to stand in the right place. "Now, use your fire on the wall, as high as you can without discomfort."

Fire flared up from Todoroki once more. This time however, it was much bigger, and Izuku leaped out of the way as it exploded outward from Todoroki's left side. Flames shot up the wall, climbing higher and higher before topping out just beneath a line to indicate another story of the building. Then the fire died down, and Izuku and Hitoshi were left staring.

"Wow," said Hitoshi.

Todoroki gasped as he was released, then looked over at Izuku. "What was that about?" he asked. Izuku pointed to the wall. "Look."

Todoroki took a few steps away from the wall and then turned back to it. Then his mouth dropped open. Side by side the scorch marks were not even remotely comparable. The one he had made while under the influence of Hitoshi's quirk was wider, darker, and almost eight stories in the air. Twice as high as when he'd acted alone.

"I really did that?" Todoroki asked, staring at the bigger scorch mark. "You see anyone else around here with a fire quirk?" Hitoshi laughed. "What happened?" Todoroki wondered.

"A mental block," Izuku informed him. "It's like how I forgot what the circumference of the moon was. I had the knowledge, the capability to answer, but there was something holding me back. In my case it was all the stuff I'd learned since that project. In your case it was, well, the reason you don't want to use your fire. You can be that strong with it, but something's holding you back."

"Not when I'm under your quirk though," Todoroki said, looking over at Hitoshi.

"So I can make people do things that don't think they can do," Hitoshi surmised. "I can make them go beyond what they thought they were capable of."

"You're Plus Ultra!" Izuku pumped a fist in the air happily. Then he turned to Todoroki. "Just, one more thing, and then we'll be done, OK?"

"Another experiment?" Todoroki guessed.

"More like the conclusion of this one," Izuku said. "Go stand a little ways off from that second mark, and try again. The same way you did the first time, as high as possible without discomfort."

Todoroki nodded and went to stand by the wall. The fire that sprang up from his left side wasn't quite as big as the previous time, but when he was through Izuku heard Hitoshi gasp. Grinning, Izuku beckoned Todoroki over to where he and Hitoshi were standing. When Todoroki saw the new mark in comparison with the previous two, his eye went wide.

The new mark wasn't as big as the mark that he come before it. It was, however, bigger than the first one.

"Almost three whole feet higher," Izuku confirmed once he had measured all the marks to record the results in his notebook. "I'm guessing it's muscle memory, your body getting used to pushing itself that far. With enough time, I think it'll erode that mental block until its completely gone."

"So we'll have to keep training together," Todoroki concluded.

"If you want to," Izuku hedged. "It'd be good for Hitoshi to have someone to practice on, so that he gets better with his quirk. And then you wouldn't have to . . ."

He trailed off, wondering how to say it. Todoroki looked at him quizzically.

"Wouldn't have to . . . what?" he prompted.

"You know." Izuku squirmed. "Rely on your dad. To get stronger with your fire."

Todoroki looked down at his left hand. "I thought I'd have to use him if I was going to embrace my fire quirk," he confessed. "If I don't have to do that . . . well, I'd be grateful to you. Both of you."

"Sounds like we've got a new training partner," Hitoshi gave Izuku a tired smile.

Izuku nodded vigorously. "And, you know you can brainwash me whenever you want!"

Hitoshi blinked, surprised. "Really?"

"Of course!" Izuku insisted. "Now that we know I can break out, I want us to keep competing! I want us both to get stronger together!"

Hitoshi laughed, then both he and Izuku turned as they heard Todoroki let out a deep sigh. "What's wrong?" Izuku asked nervously.

Todoroki looked off to one side. "It's just really nice," he said wistfully, "the way you two support each other so much. How close you two obviously are. The way you used to call him 'Shinchan.' I've never even had someone give me a nickname like that."

"I'll give you a nickname!" Izuku said hurriedly, eager to make Todoroki feel better. "It makes sense, since we're all going to be spending much more time together and I'll bet we become much better friends! How about I call you Todochan?"

Todoroki sighed again. "If that's what you want," he said. "You don't like it?" Izuku asked nervously.

"I'd just prefer the name to be . . . something that's only mine, you know?" Todoroki looked up to the sky. "Not how I'm connected to my dad-"

"Oh!" Izuku exclaimed, nearly frantic to discover the source of the problem. "Then I can just call you Shouto!"

Todoroki brightened visibly, but Izuku felt his face heating up. Was he really in a position to call Todoroki by his proper name? He hadn't meant for it to sound so intimate!

"It makes sense," Hitoshi said with a shrug, "since it's going to be your hero name. Shouto it is."

Izuku decided to accept his fate. "In that case you should probably call me Izuku as well," he said. "It'd be weird if I called you by your name but you didn't call me by mine."

"Izuku then," Todoroki -- Shouto -- said, smiling a gentle, pleased sort of smile. Then he looked over at Hitoshi. "And you?"

"Whatever," Hitoshi said, shoving his hands in his pockets and kicking at the dust on the ground. "Hitoshi will be fine."

Shouto's smile widened, Hitoshi looked vaguely embarrassed, and Izuku wondered whether it was possible for one to blush so hard that one caught fire.

The three of them walked to the teachers' office together.

"Cutting it awfully close boys," Midnight said as they entered.

She was sitting on a corner of Aizawa's desk, with Mic leaning in on his other side. Aizawa turned and the two of them looked over when the boys walked in. Mic adopted a pose of exaggerated nonchalance, but Midnight did not get off the desk.

"You two haven't cleared your hero names," Aizawa said, looking at Hitoshi and Izuku. "And Todoroki, you haven't given me your form to declare which agency you want to intern with. Actually, none of you have."

"We have them," Izuku told him, and all three of them handed him their forms.

Aizawa looked at them critically, shifting between the papers as he read their requests. Mic looked over his shoulder, peering over the rim of his sunglasses. Midnight just looked at the three students.

When Aizawa reached the last paper Mic gasped and looked over at Izuku in surprise. "Really, Midoriya?" he asked. "You're sure?"

Izuku nodded, and Mic looked completely stunned.

"Surprises all around," Aizawa remarked, finally looking up from the forms. "Todoroki, I figured you'd be interning with the Endeavor Agency."

"The agency is Hosu is where I want to be," Shouto assured him. "I hope they're able to take on multiple interns. I know another student wanted to intern there as well."

"I'll run it by them," Aizawa said, then turned to Izuku. "And you, the Centerstage Agency? That's full of heroes with prominent gimmicks and huge media presences. Are you sure you wouldn't rather be somewhere more discrete?"

"I can be discrete if I need to," Izuku said confidently. "I look plain enough and I know how to be

quiet and unobtrusive. What I need to learn is stage presence, how to hold the attention of an audience and impress a crowd. I'll need to be charismatic if I want to be a hero people can look up to, so that's what I need someone to teach me."

Then Izuku looked over at Mic, and smiled. "There's a hero there who I'm hoping can mentor me. I think he's got his eye on me too."

Mic looked positively starstruck.

"And your hero name?" Midnight prompted. "What kind of name can be both discrete and flashy?"

Izuku grinned. "I decided to go with a riff off an old insult people used to call me in grade school. It was a long road to get here, but I'm leaving Deku behind. From now on I want everyone to know that if I can do it, they can too. I'm the Impossible Hero, Dekiru!"

"Inspirational!" Midnight declared. "Codename approved!"

Aizawa turned to Hitoshi. "What about you then?" he asked. "I'm sure you got better offers than this one. Do you even know what kind of agency this is?"

"Black Cloak is a paper agency," Hitoshi recited. "It doesn't have a proper office, and mostly exists so that a handful of underground heroes can get paid. It's a bit shoestring, but it's got the right feel to it, you know?"

"Interesting," Midnight said. "Do you have a name with the right feel to it as well?" "I do," Hitoshi nodded. "I'm going to be the Persuasive Hero, Logical Ruse."

Aizawa made a little noise of surprise, and both Midnight and Mic looked down at him curiously. Then he looked away and scoffed dismissively.

"Midnight?" he asked gruffly.

"It has a nice ring to it!" Midnight replied. "Your codename is also approved!"

"Thank you," said Hitoshi, and all three boys nodded respectfully to their teachers.

When the three of them left, it was with a general sense of having taken the next step on their journey to becoming heroes.