Izuku wastes no time. He writes himself and all the 'Brains' a permission slip to leave the rest of classes for the day and submits them to the teachers (as well as a form asking for access to training buildings, for later), then pings the group on the server and gathers them in an empty classroom.
"This looks like a cult gathering," one of the girls from class H says, and he can't help but agree.
He clears his throat instead of voicing that. "Thank you for coming. I saw you working on it yesterday but I'd like to see what you came up with when it comes to costumes for everyone."
The gathered's eyes light up like stars. That was the correct thing to say.
Half an hour later they have a cohesive design that can be easily modified for people with mutations and other special quirk needs. Izuku is kinda proud. The anger still lingers though.
"We also need something that will effectively capture the other team… but I'll let you think on that one." He concludes the meeting and storms off to the training space once he's sure he won't offend anyone by his sudden exit.
He runs into Shinsou on the way.
"Woah, did something happen?" the boy asks him, and Izuku is torn between denying and telling him that yes, things happened and he's angry at the world so could he kindly fuck off? But he refrains. He needs Shinsou on his side.
"No, no, everything is fine. See you later for training," he says and speedwalks away.
Except, Shinsou catches up to him.
"Do you need something?" He forces himself to keep calm, even as annoyance rises. He doesn't stop walking.
"Um, yes, actually." Now that he pays attention, Shinsou sounds… subdued. "I need your attention for a few seconds."
That makes Izuku stop and give his undivided attention to the boy, who skitters to a halt beside him, clearly not expecting him to actually listen.
"Okay, so… I'm… I—" He takes a deep breath and releases it. "I'm aware I have been nothing but a nuisance since we've met, and for that I apologise."
Izuku blinks without understanding, and Shinsou wilts a little.
"Of course you don't have to accept my apology but I just wanted to make sure you know that I'm sorry for all the things I said about you during the Sports Festival, and how uncooperative I was yesterday, just… sorry. I assumed a lot of things about you, and about none of them turned out to be true."
Only then does understanding dawn on Izuku.
"Oh, oh, I… don't remember the last time someone apologised to me like that."
Shinsou narrows his eyes. "That's sad."
"I… accept your apology, I hope to work well with you from now on." He extends a hand and Shinsou gladly grasps it and shakes it. They share a small smile.
"So, where were you going?" the boy asks, aiming for casual and landing somewhere on strained.
"Training grounds, I want to prepare some things." He shrugs. "You know, for training later."
Shinsou stays silent for a moment, then asks, voice hopeful: "Do you think we'll win?"
"We have to," Izuku replies with steel resolve. "We have to because the Hero Course is full of morons who think they're better than anyone else and I just… I can't keep turning a blind eye."
Shinsou nods, or rather bobs his head a few times to a rhythm only he knows, and his smile widens. "The principal chose good. You have your heart in the right place."
Izuku doesn't know what to say to that, so he just mutters thanks. Thankfully the bell saves him from further conversation.
"Okay, I better go. See you in like fifty minutes!"
"See ya!"
Izuku busies himself with taking out training mats, looking through his notes and changing into his hero costume, but it still leaves him with time to spare. So he sits and thinks.
He knows his classmates weren't malicious in what they were saying but… it still hurt. It still hurts. They're… They're his best friends, his only friends, he doesn't want to break it off with them. But their opinions sometimes… Kami, he could only ignore it so much. And he could not ignore their latest ideas.
He must prove that the others aren't weak. He must prove he isn't weak.
They're in unity in this situation, they're all united for the same cause: defeating the Hero Course… and strangely Izuku doesn't feel a part of it anymore.
To be perfectly honest he never had.
He was always a little bit of an outsider, a little out of the loop, a little underskilled, a little… wrong. His muttering was creepy, his analysis was underappreciated, he had friends, sure, but not… not close friends. He couldn't let them see that he was previously quirkless, that he was weak.
No. He wasn't weak. He isn't weak. And he would prove it.
He opens his eyes as he hears a noise. The door opens revealing the first group, mostly made out of class C, entering the training grounds. He puts on a pleasant smile on his face and stands up.
"Make yourself comfortable, for you won't be comfortable for long," he jokes. "As soon as everyone's here we'll start showing you how to fight." There are groans all around the room, but the gathered students are smiling.
His phone buzzes so he checks it, and finds a message from Asoshina stating that the first batch of prototype costumes is gonna be ready within an hour, as well as some experimental capture method. Damn, they're fast.
He thanks her and asks her to bring some costumes to the training grounds so they can be tested.
More and more people arrive, and soon there are around sixty to seventy students waiting for his commands. He feels powerful.
"Okay, those who know how to fight, go to my left, those who can't, go to my right." His teammates divide themselves easily, and even though he was informed how many can fight, he's still surprised to find a good twenty students on his left. "Great! Those who can fight, pick one or two folks who can't fight and start slowly sparring. We don't want to hurt anyone, we're focusing on how to avoid damage and not get overwhelmed if we start fighting!"
He himself picks two frail-looking boys from the Business Course: Goto and Hishida.
They're a little slow on their feet but they're willing to learn and that's what's important. He coaches them how to throw a punch and how to block it, how to fall to not damage themselves, what stance to have to be stable but quick.
All around him he sees the same happen, and folks who never fought in their lives get comfortable sparring.
It's gonna be alright.
After an hour and a half he announces a break, Asoshina and a few Support Course students come with costumes. They're all grey camo print, made of some material he cannot pronounce, and when he asks about that he gets several matching smirks.
And then Asoshina shows him web dispensers. You know, like in the pre-quirk era Spider-Man.
"The polymer won't stick to our costumes," Kishi explains, "But will act like a binding product on anything else. We'll be able to capture them without an issue!"
"It was one hundred percent her idea," Yokoyama says, somehow defensively, as he points towards Kishi. "She's a chemist genius."
"Aw, I couldn't have done it without you," the girl says, wrapping her arms around his neck.
Are they gonna kiss? Izuku hopes they're not gonna kiss.
They don't kiss thankfully, just stand like that for a moment before separating and explaining the functionality of dispenser gauntlets more. The prototype works on a button, but in theory they could make them gesture activated which would make using them a lot easier. Kishi also made a solvent for the webs, which meant that even if an accident happened, they'd be able to swiftly get out of it.
Izuku thanks them profusely and calls over a few people to try on the costumes, to make sure they're comfortable.
He feels like everything is coming together.
Another one and a half hours later, Izuku decides that's enough training for one day. When he informs his teammates about it they all cheer. Ah, goofs.
"I would like to talk with a few of you," he states, and gets worried glances. "About your quirks. I didn't really understand the descriptions sometimes, so I'd rather double check what you can and cannot do."
He takes out his phone, where he made a list previously, and reads out the surnames of people who he wants to stay behind. The rest goes home.
"Okay, let's do this quickly, I don't want to keep you here any longer than absolutely necessary." He says, apologetic. "Okay, Matsukata, your quirk is Quirk Annulment. Can you choose what quirks stop working where or is it a radius thing or…?"
Matsukata rubs their hands together nervously. "I never tested it much but it's pretty passive. It works only when I hold my breath and annulates the quirks of everyone in a ten metres radius."
"Okay, thanks. Hora," he calls out. "How exactly can you control flowers? Move them? Open and close them? Make them spray pollen? And does it hurt you if you lose one?"
"With my mind, yes, yes, no, and no," she replies, giggling under her breath. "It works like Iibara's quirk. She's my cousin."
"Iibara from 1-B?"
"Exactly that one."
"Noted." Izuku checks her out on the list then calls out to another person. "Kono… What does your quirk do exactly?"
"It's a nuisance, mostly," the boy sighs. "It's a rare genetic mutation and it malfunctions. It covers my hands in frost sometimes, drops the temperature around me, and makes it snow from about the height of my ears or shoulders."
"Ah." Izuku kinda wants to say 'I'm sorry ' but refrains. He wouldn't want pity, so he doesn't give any.
The questions continue for several more minutes towards several more people. But then something unexpected happens. Because he's not the one asking the questions.
"What exactly is your quirk?" Shinoda asks, eyeing him carefully. "I won't drop it until you answer truthfully so you might wanna send everyone else away."
Izuku's blood freezes for the second time that week. Oh Kami. Shinoda's quirk is Quirk Sensing, of course she's gonna give him a hard time.
It's a guessing game. How much does she know? Does she know about all the aspects of his quirk? Does she know more than he does? How much is safe to say without revealing too much?
"Let me… call someone," he says and swallows dryly. "The rest of you can go, I'll explain later." He's met with questioning glances, but thankfully they go. And then he's alone with Shinoda. He wipes out his phone and calls a number he knows by heart as he is too scared of his phone being compromised to save it. The man picks up on the second ring. "All Might?"
'Yes, Midoriya-shounen?'
"We have a problem."
Ten minutes later All Might arrives on the training grounds and closes the door behind himself rather forcefully for a frail looking man.
"Hello, so you're Shinoda?" he asks, and the girl whips her head to stare at Izuku.
"I thought you called All Might?" she asks incredulously. All Might chuckles.
"Yes, yes he did. Just, ah, 'sense' my quirk."
Shinoda comes up closer and gasps. "Why is it identical, what the heck…?"
They tell her the basics and swear her to secrecy. She promises to take it to the grave.
Once Shinoda is out of the training grounds, Izuku deeply apologises to All Might for getting into this situation in the first place.
"My boy, things like that happen," the man says, patting him on the head. "You think I never blew my secret?" he chuckles. "Anyhow I'm glad you're working with other courses. The exam… is truly something."
"I'm glad it changed," Izuku says, then corrects himself, "Rather, I'm glad we managed to convince the principal to change it."
"So that was you?" All Might sounds genuinely impressed. "I heard something about the petition, but I was scared you wouldn't have the… initiative. Now I see it was foolish of me to think that. Of course you wouldn't willingly play a villain."
"The things on the list of objectives…" Izuku shivers. "One of them was to fake torturing someone. Another was to remove a limb from one of the enemies, and while it wouldn't do lasting damage to someone like Shouji or Setsuna, it's just… I wouldn't be able to stomach it, you know?"
All Might fakes gagging and sends him a knowing glance. "I know you wouldn't. You're just too pure." He ruffles his hair. "Anyhow, I should get going. The principal wants us to have a meeting, that I should definitely not be telling you about."
Izuku pouts but starts walking.
"I have my own meeting to attend too," he sighs. "The Support Course has some ideas they want to test and I better help them before they blow up the building."
"Good idea," All Might chuckles. They separate and go their own ways.
The next day brings more training and planning. Izuku meets the two people from third grade and one person from second grade that his teammates managed to recruit. He spends most of his morning avoiding classes and writing permission slips for every single person who comes and goes out of the workshops where new costumes get fitted, and in some cases redesigned to fit the various mutations the person has.
Kishi, Yokoyama and Iide work tirelessly on making the web dispensers and preparing more of the polymer. Hatsume is… exploding something alongside Konaka and Kamibayashi, but from what he can see it's mostly testing already existing 'babies' for now. Iijima, Kihara and Hisayuki are right next to him, preparing for the next person to enter to get measured and fitted into the costume. The rest of the team is in different labs, independently working in groups of three and four on different projects. Small grappling hooks, energy sources, gadgets to direct and help with quirks.
They're a well-oiled machine and Izuku envies them, kind of. He also wishes he can help in a different way than just offering his suggestions and sitting there with paperwork.
Time passes. He spends lunch with the General Education Course this time, because they invite him to the table before the Business Course can. Since the apology Shinsou is way nicer to him, and it puts a smile on his face. Everyone is nice actually, aside from one brash guy who reminds him of Kacchan a little, but is still way softer than the blonde.
"Stop murmuring and start eating, creepy broccoli man," Nishikawa says. "I know, somehow, that this was about me."
"Creepy broccoli man—" Shinsou wheezes. "Is the full moon coming or something?"
"I'm going to fucking murder you in cold blood," Nishikawa informs him calmly.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm eating, I'm eating," Izuku says with a smile and tries to hide it by stuffing his face with rice. It's so nice sitting with them. He wonders if they'll let him do that after the exam.
After school training session looks similar to the previous one, but this time they're joined by 3-F's Luz Lunala, who knows karate and 3-A's Sawada Tomoyasu, who's a Hero Course student and knows several combat techniques. That spreads the effort of teaching a little more evenly, and the training goes smoothly.
But, well. Izuku knows deep down that he has to introduce quirks into the play before it's too late. They need to all get ready for a real fight.
He'd have to talk to all of them tomorrow. For now, they had to polish up hand to hand.