Chapter 9: Icarus' Army Meets Daedalus' Army
"You want to know what Izuku told us about his quirk?" Hitoshi asked, narrowing his eyes at the principal.
"Yes," Nedzu nodded. "I was able to have a short meeting with him when I had to go in to answer questions, and he told me to ask you all about it."
"Why should we believe you?" Katsuki asked.
"Not to be rude," Shouto added. "But, pretty much everyone is against Izuku these days. It's been hard to figure out who's on our side."
"Would it be better if I brought in Aizawa?" Nedzu asked. "I'm sure you all know his side at this point, yes?"
Katsuki clicked his tongue. "He's the only one to try to stand up for the nerd."
Nedzu nodded and brought out his phone to presumably send a message to the teacher in question.
"You got to see him though?" Mei asked, fiddling with a screw nervously.
Nedzu nodded. "I did. He seems to be holding on, and there's a lot I need to do on my end, but first I need to know as much as possible about his quirk."
Hitoshi and his friends stared at the principal with deadpanned expressions, Katsuki going as far as to huff and roll his eyes as well.
After a couple moments of tense silence, a knock sounded at the door before Aizawa walked in. "How'd meeting with Midoriya go?" He asked, taking note of the students in the room before taking a seat in an empty arm chair to the side.
"About as well as could be expected," Nedzu said, taking a sip from his tea.
"And why are the kids here?" Aizawa asked.
"'Cause we don't know whose side the rat is on," Katsuki huffed.
Aizawa ticked up an eyebrow. "What are we picking sides for?"
"Please don't play dumb, Sensei," Shouto said with a sigh. "We need to know if Principal Nedzu knows that Izuku isn't the traitor."
Aizawa turned a raised eyebrow towards the principal who just shrugged. "I tried telling them, but they wanted you to confirm."
Aizawa sighed at them and Hitoshi felt a bit bad for not just trusting the principal, but after weeks of listening to people villainize Izuku, their trust was hard to come by. "The principal, Present Mic, Midnight, and I are all well aware that Midoriya is not the traitor. What is the information you're withholding?"
"I wasn't expecting you to name drop other teachers," Hitoshi said, eyes wide.
"Is no one else upset that there weren't more people on that list?" Mei asked.
"I mean, it's only us four students that stuck with Izuku," Shouto said with a shrug.
"There's more, they were just hesitant about the whole situation," Mei countered.
"And that's probably the situation with the teachers as well, dumbasses," Katsuki snapped. "Now let's just tell them about Zu's quirk so we can figure out the next steps."
"Right," Nedzu cut in swiftly. "Thank you, Bakugou. What can you all tell us about One for All that Izuku has found out prior to his arrest?"
"It kinda started with me, I guess," Hitoshi said, raising a hand to rub the back of his neck when the attention turned to him. "Um, at the Sports Festival, I caught him with my quirk and he broke free."
"Yes, it was quite an interesting event," Nedzu nodded.
"Yeah, and then when we did the joint training, which doubled as my practical to get into the heroics course, I had him under my control a second time," Hitoshi added.
"To get his newly manifested quirk under control," Aizawa explained.
"Exactly," Hitoshi nodded, looking at his friends. Mei was nervously tinkering with some tools she must have pulled from her pocket, Shouto was watching the teachers with his usual stoic expression, and Katsuki was looking down at his lap where he had his hands clasped. "So, he found out from those times that when he was brainwashed, it allowed him to see and even interact with the past users of One for All. He called them… um-"
"He called them the vestiges," Katsuki said, looking up from his hands. "The first time, it was only 7 shadowy figures in one of the hallways which allowed him to activate his quirk. He said that they didn't talk and he couldn't even make out their presence. He had dreams about them as well ever since then," he added, looking over at Hitoshi. "He wasn't in control, but he found out who they were."
"And the second time Hitoshi brainwashed them," Shouto continued, "one of the vestiges talked to him. He said his name was Daigoro Banjo and his quirk is called Black Whip. That's the quirk he used in the joint training. Banjo warned him that he would end up manifesting each of the user's quirks, but they would also be stronger than when the original users held them due to the stockpiling quirk that attached to them."
"He wrote down all of their names, or at least their numbers, and what quirk they had," Mei added.
"How was he able to figure out all of them if he last interacted with them at the joint training?" Aizawa asked.
"Well, first," Hitoshi said, "he continued seeing them in his dreams. But, he also asked me to brainwash him so that he could interact with them on his own terms." Hitoshi looked down at his feet at the admission. Izuku was the first person to willingly get brainwashed as well as the first person to not react negatively about his quirk. "After that time in the dorms, he was able to talk and see them, essentially, whenever either of them wanted."
"He was really zoned out in classes and study sessions sometimes because of it," Katsuki added. Aizawa nodding as he made the connection. "But, he was able to come to an agreement that they wouldn't talk to him during classes unless it was an emergency or something really important. Every once in a while when we were talking, I'd have to tell them to shut up as well."
"So far, he's the only one to be successful with that trick," Hitoshi said with an eye roll. He knew the vestiges only listened to Katsuki because he was dating Izuku. Well, they listened before that, but probably because those two were very obviously crushing hard for each other.
"I see," Nedzu said, clasping his paws together. "Izuku mentioned that he was interacting with the vestiges, but the quirk information was able to confirm my theory. So, Izuku will end up with eight quirks?"
"Pretty much," Mei said with a shrug. "At least, that's what he told us."
"Wouldn't it be nine?" Aizawa asked, turning to Nedzu.
"Toshinori was quirkless before he gained One for All," Nedzu explained with a wave of his paw.
Aizawa sighed again and Hitoshi wondered how many times he'd gotten big news dropped like this recently.
"So, what's the plan?" Katsuki asked.
"For right now, I need to take this new information into consideration and figure out if there's any way that we can help Midoriya with it. Besides that," Nedzu said, a wicked grin spreading across his face that made Hitoshi shiver, "I have a teacher to fire."
"Who?" Aizawa asked amid the students' outcries of shock and confusion.
"None other than one Toshinori Yagi," Nedzu said, hackles rising in the biggest display of emotion that the students had seen.
"What did All Might do to Izuku?" Shouto asked, leaning forward in his seat. His expression was still flat, but they'd been hanging out enough that Hitoshi could tell that his friend was angry and nervous for the answer.
"Toshinori had the audacity to go visit Midoriya in the HPSC compound," Nedzu explained, teeth bared. "Not only that, but he definitely believes that Midoriya is the traitor and wouldn't take anything Midoriya said into consideration despite being his mentor."
"That's not enough to get you this worked up," Aizawa inferred.
"No," Nedzu said with a nod. "Toshinori asked Midoriya to give the quirk back."
"He what!" Katsuki yelled, standing up. Hitoshi and his other friends also yelled out at this new information, though they stayed seated.
Nedzu nodded, his expression turning grim. "Toshinori believes that he has the quirk back as he ate one of Midoriya's hairs, which is how Midoriya gained the quirk in the first place."
"So, he's quirkless again?" Katsuki asked, dropping back town into his seat with his fists clenched.
"No, kids," Nedzu countered. "Do not worry. Midoriya stated that he did not permit Toshinori to have the quirk back."
"Good," Shouto hissed. "Give him hell, Nedzu."
Nedzu nodded with the wicked grin crossing his face once again, though Hitoshi didn't shiver from it this time. "For now, why don't you four go have a restful weekend. I'm sure you have a lot to process from this conversation. We will make sure to keep you informed if we're able to find anything else out."
Aizawa gave Nedzu a skeptical look, but the students stood and bowed to Nedzu, even Katsuki.
"Thank you for believing in Midoriya, Senseis," Hitoshi muttered, the others giving their own form of thanks.
"No need for that," Nedzu said as they stood back up again. He had a softer smile on his face as they stood back up to look at him. "Go enjoy the rest of your day. I'll be in touch and we'll get him out."
Hitoshi couldn't keep the smile off his face as they all left the principal's office. Now that he was at UA, he had friends that didn't care about his quirk and he had teachers that he could actually trust.
Their group headed out of the main building and towards the 1-A dorms. They weren't really sure what to do for the rest of the day, but they didn't want to be alone and Mei had full access to the 1-A dorms at this point, so she came with them.
As they approached the dorms, they could hear conversation inside, but as soon as they opened the door, all conversation stopped and attention was immediately on them.
"What did the principal want?" Iida asked. "I hope you all didn't get in trouble in the midst of everything going on."
"Like you care, Glasses," Katsuki snapped, going to storm past them. "He just had some fucking questions about Izuku."
"Oh?" Uraraka asked. "You had information about him?"
"No need to sound so accusatory," Hitoshi said with a roll of his eyes. He really didn't want to deal with this right now.
"I'm just saying, you should've given them any information about Izuku immediately after we found out he was the traitor," Uraraka huffed.
"You don't have the right to call him Izuku," Shouto snapped. "And he's not the damn traitor." Uraraka rolled her eyes at them but sat down.
"Oh get over it, mon cher!" Aoyama cried. "You've allowed the green fiend to bewitch you!"
"Did you just call Izuku a demon?" Mei asked with a brow raised.
Aoyama didn't bother to answer as he tilted his nose up at their group and walked away, leaving them to watch him in confusion until the rest of the students made their presence known.
"Were you about to study?" Mina asked. "I could use some help with the math homework."
"We weren't," Katsuki said, turning and walking towards the elevator.
Mina deflated and looked towards Kaminari who also looked lost. Hitoshi sighed. "Just hurry up if you want to hang out," he said, turning to follow Katsuki with Mei and Shouto walking beside him.
He couldn't see them, but he could hear Mina and Kaminari scramble to their feet to follow them to the elevator, jumping in just before it closed.
"You invited them?" Katsuki huffed, pressing the button to go up to their floor.
Hitoshi shrugged. "They looked pretty miserable."
"Hey!" Mina cried out. "I can hear you, y'know."
Hitoshi raised an eyebrow at the pink girl. "Okay? You looked miserable and lost."
"We just wanted to know if Midoriya is okay," Kaminari said, looking down at his feet.
"Depends on your definition of okay," Mei said as the elevator came to a stop and they all stepped out. Katsuki took the lead and they all followed him towards his room.
Mina sighed, though it seemed more at herself than them. "We just assumed that you'd have more information than anyone else. Okay might not be the right term, but we wanted to know how he's doing. If you know, that is."
"He's as fine as one can be when they've gone through weeks of alienation just to be arrested and get interrogated everyday," Hitoshi supplied, giving in to the two's pitiful looks. "He's not in the best state, but he's holding on and pushing through."
"It's Izuku," Shouto added. "We've seen him push through just about everything."
"I guess you're right," Kaminari sighed, looking at Mina, who gave him a soft smile. "We just wish there was more we could do, I guess."
"Don't we all," Katsuki muttered, walking into his room. The group followed him, but Kaminari and Mina made up some excuse and headed back downstairs. "This is going to be the worst autumn ever," Katsuki said as he dropped onto his bed with a sigh.
Mei pulled out a wrench and whacked the machine in front of her just as the door to the support labs opened.
"Whoah," Hitoshi said. Mei turned to see her friends walk into the room with their lunches, Hitoshi holding two trays and his eyebrows raised. "What'd the scary machine do to you?"
"It's not fucking working," Mei hissed towards the machine, whacking it with the wrench again.
"Okay, well," Shouto said, coming up to her and prying the wrench out of her hands. "Why don't you take a break for now and come back to it after you've eaten?"
Mei sighed. "Fine. How's classes for you guys?"
"We're either getting ignored or glared at now," Hitoshi said, rolling his eyes. "Even the neutral parties have taken to ignoring us in fear of being ostracized as well."
"Momo and the idiots are still chill with us and Aizawa has cracked down on the class several times," Katsuki added.
Mei sighed. "They need to get their heads out of their asses."
"There's nothing we can do," Hitoshi said with a shrug. "We're surrounded by vultures."
"We're stuck in a stupid ass loop," Katsuki added. "Wake up, go to class, deal with fucking idiots, come here for lunch, go back to deal with idiots, then go to the dorms together."
"Yeah," Mei said with a sigh, finally going to sit with the others at one of the work benches. Hitoshi immediately slid her the tray that he'd grabbed for her and they ate in relative silence.
"I just feel like there's something that we should be able to do to help him," Shouto muttered, digging into his rice.
"I say we roll the dice and make a break for it while they're not looking," Mei muttered. "It's not like we're on lockdown."
"How are we supposed to break into the Commission headquarters to get him out, Mei?" Katsuki asked.
"We aren't," Hitoshi sighed. "We have to wait for Aizawa to figure something out."
"What if they take too long?" Katsuki asked, not looking up from his own plate of food.
"We can only hope that Izuku can hold out for us," Shouto tried to console.
In reality, none of them knew exactly what they were doing to Izuku and therefore could only hold onto that thin thread of hope.