* AN: This story stub has not been beta-read.
* AN2: This story stub contains some spoilers for IS4 / Expeditioner's Joklumarkar
Disclaimer: I DO_NOT own "My Hero Academia" or "Arknights" franchises. No profit is being made.
My Hero Academia & Arknights crossover :: Sami's Blessing
"A large-scale thundersnow [1] is going to hit Tokyo and surrounding areas tonight." Cloud Chaser, the Meteorological Hero, announced as he read the weather forecast. "We're expecting snow squalls and a significant drop in temperature. There is also a high possibility of graupel. People are advised to stay indoors and not take unnecessary trips until the weather improves."
Turning his head to look into the window, five years old Izuku Midoriya saw heavy clouds covering the night skies. It wasn't snowing yet, but he could see the flashes of lightnings already. Letting out a small sigh as the severe weather warning started playing again, he turned off the TV and dove deeper under the covers of his bed.
This night would be an …interesting one.
If only he knew how right he was…
Unseen to the people and even to weather radars, a small space-time anomaly manifested deep within the clouds. And once it was fully formed, an entity unlike anything to ever exist on Earth came from it. It was small, weak, incomplete and hurting, even in its incorporeal state. It needed a host to start recovering.
And so it started looking for one. Its alien senses could 'see' a world rather unlike what it was used to, and a great number of people, but they were …not quite right. And not just because they lacked certain traits possessed by the 'humans' of its original dimension. Something about these people was different on another level. So much so that coexistence in the same physical shell without hurting them might not be possible. And while it was not exactly benevolent, the extra-dimensional entity would rather not hurt anyone without a good cause.
But its own survival was a good cause. The entity was about to give up its search and just force itself into the nearest healthy human it could find, consequences to them be damned. But then, it 'saw' a host that would actually be compatible with it. Sure, that human looked to be a small child, and one without a particularly strong vitality either, but they were compatible.
Using them as a host would undoubtedly extend the time the entity would need to recover its own strength. But it was unaging, immortal, so a few extra years would hardly matter to it.
Its decision made, the alien entity silently flew towards its new host.
Izuku didn't remember the dream he was having earlier that night, but he definitely remembered what it turned into. In that new dream, he found himself in the middle of a large snow-covered field. Except this snow was dark in places, almost black - even in the near-complete darkness of a polar night - and just felt wrong. And that was before he noticed things like strange icy flowers growing in this cursed snow. Or the frozen bodies.
Quickly looking away in fear, the young greenette instead focused on the singular structure dominating the field. It was a huge stone ring, taller than many buildings, with strange, almost eldritch, symbols carved onto its otherwise polished surface.
Then, suddenly, these symbols glowed pale-blue before a purplish sea of stars sprang to life within the ring. And then a blob of living darkness emerged from this portal. Izuku didn't know what that was, but he still got the feeling that it was something wrong. Something unnatural that shouldn't be allowed to exist. Yet it was there. And it was actually moving. Not just shifting or changing its shape, but it was actually moving away from the stone ring.
That must not be allowed.
A thought that wasn't his own shot through his head. A moment later Izuku found himself in a body that was definitely not his own - he was pretty certain that he wasn't several meters tall and covered in whitish fur - rushing towards the blob. And then 'he' was body-slamming the thing back into the portal that it came from.
And then his world exploded in pain that seemed to be more spiritual than physical as parts of 'him' were torn away and sucked into the portal.
And then he woke up with a gasp.
He was back in his room, posters of All Might silently watching over him. Everything was as it should be with no signs of the monster he just had a nightmare about. Taking a couple of minutes to calm down, Izuku wrapped himself up in a blanket and did his best to go back to sleep - it was only half past three in the morning. Eventually he did fall asleep again.
He didn't have any more dreams that night.
~/ *** \~
Life went on more or less as normal after that night, although Izuku kept having strange dreams every once in a while. Sometimes it was just desolate, snow-covered landscapes. Both forests and tundra. A few times it was that strange ring-like structure, though these times there thankfully were no demonic blobs of darkness anywhere in sight. But blackened snow and rootless icy flowers still appeared. And on a few occasions he saw villages in distance, or silhouettes of people.
The people were kinda strange though. Some had horns or antlers. Some had tails. And some had animal ears. A lot of them were armed, but their weapons were swords, spears, staves or bows - things he usually saw in museums or in documentary videos or in history books.
And Izuku never told his mother about any of those. He just had this strange feeling that these were supposed to be kept a secret from others, and so he didn't bring his dreams up.
What the young greenette didn't notice himself - but his mother certainly did - was that he became less energetic and a lot more sleepy, seemingly without any reason. Inko had taken him to a few doctors, but they couldn't find anything wrong with him no matter what tests they did. And since whatever was afflicting him didn't really impact his life too much, this whole thing was eventually dropped.
And well, life went on as usual. At least until a few weeks after Izuku's eighth birthday, when something unexpected and incredible happened. Somehow, he awakened a Quirk. Even though the doctors said that he didn't have one. It didn't appear to be anything really spectacular - just an icy breath - but it was his own Quirk!
He couldn't wait to show it to Kacchan and his friends.
"Hey, guys!" Izuku called as soon as he stepped into the classroom the next morning. "Guess what happened! I have a Quirk now!" His excitement died a moment later when Katsuki's face turned into a mask of fury.
"Liar!" The explosive blonde hissed. "Quirks don't come after four. You were lying to me, Deku." He said dangerously while small explosions cracked around his hands. "Was it fun? Did you enjoy making a fool of me, Deku?" He shouted, shoving stunned and fearful Izuku against the nearest wall. "You always keep harassing me about what Heroes do and don't. And you know what, Deku, Heroes don't lie. Villains do. You're a Villain, Deku. And guess what Heroes do to Villains?"
And then Izuku's world exploded - quite literally - in pain.
Katsuki didn't have as good control over his Quirk as he thought he did and so his 'teaching Deku a lesson' left some marks on Izuku's body that the school just couldn't explain away. They still tried to blame Izuku for the whole incident. Midoriya Inko was not amused. And proceeded to tear everyone who had mistreated her son a new one.
The school ended up 'agreeing' to pay a pretty large monetary compensation for allowing things to happen to Izuku. They were also forced to put a black mark on Katsuki's file, although it was almost certain that they would try to erase it the moment Mrs. Midoriya looked away.
Mitsuki and Masaru were spared from the worst since they, apparently, had absolutely no idea that their son was like this when out of their sight. And now that they were made aware of it, they were not happy. Katsuki would be lucky if he wasn't still grounded by the time he finished Junior High. Unfortunately for the Bakugou matriarch, despite her doing her best to make amends, it looked like her friendship with Inko would never completely recover from this blow.
As for Izuku… He certainly didn't enjoy his stay at the hospital, however brief it had been. And while the burn marks he now had would never completely go away, the doctors were positive that they would eventually fade until they were barely noticeable. And, probably more importantly, Izuku learned that his Quirk - somehow - also granted him enhanced regeneration. It wasn't super quick or anything like that, but he certainly did heal faster than a normal human should. Understandably, he wasn't very keen on experimenting to find out just how good his regeneration was, though.
And, of course, Izuku got transferred to a different school. He wanted to say that it was better than the old one, but… The teachers were just as apathetic and while he got to be a center of attention for a short while due to being a new kid, eventually his classmates started forgetting that he existed, focusing their attention on a boy with much flashier, "Heroic" Quirk instead. Who would want to be friends with a nerdy kid with icy breath when they can hang around someone able to bulk up and set their fists on fire?
At least, he wasn't a useless, Quirkless Deku there…
For the next few years things went pretty well for the young Midoriya.
He was doing pretty well at his new school and he kept learning more about his Quirk, which was still officially registered as 'Icy Breath', even if at the point it was clear that it was actually far more than just that.
It was a full-on ice creation and manipulation Quirk. That it first manifested as icy breath could probably be attributed to the fact that his father could breathe fire. Or that he had been trying to cool down a cup of very hot tea at the time… He also had a very strong resistance to cold temperatures, to the point where winter chill wasn't enough to make him even put on a sweater. Summer heat, on the other hand, was now a problem for him.
And in addition to his improved regeneration - and resistance to diseases - he also developed superior strength and toughness. Neither was significant enough to compete with actual physical enhancement Quirks, but it certainly put him well above the average person of his age.
Between that and his powers over ice, Izuku had a Quirk well-suited for Heroics. And since being a Hero was his long-time dream, he quickly threw himself into training, both to further improve his fitness and to gain combat skills.
Meanwhile, his strange dreams continued. And they now also featured things like runes carved into stones or trees. It took Izuku an embarrassingly-long time to realize that those weren't just random things from a land-that-shouldn't-exist, but instead formed a message of some sort. Something was trying to communicate with him through his dreams. It made him both excited, curious and scared. Too bad, he just couldn't translate the message.
These runes, while superficially-similar to the Ancient Germanic ones, were different enough to make any direct translation impossible. And thus Izuku was stuck dreaming of the same runic messages time and again, without any ability to actually understand them.
Before long, it was the time for him to advance to the next step of his education. Unfortunately, Aldera Junior High was the only school of that level within a reasonable travel time. And because of that, Katsuki Bakugou was guaranteed to attend it as well.
At least his mother and aunty Mitsuki - no, Mrs. Bakugou - were able to convince the school's principal to put them into different classes.
That worked surprisingly well as, apparently, Katsuki hasn't changed much if at all over the last few years, if loud yelling - 'Damn extras!' was a very popular one - and occasional explosions Izuku was hearing from a classroom next door were anything to go by.
And speaking of explosions, the staff of Aldera Junior High was apparently banking on Katsuki becoming a famous and high-ranked Hero in the future and did everything they could to ensure the boy's records were as spotless as it could possibly be. Izuku's own Quirk wasn't deemed as 'marketable' and so the green-haired teen wasn't given any preferential treatment. But, at least, he was being treated fairly unlike some of Katsuki's unlucky classmates that were being thrown under the proverbial bus for the sake of the explosive blonde.
~/ *** \~
A couple of months into his final year at Aldera Junior High, Izuku finally made a breakthrough in translating those messages he was still getting in his dreams. And the results were …quite interesting to say the least.
Assuming he had translated those runes correctly, his powers actually weren't a Quirk and instead came from an entity that introduced itself as Sami. As a sort-of compensation for using his vitality to regain some of its own strength.
That certainly explained why his 'Quirk' had such a diverse set of powers: ice creation and manipulation, cryokinesis, cold resistance, passive physical enhancement and self-healing. And that might not even be the exhaustive list.
It also raised a question about what this Sami actually was. As well as where it came from. And how. Especially since it looked like a good deal of those strange dreams Izuku has had might actually be Sami showing him its memories.
At the end of the day, though, it didn't look like Sami was actually hurting him beyond taking some of his energy for itself. And Izuku certainly appreciated the 'Quirk' he got in return for that. So he didn't feel like he should end their 'partnership' - assuming he even had a way to - but he certainly wanted a way to communicate with Sami.
Sapient Quirks were rare and fascinating, and Sami was something even beyond that, being an intelligent entity from, apparently, a different world! There were so many interesting things he could learn from it!
~/ *** \~
With a lot of his time devoted to preparations for the UA Hero Course exam - as well as for similar exams held by Shiketsu and a few other Hero schools - Izuku didn't have that much time to learn how to communicate with Sami. He did make some progress but… Being limited to very short and simple messages and having to wait until next night to get a, likewise short and simple, response was just not good enough.
Anyhow, the months flew by and before long the long-awaited day of the UA exam came.
The exam consisted of two parts with the first one being a three hours long written test that had questions covering a large variety of topics, including some, like Heroics' Laws and Ethics, that are only briefly touched by normal schools. And more than a few questions also tested one's ability to think, not just their knowledge.
Izuku wanted to think that he did well, but he was also not arrogant enough to think that he had made no mistakes at all. And with literally thousands of people competing for the very limited spots in the Hero Course, even a single point away from perfection could be enough to keep him from getting in.
After the written test was finished, everyone was given an hour-long break to have some lunch or just rest a little before the practical portion of the exam. Which was a mock battle against an army of robotic 'villains'. Destroying or otherwise taking robots out of fight netted a number of points based on the model of the robot in question.
Izuku at first used a warhammer he had crafted from ice to smash the machines, but once it became clear to him that they weren't as tough as they looked, he switched to flinging ice spikes at them with his cryokinesis. Usually he tried to attack robots not engaged with others, but a few times he had to 'step in' and dispatch a villain-bot trying to sneak up on unsuspecting examinees. And once he had to briefly transform his spikes into a shield to protect a girl with a size-alerting Quirk from someone's shot that went widely off the target.
Then, just a couple of minutes before the end of the test, a new robot - the Zero-pointer - entered the fray. And Izuku immediately understood while Present Mic told them that during the briefing that it was an obstacle to be avoided: it was over thirty meters tall and built to actually withstand a lot of damage.
The giant machine was also rather clumsy and managed to destroy a few buildings within a few moments of emerging from… wherever it had been hiding until then. And one of those knocked down buildings had buried a girl under rubble. She didn't look especially hurt, but she definitely wasn't able to free herself without outside assistance.
Naturally, Izuku did a 'Hero' thing and went to help even when everyone else was running away from the giant robot. Lifting several tons of structurally-unsound concrete by growing ice underneath it wasn't exactly easy, especially on a strict time limit as the Zero-pointer decided to start moving in their direction, but the greenette managed it. And once the girl - Uraraka Ochako, as she introduced herself later - was freed, he carried her straight towards the training ground's exit gates. The exam was almost over and she did need some medical help.
~/ *** \~
On the following days, as he waited for his results from the UA exam to arrive, Izuku was too nervous to really try communicating more with Sami. At least he needn't to worry about having to choose between UA and another Hero school because UA Hero Course exams were held earlier than any others. Partially to avoid exactly that situation, partially to let those who failed to get into the Hero Course, but still wanted to attend UA, try their luck with other courses.
Finally, after a little more than a week of waiting, Izuku got a letter from UA. Inside was a video message - from All Might himself! - telling him that he had managed to pass the exam. He scored 99% on the written exam and got 41 villain points from destroying the robots plus additional 35 rescue points from helping others during the exam. The number one Hero (and, apparently, now a teacher at UA) didn't mention his exact ranking, but did say that his result was among the top ones this year.
The next morning Izuku would hear Katsuki boasting loudly enough for the entire Aldera to hear that he had absolutely crushed the UA entrance exam with 77 points from 'killing those pathetic robotic villains'.
Later that day, in the afternoon, the school's principal summoned Izuku to his office to congratulate him on successfully passing the UA exam. Those congratulations did sound kinda forced and hollow, like they were done out of obligation, but the young Midoriya didn't really care. He was just thankful that the man had enough of a sane mind not to summon him together with Bakugou. The explosive blond had made it very clear that would at least try to 'blast to bits' any 'stupid extra' that dared to even think about ruining his 'perfect origin story'.
A few days later, just shortly after a large package from UA containing his uniform and other special supplies had arrived, Izuku finally tried something new - something that he probably should've done some time ago - with his interactions with Sami. He asked Sami if it could actually come out and manifest itself outside of his dreams.
The answer was yes.
And was delivered to him when Sami did just that the next morning, just a couple of minutes after he got out of his bed. Thankfully it was Saturday and pretty close to noon, so his mother was out doing some grocery shopping - otherwise he would have a lot of explaining to do because he certainly was …startled by Sami suddenly appearing next to him.
Once he got over his initial shock, Izuku actually got to studying the fragment of a Feranmut in front of him.
Sami was, at least at this time, something like a ghost - translucent-white and all - though not completely immaterial and incapable of interacting with the physical world. And she was a girl. A pretty one. Vaguely-Nordic in appearance, pretty thin and miniature, standing not even 5'4". She had long straight hair nearly reaching her waist, which would've likely been blonde if she wasn't a monochrome apparition. She also had cervidae ears and - surprisingly, since she was a girl - a pair of majestic deer antlers [2].
And, thankfully for Izuku's teenage hormones, Sami, even as a ghost, was dressed. Her clothes consisted of a fur-lined jacket, some pants, and boots, along with quite a bit of 'shamanic'-looking jewelry, including some on her antlers. Once again, given that she was a ghost, it was impossible to tell what colors those were, but drawing upon the images of alien people from his dreams, Izuku thought dark blues, browns and golds to be her colors.
"A-ah…" He breathed out lamely. What exactly was he supposed to talk to her about now? Sami tilted her head quizzically as she kept her eyes trained on him.
An awkward silence followed.
And then things turned even more awkward when it became apparent that, at least as a ghost, Sami could neither hear him nor be heard herself. Hopefully because she just wasn't tangible enough to interact with sounds.
Thankfully, it wasn't that long before they discovered that the little Feranmut fragment could use touch telepathy to skim over his surface thoughts or share images from her own mind. It still wasn't an especially-efficient form of communication, but it was still a great improvement over what they had had until now.
~/ *** \~
"1-B… 1-B… Ah, here it is!" Izuku whispered under his breath as went down the corridor looking for his homeroom. Pausing in front of the surprisingly-huge door for a moment, he pulled it open and peeked inside. It looked like his silent prayer had been answered and Bakugou wasn't in here. In fact, he was seeing only one familiar face there: that girl with a Quirk that let her change size of objects was in 1-B as well. "Uh… Hello. I'm Izuku Midoriya and I'll be your classmate starting today. Nice to meet you." He greeted, before making his way to his assigned seat.
Almost immediately, a girl with messy dark-green hair was at his side, expressing her surprise and happiness that there was yet another person with, well, green hair in 1-B. Indeed, besides her and Izuku, there was another greenette in the class: a girl with long and somewhat thorny vines for hair. Probably her Quirk. Izuku immediately wondered what she could do with her vines and just how fine a control she had over them.
More people kept arriving: there was an invisible girl - or, at least, someone invisible wearing the female version of the UA uniform. And then there was a boy whose body, sans light-gray hair, was completely black - Sami didn't like him at all since he reminded her too much of those demonic beings invading Terra through the portal far in the North. And another boy, whose head was like a speech bubble from comics or manga. And a blonde girl with a pair of large and pointy horns on her head. And… [3]
Eventually, about ten minutes before the orientation was supposed to begin, the entirety of class 1-B assembled and their homeroom teacher made his entrance. And, to Izuku's delight, he was none other than the Blood Hero Vlad King. After briefly introducing himself, the man did a quick roll call before taking everyone to the conference hall for the orientation.
The orientation was mostly the usual stuff: a brief history of UA, introduction of staff, brief virtual tour of the facilities, etc.. The principal also talked a bit about the after-school clubs, and while those were definitely numerous and varied, the Hero students couldn't participate in those, at least during their first year, on the account of them doing their Hero training instead.
Another notable thing about the orientation was class 1-A. Or, to be more precise, their absence. Once he rejoined his charges, Kan-sensei explained that the homeroom teacher of 1-A liked to push the freedoms given to him to the limits and usually skipped orientation, which in his mind was a waste of time, and did a Quirk Apprehension Test with his class during this time instead. Of course, class 1-B will do a similar test as well, just later today, after the orientation and the lunch break.
Just like Kan-sensei promised, he gave class 1-B his own version of the Quirk Apprehension Test later that afternoon. It all started with him explaining that having a good and well-trained Quirk was important for a Hero, but one should forget to train their body either. And, thus, for many of the exercises, he will be measuring two results: one achieved with the use of Quirk and another - with just raw physical ability.
He then asked Shiozaki Ibara - the girl with vine hair - to do the demonstration by throwing a baseball ball as far as she could. Her 'normal' throw was decent but outstanding by any means. Then she used her vines like a giant slingshot and launched the second ball nearly a quarter of a mile away.
Someone then commented that it looked fun, causing Kan-sensei to let out a small sigh. The Blood Hero then explained to his students that they were now training to be Heroes and, while doing fun stuff every once in a while was okay, they needed to treat all exercises and tests given to them here very seriously.
And with that the Quirk Apprehension Test began.
Izuku did reasonably well in most exercises: not only did his 'Quirk' grant him improved base strength and stamina, but he also had ice creation and cryokinesis to help him out. As it turned out, he could even achieve temporary not-quite-flight by standing on an ice platform and moving it around.
He also got to see many cool Quirks. And he had a lot of questions he wanted to ask.
"Uh… Hagakure-san, right?" He began as he walked up to the invisible girl. "May I ask you a few questions about your Quirk."
"Sure, why not." She said with a nod.
"You said that your Quirk is invisibility and renders you permanently invisible. But, are you sure that it's all to it that there is?" He asked then.
"What do you mean?" She asked back, a bit surprised. "I'm obviously invisible, aren't I?"
"But you appear to be able to see like a normal person." The girl nodded, not understanding where he was going with this. "But if you were really invisible, then light - at least in the visible part of the spectrum - would pass right through your eyes and you wouldn't actually be able to see anything. That doesn't appear to be the case, though, so I think your Quirk is probably something along the lines of light manipulation or bending. Not actual invisibility." Izuku explained. "And if so, you can probably learn how to manipulate light around you in different ways. Like blinding your opponents or even emitting beams of light like some sort of a laser. Or just rendering yourself visible."
"Ho… I've never actually thought about that." The 'invisible' girl replied after a few moments of silence. "I hope you're right - it would be really nice to see myself in the mirror for once. I mean, I don't even know what I look like right now! It's so annoying."
"It looks like our Lord has gifted you with more than just a good Quirk, Midoriya-san. You're truly blessed." Ibara said as she approached them.
"Nah, analyzing Quirks is just a little hobby of mine." Izuku said, rubbing the back of his head nervously. "I hope it's not creepy or anything."
"Absolutely not." The vine-haired girl reassured him. "Understanding powers granted to us by our Lord is very important." She paused for a moment, before speaking again. "It seems that you were able to see a deeper truth about Hagakure-san's Quirk than most, and I sincerely hope you're right about what it is. And with that in mind, may I ask you to give me your thoughts on my own Quirk? As was said during the introductions this morning, and as you've observed during this test, my hairs are vines that I can control at will."
"That's certainly a great Quirk, Shiozaki-san." Izuku said. "I've seen you extend your vines and move them around, and it seems that you can control how thorny they are. But what else can you do? Can you, perhaps, make your vines flower? And if so, do you have any control over what those flowers produce? Having immediate access to pollens or aromatic agents that can calm people down or even put them to sleep quickly will be a tremendous benefit for you as a Hero. Or if your vines can produce fruit? Even if those can't be imbued with special properties, being able to produce food on demand would make you invaluable in rescue operations taking place in areas devastated by disasters, natural or otherwise."
"I… I have never actually tried to make my vines produce anything." Ibara admitted. "But if I can do that… I agree that it would help me a lot as right now I can only use them to physically restrain those sinning against our Lord and a fellow man. Which, I can admit, might not always be the best course of action, if possible at all."
"Midoriya, you're next for the ball throw. Get ready." Kan-sensei barked, looking up from his tablet.
"Looks like I have to go." Izuku said. "If you're interested, I can share more of my thoughts and ideas about your Quirks later. Now, if you excuse me…" And with that he headed for where Kan-sensei was standing, a plan to achieve the furthest 'throw' already forming in his head: encase the softball in an icy javelin and throw that instead. Being pointy and aerodynamic, it would certainly fly further than a ball would by itself.
~/ *** \~
The next day started with normal classes, like one would have in any other high school. Except they were taught by actual pro-Heroes. And they were covering the material at twice the pace, likely so that the afternoons could be devoted exclusively to Hero training.
After several surprisingly-exhausting hours of Mathematics, English and Modern Literature, class 1-B was happy to have their well-earned lunch break and descended upon the UA cafeteria like a pack of hungry teenagers that they were.
Yet, even though Ishiyama-sensei concluded his lesson as soon as the bell rang, by the time 1-B actually got there, the cafeteria was already full of people with a long queue stretching towards the food counter and most of the tables - the best ones, of course - already claimed. At least the weather today was nice, so one could always take a tray and go eat outside.
Which was what Izuku suggested and, surprisingly, most of his new classmates thought it was a good idea.
And with how good at his job Lunch Rush was - seriously, even the cook at UA was a ranked pro-Hero! - it wasn't long before 1-B had their food and were on their way out into the main yard, chatting among themselves.
Had one of them looked back at the moment, they would've seen an ashen-blonde teen at the far end of the queue squinting his eyes at Izuku, as if trying to decide if the greenette were someone he knew (and despised).
After the lunch, 1-B returned to their classroom for their afternoon classes - this time in Heroics instead of the 'boring normal' stuff taught in every high school. And the class would even be taught by All Might himself, if what the principal had said during the orientation was true.
Or not.
Kan-sensei was waiting for them in the classroom. And once the bell rang, the Blood Hero informed them that he will be teaching their Heroics Foundational Studies class today instead. And they will be going through a series of exercises to determine how well they knew the basics of fast moving and fighting - both with and without their Quirks.
Now, Kan-sensei definitely wasn't a bad teacher or a bad Hero, and he certainly knew what he was doing with his lessons, but he wasn't All Might. Everyone had been looking forward to being taught by the Number One Hero ever since principal Nezu announced that the man was now a UA teacher. So, naturally, everyone was at least a little bit disappointed that All Might wasn't the one teaching them today.
And then there was the situation with their Hero costumes. While most were already completed, a few were still being worked on by the Support Department, so to keep things 'fair' Kan-sensei had everyone do the exercises in their PE uniforms instead.
He did at least promise that all costumes should be finished in the next couple of days, and once they are, 1-B will have a whole class dedicated to making sure the costumes were comfortable, safe, protective and functioned properly.
~/ *** \
Unfortunately for 1-B, their Heroics Foundational Studies class the next day was once again with Kan-sensei. At least, the Support Department had pulled an overnight miracle and finished all of their Hero costumes. Thus, the afternoon was dedicated to getting used to them.
Izuku's Hero costume was largely inspired by the Icefield guardians he had seen several times in Sami-hime's memories, the Snow Priests. Thus, his costume consisted of a sleeveless green robe with a fake-fur collar and several strings of colorful 'shamanic' beads sewn directly to it; a dark-brown patterned sash that doubled as an utility belt; leather bracers to give his hands a bit of protection, mostly-normal dark-brown pants and stylized boots. He also had a scalemail armor vest under the robe - while he was tougher than an average man, he definitely wasn't immune to knives or bullets, so some protection against those was much needed.
At the moment his equipment included only a first-aid kid, some metal wire, a few anchors for the said wire, and a pair of good utility knives. While Izuku could, of course, create pretty much anything, knives included, with his ice manipulation abilities, sometimes real metal was needed. He was also planning to include a collapsible bow with a spring-based tension mechanism - that would be helpful for setting up zip lines, anchoring things down or, well, taking targets out. But that was for the (probably somewhat distant) future as right now he didn't have any skills to actually fire a bow properly.
And despite being strongly-thematic, his costume somehow ended up as being one of the most practical ones: very few of his classmates had actually included proper protection into their designs and a couple went completely form over function.
That is not to say his costume was perfect. Some adjustments had to be made, especially to the scalemail, before he could say he was completely comfortable wearing that. And he had to be if he were to perform optimally in the field.
"Looking good there, my fellow greenie." Setsuna said as she walked up to him. "Going with a wilderness shaman look, eh? Not sure if that really suits you, but you definitely could've done worse. Like, I dunno, a plain-green jumpsuit with rabbit ear thingies and a mouthpiece that looks like a deranged toothy smile." Izuku merely shrugged at that. In some other universe, he might've actually gone for a costume like that was a homage to All Might. And if it were homemade and low-budget, it might actually end up looking like something Setsuna was describing.
"I had a good source of inspiration for this." Young Midoriya replied. He paused for a moment to study the girl's costume - which looked like a simple purple bodysuit - before asking: "DNA-coded material?" It would certainly make sense, given her Quirk and how it let her split her body into pieces. And as a recommendation student, she probably had an easier access to such otherwise-costly and not-easy-to-get materials.
"That's right." She said with a nod. "I wonder if the Invisigirl has one too." She added, while glancing at Tooru. Well, at a pair of gloves and a pair boots that seemingly moved around on their own. "Would certainly be great for her. Not much point in an invisibility Quirk if your costume isn't invisible as well."
"Somehow… I don't think it is." Izuku said after observing their invisible classmate.
"Are you telling me she's actually naked?" Setsuna asked, scandalized. Mostly by the fact that someone thought that a pair of gloves and a pair boots - and nothing else at all - was a proper Hero costume. Izuku nodded. "That's not good. We gotta tell Kan-sensei about that." And without waiting for his input, Setsuna took off to notify their teacher about this …oversight on the part of the Support Department.
Letting out a small sigh, Izuku looked around, trying to see if there was anyone that could use his help. But for the most part, the costumes of his other classmates were okay. Except maybe for Ibara's, which looked like just a simple white toga.
"Shiozaki-san." He addressed the vine-haired girl.
"Is there something I can assist you with, Midoriya-san?" She asked.
"May I inquire about your Hero costume?" Izuku asked. He continued a few seconds later, interpreting her silence as a sign of agreement. "I can see the theme you're going for, but… what about your own protection? Do you have any sort of armor underneath this toga? Like this?" He asked while demonstrating the scalemail he had under his robe. "Even dedicated Rescue Heroes have to fight once in a while, so having at least a little bit of extra protection would never be a bad thing."
"No… I don't. But this is a good suggestion." Ibara replied after a moment. "Perhaps, you are the way our Lord is looking after me today." She said with a small nod to herself. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Midoriya-san."
"Ah-... No problem, Shiozaki-san." He replied, a bit bashfully. How exactly was he supposed to respond to that?
"I should go ask sensei on the proper procedure for requesting costume updates." Ibara said next. "It seems like he's finished dealing with whatever issues Tokage-san and Hagakure-san had." Izuku nods.
"I should probably accompany you. I have a similar question as my armor appears to be in need of a minor adjustment." And with that the two of them went to talk to Kan-sensei.
Omakes and Extra Scenes
I : Cafeteria Confrontation
"So that's really you." A voice full of venom spoke next to Izuku. A moment later a strong and sweaty arm grabbed his head and tried to force him onto the ground. Quickly overcoming his surprise at being attacked like that, the green-haired teen was able to resist that and started pulling free from the grip.
"What are you doing? Please release sir Midoriya this instant." Shishida spoke in his deep, somewhat intimidating voice.
"Shut up, extra!" Katsuki spat out. "This is between me and this lying, cheating villain. Stay out of this if you don't want to die!" He then cracked a few small explosions around the palm of his free hand for a bit of intimidation.
Then, suddenly, a ladle hit the top of his head.
"No Quirk usage in the cafeteria, young man." Lunch Rush said, his voice outwardly calm but carrying enough authority to instantly restore order in his domain. For the most part. Katsuki wouldn't be stopped by something like that, but before he could do or say anything, the intercom loudspeakers came alive, delivering the principal's voice:
"Katsuki Bakugou-san please report to the principal's office." The hyper-intelligent mammal in charge of UA spoke. And even Katsuki wasn't stupid enough to ignore this demand.
"Tch. This is not over, Deku." The explosive teen growled. "I'll see you expelled and then I will make you pay for everything you did and then I'll kill you like the fucking scum villain you are."
"Language, young man." Lunch Rush warned him, his ladle raised and ready to bludgeon the blond troublemaker again.
"If I may inquire, what was this all about, sir Midoriya?" Shishida asked once the Explosion user departed and the order in the cafeteria was restored.
"That was…" Izuku began uneasily. "That was Katsuki Bakugou. Once upon a time we were friends. Then his Quirk came and mine …didn't for some time. And when it finally came, he got it into his head that I had been lying about getting it only then. Which somehow makes me a villain that he - as a 'Hero' - has to defeat by beating me up. The fact that him trying to do that in the past had pretty much destroyed the friendship between our mothers only makes him more convinced that he's right."
"I'm truly sorry for making you relieve those memories, sir Midoriya." The extremely-polite half-beast young man said. "And as much as I despise wishing ill upon our fellow student, I do hope that this young man suffers a proper punishment for all of his misdeeds."
"Uh… Thank you." Izuku said, not really knowing how to respond to that.
II : The UA Traitor
"And it is also worrisome that this 'League of Villains' knew that All Might should have been at USJ for that lesson. While it is public knowledge that he now teaches at UA, our lesson plans are not. Someone had to leak that information to the villains." Aizawa said, doing his best to ignore discomfort coming from his still-healing face.
There was a moment of uneasy silence, before his friend, Hisashi, better known as the Voice Hero Present Mic spoke:
"I'm afraid, that means UA has a traitor." This was followed by a much longer period of even more uneasy silence. Understandably so. Having someone working for the villains in the Hero school was, without a doubt, very bad news.
Especially when it could quite literally be anyone.
"I don't want to be a dick, Kan." Aizawa said as if wasn't about to be a dick to the man. "But a couple of your students are rather suspicious, from a purely logical point of view." The Blood Hero sent his colleague a glare.
"Elaborate." He grunted.
"First, we have Hagakure Tooru, whose invisibility makes her a great infiltrator." As much as Vlad King wanted to dispute that, he had to agree that Tooru would indeed make a great spy. "And then there's this boy, Midoriya Izuku. He's the most suspicious."
"How so?" Nemuri asked.
"Have you seen his file?" Aizawa asked back. The silent question of why he had read a file of someone who wasn't in his class (and he was known NOT to read the files of his own students before actually meeting them) was promptly ignored. "It states that he got his Quirk first manifest at the age of eight. Now, there are Quirks that don't show up until later in someone's life or require some very specific trigger to activate, but simple elemental Quirks like his 'Icy Breath' are not those. It should've manifested itself when the boy was four. Maybe five at the latest." A few of the teachers in the room nodded. "And then his registry was updated about a year ago. The Quirk name was changed to 'Sami's Blessing' and its effects are now described as ice creation, cryokinesis, cold resistance and general physical enhancements. I could maybe believe the first three parts being a result of a Quirk awakening, though the boy hadn't had any incidents that could have caused that, but the final part? Ice Quirks never give anyone superior strength or mild regeneration. It's almost like the boy got a few more Quirks dumped on him - something that we now know as possible thanks to this Nomu creature - and tried to cover it up." The Erasure Hero explained.
"That does raise some questions, indeed." Nezu, the principal, agreed. "But that alone can't be a reason to detain and interrogate Midoriya-san. At most, we can ask him if he wants to share more information about his Quirk with us and, if he agrees, try asking him questions that might reveal what really caused such a …dramatic change in his Quirk."
"I have a friend who is a detective with a lie-detector Quirk. And I might be able to persuade him to help us with getting the truth about this." All Might pitched in.
"I don't like this all one bit, but I can see that this will not be let go until my students are proven innocent." Or otherwise. "So I'll give you my permission to ask Midoriya and Hagakure a few questions." Kan said. "Just don't make this a public affair. There is some bad blood between 1-A and my class already, no thanks to Neito-san going out of the way to hype 1-A beyond any reason. We don't need people thinking that someone from my class was responsible for the USJ incident."
"Perfectly understandable." The principal agreed.
~/ *** \~
Izuku wasn't sure why he was summoned to the principal's office. As far as he knew, he had done nothing to warrant this.
Of course, he wasn't aware about the teachers' investigation into the USJ incident. Or the fact that he was a suspected traitor. Or that the principal's office had a fake wall - of course! - behind which four men were hiding: All Might, Detective Tsukauchi, Eraserhead and Kan-sensei. And how the latter managed to get there before Izuku's arrival was a mystery as the Blood Hero was the one to inform Izuku that the principal wanted to talk to him. And he never overtook Izuku on the way to the principal's office. Even though there supposedly was only one route there.
"Ah… Principal, Sir, I was told that you wished to speak with me." Izuku said as peeked inside the office after knocking on the door.
"Please come in, Midoriya-san." Nezu said, playing his role in all this perfectly. "Have a seat." The hyper-intelligent mammal of unknown species said then, nodding to a chair in front of his large desk. Once Izuku was seated, he continued: "Would you like some tea?"
"N-No, thank you."
"Alright then." The principal continued. "I wanted to thank you for bringing to our attention that Hagakure-san's Hero costume was… not of appropriate quality." So that's what this all was about, Izuku thought.
"I'm glad I helped." He said.
"I've also heard that you've been giving your classmates some tips on possible ways they can develop their Quirks. And those were some pretty good tips, even if none of those students have made any significant progress in those directions yet." Nezu said.
"I always found Quirks to be so fascinating. And I have been analyzing them as a hobby ever since I learned to write." The greenette confessed.
"Interesting." The principal said. "May I ask to see some of your works, preferably the more recent ones?"
"I don't have those notebooks with me today, Sir." Izuku said. "I can bring them later if you are still interested."
"Certainly." Nezu said. "It would be interesting to see what you think of your own Quirk." And, of course, a couple of older analysis notebooks do have Izuku's attempts to analyze his 'Quirk' before he learned of what his powers really were and how he came to possess them. "It's an unusual Quirk after all. I have never heard of an ice elemental Quirk granting powers that align more with minor super-strength and mild regeneration."
"I guess it's just weird like that." Izuku replied. "Would you rather I say it was actually Magic I got as a gift from a shard of an alien God?" He then asked rhetorically.
"You are right, of course." The principal 'folded'. "As much as I don't want to subscribe to Dr. Garaki's Quirk Singularity Theory, that man was at least right about Quirks getting more complex with each generation. Perhaps, yours is indeed just one such complexity."
Unknown (yet) to him, behind the fake wall of his office Detective Tsukauchi was currently going through an existential shock brought on by the power of his lie-detecting Quirk.
"What… What the boy said… Is true." The man whispered.
"What was true, Naomasa?" All Might asked his friend and confidant.
"The part about the alien God." The detective replied in a very shaky voice. None of the Heroes had any idea what to say or do in response to this revelation.
III : Sports Festival
Class 1-B preparations for the UA Sports Festival were intense, and not just because they were doing a lot of training. Unlike their sister class, where every man seemed to be for themselves, 1-B couldn't really afford that if they wanted to get far as they had noticeably fewer 'heavyweights'. They needed to cooperate. And to pull that off, they had to do a lot of strategizing.
Izuku had immediately shot down the suggestion of him simply carrying the rest of 1-B on floating ice platforms through an obstacle course or another race event. Not because he didn't want to help his classmates. His reasoning was the following: while many pro-Heroes would only watch the final event - always a one-on-one fighting tournament - on the account of their limited time, if they saw someone interesting there, they would still do some research there. And if they saw a student they got interested in being literally carried to victory in earlier events, they might actually reconsider sending them an internship offer.
Still, Izuku definitely agreed to help his classmates deal with obstacles and what not where his powers would be beneficial. Just that they would have to reach the finish line on their own. Not everyone was truly happy with that, but eventually everyone agreed that relying completely on the few powerhouses their class did have to clear the first two events might not be the best of ideas. And there still would be pro-Heroes watching the whole festival, so even if someone failed to reach the tournament phase, they might still get scouted if they did something impressive. And being carried around to victory by someone else was NOT that.
~/ *** \~
Izuku, despite being very nervous about the Sports Festival, which would start in just a couple of minutes, didn't fail to notice one small but still significant change to Shiozaki-san's visage: a single white flower blooming next to her left ear.
"A-ah…" He 'said' oh-so-eloquently, not even sure how to express what he wanted to ask.
"Your ideas about the Quirk our Lord had bestowed upon me were correct, at least to some degree, Midoriya-san." The vine-haired girl said. "I haven't been able to get any more than this yet, and this flower is just there, it can't do anything yet, but it is a proof that my Quirk is indeed more than I had originally believed. And I'm very thankful to you for that." So, he was right that she might manipulate her vines beyond just moving them around and making them more or less thorny. "Would it be too much to ask if I can call you by your name? You are free to address me with my given name in return, of course."
"I… I would be honored, Shi-... Ibara-san." Izuku replied. "Please call me Izuku."
"Thank you." Ibara said. Their conversation was interrupted by Present Mic's announcement:
"And now let's give it to the Hero Course class 1-B!" The man called. "They might not be as famous, but they are just as strong and determined to win!"
"Let's go." Kendou-san said. "It's our time to enter the arena."
After a rather …inflammatory Athlete's Oath by Bakugou Katsuki that certainly didn't win him any sympathy points, neither from other students nor from the audience, the first event of the Sports Festival was announced: an obstacle course race around the stadium and surrounding grounds.
And as soon as the race started Shouto Todoroki of 1-A pretty much froze everyone in place with his ice. Which was undone a couple of seconds later by Izuku. Nevertheless this gave the heterochromatic boy enough of a lead to exit the arena first and seal the tunnel with an ice wall behind himself. The said wall too managed to delay his competition for a few seconds before Izuku opened a passage through it.
While the green-haired teen was definitely in a good shape, he couldn't really compete against those with speed Quirks. Still, he was quite fleet-footed and managed to reach the first real obstacle of the race - the 'Robo-Inferno' - in the forefront. Which meant he was the one to deal with another ice wall left behind by Todoroki, as well as with several zero-pointers frozen in unstable postures.
The second obstacle was about half a kilometer down the track and was basically a huge hole in the ground with a number of rope-connected rock pillars inside. Not really in the mood for rope walking, Izuku created an ice platform and simply flew himself across the pit. And when he heard Present Mic announce that the next obstacle was a (non-lethal) minefield, he kept flying ahead, finally getting off his icy platform only once he had cleared the minefield.
Despite essentially bypassing two of the big obstacles, Izuku hadn't been able to overtake anyone already ahead of him and finished the race in the fourth spot. Which, nevertheless, was a very good result.
The first forty two competitors to cross the finish line - seventeen students from 1-A, sixteen from 1-B and nine from General Studies and Support Courses - advanced into the second round of the Sports Festival. Which was a cavalry battle. Each student was given a headband with a number of points corresponding to how well they did in the race, and sixteen students on the teams that completed the cavalry battle with most points under their control would advance into the final round.
Izuku teamed up with Ibara, Shishida and Kuroiro for the event. Together, the four of them had a decent number of points and needed to add only about four hundred more to guarantee themselves a spot in the final round. Thus their game plan was to collect those points and then hold onto them until the fifteen minutes time runs out. Which they totally could do with Izuku's ice platforms lifting them high above the battleground and Ibara's vines forming a protective cocoon around them.
It was a pretty simple plan, and it worked pretty well, even if it took them nearly seven minutes to 'collect' the required points from the other teams. The other teams to advance into the next round were team Todoroki, team Bakugou, team Momona and, surprisingly, team Shinsou. A total of eighteen people, but that number was quickly reduced to the required sixteen when both of Shinsou's teammates stepped down for 'personal reasons'.
The third and final round of the Sports Festival was a fighting tournament, and Izuku's first opponent was Ashido Mina, a pink-skinned girl from class 1-A whose Quirk let her produce various acids. It wasn't the most favorable match-up for him, but it definitely wasn't the worst one possible either.
The fight started with Ashido on offensive, skating around the arena and flinging globs of acid that Izuku dodged with some difficulty, all the while building up enough ice for his counterattack. About half of it was in the pinkette's view, while the rest was hidden out of her sight behind his back. That took a bit of time - he couldn't summon an iceberg in the blink of an eye like Todoroki - and he was thankful that Present Mic's commentary didn't spoil his plan to his opponent.
Once he had enough ice ready for his plan, Izuku stole the initiative from the 1-A girl and began his counterattack. Transforming his ice into a mass of relatively-small projectiles, he launched the ones she could see at Ashido, converging onto her position from multiple angles. With no real way to completely avoid this hailstorm, she was forced to dodge it. And that she did, displaying some incredible flexibility. But in doing so she took her eyes off Izuku and missed him firing the second volley of icy projectiles.
And then Izuku bullrushed her and swiftly pushed her out of the ring, securing himself a victory.
Izuku's second match was against Todoroki Shouto, and unlike pretty much everyone else in the tournament, the green-haired teen was actually rather confident in his chances against the powerhouse of 1-A. Now, if the other boy was using fire as well it would be a different story, but so far Todoroki was using exclusively the ice side of his Quirk, and…
Let's say that fighting against someone with full-scale cryokinesis with mere ice creation was a terrible idea. For all of the raw power of his Quirk, Todoroki had too many limitations to have a good chance of winning without his fire: he required contact with a solid surface (liquids probably worked as well) to summon his ice; he could only set initial direction into which it would propagate, but had no further control over it; and he was limited to plain old ice I. Izuku himself, while unable to summon icebergs on a whim, had none of those limitations. And, thus, Todoroki's attacks would just give him more ammo to use against the heterochromatic boy.
And then, on his way to the arena, Izuku was stopped by Endeavor, Todoroki Shouto's father. The number two Hero tried to demand that Izuku make his son use his fire. Not in the mood for shit like that, Izuku flat out told the men that he would be fighting to win and resolving his opponent's issue at his own expense was not in his plans. Perhaps, antagonizing someone so powerful politically and in combat ability was not exactly wise, but…
"And now we're about to witness a really cool battle!" Present Mic announced. "It's the Ice Prince of 1-A and the King of Frozen Tundra, Todoroki Shouto, versus that guy who can levitate some ice, Midoriya Izuku of 1-B!" The announcer and the crowd clearly favored the former, but Izuku didn't care.
"Are you two ready?" Midnight, who was once again refereeing, asked. Both teens replied with silent nods. "Then begin!" She called, cracking her whip.
Todoroki immediately summoned a mountain of ice that covered nearly the whole arena. It clearly took a lot out of him, and he probably was banking on his opponent being unable to respond to such a show of force.
Unfortunately for the 1-A boy, Izuku was fast enough with cryokinesis to part the onrushing ice and remained standing where he was, none worse for wear. Then, with another exertion of his power he converted nearly a half of the aforementioned mountain of ice into several huge spears, made of exotic - stronger and denser than normal - ice.
Then Izuku fired those at Shouto, forcing him to defend with a wall of ice that was at least half a meter thick. And the spears still nearly pierced through it. The green-haired teen then transformed some of the new wall's ice into a pair of supersized greatswords and used them to cut the wall in half horizontally. Then he took control over that ice, turning it into more projectiles to attack Todoroki with.
Now that he once again had a clear line of sight to his opponent, Izuku could see that Shouto was in a rather bad shape after using the ice side of his Quirk so much: he was breathing heavily and some frost was covering his right side. Still, the heterochromatic boy stubbornly refused to use his fire, even to just warm himself up. Well, his loss… Not that Izuku himself was really doing that much better: controlling over a hundred tons of ice, most of it compacted into exotic forms, was no mean feat, and keeping it up was draining his stamina pretty fast. He better finish this match quickly or he might not be in any shape to fight the next one, even if he does win here.
And there was this: unseen to Izuku himself, but clearly visible to the audience, was a pair of spectral antlers now 'decorating' his head.
Deciding that he should end this match quickly, Izuku fired the massive amount of ice projectiles currently under his control at Shouto, forcing the other boy to erect yet another ice wall to protect himself. Releasing his control over that Ice, the green-haired host-of-Feranmut-shard instead opened a path right through the newly-formed wall and went for a melee offensive.
Tired and half-frozen by the backlash of his own power, Todoroki was too slow to dodge the incoming attack completely. Though not slow enough to actually get knocked out of the ring - he did summon a slab of ice to catch himself before he touched the ground. Which only prolonged the match by a few seconds as Izuku used his cryokinesis to 'strap' Shouto to that ice slab, and then sent it decisively out of arena's bounds.
As Present Mic announced him a victor, Izuku walked up to his downed opponent, currently still attached to the ice slab.
"D-Did my father p-put you to this?" Shouto asked, doing his best to ignore the onsetting effects of hypothermia caused by overusing the ice half of his Quirk
"He tried." The green-haired teen replied. "I don't care about whatever happens within your family. It's none of my business." He paused for a moment, before continuing: "What I do care about is this idiotic insult you've been making towards everyone in the Sports Festival by using only a half of what you have whereas everyone else is giving it their all. And this-" He said, referring to Todoroki's defeat. "-is the price you pay for that arrogance. If this was a real fight and I were a villain, you'd be dead and your duty as a Hero unfulfilled. Is that how you want your future to play out?"
Silence was Todoroki Shouto's answer to that question.
IV: Sami-chan Wants Headpats
It's been a couple of months since Sami had first managed to manifest herself into the physical world. And she had done that a few more times since then. She liked being 'out' and she liked being able to interact with the world around her, even if her ability to do so was rather limited due to her still being a mostly-immaterial ghost.
One thing that she found herself enjoying a lot - and something that her original had never experienced - was having her host, Izuku Midoriya, pat her head and gently play with her hair. She made sure he was aware of that as well.
And today, after all of the fighting her host did, with her help, of course, Sami felt like she deserved a reward. Thus she manifested herself once her host was in a secluded location - she respected his desire to keep her a secret, even if she didn't really understand why - and made her desires known.
Ibara, wishing to congratulate Izuku on his victory in the Sports Festival, tracked him down to the changing rooms. Knocking on the door and not receiving any response that would indicate that he was indecent at the moment, she opened the door and stepped inside. Then she actually processed the scene in front of her and…
Izuku was indeed properly decent at the moment. But, there also was an antlered ghost girl sitting in his lap. And he was patting her on her head like she was his pet - something she was apparently enjoying quite a lot.
"Ah…" The vine-haired girl breathed out, her mind suddenly devoid of any words to say.
"E-eh…" The young Midoriya likewise couldn't come up with anything to say. Even his hands stopped moving, much to Sami's disappointment.
"Ano… Izuku-kun… Who's this girl?" Ibara finally managed to ask. Meanwhile the girl in question was playing an impatient dog, silently telling Izuku to get back to giving her headpats.
"Uh… Well… Meet Sami-hime, Ibara-san." He finally did the introductions after taking a few moments to recompose himself a little. All the while his hands finally went back to giving the Feranmut fragment in his lap the attention she sought.
"Sami-hime?" Shiozaki-san breathed out in surprise. "Wait! Isn't your Quirk called 'Sami's blessing'?" She asked then, connecting the dots but not really believing the conclusions she reached. Izuku nodded.
"Yes." He confessed. "My Quirk isn't really a Quirk, and Sami-hime here was the one who blessed me with my powers."
"Blessed you with powers?" Ibara repeated. "Are you saying that?.." She didn't want to finish that question. And she didn't really need to as Izuku understood what she was trying to ask him.
"Kind of." He said. There was a rather long moment of silence before he continued: "The proper term, I believe, is 'Feranmut', and Sami-hime is a fragment of one that somehow ended up on Earth. And given what I've seen so far through the memories she had shared with me, she's developing into her own being rather than a clone or extension of her… progenitor." He said, gently ruffling Sami's hair, making her positively radiant with delight.
Ibara was still somewhat blue-screening at this revelation.
"I would greatly prefer if you keep all this a secret, Ibara-san." The girl nodded, rather dumbly, in response. Still, somehow Izuku was sure that she would not rat him - well, Sami-hime and his connection to her - out.
There was a very long pause before Ibara finally spoke again, her eyes now focused on the spectral shard of a(n alien) god in front of her:
"M-May I… May I headpat her too?" She finally asked.
Somehow, Sami was agreeable to that.
[1] While a rare phenomenon, thunderstorms in which snow falls as the primary precipitation instead of rain are a real thing. And they can happen in Japan, although usually they do happen around Ishikawa prefecture rather than in Tokyo.
[2] Basically, Sami looks like a twelve years old, vaguely-Scandinavian version of Nine-Colored Deer with light-blonde hair and more raindeer-y antlers. Her clothes are somewhat similar to those worn by the Samifjod Snow Priests.
[3] For this story, I've made a few more adjustments to the Hero classes, beyond moving Momona to 1-A and Izuku to 1-B. I've also exchanged Togaru Kamakiri (the mantis guy) with Tooru - mostly because I want Izuku to actually do some analysis of her invisibility/refraction and that would be pretty hard to do if they are in different classes.