Yukimura Kenzo stares, unblinking.
"You're going to lose," She says, idly, to one Todoroki Shouto. Said boy sitting across from her on their dorm's couch, similarly unblinking.
The idle chatter in the dorm is nice, comforting even to Izuku, as he watches two of his class's top students engage in a weirdly…intense, staring contest. It's around six in the afternoon, and with the sun nearing setting people are busying themselves with dinner plans, homework, and other things to do in the common room and kitchen of their dorms.
On the note of dinner, Izuku thinks Kacchan is going to skewer someone with his favorite chopsticks if they get in his business about what he's making himself for dinner again. Mina wants to convince him to help her make chicken adobo, Izuku thinks, but it's a slow battle.
Izuku focuses back in on the staring contest happening in front of him, well practiced in tuning Kacchan's shouting out. Kenzo looks bored, and Todoroki looks…well, like Todoroki. He's not very expressive.
"So, Yukimura—"
"Kenzo, Izuku, Yukimura is so formal," Kenzo interrupts. "We're friends at this point, aren't we? A few attempted murders will do that."
Izuku chokes at her bluntness. Izuku doesn't know how she's so casual about everything, be it schoolwork or being kidnapped. He doesn't really know that much at all about her, now that he thinks about it. Shouldn't friends know what middle school they went to? Or even their favorite heroes?
Honestly, all he knows about her is her quirk, her being top of class, and that she sleeps a lot. That, and the things she's said about her father.
"R-right Yu- Kenzo. Um, I'm glad you consider us friends!" Izuku sputters, fiddling with his hands.
"Of course, bud." Kenzo smiles, dark eyes still firmly open and meeting Todoroki's. "You did help save Bakugou and I after all, and we helped- er, watched Stain get arrested. Very formative friendship experiences."
Todoroki hums in agreement, blank faced.
"True! I suppose," Izuku says. "Um, why don't we learn more about each other, then? What's your family like?"
Maybe not the best question, since Izuku only knows about one family member, and he's in jail for murder and abuse, but he might not be the standard!
"Well, I have my mom and my younger sisters," Kenzo says. "My mom is a physical therapist, she helps people recover from quirk damage mostly, and my sisters are both in primary school. Yuki is five, and Yoshi is seven."
Izuku at some point during this has pulled out his notebook he's been using for his classmate's quirks, and may or may not be writing this down on Kenzo's pages. It's not weird! It helps him remember.
"That's interesting! What are their quirks?" He asks.
"My mother has a quirk enhansion quirk, something related to how long she touches someone," Kenzo says, readjusting in her seat a little bit. "And we think Yoshi has something similar, but we haven't figured out how to activate it yet. And Yuki is little enough that it hasn't shown yet either."
Kenzo shrugs, and in the distance Kacchan's shouting has died down a bit, so Izuku assumes he's given into Mina's demands. "Who knows, they might just be quirkless. Doesn't matter much either way, quirks are just extra dressing on a person."
Izuku stops breathing, for a moment, before swallowing and nodding, seriously.
"I agree." If his voice shakes a bit when he says it, it's fine, he's got a stutter anyways. "So, um, your quirk is mostly like your father's, then?"
Kenzo nods. "Better than his," She says, and there's a trace of grim satisfaction there.
"Do you think its because of your mom's quirk?" Izuku asks.
"Probably," Kenzo huffs, then continues, quietly. "The longer someone touches her, the more exponential the permanent enhancement. I was in the lady for nine months."
Izuku's eyes widen. "Oh wow! So you think her quirk may have affected yours in its dormant state?" He whispers excitedly.
Kenzo nods, speaking at the same low level. "That's the theory I'm running with. Don't tell anyone about her quirk though, okay, Izuku? If her just having a kid makes them really strong…I don't even wanna think about it."
Izuku nods seriously. With All For One still alive…even if he's put away, he can understand the concern. Not just the worst of the worst villains would take advantage of someone like Kenzo's mother, the designer quirk market is real. Plenty of people would pay for a baby with a powerful quirk.
Suddenly a shirt reaches over the back of the couch, long sleeves wrapping around Kenzo's neck and jostling her.
"Ken!" Hagakure Toru chimes cheerfully.
Kenzo, surprised at being jostled and moved forward, blinks.
"Hello, Toru," Ken says with a sigh.
"I win,"Todoroki says monotone as ever, ramrod straight, before turning to the side with his eyes watering and tearing up.
"Todoroki!" Izuku says frantically. "Are you alright?!"
"We've been going for twenty-three minutes," Kenzo says idly, being rocked back and forth by Hagakure as she tells Kenzo about some 3rd year's drama. "His eyes are dry."
"And yours aren't??"
"No."
Izuku slowly turns back down to her quirk page, and adds an offhand note about having weirdly well moisturized eyes.
As the group chatters about things, Izuku stares down at his notes. Then, with a serious nod, he resolves to learn more about Kenzo. Friends should know things about each other!
This is a good little side project, he thinks. Something normal compared to all the villain wrangling and kidnappings and, er, being attacked.
Right! Excited, he makes a new page, and writes ' Project! Get to Know Kenzo!'.
He does not notice Todoroki's watery, (but piercing!), gaze on him.
—
Sluggishly, metal utensils twirl around Yukimura Kenzo's fingers, hands still despite the metal's orbit. Her tired dark eyes observe her surroundings with the same bored, incomprehensible gaze as always.
UAs cafeteria is loud in the way all highschool cafeterias are loud. Pack a few hundred teenagers in a big room with good acoustics and you get words echoing and laughter cutting through the air. In the center of it all lies class 1-A, grouped together in their own friend groups.
Midoriya Izuku, however, finds himself perched behind a plastic plant, observing his new friend.
Which, uh, looks bad! Sounds bad, too, but um. It's for research! He has to remove himself from the subject to keep from influencing anything.
Also he maybe doesn't know how to ask her about things on his own because it feels awkward and he is awkward and maybe this is just easier uH —
Anyways!
His current notes are pretty fruitful! Through watching her he's realizing she doesn't really need to flex her muscles at all to move metals, as seen by her moving some chopsticks out of Mina's reach without moving, laughing.
In fact he's been able to figure some more interesting things out about her quirk between last night and now! For one, she doesn't seem to think very muc h at all about using her quirk, like its just another limb despite having mentioned she awoke it only two years ago and—
Two hands land solidly on Izuku's shoulders, and Izuku pauses his mumbling as he feels like his soul is leaving his body.
Izuku lets out a little cry of surprise, and turns quickly to see—!
"Midoriya," Todoroki Shouto greets him, very seriously, crouched on the ground behind where Izuku is crouched.
Izuku lets out a breath of relief, pressing a hand to his chest and trying not to keel over from shock.
"Don't scare me like that, Todoroki!" Izuku wheezes out, feeling Todoroki's hands leave his shoulders and watching from the corner of his eye as the two toned boy crab walks to crouch next to him. "What is it?"
Todoroki makes very unnerving eye contact with Izuku, before speaking in the same ultra serious tone he used when asking if Izuku was All Might's secret love child.
"Midoriya, do you have a crush on Yukimura Kenzo?"
Izuku chokes on his own breath, almost falling over and grabbing the plastic plant barely hiding the two of them to stabilize himself.
"Wh-what?! What makes you think— no way I would—!" Izuku sputters, scrambling to explain himself in some way that keeps Todoroki from thinking that. He's doing research! It's very un-crushlike! Not everything in life is like a soap opera or whatever it is that's giving Todoroki these ideas and HONESTLY it would be very strange and concerning for someone with a crush to be peering behind plastic plants in a packed cafeteria to watch their love interest and oh he's mumbling again.
"It's alright, Midoriya," Todoroki interrupts, nodding, now somehow having Izuku's notebook in his hands? "I understand, your secret is safe with me."
Todoroki flips through what Izuku has on their classmates, and especially what he has on Kenzo, nodding to himself. All the while Izuku is still trying to recover from their interaction.
Two second years walk past their little hiding spot and giggle about "firsties", and Izuku thinks he's finally gotten rid of his embarrassed blush.
"Hm. This would be good information for our spars," Todoroki says, taking Izuku's pencil and correcting a note about Kenzo's fighting style. "I'll help you."
Izuku sputters at his bluntness, but sighs, tugging at Todoroki to make sure he's hidden by the plant. "Sure, Todoroki. But I do not have a crush on her."
Todoroki nods with his eyes closed, almost sage-like. "It's fine. I'll keep your secret, Midoriya. Just as I did with All Might."
Izuku runs a hand down his face, and in the distance Kenzo is settling the silverware back onto people's individual plates with a dismissive swipe of her hand, nodding along to something Shoji Mezo is saying.
Izuku clears his throat, a new type of nervousness in his bones. "So, do you think she controls the metal with her thoughts?" He asks. It's strange, having someone to talk about his research with. Most people get bored of him talking so much about heroes and tell him to shut up, having a conversation about it sort of being out of the picture.
Todoroki nods, not seeing his internal turmoil as he watches the dark haired girl. "I think she adds the movements to confuse people, or maybe they just feel more natural to her than moving it with just her mind. Why?"
Izuku taps his pencil to his chin, idly. "If she isn't limited by her muscle mass, I wonder what she is limited by? Does she have some sort of hard limit? Only so much she can move in a certain amount of time? If so, I don't know if we have ever seen that limit."
"She doesn't seem like she has many limits, I've seen the way she and Aizawa-sensei train and they seem to ignore her quirk entirely," Todoroki says, turning and watching Izuku write what he's saying down. "I have to use my quirk more to expand its limits. Perhaps she has just done the same, but far enough that it isn't reasonable to expand anymore?"
Izuku hums.
"We're still highschoolers, and she's only had her quirk for so long. There's no way she's brought herself so far ahead already. Kenzo is strong, but she's not pro strong yet, or she'd be a pro!"
"I believe she is," Todoroki says. "In the same way we are both pro strong, and Bakugou is pro strong."
Above them, the bell rings for their lunch to head back to class.
"We have heroics next," Todoroki says, standing. "We'll just convince All Might to have us do sparring."
Izuku stands as well, closing his notebook as he watches their class head out the side doors leading to their homeroom. "It will be hard to take notes if we're both in fights."
"Single spars while the rest of the class watches, we've done it before with hero simulations," Todoroki says, already walking towards their homeroom. "Hurry, we need to get there before our classmates and talk to All Might first."
Izuku blinks, before nodding. "Right!"
And so they leave their poor hiding spot, the plastic potted plant left to be ignored once again.
—
All Might was fairly agreeable to the idea, since the whole class had been sparring for the past few days and this would give everyone a nice break from throwing punches at each other.
Well, except for their unlucky few who would spar in front of the class.
One of which being Izuku.
Wind rolls through the test city Kenzo and Izuku are standing in, and the concrete buildings surrounding them creaking slowly in that breeze. It seems that Kenzo had interpreted Izuku asking for her to fight first as him asking to fight her, which All Might had heartily agreed to, wanting to challenge two of the class's powerhouses at once.
Izuku looks over to one of the hidden cameras, grimacing and hoping Todoroki can see it and know it's for him, before looking back and seeing masked, helmeted Kenzo look at him with a lifted eyebrow.
"Well this is a very interesting match!," All Might calls cheerfully through the echoing speakers of the city. "You both might even be able to stop holding back! Let's see who will last the longest, shall we?"
Izuku watches Kenzo stretch her arms high above her head, before settling into a loose battle stance, right foot just in front of the other, and her hands in half clenched fists in front of her. He thinks he hears something in her back crack.
"You ready, Mido?" Kenzo asks, the friendly nickname almost soothing Izuku's nerves.
Izuku settles into his battle stance, body low and his feet wide. He breathes, and exhales through his costume's mask.
"Are you, Ken?" Izuku asks.
He can't see her mouth, but her eyes curve up, and he can almost imagine she's grinning.
"Ready?" All Might's voice surrounds them.
"Yes, Sensei!" Izuku and Kenzo shout.
"Then fight!"
Movement, all Izuku knows from that second on is movement.
Ken had agreed not to ragdoll Izuku in the way she did Togata Mirio, something about tugging at his electromagnetic field? But that didn't mean she wouldn't throw every metal within a mile radius at him.
Izuku twirls over a metal pipe that came from, er somewhere, color and energy spiraling around his body from his quirk. He's lucky he's so fast or that would've knocked him out for sure.
His feet can barely touch the ground as he dodges through the barrage of metal Kenzo sends his way, every step on the earth like a feathertouch before he's shooting above again.
He needs to get close to her, she doesn't have nearly as much power in hand to hand as him, but she also realizes that, and is doing her best to slam him into a wall and cover him in metal.
Izuku twists past a sheet of metal and with a burst of speed is facing Kenzo's back, raising a leg to kick—!
Every plate of metal locked on the legs and arms of Kenzo's armor slams into Izuku, smacking his raised leg into the ground and knocking the air out of him.
Energy flows through Izuku's body rapidly, and with a grunt Izuku tears his leg away enough to kick the air around him, pushing all the metal Kenzo was going to toss onto him next away for just a moment. Kenzo turns quickly to keep her back from facing him, the move favoring her right side as she gets back into a fighting stance.
"Nice try, Izuku," Kenzo says.
"There's more where that comes from!" Izuku says, before pushing off the ground and tearing through her metal, headed straight for her.
Kenzo twists just out of the way of his kick, kicking off the ground herself to float in the air.
"You're holding back!" Izuku says, landing on the ground.
"So are you!" Kenzo calls back. "It'd be rude to drop a building on you!"
"I can handle it!" Izuku shouts, squaring his legs, the concrete beneath him cracking and folding under One For All's energy.
Kenzo raises her hands, and around her the buildings shake. Izuku grits his teeth and prepares, fists clenched, power like no other swirling within him—!
Something slams into him from behind, hitting the back of his head with a sound crash!
Izuku meets pavement, and in the distance, he hears All Might counting. His ears are ringing. And slowly, things fade to an uncertain black.
Izuku wakes up back in the central control room where the class observes fights, woozy with Recovery Girl standing above him, kissing his forehead.
"No more cars to the back of the head, young lady! Young Midoriya could've been seriously hurt!" Recovery Girl tusks, pointing her cane at Kenzo.
"Yes, Recovery Girl, will do," Kenzo says, now helmet and gas mask-less. "To be fair, he wanted me to drop a building on him instead."
"So you thought a car would be better?"
"Concrete hurts more," Kenzo says, sounding very certain of this. Meanwhile Izuku is just trying to regain his bearings and process that he got duped and distracted.
"You both did your best, that's all that matters, young Midoriya, young Yukimura! Now let's all just settle down for a bit so we can go over what went wrong and right in that battle!" All Might says cheerfully, before shrinking in on himself when Recovery Girl glares at him.
"Rest for the rest of class, Midoriya, and your head and back may feel a bit tender for the rest of the day," Recovery Girl says with a sigh, making her way out of the room. "Hitting a student with a car, that will be a first."
Kenzo grimaces to herself as she watches the woman walk away, before turning to Izuku.
"Ah, sorry, Mido. I didn't want to go super villain and start throwing tall buildings at you, it seemed like a waste. It was just a little trickery," Kenzo says, running a hand through her hair. "Us going full power would be a bit much, right?"
"Yeah, I think I got a bit too carried away," Izuku says, trying to nod before wincing in pain. "I sort of got lost in the moment, you know?"
Kenzo gives him two thumbs up, before wanding back up to the front to talk to All Might-sensei, and Izuku lets out a breath.
Then, Todoroki walks over, notebook and all might themed pencil in hand.
"We have learned Kenzo favors her right side, hates people being at her back, and can throw cars at people," Todoroki says simply, setting Izuku's notebook and pencil down on his lap as he crouches in front of him.
"Thank you, Todoroki, I appreciate your findings," Izuku says weakly, shutting his eyes and wondering if this is also how being hit by a driven car feels like. Probably.
"Does this mean you don't have a crush anymore?" Todoroki asks seriously, looking Izuku up and down.
Suddenly, a familiar voice interrupts them before Izuku can rebuke him.
"What's this about having a crush on Ken?" One Hagakure Toru says in a dangerous tone, voice coming from somewhere beside them, making Izuku jump. "You two have been skulking around my best friend all day, and I want answers."
"Midoriya has a crush on Kenzo," Todoroki says seriously, apparently not even keeping Izuku's fake secrets.
Suddenly, something very sharp is up against Izuku's neck, something Izuku cannot see.
"H-Hagakure, where did you get an invisible knife?" Izuku asks wide eyed.
"My new costume is made out of the same chemicals in my hair that make me invisible," Hagakure says very, very sweetly. "I just asked to have a few extra things made."
"Right," Izuku says, considering what his options for the afterlife and the next holder of One For All are. "Got it."
"Why are you stalking my best friend, Midoriya? Is it really a weird crush?" Hagakure asks, all too casually with a knife on Izuku's throat.
"No! I do not have a crush on Kenzo! I was trying to research more things about her so I could be a better friend!" Izuku says, practically sweating. "Please take your invisible knife away from my neck?"
Hagakure is silent for a moment, before the knife is gone and Izuku can breathe again!
"Hm. Alright then, sorry Mido! I had to make sure you weren't being a weirdo with ill intentions, you know how it is for girls," Hagakure says, and there's the sound of something clicking.
To Midoriya's direct right the costume of Hagakure starts taking shape. Form fitting tights and sleeves, elbow and knee guards, and sturdy pale boots, along with a skirt.
It makes him very very nervous that it can just turn on and off like that, but at least Hagakure is on their side? Right??
"Why don't you just ask her stuff about herself though?" Hagakure asks, propping her elbow on her knee and resting her chin on her hand.
Izuku's face goes red. "Er, well, um—!"
"Aww you're just bad at talking to people huh, Mido?" Hagakure asks, before laughing. "Okay, I'll help you. This is funny now that I know you're not being really weird."
Izuku blanches. "Uh, thanks I guess Hagakure?"
"No problem, Broccoli Head! Now, what's next?"
The class goes by combining their knowledge on their elusive top of class. It makes the invisible knife and being hit by a car worth it!
—
Hagakure managed to coax Kenzo into sitting below a very strategically placed tree while she unsubtly grills the dark haired girl for every detail about her, from blood type to—
"And what was your grandmother's maiden name?"
"This feels like a weird line of questioning."
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."
"Y'know what? Sure."
It was all going so well, and Midoriya is sure if he wanted, he could make a wikipedia article about her all on his own, with references! He's certain he'll be able to be a good friend now, right after he's able to make a comprehensive family tree for both sides of her family…
Suddenly, Izuku sneezes.
Then, just as fast, Todoroki smacks a hand over Izuku's face to keep him from alerting their subject below.
And because Todoroki does that, the two toned boy loses his balance perched like a ninja on top of the tree branch they're on. And because Izuku is a hero, he grabs his shirt to stabilize him!
Unlike ninjas, they do not have chakra to stick themselves to the tree, and they both fall. Todoroki taking the branch down with him because of his, on reflex, iced up foot.
Izuku squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the ground to meet his sore back, but it never does.
Peaking one eye open, he realizes Kenzo held them both up with her quirk. Upon her seeing that he has realized that, she drops him on his ass.
Izuku groans, and Todoroki shakes his leg, trying to free his foot from the poor branch they took down with them. All the while Izuku can hear Hagakure giggling at them.
Kenzo ambles over from her seat against the tree trunk and peers down at them, one eyebrow lifted.
"Hm. You know, as amusing as this has been, you could've just asked , Izuku."
"I think I am…starting to realize that."
"Mhmm. I'm going back to the dorm, good luck with the tree limb, Sho."
Izuku lays on his achy back, contemplating life as Todoroki starts melting the ice away from his foot.
"Are you sure you don't have a—?"
"Yes, Shouto, I'm sure."