Chapter Two: Wake-Up Calls
The school day couldn't have ended soon enough. By the time the final bell rang and Class 1-A began trickling out of the room in twos and threes, Eraserhead debated just grabbing his sleeping bag from its hiding place in the teacher's lounge; staying awake long enough to reach his bed posed a real challenge at the moment. For once, his exhaustion didn't even stem from events he controlled, the blame instead falling on the Japanese government, and to a lesser extent, Principal Nedzu.
In the middle of his patrol the night before, Present Mic had called, telling him that Nedzu had arranged an emergency all-faculty meeting in an hour, causing him to drop everything and rush back to campus. Nedzu giving a professor marching orders had become quite rare these days given the pedigree of the average U.A. employee; barring exceptional circumstances he let them run their classes as they saw fit. Scheduling a meeting with a single professor was rare enough; all-faculty meetings remained reserved for apocalyptic events. You didn't miss one if you valued your life.
One hour later, he'd found a seat in U.A.'s auditorium, trying to stave off sleep with every trick he had, though to his benefit, he seemed far from the only beyond-exhausted person there. To no one's surprise, Nedzu became the liveliest person in the meeting the second he started speaking, even coming off a supposed six straight hours of negotiation with a variety of government officials.
The resulting meeting lasted perhaps ten minutes, no one wanting to be awake at that hour longer than necessary. Nedzu explained that he'd been negotiating a budget increase for U.A. to better defend itself against villains, then laid out the results of those negotiations in simple terms. U.A. would get the funding it needed to properly secure campus, within reason. In return, the government wanted two things: complete transparency regarding how that additional funding was spent, and temporary government-appointed professors added to the roster to both supervise their classes and teach Classes 1-A and 1-B (at least) skills meant to thwart any future kidnappings.
"They were adamant about that point in particular, nothing I promised made them concede it," Nedzu said. "I don't think we have much to fear from it, though. We have our reputation for a reason. All we need to do while they're here is prove it's earned. Remember, Plus Ultra!"
Everyone in the room echoed the chant as usual, including Eraserhead, but it felt quite lifeless this time around. The perils of doing it at three in the morning, he supposed.
"One last thing; they're starting today, at least for Classes 1-A and 1-B," Nedzu said. "If you're involved with those classes, and you know who you are, be prepared."
Eraserhead held in numerous unpleasant thoughts as he exited the meeting. That put an end to his night; he doubted this new teacher approved of him sleeping with class in session.
Several hours of fitful dozing on the floor of Class 1-A, one hour of preparing himself and his classroom for the new arrival, and eight hours of class later, his eyes felt full of lava and his limbs had the strength of wet noodles. Patrolling tonight remained out of the question, even making it back to his apartment seemed like a monumental task.
After exiting his classroom, the first thing he saw was Scythe making awkward small talk with a spindly man whom he didn't know a thing about, likely Class 1-B's observer. Both parties acknowledged the other's presence but took pains to avoid eye contact, Eraserhead moving toward the faculty lounge at a brisk walk. He needed some caffeine before he did anything else.
He entered the faculty lounge to find it deserted, meaning he could make as much coffee as he wanted without fear of holding someone else up. Two cups of liquid posing as coffee later, the door opened, jolting him out of his semi-lucid state. The sight made him groan; had the new arrivals been anyone other than Scythe and her friend, coworker, accomplice, or whatever their relationship was, he could get away with ignoring them. However, if Scythe had something to tell him, it was in everyone's best interest for him to shut up and listen.
With his luck at the moment, it made perfect sense that Scythe wanted to start an inane conversation at the moment. "So, how was today?"
"Long," was all Eraserhead said. "I'm still getting used to this."
"Aren't we all," Scythe said. "I just caught up with our Class 1-B counterparts, so I figured it made good sense to let everyone get to know each other."
"I agreed with her, so we came in together," Scythe's counterpart said, passing Eraserhead to make his own cup of coffee. Eraserhead tried not to stare, but the man's gait mesmerized him with its oddness, his legs twisting and shifting in impossible directions with each step, his feet facing a different direction every time they landed. How he kept his balance, Eraserhead had no idea, but the man made it seem relatively simple.
After he stopped walking, one of his arms reached for a mug so he could make his own coffee, while the other contorted around the coffee maker for a potential handshake. "Hello. I'm Gomito Yuuri, otherwise known as Bounce Back, the Flexible Hero. Have we met before?"
Eraserhead didn't see the point in lying there. "I can't say we have, sorry."
"No worries, I was never the publicity type," Bounce Back said. "I won't be seeing you much during school hours, since I'm working with 1-B, but I figured I should say hello."
Eraserhead nodded. "That makes sense. Thanks."
"No problem," Bounce Back said, his focus returning to the coffee right afterward; he didn't look quite as wiped out as Eraserhead felt, but he came pretty close.
Scythe ignored the coffee even as both Eraserhead and Bounce Back refilled their cups; she didn't seem to have fallen for the caffeine trap yet. "Do you have any plans for tonight?"
Eraserhead shook his head before heading off the most likely route of conversation. "Not much. I'll have to pass on going out tonight, though, I don't have the energy for that."
"Oh, that wasn't where I was going with that," Scythe said. "I'm not going much of anywhere, either, I have a lot of spinning plates to deal with at the moment. Just wanted to know about you."
Even if he felt anywhere near prepared for his usual nightly activities, Eraserhead saw no need to explain them to Scythe beyond what she already knew. Just as she got her position for a reason, the same could be said for him; what he did when he wasn't teaching shouldn't matter to her, so long as it was legal.
If nothing else, Scythe's statement killed any hope of furthering the conversation, a development Eraserhead accepted with relish. A few more minutes passed in awkward silence. Bounce Back offered Scythe coffee, but she didn't take any, allowing both Eraserhead and Bounce Back to fill their mugs once more. While they drank, Scythe pulled out her phone and began scrolling through an article of some kind, or at least that was what Eraserhead interpreted from the sound of her nails scraping across the screen. Right as Eraserhead finished his mug, Scythe tucked her phone back in her pocket before hurrying for the door.
"I should probably go, time isn't going to solve anything I have to do right now," Scythe said. "See you tomorrow in class!"
The door opened and slammed within a few seconds, leaving Eraserhead and Bounce Back alone. Fortunately for him, Bounce Back saw no further need for conversation, so with Scythe gone, the two of them could finish getting their daily caffeine hit in blissful silence.
For its first few days, Heights Alliance had never slept, someone always organizing their room, displaying new mementos, or otherwise doing what they needed to make themselves feel at home. Once the initial rush wore off, though, most activity became condensed into a few hours in the evening, encompassing the period after school but before sleep.
Class 1-A's building didn't prove an exception to this rule. At the moment, things remained quiet, most of its students clustered in their common room. Some crowded the couches and chairs to watch a movie, others had quiet conversations with each other, and a few just hung around the periphery of the room, content to remain observers.
Jirou fell into category one. She sat on one of the couches, Uraraka and Tsuyu to her right and Ashido to her left. Although she kept the screen in her line of sight, her thoughts kept wandering elsewhere. Scythe's arrival and its implications, the nearing date for the Provisional Hero License exam, the monstrosity posing as a Japanese History essay she had due next week—
"Hello, everyone! It's nice to see that all of you get along so well."
The familiar voice made Jirou whip her head around to confirm its source, everything else rendered irrelevant. Sure enough, from one of the doorways, Scythe beamed, her rainbow nails on full display as she waved.
The room went silent: all conversations stopped in their tracks and someone muted the television. Jirou noticed every other pair of eyes fixating on the unexpected arrival, even as hers did the same. She shouldn't have been blind to the possibility of this happening, but it felt like a momentous event anyway.
Scythe looked and sounded quite nonchalant despite her attention-grabbing entry: she leaned against the door frame, her arms at her sides and her overlong nails pointed straight at the ground. "My apologies for intruding, but I just wanted to get a feel for where you lived. I can't say I have any complaints, though; these dorms may have cost us a lot of money, but it looks like that money's been well spent."
Uraraka sat up straighter. "You were part of the group that decided to finance Heights Alliance?"
"I wasn't a part of that group, but I knew people who were," Scythe said. "I learned quite a bit about this place through them, it was really fascinating."
Jirou expected her to launch into a speech about everything she knew regarding Heights Alliance and its 1-A dorm in particular, but thankfully, she skipped that. Perhaps she understood the peril of explaining every minute detail of something to a group of people already aware of said details. Maybe she just had enough sense to read the room. Either way, though, her topic of interest changed in a hurry, her eyes shifting toward Kaminari leaning against a wall on the opposite end of the room from her.
"I see you've gotten out of the infirmary," Scythe said. "Is everything fixed?"
"I'm fine, Recovery Girl handled it," Kaminari said, lifting his shirt like he wanted to show off his muscles. Doing so revealed both his nonexistent six-pack and his fully healed side.
Scythe smiled. "That's good. I'd prefer not to be reminded of that if I can help it."
Not a ground-breaking assumption by any means. If someone existed who enjoyed constantly remembering their mistakes, Jirou didn't know them.
"I'm not going to say much else," Scythe said. "I don't want to waste too much time. Before I go, do any of you have anything you'd like to ask me or tell me?"
Izuku looked like he wanted to raise his hand, but Bakugo glaring at him proved enough to keep it down. Jirou didn't even know enough to determine whether she took Bakugo's or Izuku's side on the issue: while Izuku's question might find itself better suited for a class with her, he wasn't known for doing irrelevant things. Anything Scythe said after his question might prove valuable.
Still, Izuku's hand failed to rise, and after a brief pause, Scythe turned on her heel. "Well, in that case, I'll leave you guys to do your thing."
Scythe left the room the way she came, leaving the room in stunned silence for about fifteen seconds before Kaminari broke it. "So… not only is she checking out all our classes, but now she can just come into our dorm whenever she wants?"
"Eraserhead can come in here whenever he wants as well, he just chooses not to," Yaoyorozu countered. "Like it or not, I believe she has all the same privileges he does for the duration of her investigation. We'll just have to accommodate her."
Ashido shrugged. "As long as she doesn't walk in on me showering, I won't be too bothered."
Jirou never even considered that as a possibility. The staff had their own bathrooms, they didn't need to come here for that. "I doubt she will, but try not to melt her face off if she does."
"I'll do my best," Ashido said, her smile bright and wide.
The room returned to normal not long after that; the movie resumed and most other conversations picked up where they left off. As the hours passed and the night wound down, everyone began trickling out of the room alone or in small groups, each of them to work toward their individual goals. Jirou's eventual exit left the room more or less deserted.
Without any further thoughts on Scythe's impromptu investigation, Jirou retreated to her room, closed the door, and settled in for what she hoped would be an uneventful remainder of the night.
Sometime between two and three AM, Izuku jolted awake to the sound of someone pounding on his door.
Bang, bang, bang! "Wake the fuck up, building's being evacuated!" Bang, bang, bang! "If you're not out of that room in the next fifteen seconds I'm breaking down the door!"
From experience, Izuku knew Kacchan would follow through on that threat, so he flew out of bed. Checking to make sure he had an acceptable amount of clothing on and throwing on his shoes, he burst out the door to the sight of Kacchan preparing to unleash an explosion. Once he saw Izuku, though, Kacchan refrained from exploding and backed away from the door. Once Kacchan reassured him everyone else had heard the racket he'd made and would also be outside, the two of them began speed-walking toward the front exit.
Their evacuation remained silent until halfway down the stairs, where he deduced something that led to him raising a question. "Wait. If we're evacuating, how come none of the alarms are going off?"
"That's the point, you idiot," Kacchan replied. "Someone's fucked with the building's alarm system, it's not working right. We're getting cleared out of here so the pros can check for threats."
Once the two of them exited the building, Izuku and Kacchan joined the rest of Class 1-A on the grass outside. Some of them stood, others sat, all looking quite tired except for Kacchan. Strangely enough, Izuku saw members of Class 1-B all congregating in the distance, looking like they'd been evacuated from their building as well.
Scythe arrived at the scene almost right away, looking quite nervous. Eraserhead came in right behind her, the bags under his eyes even larger than usual and wearing the expression of a man who didn't care whether he lived or died.
If nothing else, Scythe explained the situation as soon as she got there. "This isn't a you-only thing; most of the other dorms are having the same problem right now. While it'd be convenient to assume it's a rather unfortunate coincidence, until proven otherwise it's being treated as a targeted attack."
"No shit, Sherlock," Kacchan said under his breath, although not loud enough for Scythe to hear it. Unfortunately, his next question would have benefited from the same treatment. "You're already here, why aren't you doing any threat checking?"
Izuku noticed Scythe grimace, but she maintained her composure. "If there's a group of villains in your dorm, going in by myself, or even with just Eraserhead, is a terrible idea. Once the pros get here, I'll check with them, but it's not a risk I'm taking."
That seemed reasonable enough, and once again, Scythe stuck to her word. Once several pro heroes arrived at the scene, Eraserhead and Scythe followed them inside Heights Alliance to look for credible threats. Izuku watched from the sidelines with the rest of Class 1-A.
When he saw Kacchan almost steaming, he should have known better than to poke the bear. He did anyway. "Is there something I'm missing, Kacchan? Everything okay?"
Kacchan whirled around to face Izuku and growled, making Izuku take a step back. "I'm not sure what cut-rate program got installed on our security system that's so easy to break, but I want to strangle whoever programmed it. Their shitty code should not fuck with my sleep schedule."
Izuku could tell he meant it. His kidnapping and eventual rescue put him on a quicker trigger than ever. A few days ago, Kirishima had made the mistake of opening Kacchan's door without knocking first; had Kacchan's lapse in judgment been half a second longer, he would have sent Kirishima through the wall.
After that encounter, he left Kacchan alone, and so did everyone else. If nothing else, they weren't kept waiting for long; fifteen or so minutes later, the makeshift investigative team began trickling out of the building, the first few among them signaling that they'd cleared the building and found nothing suspicious. However, none of them were allowed back inside yet, since the alarm system had apparently gone so far out of whack that it required reprogramming the entire thing to fix it.
"Looks like we'll be here for a while," Eraserhead said. The response came in a medley of sighing.
Izuku heard what sounded like the intercom system powering on, and then Nedzu's voice boomed across campus. "Attention, all current residents of the U.A. dorms. All buildings affected by the current alarm outage have been cleared and no threats have been detected. However, the alarm systems for those buildings are still non-functional. Please follow your homeroom teachers to the school building in an orderly fashion; sleeping bags and pillows will be provided upon entry. I assure you that we will not rest until the alarms for your dorms are working again."
Eraserhead sighed. "Don't worry about getting me a sleeping bag, I brought my own."
That got a few chuckles. However, it failed to mask that a very stressful night lay ahead of them.
Izuku stuck with the rest of Class 1-A as they trooped into the main building, each of them getting handed a pillow and a sleeping bag at the door by a faculty member. Few of them spoke, the others not having enough energy to bother. A few minutes later, they reached their classroom and began rearranging the desks, none of them wanting to sleep on top of each other.
"You won't need to worry about your safety while you're here," Scythe said as she shoved her desk into one of the room's back corners. "Eraserhead and I will maintain security so you can get some sleep. Are you okay with that, Eraserhead?"
It took a few seconds, but Eraserhead nodded.
Scythe smiled. "Good. That's what I thought."
With everyone working together, it didn't take long to set aside enough floor space for everyone to put down a sleeping bag. The boys went to one side, the girls went to the other, and everyone, including Izuku, tried to make the best of this less-than-pleasant situation.
Kacchan refused to sleep, instead sitting on top of his sleeping bag and glaring at the door, daring someone to break in under his watch. Eraserhead and Scythe stayed awake as well, the former splitting his attention between them and the door while the latter paced circles around the room, brandishing her nails with clear intent.
The sight gave Izuku heart. Nothing but a team of trained villains could overpower the three of them, and if a team of villains attacked UA, they'd have to make it across the entire campus to get to Class 1-A. Everything was going to be fine.
With that on his mind, Izuku slid into his sleeping bag in one smooth motion, a restful night on the horizon. Even with the sounds of eighteen of his classmates either sleeping or trying to in his ears, it didn't take long for him to drift off, his mind shutting off as he prepared to face tomorrow.
This weekend is shaping up to be very busy and I already had Chapter 2 finished, so I decided to post it a few days early.
I've also been writing a bit quicker than usual, so I've already gotten started on Chapter 3: if I can manage to build up some buffer chapters, I'll start posting more frequently. For now, though, Chapter 3 should be out on the 29th.
That's all I have to say for now. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I hope to see you back here on the 29th!