"I think… that Iida Tenya should be the class repesentative after all!" Midoriya exclaims and Hitoshi smirks. Exactly as he expected.
It's kinda funny that both he and Midoriya said no to the class vote's results.
He listens as the boy explains why he thinks Iida should take his place, and Hitoshi nearly snorts. Really? Because he was 'cool' while getting everyone's attention?
Midoriya is… weird. From the way he speaks, always stuttering and shy, to the way he moves, like he's hiding from something (or someone, his mind supplies).
Not weirder than Iida though. What kind of hero student thought that saving other people was a hidden feature of an exam? That's kinda what being a hero is about. Hitoshi at the very least expected it to not hinder his score, sure he was surprised that he got points for helping others, but like… This wasn't hidden. It wasn't hinted anywhere like a puzzle to solve. It was just something that separated those who were truly heroic from those who just wanted to win.
He thinks for a second about Bakugou, the person who hasn't gotten a single rescue point despite coming in second on the leaderboard, and feels a sour aftertaste grow at the back of his throat.
He decides to not think about it too much.
After Homeroom they have Ethics which goes by uneventfully, but then it's time for English again, and Hitoshi sighs mentally thinking about it. The one on Tuesday went without a hitch, so he can only hope this one will be just as easy for him, but he feels an underlying anxiety for some reason.
He finds it hard to pinpoint what exactly is causing that anxiety. He was fine yesterday and ereyesterday, what is making him anxious now?
Present Mic enters and starts the lesson as normal, and he sits through it in almost painful agitation. He observes every movement of the teacher, and catches him looking at him a few times, but he also looks at others, so it's not out of the ordinary.
Unwanted questions bounce in his brain, mainly 'Does he know?' and 'Did I give myself out that time?'.
By the time the lesson ends he's thoroughly mentally exhausted, and he welcomes the next one—Maths—with open arms.
But then his attitude changes.
Midnight is… a lot. He frowns as she uses her whip to point at the blackboard as she explains the history of stone-age paintings to them. Well, using the whip as a pointer isn't so bad, what's bad is her whole attitude. She cocks her hips and winks at the class as she speaks to them, she is dressed in her hero costume, her voice is low and sultry and he's sure she's doing that on purpose. Yuck.
Thankfully the lesson ends fast and next is Literature which cleanses his mind from the image. Yeah, he's definitely thankful he only has one hour a week with Midnight.
Lunch comes and goes, he eats it with Midoriya, Iida and Uraraka, and then it's time for the heroic class.
Instead of All Might though… Eraserhead is waiting for them. Huh.
"For today's hero basic training, we've turned it into a class with three instructors—All Might, me and one more person." Turned it into? So it wasn't supposed to be like that before? Huh. Probably a change of schedule caused by the yesterday's attack.
"Excuse me!" Sero raises his hand. "What will we be doing?"
Eraserhead doesn't miss a beat as he extands his hand with a card that reads 'RESCUE'. "Disasters, shipwrecks, and everything in between. It's rescue training."
The class gasps, as Kaminari repeats 'Rescue' under his breath. "Looks like it will be a lot of work too."
"Right?" Ashido isn't deterred in the slightest.
"Baka, this is the duty of a hero!" Kirishima chastises him, "My arms are ready to rumble!"
"No one can beat me in water, kero-kero," Asui says excitedly.
"Oi, I'm not done," Eraserhead says, and everyone quietens, the threat of expulsion weighing heavily at their shoulders. "You can decide whether you want to wear your costume or not this time," he clicks a button on the remote he's holding and the wall with their costumes opens up. "Because there are probably costumes that limit your abilities too." Hitoshi thinks; Of course I'm gonna wear my costume, before realising that it means Eraserhead is going to see it, and cringes internally. Fuck. But no, he can't let this little thing stop him from performing at 100%.
"The training will take place off-campus, so we're taking a bus. That is all, start getting ready." He starts walking away before even finishing speaking.
The class waits patiently until he's out the door before rushing towards their costumes. Hitoshi notices Midoriya lagging behind, and wonders why for half a second before remembering that, right, his costume got damaged in the Monday battle trial.
He approaches him and nudges his arm, knocking him out of his thoughts.
"Oh, uh, do you need something Shinsou-kun?" He's tense, so so so tense, and Hitoshi worries about what it means.
"I know your costume got destroyed, but salvage what you can," he tells him with a small smile, hoping to appear non-threatening. "Take your mouth guard with you with the PE clothes."
"O-Oh! Thanks, that's a good advice…" he relaxes a minuscule amount and finally steps towards his briefcase.
Hitoshi stares after him. The boy feels like a puzzle with missing pieces, and he doesn't like it at all. He feels compelled to solve it though, for some reason.
Oh well, for now he has a costume to get into and training to get through, he can think about him later.
Said later comes very soon. Hitoshi is pleased to find that Midoriya not only took his advice, but also supplemented it by also wearing his elbows and knee braces. He watches him from afar as he mingles with Iida and Uraraka, waiting for the teacher, until he senses someone looking at himself.
"What is it?" he turns around towards startled Kaminari.
"That was freaky, never do that again." The boy says, making a creeped-out face. "But, uh, can't help to notice you're kinda staring my dude. Did Midoriya do something to you or what?"
Okay, he could do to be more subtle then.
"No," he answers simply, and makes Kaminari wait for the rest of the answer as he gathers his thoughts. "But there's something… off… about him. And Bakugou."
"Ah, so you noticed then? Bakugou even said Midoriya is quirkless, like damn, I know he has trouble controlling his quirk but no need to go for the shins, you know?"
"He did?" he hasn't heard that, must have happened when he was thinking about something else or during lunch.
"Yeah, during the quirk assesment test. He—" Kaminari gets cut off by a loud whistle, and they all turn to Iida, who was the source of the sound.
As the class president herds them into two lines, Hitoshi thinks. Quirkless. He wonders where that piece fits into the puzzle.
Izuku is pretty sure he's dreaming.
People… are roasting Kacchan.
First Asu— ehem, Tsu-chan, then Kaminari-kun, and then Shinsou-kun too, all commenting on his personality and actions. Some look at him in disapproval, some tease him good-naturedly, but pretty much half of the bus says something.
Aizawa-sensei just looks at them tiredly, until they're at the place their training will be at, and he tells them all to stop messing around.
His amazement at the fact that Kacchan was teased is quickly replaced by amazement about USJ, and he doesn't notice the way Shinsou-kun looks at him as if solving a particularly nasty equation.
Shouta is, honestly, done. So, so, so done. His class is a bunch of brats is what they are and he hates them all. (He doesn't, not really, but he's annoyed and his internal monologue takes the brunt of it.)
Who he does dislike however, heavily, is All Might. The fool, the absolute buffoon has ran out of time on his way to school and now he can't be a part of the lesson. Thank Kami for Thirteen. At least they are reliable.
As they explain what their quirk is like, Shouta lets himself drift off a little in his thoughts. So far his observation of Shinsou turned out to be fruitless aside from his beginning findings. Yeah, he was a lot like Hizashi, but a little more bitter, but… He knew nothing. If not for yesterday's mess created by the breach of UA Barrier he'd have already asked to look into his (and Midoriya's, and Bakugou's) file, alas…
He looks at Shinsou now, and sees him clench his jaw as he listens to Thirteen's speech about lethality of quirks. He wonders, if he's been lucky enough to not know about the lethality of his own quirk, but… no, the sheer restraint he shows when using his quirk suggests that he does know, all too well, what could happen with one wrong step, or, more accurately, one wrong shout.
Thirteen finishes speaking, and the class erupts in applause. Shouta takes it as his cue to start.
"Now then, let's—" He stops in his track as he sees the lamps around the facility short-circuit visibly and dim. Quirk interference. Fuck. "Everyone step back towards the exit!" he commands, and sees no one but Shinsou move. But even the boy hesitates when he sees no one following his example. Shouta feels irrational anger well up in him. Of course they don't listen, they haven't had a day of proper training yet, but then he feels a whoosh of air and a weird static-y sound and he turns around to see a portal in the main plaza. And there are villains spewing out of it. Fuck. Okay, change of plans. "Gather up and don't move! Thirteen, protect the students!"
"Is this like the entrance exam, where the lesson has already started?" Kirishima questions, and he feels a hysteric laughter bubble up in his chest, that he barely manages to suppress as he sees more and more, and more villains pour out of the portal. In the corner of his eye he sees a few students take a step forward to see better, and he repeats,
"Don't move!" this time sounding more harshly. "Those are villains." He doesn't see the message sink in as he puts on his goggles, but he knows that it did, because Thirteen doesn't need to say anything more to the students. "Thirteen, start the evacuation. Try to call the school." It might be futile, given the quirk that short-circuited the sensors that normally would already be causing a loud alarm, but damn it they have to try. "It's possible someone with a radio-waves type quirk is interfering." He looks around and spots that Kaminari, thankfully, is wearing his costume, and with it a communication device. "Kaminari, try to contact the school too." The boy looks startled at being called out alone, but nods.
"What about you, sensei?" Midoriya calls out, panic in his eyes. "Will you fight by yourself? With that many, even if you can erase their quirks…" he trails off, searching for understanding on his face, that he won't get, so he continues. "Eraserhead's fighting style is capturing after erasing the enemy's quirk. A frontal battle is—"
"No hero is a one trick pony, kid," Shouta shuts him down, and prepares for the battle. Grabbing his capture weapon, he turns to the Space Hero. "I'm leaving it to you, Thirteen."
And then he jumps into the fray.
It's hard. It's so fucking hard to fight that many opponents at once. But he wouldn't call himself a seasoned Pro Hero if he couldn't do that with at least a semblance of ease.
Will he lose at some point? Probably. Will he die? It's possible.
He thinks briefly about Hizashi, but doesn't let that distract him. His husband knows about their shared duty to the world, to the school, to the kids they teach.
If he dies, he dies. But at least he'll die in battle, protecting. Because that's what heroics are about.
Hitoshi curses himself for not escaping when he had the chance. Now, wet, with not enough air to attack if needed be, and not knowing what the purple mist did to him aside from teleporting him, he also curses Bakugou and Kirishima. Couldn't they have left the act of saving to an actual hero? Bravado gets people nowhere goddammit. I hope they die, he thinks. I hope we all die. And then he shakes his head like a wet dog pushing the thoughts away from his head. Not the time to be making death jokes.
He is suddenly yanked around his middle, and out of water, and he takes a hasty breath, preparing to scream… when he sees it's Asui, saving him. Oh thank Kami.
"Thank—"
"Midoriya's still in there," she says, and jumps into water. Ah fuck. He looks down from his spot on the ship—they're in shipwreck zone, the ship isn't stable, he has to remember that, they're surrounded by people in the water, villains, ah shit—and sees her vague shape as she quickly swims deeper and deeper… And he sees a villain dive behind her. Oh no, not on his watch.
He aims a little to the right, as to not hurt her in the collateral, and sends a shockwave through the water, creating a small swirl. He knows the attack hit, because soon enough he sees the same villain poking his head through water to take in a strangled breath. The attack must have knocked the air out of his lungs. Good. Seconds later Asui—with Midoriya dangling from her tongue, mind you—jumps out of the water, bounces off a villain nearest to her, and gracefully lands on the railing of the ship, throwing Midoriya on the deck and stepping down from the railing just as gracefully.
"You good?" he asks both of them, and Asui nods as Midoriya catches his breath.
"Ye-yeah, I'm… I'm good," he finally wheezes out, getting up from the floor.
"This has turned into a bad situation though," Asui muses, putting a finger to her lips.
"Yeah, what the villain said earlier… about killing All Might, about torturing us…" Hitoshi recounts uneasily.
"They knew UA's schedule…" Midoriya says, and Hitoshi jumps at the bandwagon of his thoughts.
"…and they probably caused the alarm yesterday!"
"They said they'll torture us to death, and that they want to kill All Might… do you think they… actually can?" Asui asks the question of the day, and Hitoshi breathes in and out a few times before he answers her. She manages to ask another question while he gathers his thoughts. "Do you think we can even hold off until All Might arrives?"
"We're surrounded by villains, Eraserhead's out there fighting who knows how many of them, and while he's right about no hero being a one-trick pony, Midoriya's also right about the fact that he's not used to such a style of fighting," he summarises, trying to think of a way out of the situation. "Also who knows if Thirteen and or Kaminari managed to contact the school. To sum it up we're fucked." Midoriya looks at him funny for cursing, and he waves him off. "We need a plan to get out of here, and fast, also somehow unnoticed by the mist guy, also maybe somehow help Eraserhead, without hindering him too." He breathes out, in, calming himself. "But it's doable, I think."
Midoriya looks at him determined. "Let's share what our quirks are, we need information so we can make a plan."
Hitoshi and Asui nod determined, ready to do anything to save themselves.
And maybe they can save Eraserhead as well.