Chapter 2: New Shoes
Most of the class was disappointed that Aizawa was also their main heroics teacher, they were hoping it would be a more well known hero teaching them. Izuku was glad it wasn't. He didn't necessarily trust Aizawa, but at least the man seemed like he wouldn't keep Izuku from participating in the physical training when they got to it. Maybe the class was mostly disappointed that they were starting with more theoretical discussions and basic sparring/combat training.
Why were they complaining about that? It was important to have a good understanding of how to protect yourself and everyone around you before you actually jumped in to trying to do it. Plus, from what they'd seen on the first day, most of the class didn't have a lot of actual fight training. Besides, it was fascinating to hear an actual pro hero talk about the best ways to approach a situation.
Izuku was buzzing with excitement at the end of the second day while he and Kacchan walked to the train station. They were discussing the lesson and how it could apply to other situations in hero work when he noticed the head of purple hair in front of them. Calling out to Shinso, he sped up to walk with his classmate. Shinso just gave him a side eye and kept walking. That was okay, Izuku had grown up with Kacchan and he could handle mean looks.
There was a bounce in his step when he asked, "So Shinso, what did you think of the lesson today? It was fascinating right? Kacchan and I were just talking about how that last tactic could be used to…"
Shinso cut him off with an angry, "What do you want, Midoriya?"
Izuku blinked in confusion, "Um, to talk about the lesson? Sorry, was I talking too fast? I do that."
Kacchan huffed, "Nerd, you were just telling me yesterday that you thought you'd need to take it fucking slow with him."
"Oh! I got so excited and forgot!" He smiled sheepishly at their classmate, "Okay. So, like I noticed you didn't use a quirk during the test yesterday and you had this look on your face when Sensei was talking about discrimination so I thought we might have some things in common." He realized how that might sound and waved his hands frantically, "Not that I think you're quirkless or anything. I just thought maybe you had a mental quirk or something because people tend to be mean about those and I can obviously sympathize with people treating you badly because of things you can't help. I don't know, I just hoped maybe we could be friends."
He shrugged awkwardly, Shinso had stopped walking during his rant and was just staring at him now. Finally, he spoke. "You want to be friends with me before you even know my quirk?"
Green curls bounced wildly when he nodded. "Yeah! If anyone knows that a person's quirk doesn't define them it would be me."
Whatever lie Shinso was looking for on his face he didn't find so he moved his eyes to Katsuki. The blonde grinned, (honestly a terrifying sight). "Deku here is basically my brother. Anyone gives him or his friends shit for their quirks and I'll kill them."
That seemed to startle the boy a bit, but he must have accepted their sincerity because he shrugged, "I brainwash people."
Izuku lit up. "That's so cool! Imagine all the applications for hero work. How is it activated? What are the limits? Can you control more than one person? What…"
So they spent the rest of the walk to the train station with Shinso hesitantly answering the excited boy's questions. The friends could tell he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but both were hopeful that this was the start of Izuku's second ever friendship.
When he got home that night, Izuku logged onto the Zero Network website to find two requests for going away parties. He grinned to himself. He would never get tired of being the reason the meaning of a quirkless party had changed. After sending his questionnaire back to the requesters, he checked his personal messages. Now that his operation had taken off, he had a new binder. Well, three binders actually. Instead of suicide articles, each was full of the messages and pictures from Zeroes he'd helped get new lives.
Every message was full of joy that they wouldn't have experienced if they'd remained quirkless. Not that Izuku was giving people quirks, that would be impossible. No, he was giving them fake identities. It had started small, just the Bakugos using their fashion design company to provide custom shoes that would fit a quirkless person and the few contacts Nova trusted to set up a fake identity. Now they had their own operation. Auntie and Uncle had opened a small factory just for the shoes and everyone who worked there was a Zero happy to earn a steady income in a discrimination free environment. People who'd gotten out and wanted to help and the ones who refused to hide themselves but wanted others to have the option had learned to make all the necessary documents so they didn't have to rely on anyone who wasn't a Zero in the underground.
Izuku got the requests and sent a questionnaire so he could gather all the information needed to determine what kind of weak or mental quirk the person could reasonably fake having. Then he would forward their shoe size to the factory so they could get their free first pair of custom shoes that wouldn't alert the world to their quirklessness. (All other pairs they had to order and pay for after they got a job with their new identity. They had to fund the operation somehow). Next, the quirk he'd decided on and all the information needed to set up their new life went to the document department where they would hack the necessary systems to establish the new life as legit and create all the IDs and paper documents a person needs to live. Within a week there was a Zero living in the world with a fake quirk, new name, and an actual future ahead of them. Of course, most of these people relocated as well so there was no chance of them being recognized, but Izuku got loads of updates on their new lives.
He'd kept it a secret from his mom for the first year, worried that she would stop him since it was all illegal. When he'd finally fessed up, she surprised him with happy tears. She had said she'd always known he would do great things and she was happy there would be less suicides of people just like her baby. Kacchan was impressed from the start, he'd always known Izuku was smart, but seeing his best friend saving people at ten years old was beyond what even he'd thought the boy capable of.
Everyone in their operation was paid fairly. It was all funded through either the sale of the shoes (in whatever color or design they desired but always with the Zero symbol on the inside of the tongue so they could prove who they were if they ever needed to help a Zero in red shoes) or through their info broker business. The Network had trained quirkless info brokers that operated all over Japan. They traded and requested information on the ZN website and anyone who helped track it down was compensated either in part of the profit the broker made or the information they needed for their own deal. Every broker who'd been trained by the network donated regularly to their "party fund" and Izuku was all about transparency so he had another person that checked the books and they regularly published financial statements on the ZN website so everyone knew what the money they donated was being used for.
It was a good system and now logging onto the Zero Revolution website was a much happier experience. The ZN site was for party requests and business while the ZR was more of a social media where they discussed day to day things and posted memes. Of course there were still always a lot of posts of people who hadn't had a party seeking advice or comfort about their discrimination, but they were less "there's no hope and it's all doomed" and more "this sucks who has a shoulder to cry on for a sec".
Nothing could compare to the joy he felt knowing that these people had bad days but knew there was still a future for them. Even if they didn't want to fake a quirk, the Network would take care of them. Now he just had to make it through hero school so he could give that same hope to everyone, not just Zeroes.