Yosetsu woke up with a big yawn and as he was stretching out his back gave a couple of pops *Fuck... what time is it?* Yosetsu thought rubbing one of his eyes and glanced at his alarm clock *5:34, huh? Damn.* Yosetsu mentally huffed bemused as he got up and went into the bathroom to get himself ready for the day.
A quick shower later Yosetsu was wrapping his hair up in a bandanna and used his quirk to fuse the ends of it together so it wouldn't come undone.
Something he'd often do when he knew that he'd have a more active day than normal, and he was definitely expecting today to be hectic.
He had plans to go with Uki to visit Jiji (as he had nicknamed his friends) to practice using his quirk and to top it off he was finally going to meet Zuri in person and he knew that it was going to be pretty dope.
In the few days he'd been added to his friends group chat he knew enough about Zuri to know he was a bit of a scatterbrain but the funny and smart kind.
Zuri was such a riot sometimes and he definitely had the best ideas when it came to using his quirk.
He may or may not have been using Zuri's impressively big brain to help him with his history homework, but he wasn't the only person in the chat who did it, the three of them all just sucked when it came to history as a subject.
Zuri said it was important, but it was hard to find ways to care about some random fuckwits from back during the pre-colonial era, Zuri sure as hell tried though and was even successful sometimes.
Mainly with the whole saga of Earnest Hemingway who was a hardcore bastard even if no one else in his class believed him about a quirkless person being able to survive that much crap without a quirk.
Yosetsu was still bitter the teacher only gave him a B- on that paper because he wasn't exaggerating about the man's hyper unlikely survival in near death situations and told his friends as much.
Zuri came to his rescue though and provided him with a crap ton of articles to prove that yes, Earnest did shoot himself in the leg while aiming at a shark, twice, said articles he rubbed in his history teacher's face when he contested his grade.
But that was neither here nor now and Yosetsu needed to get his things together if he didn't want to miss breakfast before heading off to school.
Okay that Yagami-Sensei can just do one at this point, Yagami-Sensei had asked him to stay behind to speak to him about something and if that idiot held him up any longer than he'd would've missed the train Uki had told him to catch which would've majorly sucked since he was supposed to meet her on said train.
He would have to wait to meet up with her for a few stations so Yosetsu settled in and scroll some of his hero feeds to catch up on some of his favorites, and as one would expect when you really get caught up in something Yosetsu lost all track of time and didn't even realize that Uki was on the train until she was heading towards him.
"Awa-Kun!" Uki called waving as she rushed over to him "Oh hey Uki- Wait, were we supposed to change into our gym shit before we came? Because then I must have totally spaced on that part." Yosetsu asked quickly double checking the group chat.
Uki blinked "Huh? Oh! No there's no dress code for this, you just need to wear something you can comfortably move around in and don't mind getting a bit messy Awa-Kun." Uki assured him waving her hands.
"Oh, that makes sense and you wanted to wear your gym stuff?" Yosetsu guessed and she nodded.
"Yeah, I've been working on my stamina more and these don't restrict me as much. Besides Izu-Kun wants me to try something while floating myself and wearing a skirt isn't ideal for that." Uki answered.
"Yeah, good call on your part Uki." Yosetsu said agreeing that a skirt wouldn't be ideal when you're floating.
"Wait this wasn't where I was going with the conversion, have you ever been to Jiji's place before?" Uki questioned and Yosetsu frowned.
"Um, no? I've never been to either of your houses." Yosetsu said after a moment and Uki bit lip.
"Okay, so this might be shocking, but you have to promise you won't think badly of Jiji." Uki told him looking slightly nervous.
"Promise." Yosetsu agreed confused where she was going with this, and a bit concerned why she thought he'd ever think badly of the big doofus. Jiji was a big nerd that was rocking the gentle giant thing and it was pretty hard to think of anything negative about the guy.
"Jiji lives in the South Side and that's where we're going to meet with him and Izu-Kun." Uki explained and Yosetsu couldn't stop his mouth from falling open.
"Wait, wait. Jiji lives in the South Side? The South Side. The one that got fucking condemned South Side?" Yosetsu questioned and Uki nodded rubbing the back of her neck.
Yosetsu un-ashamedly stared at Uki as his brain worked to comprehend what she told him and when it did, he couldn't help saying the first thing that came to mind "For fucks sake, you guys keep getting more badass every day, do you know that?' he exclaimed with a massive grin.
"Eh?" Uki squeaked shocked "Y-you think we're ah, what you said?" she asked and Yosetsu chuckled at her.
"Pff, hell yeah! It's no wonder you and Jiji are so fucking cool if you're training your quirks out there." Yosetsu confirmed feeling super pumped cause how could he not when he'd somehow got to hang around with such awesome people and was now going to be training with them as well.
"M-me!?" Uki cried pointing to herself in disbelief.
"Duh! You've got to have a pretty big pair to be going to the South Side like every other day. I mean Jiji lives there and that's fucking cool but you're choosing to go there and that takes like, a fuck-ton of courage on its own Uki." Yosetsu replied and Uki's face turned slightly pink as she turned away from him rubbing her neck again.
"T-thanks Awa-Kun, that's nice of you to say. But one of the things about the South Side is that you shouldn't just go wandering around on your own so when we get to our stop you have to follow me really closely, got it Awa-Kun?" Uki instructed quickly recovering and turning stern.
"Of course, Uki." Yosetsu agreed before a thought suddenly occurred to him "Hey wait a minute, do they even have a quirk center in the South Side Uki?" Yosetsu asked and Uki smiled with a little giggle.
"That was what I was worried about too when I started training with Jiji, and they don't have a quirk center per say, but Izu-Kun has a community center that we can use to train our quirks in." Uki explained.
Yosetsu's brain blanked for a moment "Zuri owns a building?" Yosetsu questioned because he was pretty sure Zuri was supposed to be their age, wasn't he?
Uki snorted "I know. Izu-Kun is actually my parents' biggest client, and he pays them to fix up all the properties he buys." she confirmed looking somewhat amused.
"He has enough money to buy multiple buildings!?" Yosetsu exclaimed wondering why he hadn't heard of this before now because that's a pretty big thing to overlook.
Uki face softened with sympathy "Something you'll come to learn about Izu-Kun is that he makes no sense sometimes. Like he's working to get his fifth degree from college and finds the time to buy buildings, while working with a bunch of people on their quirks and teaching lessons all at the same time." she elaborated not making him feel any better.
Yosetsu slumped in his seat "I need to up my fucking game if I want to keep up with such a cool ass group of people." He groaned into his hands though Uki was quick to defend him and told him he was cooler than he thought he was.
Their arrival at the station wasn't that bad but Uki had grabbed his uniform jacket's sleeve and began tugging him along and he might've felt like she was patronizing him but once they were got to the edge of the South Side he knew why she had done it, the change was so drastic he would've likely wandered off just to see everything in the district because some of the ruined buildings were actually cool looking.
"Hey Hamster, what you got there?" a guy suddenly asked catching his attention and he froze upon seeing the man, mainly because the tank top he wore gave Yosetsu a full uncensored view of the damage to his right arm, something that he admittedly couldn't look away from because he had never seen that level of damage on anyone in his life before.
"Oh, hey Dabi-San! This is Awa-Kun, he's going to be training with us now." Uki answered giving him a tug and Yosetsu came back to himself and looked away for his arm and to 'Dabi's' face, Dabi's eyes were looking him over and he had a bright green popsicle in his mouth.
Dabi shrugged "As long as he keeps his eyes to himself you probably won't have any trouble, the Twinkie's and spider-boy are waiting for you at the center." Dabi called over his shoulder as he walked off.
Uki nodded "Okay, Thanks Dabi-San!" she said before changing direction "Come on, we have to go this way now." Uki informed him and she dragged him along.
Yosetsu wanted to ask her about Dabi but decided now wasn't the time to ask since he'd have time later and that asking what happened to the guy wasn't something he should do after he so blatantly stared at the man's arm.
And Yosetsu didn't have enough time to think of an appropriate way to ask before they were standing in front of a large building with obvious black scorched marks on it and curiously untouched by graffiti "They must be inside already come on Awa-San." Uki guessed and once she opened the doors Yosetsu saw how much bigger the building looked inside.
"Awa-Kun over here!" Uki called from somewhere off to the side but she was still beside Yosetsu so he was confused, until Uki looked like she was going to burst from happiness as she rushed off to a corner.
"You've copied my voice perfectly that time Jiji!" she exclaimed as stood in front of the big guy and Jiji smiled bashfully at her "Thank you Uki." Jiji said with one of the hand mouths making it sound kind of like Yosetsu's voice.
"Dude when the hell were you going to tell me you could do voices? That's so cool." Yosetsu asked finding himself learning more about his friends today than the chats they had over the past few days.
"Thank you but Mido-Kun was the one that suggested it to me." Jiji explained nodded to his side and Yosetsu noticed the other boy with them and cursed himself since how could he have missed the bushy greenette? He wasn't even behind Jiji, so he really didn't have any excuse for not seeing him.
"Hello Awase-San, I'm Midoriya Izuku and it's nice to meet you in person." Izuku cheerfully greeted him with a wave, Yosetsu grinned and offered his hand "Awase Yosetsu, it's great to finally have a face to put to your name Zuri." he replied, ecstatic as Zuri shook his hand.
Zuri wasted no time in leading Yosetsu though the stretches Zuri had apparently taught Uki and Jiji when they started training since Zuri insisted that training their bodies was just as important, then Zuri asked to see him use his quirk so that he could get a better understanding of how Yosetsu's quirk worked.
Not having any problem with this he first fused and unfused the bottom of his shoes together like when he showed Uki and Jiji, then he fused and unfused Zuri's hands together when he asked, Zuri was muttering something under his breath the whole time.
"Awase-San do you have great grades in physics and chemistry?" Zuri asked surprising him "Uh, yeah? How'd you know?" Yosetsu inquired while Zuri beamed at him.
"Well while I was studying for my quirk degree, I came across some old studies from the first quirk war that stated that quirked people have a natural affinity for sciences and areas of study their quirks are based in. It was rattled with a bunch of quirkist ideas and rhetoric, but from what I have observed it's not entirely unbased. For instance, Mezo-Kun always had an A+ in biology and his quirk is all based on manipulating his own body." Zuri explained.
"Basically, look at it as a quirked person's brain is hard-wired for the things involving their quirk, like how a duckling instinctively knows how to swim from the moment they're born. Your quirk probably lets you manipulate the atomic structure of things so that they're "fused" together, have you ever tried to reshape something before?" Zuri inquired.
"Oh, yeah I've tried but it didn't do shit, so I can just attach things to each other." Yosetsu answered rubbing the back of his neck.
"Hm, I see, unfortunate but understandable. Quirks aren't limitless, even the most powerful quirks have drawbacks we can't account for without experimentation. I want you to try something, take this pole and I want you to try to explain how it feels when you turn on your quirk, say everything that happens as it happens and don't spare any details." Zuri requested as he handed over a metal pole that looked like something that came off a fire escape.
Totally down to indulge Zuri's curiosity Yosetsu took the pole and turned on his quirk "Well, I guess it starts by focusing on my hands. Then this, warm buzzing, or tingling feeling starts to build up in my palms and the part of the pole I'm holding is starting to feel like play-doh or more liquidity putty."
"And when I press it against something, like the floor here I can feel this, fuck I don't know. Sensation? Presence maybe? But I know I can feel that these things can be linked together if I make the buzzing more intense." Yosetsu said trying his best to describe it as he fused the pole to the floor.
"And when I want to undo it, I have to think that and the buzzing turns into a colder? No, a numbness instead of the warmth. Then I press my hand to the spot I fused and can separate them because they still feel like different things I guess, or they still feel different enough for me to tell so I can... sort them? Yeah, sort them back into their original places and just pull them away, and their two things again." Yosetsu told him, getting a bit more confident as he narrated his actions.
Zuri nodded with a hum "I see, can you... push the buzzing into the pole?" he asked and Yosetsu raised an eye.
"I can try, tried to do that when I was a kid but my hands started to feel like they were burning but that was probably from me being a dumbass." Yosetsu agreed turning his quirk on again and he felt the buzzing. He tried to push it into the pole, but his hands started burning up again, so he stopped and tried to do something else.
Thinking of the buzzing more like a liquid state he focused on it flowing through the body of the pole, it still made his hands uncomfortably warm, but it was bearable as his senses expanded to include the area around the pole "Oooh, okay that is a very weird feeling." Yosetsu commented feeling a slight shiver creep up his back but couldn't help smiling.
Zuri practically beamed as he asked him to do more things and Yosetsu readily did them with nothing short of excitement while Uki and Jiji did whatever they were doing, Zuri also would note all the ways he could use the things he learned in his future hero work and even compared it to some other heroes moves.
"Damn, this is so fucking cool." Yosetsu said as he climbed the wall by fusing and un-fusing the end of some poles to the wall and slowly made his way back down, wiping away the sweat on his forehead and turned to Zuri, who was scribbling away in a notebook and muttering something that sounded like gibberish as Uki was gleefully jumping around under her quirk.
Yosetsu huffed bemused as he walked over and placed his elbow on Zuri's shoulder "You really know your shit when it comes to this whole training to be heroes thing, are you planning to become a hero too Zuri?" Yosetsu inquired since it would make sense, he was such a cool guy and Yosetsu could definitely see how much of a five-star badass he'd be.
Zuri however completely froze, blinked then stiffly turned his head and stared at him completely taken aback, his mouth opened then closed "What?" he whispered.
Surprised "You being a hero, what else could I mean? You'd be such damn boon to the industry." Yosetsu replied and that seemed to get Uki and Jiji's attention and Uki loudly gasped.
"Oh my gosh you totally would Izu-Kun! You've helped Jiji and I so much with our quirks, and you know so much about heroics! I can't believe I haven't thought about it before! I can see it now! With a little combat training and that analysis quirk of yours could have you in the top hundred easy!" Uki cheerfully proclaimed as she came back down to the ground and was practically bouncing in place.
Zuri's grip tightened and he ducked his head avoiding their eyes and biting his lip "Mido-Kun doesn't have an analysis quirk Uki." Jiji said and she stopped bouncing.
"Oh, so it's some kind of general intelligence quirk then? Or some kind of insight quirk? It's still really cool." Uki said.
"I'm quirkless Ochaco." Zuki told her looking like he just wanted to disappear as he hugged his closed notebook to his chest "O-oh." Uki mumbled fully shocked.
"So, all that brain power is natural? Dude, can you get any more badass?" Yosetsu said feeling even more in awe of his friend which caused Zuri's head to snap to him with wide eyes "B-badass?" Zuri squeaked.
"Hell yeah Zuri! You're super smart and you don't have a quirk-based learning curve that's holding most of us back so once you get some hand-to-hand stuff down, you'd be a shoe in for a hero." Yosetsu confirmed with fist pump, Zuri stared at him dumbstruck.
"You, think I could be a hero without a quirk?" Zuri asked completely in disbelief as he stared back at him.
"Well yeah, there's a ton of heroes with some arguably minor quirks that you could easily recreate with some basic support gear, you could absolutely become a modern-day batman and I'd totally be down to be your robin if ya need a sidekick." Yosetsu promised with a wink.
Zuri's mouth opened then closed his bottom lip trembling as his eyes began to tear up making Yosetsu suddenly feel like he fucked up "Hey, Zuri-" Yosetsu tried to speak but Zuri launched at him knocking them both over, which did make his ass sore, but he was more concerned with how Zuri was basically sobbing into his chest.
"Izu-Kun!" "Mido-Kun!" Uki and Jiji both cried out shocked and surprised by his frankly worrying emotional reaction and were quickly crouched beside them and it was by then that Yosetsu realized that Zuri was muttering something.
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Zuri whimpered between his stuttered breathing, a tone of voice Yosetsu had never heard before in his life but when he took a moment to really think about it a chilling realization took hold of him.
If he had been deemed almost useless and harassed by his classmates with his quirk, then how would most people react to someone quirkless wanting to be one?
The answer sat like lead in his gut and Yosetsu wrapped his arms around Zuri in a firm hug "It's no problem, Zuri, just saying the truth. If you were a hero, you would be one of the greatest out there, no contest." Yosetsu said with a self-assured nod.
Yosetsu wasn't the smartest person in the world, and he normally had the emotional tack of a falling brick. He'd probably never know how bad it got for his friend, but it wouldn't be that hard to imagine how alone Zuri once was as he dreamed of being a hero.
And if Zuri ever wanted to take the plunge and try out for heroics, then sure as shit would he, Uki, and Jiji back him up every step of the way.