Izuku quietly entered Nejire's bedroom on the first floor. He had to suppress a 'hng!' at the cute sight of Yuki and Eri snuggled up in a tangle of sheets on Nejire's bed.
Deciding to have some fun, he tucked in his shirt and activated Float, inverting his earthly orientation and floating upwards until his feet were planted on the ceiling.
"Pspspsps," Izuku called.
Yuki chirped and blinked her eyes open. She sleepily looked around the room, sniffing the air as she did.
"Daddy?" She asked when didn't see him right away, but could still smell him. She looked up, gasped, shook Eri awake, and pointed, open mouthed.
Eri rubbed at her eyes and cocked her head.
"Papa? Why are you on the ceiling?" Eri asked groggily.
Izuku made a face. "What do you mean? You're the ones on the ceiling!"
Yuki grabbed Eri by the shoulders and held on for dear life, the fur that covered her tail, forearms, and legs all poofed out as she looked around frantically with her dull blue eyes. Eri was looking around confused, but not quite panicked like her sister.
Nejire wandered in.
"Are you done gaslighting our children, Love?"
"Nejire, you're on the ceiling too?!" Izuku cried.
Ochako must have heard the commotion, because she came floating through the doorway, flipping head over heels, arms windmilling.
"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!" Ochako cried in mock distress.
As she passed Nejire, one of her windmilling hands 'accidentally' slapped Nejire's ass, making her yelp and begin to tumble through the room as well.
For her part, Nejire didn't correct her position in space with her Quirk. Instead, she held out her arms to Yuki and Eri.
"Save me, brave heroes!"
Nejire having successfully turned it into a game, the kids leaped for their parents like they would for runaway balloons.
Izuku was still laughing to himself as he finished packing The Kid Bag. They were getting ready to go to Eri's first ever parent teacher conference in a few hours. It was a picnic though, not a conference. Parent teacher picnic?
Everyone besides him was still in pajamas as they started their day. Quite a few gazes were darting to and from Rumi in her leotard that showed off the tawny skin of her muscular hips and ass. Izuku was thankful he'd never been the type to get upset when their partner was being ogled. For example, Mina was currently staring at Rumi's ass like it was her last meal. He couldn't even classify that behavior as jealous, territorial was a better word. People weren't possessions that depreciated in value depending on how many people touched or looked at them. His girlfriends were absurdly attractive and he could hardly fault someone for looking as long as it didn't make them uncomfortable.
At any rate, Eri and Yuki were having breakfast with the rest of 1-A, minus Momo, Kyoka, Iida and Todoroki, while his girlfriends minus Nejire were making lunch to bring to the picnic. Their girlfriends had told Nejire and him that they weren't allowed to help since they always make breakfast.
He had been worried about the two men since he hadn't seen nor heard from either since the sports festival. When asked, Nejire had told him that Todoroki had been staying with his sister, but she couldn't tell him why Iida had been away. The fact that Stain had reportedly struck again the same day as the sports festival was not lost on him. Even if the news was withholding the victim's name Izuku could put two and two together. He just hoped he was wrong.
"I love you, Bro!" Kirishima shouted at him, mouth stuffed full of protein pancakes and eyes brimming with tears.
Several other voices chimed in, further distracting him from his worry over Stain.
"Love you too, Kiri." Izuku said as he double checked The Kid Bag one more time. Did he have enough Neosporin?
As he thought about that, Himiko was in the kitchen teaching Tsu about knife care.
Himiko's smile was a bit too big for her face, her teeth a bit too sharp. "You see how the ceramic is getting gray?" She asked as she slid the large kitchen knife along the white fiberglass V at an angle, her movements honed to perfection. "That's metal shavings from the edge of the blade. You don't want it to get too gray because that means some of the shavings could be sticking into the blade instead of the ceramic. So now we wash off the shavings and the blade, then we use a honing rod realigning the metal along the edge like the grain of wood, we want it all facing the same way." She demonstrated, dragging the knife's edge along the honing rod, eyes focused and teeth barred as she did so.
Tsu rested her head on Himiko's shoulder as she watched from behind. "Ribbit, you sure know a lot about knives. It's scary. In a good way."
Himiko swooned.
Izuku decided on more Neosporin.
Crucial decision making over, he flopped onto the couch and turned on the TV, hoping to catch a hero debut on the news. It wasn't long before he was joined by Nejire, Eri on her hip.
"What was it you wanted to say to us, Baby?" Nejire prompted the little girl.
"Thank you for breakfast, Mama and Papa." Eri said, rubbing her face on Nejire's pajamas in apparent embarrassment.
He melted.
Mina plopped next to him, eyes narrowed.
He froze.
He waved. Awkwardly.
Eyes still searching his soul, Mina pulled out a too small towel from behind her back and handed it to him.
"This yours, Cheeks?"
"Cheeks?" Nejire asked in confusion before her eyes went round and she held a hand over her mouth to hold in a laugh. "I accidentally stocked the family bathroom with only kid towels, when I went to fix that this morning one was missing. You didn't…"
has stopped working.
"AHA!" She shouted and pointed, laughing between every following word. "I knew I wasn't dreaming of your white ass running up the stairs! I knew you could cook, but I didn't know you could BAKE! And what was that slapping noise!?"
Yuki came sailing in for the save and landed in Mina's lap, bouncing and chanting, "SWEAR JAR! SWEAR JAR! SWEAR JAR!"
Eri giggled along with her Papa and Mama as Yuki continued to mug Mina.
The overall levity of the common room came to a screeching halt as breaking news aired on the TV.
A female reporter with dark, shoulder length hair stood in front of a grade school. The sign in front of the School read 'Irwin's School for the beautiful'. In front of the sign were scared children, all with animal Quirks. Blocking screaming parents from picking up their children were over two dozen men and women in skull masks; the Creature Rejection Clan. They held up signs that read 'No Animals', 'Impure Blood', and other hateful slogans. The teachers were trying to corral the kids back inside the building, but the children were resisting, trying to get to their parents who were in turn trying and failing to push past the Clan.
There were no heroes, only a handful of cops to moderate the perfectly legal protest.
"As you can see, the hate group known as the Creature Rejection Clan has barricaded the newly opened school that specializes in teaching children with animal Quirks. They seem to be attempting to block the parents from picking up their children." Her words were professional, relatively unbiased even. Her voice however, was edged with panic.
The common room went quiet nearly at once, the only sound was Yuki's rapid breathing and Rumi talking on the phone.
"Dad-Ya, I'm watching it now-" Rumi said in clipped words over the phone.
"Those monsters!" Ochako seethed. "They're still around!? Even after what they did!?"
The unsaid 'To Yuki' hung in the air like chlorine gas.
The Creature Rejection Clan had been the group responsible for killing Yuki's parents, kidnapping her, and putting her in a cage to sell to a millionaire as a pet. The Clan had naturally denied any and all involvement. Without evidence that the whole of the group knew of, or was involved, nothing could be done about the rest of the organization, only those directly involved.
"Animals belong in cages, not schools! Animals belong in cages, not schools! Animals belong in cages, not schools!" The protesters chanted in unison, screaming to drown out the pleas and threats of the parents in front of them and the crying of the children behind them.
Yuki scrambled off of Mina and latched onto Izuku, her claws digging into his skin and drawing blood. He did not flinch, he only pulled her in closer. Her breathing was now bordering on hyperventilating while tears were freely traveling down her face to drip off her chin.
"Turn it off!" Mina yelled.
"No. Watch." Those were the only words Izuku said. He may have sounded in control of his emotions to most, but the truth was he was barely holding it together. He wanted to obliterate the television, he wanted to take away all of Yuki's fear with his Quirk, but what he wanted was not what Yuki needed.
Nejire gripped his shoulder with one hand while the other held Eri tighter. He could sense her rising worry, but he could also feel her trust in him.
"-Ya, ok. Love you too." Rumi said as she hung up.
She marched over to Yuki and picked her up by the armpits, placing her on her jutted out hip. She stomped right up to the TV and pointed at it.
"Look, Kit," She commanded, not looking at the TV, but at Yuki's eyes with an intensity that brooked no argument. Yuki sniffled and looked, shaking like a leaf. "You see those hateful bigots? They're weak, small people that don't deserve your fear. Now watch and see how deep that weakness runs."
The sudden thunderous noise of motorcycles drowned out the hateful rhetoric of the Clan.
"Something is happening!" The reporter yelled to be heard over the cacophony.
Just under a dozen motorcycles pulled across the street from the protest. Their riders turned off their rides, kicked out their stands, and disembarked without a care in the world. All of the bikers looked to be old, their hair gray, their skin wrinkled. Despite that, they weren't doddering old retirees, they had wiry muscle and the build of a lifetime of hard work. They all wore matching leather vests and on the back of those vests was one large patch, It read; '20%er'. At the head of this group stood a man larger than the rest in both stature and presence; Mr. Oguro.
"It's the Quirkless! They've become somewhat infamous for breaking up C.R.C gatherings!" The reporter shouted, a smile trying to get past her professionalism.
Yuki stopped shaking and stared.
"Grandpa Knuckles?" She asked in disbelief.
looked right at the camera and spoke.
"This is for you, Pipsqueak."
With those words, he turned and began to jog towards the protesters, the others he had come with following. With every footfall they picked up speed until they were in a dead sprint, Mr. Oguro had a fist raised as he led the charge.
The Clan stopped their chanting and began to back up involuntarily, dropping their signs as they did.
"First one to get cuffed is buying drinks when we get out!"
The group of elderly bikers crashed into the Clan fists first. The Clan members cried out like professional athletes calling foul. Leather clad Men and Women in their sixties threw black belt level blows one after the other, only pausing to rip off the Clan members' masks, exposing their identities to the world.
The police tried to intervene, but the scene was in chaos so there was little they could do to be effective. A hero appeared on the scene moments later, but he did not move to intervene.
"Help us! We pay your salary!" The still conscious Clan members cried out to the hero, yet the hero did not move.
The reporter had given up hiding her smile. "The hero can't intervene unless it's a Quirked crime!"
Several of the Clan began to fire off Quirks once they realized they were essentially on their own. The unknown hero leaped into the fray, pointing and whistling as he did so. A Clan member whose fists had turned into cinder blocks froze mid swing. The Clan member seemed to struggle for a moment before dropping to all fours and panting like a dog. The hero was quick to zip tie his hands behind his back and drag him to the side.
The reporter handed off her microphone to the camera man.
"What are you doing!?" The man asked from behind the camera.
The reporter kicked off her heels.
"I'm picking up my son from school!"
She turned and sprinted barefoot for a gap that had opened up in the chaos. She could just be seen through the crowd scooping up a little boy with a brown bear Quirk and sprinting off. She wasn't alone, all the other parents had seen her dash and followed, pushing, and in a few cases punching, their way through the Clan.
Instead of tears, Yuki's eyes now held a fire within them. Her little hands were balled into fists in front of her, shaking with cathartic rage.
"YAAA!" She screamed with all the pent up fear and anger she had been holding onto for far too long.
"KICK THEIR ASSES, DAD!" Rumi joined in, and a moment later so did everyone else.
The Villain Whisperer. Izuku was still laughing at the new hero's name. It was so fitting, and what a place to debut. Definitely going into the notebook.
Rumi was nervously pacing in the common space, she was the last to go upstairs to get ready for the day. She also held a phone up to an ear.
"Heyyyy, MamaDoriya." She began, but cut off and stopped her pacing, freezing in place.
"No-Yes-I don't think he intentionally makes your life hard-but-yes!-but, you should have seen what it meant to Yuki," She said, stopping and starting to try and get a word in edgewise.
The whole business with what happened was legally gray in the extreme. While the only form of crime heroes were supposed to combat was Quirked, it was pretty easy for heroes to intervene and claim reasonable suspicion. Clearing up that suspicion was an added benefit of those 20%er vests and his Quirkless friends wore. The Clan protesting was legal even if it was hate speech and an unscheduled protest. The Quirkless assaulting them was illegal, which made them criminals the cops had to arrest. While defending yourself with a Quirk against a villain was legal, it wasn't against criminals. The distinction between villain and criminal was very important in the hero world and when the Clan began to use Quirks to fight back they immediately became villains and the Quirkless became victims of a villain attack in the eyes of the law. It was legally gray and perhaps even morally ambiguous, but Izuku couldn't help but be glad that a legal loophole was helping good people for once. and his friends would still undoubtedly be charged, but the charge for punching a C.R.C. member was about as likely to stick as punching a Nazi was two hundred years ago. And with his Mother on the case, they would probably get off with a slap on the wrist. Maybe community service? Though wasn't that what they just did?
"Thanks, MamaDoriya. Love youuuu~" She said, hanging up the phone.
"Phew! She's scary." She said before giving him a quick kiss and rushing to shower and get changed.