So, happy new year. I know I didn't do jack diddly shit last year, and for that I do apologize. As this is an unpaid passion of mine, here on AO3 and , a lot more of my time and attention is put on the job that does provide me money and the time off spent heavily on just trying to feel comfortable and happy. Good news, I finally deleted my Twitter account months ago, and that time up to now has felt so much better not seeing the turmoil of the world and the disgusting people within it to upset and unsettle me in what is a relatively safer space than those. But still, I panic and worry of my own place and future being caught in the mix, so I had to axe that negative outlet. I'm happy I did, even if now I know so much less around me; least now I feel safe. Despite the California winds and rains damaging our house and nearly throwing trees on us.
Before this surprisingly long chapter for what is relatively low-stake story begins, I do want to relay to you all my one New Year's Resolution. For anyone who is in my Discord (though this site is notorious at not allowing links to be posted, so check my AO3 posting to find it) you know this already, but I've decided to enforce a schedule and challenge on myself, and that is to publish one new chapter every Sunday this year until December 31st, which is coincidentally also a Sunday, so it works out. What was the first day's chapter, you all saw on Thanksgiving; thought I'd give it early because having something done but not publishing it was bothering me at the time. From here on out, I will have something for you every Sunday, and to assure that for my egregiously long writing style, I have worked in advance on the chapters for this and next month, which will be the entirety of the Sports Festival. They're not all done, but I am weeks ahead on them this month that I have room to breathe and work on them.
Metal Bat isn't the only one I'll be working on, and I have made a road map to reach chapter 50 in the end, and I'll telegraph when I change stories when I send the last chapter of each batch. I'm mad with myself that I've given so little after writing so much but effectively going nowhere in my eyes. I don't want to kill my work here, I want to see it to the end, on both currently active and the long-awaited inactive stories I've struggled to continue. But writing and storytelling is my passion, and this has been an amazing outlet to finetune it more and more as time has gone on.
But I do need to tell all of you something that the AO3 audience doesn't need to know. If you're not aware of it, there's been some concerns about this site, shared with me through tweets other people have made, that this site is biting the bullet. Maybe it won't go down anytime soon, but it doesn't sound like this platform is functioning at a level people are happy with, nor being supported to get better or stay afloat. And being honest, this site is nothing compared to AO3; the features, the search options, the account options where I don't have to hit a button every six months to get emails and know you're commenting because that's infuriating. As a reader and a writer, this site is a hassle to navigate and use. And I won't be posting everything on this site. Metal Bat will continue to see its chapters here, no worries, but new stories and shorts and stories I have on AO3 and not here that are planned for the year will only see most of the other updates. I'm going to transfer most of my efforts over there because it functions so much better, and I want to advise you all to do the same. You people have been just as great and I love you all for the support you give and the hype and theories you share that have encouraged me to continue writing stories like this. I don't want to abandon any of you, but I highly suggest making accounts on AO3 if you don't already and follow me there if you want to see everything. I'm just Phantos on there, no extra title included. And if you do move or not, I will still call all of you kings for reading my work and sticking around after all this time. You people are amazing. Thank you.
Here's to 1 million words before the year ends, across this story and the others. I will see you next week with the first event of the Festival starting and ending. I hope you enjoy.
How did a school like Yuei make a big festival where he could show off his quirk and impress hero agency scouts to pick him for a work study so damn boring to build to?
Denki's desk was coated in unfinished homework papers from three different classes and he could not make one word from another, no matter how long he sat and stared at them. He weighed powering through to finish it all against throwing it all off his desk and opening up his Game Boy, and settled in between to slam his head on the papers and whine to himself about it.
Homework had doubled almost instantly as the build up to the Sports Festival, probably in an attempt to cram together what would have been better paced out had their class not gone through so much school drama, and did not have an upcoming activity that actively encouraged them to be outside the school not too long from now. After surviving such a dangerous encounter with real villains — though more strenuous on some of his other classmates than it was on himself — Denki thought maybe the workload would have thinned to let them recuperate and properly adjust to normal classes. Instead, everyone was on edge, and everyone had to work even harder to prove themselves worthy as heroes-in-training. Having the diligence to handle the pressure and press forward unperturbed would show those dirty criminals their bravery, and the mistake they made thinking Class 1-A of Yuei High would bow to any villain.
Denki was still gonna complain about it.
How was math a showcase of his determination? Into whose heart would the isosceles triangle strike fear? The attempt to find the square root of seven being terrifying in practice didn't mean demanding it on the battlefield would carry that perception over. And also, what does 'unperturbed' mean? What is a 'perture' supposed to be? Wouldn't unbothered be more easily understood by a wider audience?
"Knock knock," came a deep voice peeking through his door, slowly pushing it open. "It's me, coming in to make sure my son isn't being crushed by his desk."
Denki groaned, pulling his head up with a paper stuck to his forehead. "That was one time."
"And it was terrifying how you made it possible. I'm allowed to assume you'll manage it again."
The blond-haired boy plucked his homework off his face and looked up to his scruffy father standing over him.
His old man flashed him a smile. "Homework getting you down?"
"I think I'm drowning in it," Denki whined. "I can't focus on one without another popping in to be answered. I thought we'd have more P.E. classes for the Sports Festival, but it's just studying more than that."
"Homework is important!" his father cheered, clapping him on the shoulder. "Heroes aren't all field work all the time, not unless they can afford an assistant to sort the paperwork out for them. Something here is going to prove important in your future or they wouldn't be teaching it otherwise. Yuei's famous for that!"
Denki grumbled and sank further down his chair. "Guess that doesn't include them making it fun. I can't tell if I'm retaining any of this or not. What do my notes even say?" To further demonstrate his frustration, the blond boy plucked a paper from the corner of his desk and handed it over to his father. The older man scanned up and down the page for a few seconds, his bright and cheery smile pulling slightly as the seconds of silence carried on.
"Well…you do have some really good…Mandarin?"
The electric-conducting boy flopped over his desk with a cry. "I don't even know English that well! I can't even read my own writing right now! What the HIFL am I supposed to do?" Denki kept his head down as his father sat in the extra chair beside him, rubbing the teen's back soothingly.
"Your mother and I know how hard this kind of stuff has been for you with your quirk," the old man commented, and the blond boy groaned against the mahogany. Both his parents had electricity-based quirks that brought them together in college before they had officially gotten together, but they were nowhere near the intensity of his own. After sparking a few villains who tried to attack them at the USJ — against Thirteen's instructions, he apologized — he couldn't remember a single thing about the day prior, in and out of school. "But I also know that studying is much easier if you can apply it to something you care about. This is hero school; what can you think of that needs math to help you be a hero?"
The first answer that came to Denki's mind was financial records but he bit his tongue at the sour thought. He didn't want to be a desk-bound hero, pushing papers and working a stale nine-to-five. He applied to Yuei because heroes knew how to control their quirks from the dangerous outcomes possible with their powers. If schools like Yuei could teach Endeavor how to manage his fire from burning himself up and Best Jeanist on improving how much fabric he could manipulate at once without passing out, they could help him learn to channel his electricity and find a means of directing it away from affecting his memory cortex. Then maybe he could grow up and pass on the same to kids like him.
But that dream was only half the picture, since entering Yuei. Watching two of his classmates duke it out violently for everyone to watch, nearly being caught in the middle of a reporter-break-in panic during lunch, finding all his classmates shaken and battered after their first real encounter with villains; Denki wanted to do something about that. He couldn't go and fight the villains as he was now, both just a child and without proper control of his quirk, but he could be a friend to everyone around him. He could find a way to bring smiles on everyone's faces - beyond the relief they all showed seeing everyone return to class afterwards - and make sure everyone felt safe and happy. To help Uraraka feel safe…
Denki blinked the trailing thought away and glared at his homework as his head lifted. "I don't know how math is supposed to help me make people safe…"
His dad only chuckled and patted his shoulder. "Then let's figure out a way. You'll be a great hero in no time."
Denki offered a smile back at his father's before picking up the pencil again. He doubted he'd find the connection between calculus and smiles, but if there was any link at all he was going to give it a chance.
If living alone provided Ochako anything, it was the privacy to use her quirk indiscriminately.
Back home, her parents wouldn't allow such frequent display of anti-gravity-bestowed cutlery for a multitude of reasons that included but were not limited to: the possibility of running into flying knives; the illegality of using a quirk without any form of a license; and the soon-to-follow rainbow vomit that came with straining her quirk. Completely valid concerns, the brunette admitted and followed her parents rules, but if she was going to be a hero who got to use her quirk indiscriminately to help the public, then she had to overcome the latter problem lest it follow her into her thirties. She did not want to be a young woman working in five minute intervals because she had the My Little Pony virus.
She tip-toed and ducked around her compact flat, avoiding her floating pillows, utensils and books as she snuck back and forth across her room. Not only did she have to train against the kickback of using her quirk in multitudes and sequence, but she had to push through the nausea and the heavy weight in her chest to move just as fine otherwise. Sadly that meant a good chunk of money did have to go into air fresheners to combat the-oh god.
Ochako spent more time than she would have liked in her bathroom, especially when crawling back out greeted her to the mess of her belongings that fell from her quirk's grasp. Another benefit of living alone, being that no one would have to see her disorganization and struggle to reassemble its tidiness. Not her parents, not her friends, nor any boy she'd show interest in; it was best not to embarrass herself like that.
The same could be said for her pantry and fridge, sadly. Plenty of foods were far too expensive — and far too many at that — so quick meals and snacks packed her shelves while rarely packing her stomach. Watching the microwave brighten and spin a cup of noodles while she chewed away at a protein bar was at least more entertaining than watching television shows she couldn't find interest in or the news she didn't want to hear. Thus it was her own fault that she left the screen on.
"Another worrying incident this afternoon as three sidekicks from the Rulebook Agency were admitted to Hosu General Hospital just three hours ago," the reporter read out on-screen. "Emergency calls came in just minutes before they were found unconscious near the city's south end, all suffering extensive wounds from a fight that witnesses only knew happened by the sounds from their fight. Few reports have come in detailing a lone man having approached one of the sidekicks, Meter, not shortly before police received calls about the noise of the conflict. Some are attributing this to the ever-elusive Hero Killer Stain reported in the same prefecture, but Meter has provided a statement to the police that their assailant is another man entirely; an image of his or her liking has not been provided at this time. The police commission have issued a statement earlier this evening as the start of their investigation of what may be two conjoined criminals working together in the Hosu prefecture to lure and attack unsuspecting heroes of the area. Civilians are encouraged to enforce curfew no later than 9pm for the foreseeable future until both men can be apprehended and—"
Ochako nearly slammed her remote as the channel changed to a music station, and cranked the volume down until it was just white noise in the back of her ears. The attack on their class at the USJ still played vividly in her mind; hearing that heroes on the field were facing the same problem piled upon the unresting worry in her stomach. Was targeted attacks by criminals and villains that common in hero work? Was this the future she had put herself on the path towards?
Heroics was her passion for one big reason, and that was to support her parents. Money wasn't hard for them to earn, but "living comfortably" and "getting by" were two different things and all her family knew was the latter. But hero work paid good — excellent even — and was maybe the most profitable profession in the world. The older ages of quirks had a problem union-ifying superpowers and saving human life, according to the history books, but today they were an ally of the police, fire fighters, medical personnel and first responders. If Ochako could do anything to help her parents live comfortably, it was being a hero; not just for the public, but for her mom and dad.
But she knew her parents worried over her. Ignoring how her phone had blown up the evening after villains had attacked them in school, her parents had always accepted her dream of heroics with a second of hesitation. Being a hero invited danger and required the courage to face it. Ochako knew that, too, even when she first watched heroes at work when she was young. She knew that one day in her future, that would be her on the field or even in the sky saving people, preventing destruction and arresting criminals, but that was to be a day far, far away in her future. By the time that day came, she would be an older girl with the courage to face it. Thinking of her parents' future gave her the courage to travel the distance and apply for Yuei above all other schools. Meeting Midoriya and Iida gave her the courage to fight the exam robots with her all, even when it came to escaping the Zero Pointer. Making friends with them and Yaoyorozu and Ojiro and Kaminari and all their other classmates filled her with the courage to simply toss a villain away from them.
Yet ever since those same villains came busting down their door and she could do so little else but watch her new friends drenched in rainwater, shaking from the cold, cradling their wounds, carrying together an unresponsive teacher and two unresponsive classmates — including but not limited to who she considered her first friend at Yuei, Midoriya — her hands would not stop shaking.
The Sports Festival was asking them to be brave; to put on a game face and continue working for their future in heroics. And Ochako had no plans to sit that out, as the thrill in her classmates injected with her the same courage to perform live on television what she could do and why she'd be a good hero. Yet still her hands shook. So she forced them together, clasping and grasping each other in her lap until they would stop.
She had to be brave, she told herself with a swallow. For her friends. For her parents. She had to at least try.
The Iida family household was a quiet one at dinner time, especially for the past few weeks. With his older brother working late shifts at his agency left Tenya eating peaceful meals with their parents in Tensei's stead. Without his rowdy brother's commentary and personal mission to lighten every room he was in, dinner was quieter and quicker the past few nights.
Part of that silence was his blame. Tenya was distracted all throughout the day, carrying over into the time spent with his friends and school and his family once returned home. The Sports Festival was a big event his whole family was excited to watch and were helping him train for. Their advice and the chance to exercise with them at home was a blessing he thanked them for, yet still his mind wandered away to his friends — to one green-haired boy in particular — and the excitement behind his eyes dwindled. His father could only jest so much to their mother's behest, and not a trick taken from his brother's antics could fully quell his mind.
Nothing against his brother's charm, of course, because Tenya could spend the extra hour awake to greet Tensei's return.
"Sorry I'm late!" his older brother shouted as he tangled with the front door. "You would not believe the amount of red lights I hit tonight. But they were pretty strong themselves, so they'll be fine!"
"Welcome home, brother," Tenya greeted him, smiling lightly at his joke. "Was traffic the only problem on your way home?"
"It wasn't even traffic," Tensei huffed as he collapsed on the couch beside his brother, dropping his work bag at their feet. "I was just unlucky. One time I'm not fast enough or else I'm breaking traffic laws…or just laws without the traffic." Tenya faltered a moment at his brother's attempt to assemble a joke, but still flashed the older boy a smile. "What are you still doing up, anyways? You've got school tomorrow. The Festival isn't for another 10 days; you don't get to stay up late and get away with it just yet."
The younger boy under question hummed and turned his head away, looking at the television before them silently reporting on three hospitalized sidekicks from the Hosu region. "My mind has been too active tonight. I thought I'd stay up longer and figure it through instead of forcing myself to sleep in an uncomfortable position."
He could see, from the corner of his eye, how his brother continued to watch him without a word, before shifting his own head to watch the news with him. "Does it have to do with the news?" Tenya pressed his lips tightly as the screen played footage of civilian's phone recording the three sidekicks being carried off by heroes and paramedics from earlier in the day, his brother framed a brief moment behind the more forefront heroes in the camera's way. "I was nowhere near them when that fight started; I barely answered the call when paramedics did. I'm not hurt, you know—"
"It's not you I'm worried about, brother," Tenya interrupted him, wincing at his own abrupt rudeness. The smile he had kept up drooped, falling into a flat line he forced steady. "It is Midoriya."
Tensei nodded slowly, eyes rolling away as he sorted through his memories. "The kid you met before going to Yuei, right? Who you were training at the beach with?"
The blue-haired highschooler nodded in confirmation. Midoriya hadn't meant to take center stage in Tenya's wandering thoughts, but the green-haired boy had done nothing but over the past week. Everyone had agreed to train separately, use the event to show who they were individually and take up a fair competition against each other, no hard feelings involved. The end bit was something Tenya did not think necessary for their group to specify, but Midoriya was the only one in a pickle; despite his overwhelming power — quirk or not — he had only ever shown it with a baseball bat in hand, and he was not permitted the use of one for the Sports Festival. He'd be truly fighting quirkless against everyone if he couldn't find a way to control it consciously, but he still requested no one hold back against him if the event called for it. Their friendship wouldn't change, he said, if he ended up getting his ass kicked by any one of them.
But it was an agreement Tenya was hesitant to make. He felt as though he wasn't there enough to begin with for his friend of the past year. He was incapacitated at the exam's end when he could have first learned of the other boy's outrageous strength, he was floors away while he and who must have been his bully beat each other blue, and he was at the other end of the school's campus while villains were cracking Midoriya's head like an egg. Ingenium; the hero who could be everywhere and anywhere; the hero name he was supposed to grow into; and yet he was never there when he could have been. Should have been.
"He was the one hurt in the accident at school, right?" Tensei asked again, and his younger brother nodded once more. "I'm surprised they're letting him compete in something so big so soon, but I guess he needs to show off for the agencies even if he only stays for one round." Tenya kept his lips sealed; Midoriya was recovering surprisingly quickly from his wound, but that wasn't the problem. He hadn't mentioned his friend's quirkless nature to his family even when they'd first met, and he didn't want them to assume he'd drop out that soon because of it. "Yuei's tough like that. You worried he's gonna get hurt bad pushing himself?"
Given everything that's happened in but a few weeks? "He's going to be hurt one way or another," Tenya accepted somberly. "I'm worried that I won't be there for him when he is. He's done a lot for me — confided and trusts me — and I feel I've done next to nothing to help him."
The arm that wrapped over his shoulders was fat but the weight it pushed upon him was light. "Not everything is under our control, Tenya," his brother lectured him. "You're a good friend for thinking about him and worrying over him. You've been friends for a year now, right? Being together for each other after what you all went through is going to mean a lot."
Was that enough, Tenya wondered. Simply being there while his friend was beaten and battered from one fight to the next, now pondering his own existence and biology and how his physiology worked and whether or not it was under his control; was there not more he could do?
"Well," Tensei began when Tenya voiced that same question, "you do have the Sports Festival coming up. There's almost always one event that requires cooperation between you kids to win. And even the events that pit you against each other doesn't ban you from assisting whoever you want to. If you want to do something for him, nothing's stopping you two from partnering up and showing off what you can do together. Teamwork skills appeal to a lot of agencies."
That wasn't a bad idea, Tenya thought it over. His intent with the Sports Festival originally was to show off what he could do as part of the Ingenium family, carry his family's name with pride and announce to the world that their lineage would continue on its service in heroics, and ensure his brother he could intern at the Iidaten agency for his work study following. As much as he valued his friends, this was his chance to stand out from them when it mattered. But Ingenium's name was tied to the ideology of aid, not independence. Direct combat was not their style, but assisting others on the field was part of the trade.
If it would help Midoriya through a time he shouldn't have to challenge alone and assure Tensei he could live up to the Ingenium name with and after him, then Tenya would commit himself to help his friend.
"You're shitting me."
"I am not."
"We have days until the Sports Festival," Midoriya pointed out over the sounds of crashing waves behind him. "We're all training and practicing and planning for this thing, and you are playing Smash Brothers."
Mashirao nodded, darting his eyes away from his computer screen to the phone displaying Midoriya's funny new look to imagine his disbelieving expression before focusing on his game again. "Yes I am." His best friend's grumbled complaints spottily went through the phone call. The tailed boy snickered at the green-haired boy's dismay.
"Just…don't tell me you're playing Incineroar."
"Okay."
It took a few seconds in the following silence for Midoriya to understand why Mashirao hadn't named any other playable character for the unasked question, but when he did the groan that came through the blond boy's phone sounded like white noise. "That was meant to be your one saving grace, Mashi." The tailed boy blinked at the sudden new name, but made no comment about it. "How is this video game considered training?"
"Because I'm interested in copying their moves and mixing it to my style, Izuku," Mashirao stressed in response. If the other boy made any acknowledgement on the use of his name, none came through the phone speaker. "I'm playing games every other day as someone new and spending the days between learning how to use them. They give them combos for a reason."
"So I'm sweating my ass off at the beach throwing hands while you play kiddie Mortal Kombat?"
"And actual Mortal Kombat."
"That doesn't change shit," Midoriya shot down his excuse. "I know this is your thing for learning, I was just expecting there to be more people passing out from heat stroke for the Sports Festival."
Mashirao eyed the calendar he had hanging on his bedroom door. "Well that is on the schedule for tomorrow. I can't work myself to death every day; that's not healthy." It took a moment within Midoriya's own silence for Mashirao to pause his game and glare at his phone. "Izuku."
"I'm fine," he drawled. "I'm only putting in an hour after school. A couple more this past weekend. Heroics class isn't training us that much, you know."
"That doesn't mean you go and work yourself half to death," Mashirao argued back. "You don't have to train that hard."
"Well what the fuck else am I supposed to do?" Mashirao set down his controller when Midoriya's voice rose flatly. "I can't bring my bat into the ring, and I can't figure out how to control this shit otherwise and sitting around twiddling my thumbs isn't going to help me. If I can't do shit like any of you then I'm just gonna be knocked out of the competition round one and won't the agencies find it hilarious a hero student couldn't even make it to round two? It'd be a fuckin' hoot."
"You know that's not what I meant," Mashirao shot back with a bite. "I want to help you figure this out — we want to help you; that does not mean we want you to kill yourself trying to work it out, alright? Can you stop trying to die?"
His hands pointing at either side of his phone hung stiff as he stared between them at the small icon of his friend's head sitting in the silence where his voice was not. Wind rushed through his phone's speaker, the crash of waves nearly inaudible behind it.
"I'm not trying to, you know," Midoriya's voice returned weakly. "I don't ask God to throw his worst at me, he just does."
The blond boy winced and pinched his nose. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I—You don't have to try too hard, okay? We're not going to leave you behind. You're not going to fall behind."
"I'm not exactly going to keep up in the Festival if all I have is my usual quirkless strength."
"It's one festival at the start of our first of three years together, alright? Us failing here doesn't mean we're done for good."
"One year if I'm kicked out if someone who has control over themselves does good enough here."
"Three years. Non-negotiable." The class rearranging was a bullshit system, Mashirao thought to himself, and his friend's view of it equally so. They both thought Midoriya was simply quirkless going into Yuei, and the tailed teen had every intention to support and help his friend stay by their side and become a hero long before he ever saw him show superhuman strength. Yuei wasn't actually going to cut someone like Midoriya out of the class because he didn't throw a dodgeball as hard as the other kids; their entrance exam tested for both combat and heroic points, as-fucking-if they were going to be judged on physical performance alone in the Sports Festival. As if the boy who topped the entrance exam was going to be judged on his physical feats alone. "You're going to have control over your power, and we're going to help you find it. If I have to superglue a bat to your hand for the rest of your life, then so be it. I'm not leaving you to do this on your own frustrations."
Midoriya's lack of an immediate comeback worried the blond for a few seconds, until he heard, "So long as it's my left hand because I still need to write coherently," and snorted into a smile.
"I'll make sure you keep your right hand," Mashirao promised him. "You need a means of communication that doesn't have you cursing every other sentence."
"I don't do that," Midoriya defended himself. "Fuck you." Mashirao chuckled again, listening to the faint voice from Midoriya's side, an older guy he didn't recognize, and the green teen's voice fell back with it. "What, are you kidding me? We spar any more right now and my mom's gonna freak if I'm eating dinner covered in sweat. You can kick my ass tomorrow. I gotta head home." His voice grew more audible as he spoke directly to the tailed teen again. "All I ask is that you don't play Sonic next."
Mashirao winced and looked away from his phone. "I won't." He already played a few games with him first thing in the morning.
"I'd say I trust you but you were playing as the worst Pokemon starter ever so I'll consider forgiving you in class in the morning. Don't fall asleep on your desk."
"Don't sleep on the sidewalk," he shot back."Have a good night." Hearing the same wish from his friend over the phone, Mashirao clicked the call off for them both. The pause jingle from his computer rang in the back of his ear, but he continued to stare at his phone screen even as it went black and found his reflection staring back at him.
He wished Midoriya wasn't so burdened with the task of harnessing his newfound strength. The tailed boy was happy he had power to hold himself in a fight much better than he would have without it, but he was stressing over it far more than Mashirao remembered him doing when he was just quirkless. And for some odd reason he had no control over it and holding a baseball bat was the only circumstance he could use it? Everything was bullshit, he decided, and he was open to kicking out the teeth of whoever was in charge of it all. No doubt the lack of his bat was because the school staff or board made the shots; kicking a teacher would probably get him expelled.
Why he couldn't control this strange power of his was less than likely to be the fault of an outsider, though. How come holding a baseball bat allowed Midoriya to use his strength, and only during? That was something beyond the laws of quirk physics Mashirao had learned in class. Unless it was somehow the same power or reasoning he hadn't found this power in himself until just recently when most of the population had their quirks show up when they were still toddlers. But he also didn't know the reason behind that so what was he to gain hypothesizing himself into a dead end?
Unlike Midoriya who was sweating buckets in a dead end working his ass off to get out of it.
Mashirao closed his game window without a care for the campaign he was only in the middle of before shutting down his computer entirely. He had called his green-haired friend to inquire on the progress of his training, and had hoped there had been some growth and control over his odd superstrength. To learn no progress was being made after an entire week between physical education and free-time training was disheartening. Even though he tried to brush it aside, performing well in the Sports Festival was important because that would be how the public and the hero agencies knew them for the next year until the next Sports Festival, where the second- and third-year students received far less viewership than the first-years courses, and making those connections with heroes and agencies in their first year would be pivotal in achieving their dreams as future heroes. That was the bullshit they had to work in, and that was the bullshit that aimed to fight off Midoriya's efforts to be a hero alongside them.
That was the bullshit Mashirao wanted to fight against, one way or another.
Dinner in the Todoroki household was often a quiet time. With Natsuo living on university campus, the family has dwindled down to three left between Shouto, his sister Fuyumi, and Endeavor. His older brother wasn't the center of conversation, the high school freshman would note, but their sister was a very introverted speaker and Shouto had little to say when the man who was his father occupied the same room. The giant buffon he was, Endeavor was a single-minded individual solely focused on Shouto's training for both of their futures, and following a day isolated in the training room with him there was little the boy had to share with the man he hadn't flung at him earlier.
Fuyumi tried, of course, her eyes darting between her brother and their father with a quipped lip before she decided to target the younger boy. "So, Shouto, have your studies been any easier on your class this week?"
The boy in question flashed their father a quick glance, finding the man focused more on his meal than his children, before returning his sister's gaze. "No," he answered flatly. "My senseis has increased the workload to make sure we catch up on our studies between everything we've had going on. But it isn't hard."
She laughed shakily, the joke lost on him, before composing herself sharply. "Are you top of the class again? I imagine Yuei would enroll quite the competition for you."
Untrue, Shouto judged silently. He could tell several of his classmates were lazy with their studies, fidgeting in class and fighting to keep their attention forward. And with delinquents like Midoriya in his homeroom… "I don't know my grades compared to my classmates yet," he responded earnestly. It's still too early to tell—"
"He's third in his class."
Shouto blinked, slowly, rolling his eyes from his sister to their father, pecking slowly at his sushi at the opposite end of the table from the younger boy. Fuyumi did the same, stuttering out a question she never finished before their father raised his gaze to look at Shouto. "Yuei permits the parents' inquiry into their children's studies, and I wanted to assure your tutorage wasn't in vain. The children of the Yaoyorozu and Iida families score higher than you. I'm ashamed you've failed to mention such notable families occupying your class."
The dual-quirked boy withheld his sigh and looked away from his father. "I was not aware you cared about anyone without connecting to All-Might. I did not think you would be interested in hearing about them."
"The Iidaten Agency and the Yaoyorozu family are notable members of hero society," the older man pointedly argued. "I've served missions with the former's operating hero, and the latter was one of the first providers I turned to when designing my uniform and my gear. If you are to surpass All-Might, then it is important you build connections to other notable heroes and agencies to build your resources and sustain your position. I'm not training you to become the greatest hero off of incompetence."
"Yours or mine?"
Before any words of retaliation could follow the boy's challenging question, Fuyumi interjected back into the conversation, nearly leaping over the table as she stole Shouto's attention back onto her. "I'm happy to hear you're doing so well!" she quickly exclaimed, not even turning an eye back to their father. "Placing top three in your class is still impressive! You're going to be a great hero!"
Shouto scoffed, internally mocking his father's pride at his growth into being his 'prized creation, but the old man spoke before he could vocalize his thoughts. "Just barely," the pro hero gruffly continued. "A nobody named Midoriya is close to surpassing you for your third seat. Falter in any of your grades and I'll reschedule your tutoring course."
Shouto blinked at the older man returning to his rice, leaving the younger boy to his own thoughts. He hadn't considered Midoriya as someone good with classwork as he was in fights. He came across like a meathead who threw hands with anyone willing to challenge him like he'd done with Bakugou and the villains, his physical showcase was all he had to impress their classmates for class presidency, and given his newest choice in hair style was probably a gang member in downtown Tokyo who fought each other with chain-wrapped knuckles in an underground cage ring—
He needed to hand the movie collection back to Natsuo. Trying to drown out the USJ memories was only moving his mind to reprocess his surroundings.
But that didn't change how odd Midoriya was in his eyes. Despite the tough, caged exterior Shouto always saw him in, there existed a layer of confusing information the dual-quirked boy couldn't understand. Good grades aside, how could a quirk that powerful — so brutally strong that a brute villain meant to combat All-Might was but a sandbag for a teenager — belong to someone so unimportant?
"I don't think Midoriya's a nobody," Shouto vocalized his cycling thoughts, barely addressing how his father's gaze returned to him. "His quirk is impressively strong, enough to stop the zero pointer robots from the exam. Strength like that doesn't come from just any family."
He ignored his father's comment about the Zero Pointer, running through his mind all the other boy's oddities. Strength quirks of that level didn't just come out of nowhere, and the chances of it being a quirk anomaly in his family were too low for Shouto to consider it possible. Midoriya was someone important, or at least related to one, beyond just what his quirk gave away. How the teachers and staff constantly pulled him aside, how their upperclassman aiding their teachers looked at and talked with him, how he'd been chatty and friendly with the Iida and Yaoyorozu families before their first day of school had begun; there was something important about him that he wasn't sharing. But what?
Related to their homeroom teacher? Unlikely; Eraserhead didn't seem the fatherly type nor did anything about how they talked to one another hinted at any level of family relation. The son or nephew of a different teacher? Maybe but the window of options was a dwindling pool to ponder over; definitely not the principal, probably not 13 or Ectoplasm, unlikely Present Mic or Midnight, possibly Snipe (who knew what was under the hero's mask) but even then required a stretch. But their quirks didn't match at all with Midoriya's, so unless he was the son of a hero outside the school's staff list—
Shouto stilled where he sat, chopsticks sliding between his fingers before clattering on the table.
What was his relation to All-Might?
As important as the Sports Festival was supposed to be, Katsuki could not find it in himself to give more of a shit about it.
There was just under a week left until the day of the event, and everyone was gearing up for it. The hero course students were constantly seen outside the windows running ragged in their physical course studies, paperwork had doubled in every course they were taking, and every extra in the General Studies was training to steal the spotlight from the hero students and take a seat from their classes. Purple-haired, baggy-eyed freak had verbally challenged the class Deku was in when no one else did, but every other no-name the blond currently shared a classroom with exuded the same intent of humiliating Classes 1-A and -B. They were dumbasses, the lot of them, Katsuki mused.
As if any of them were going to steal a place in the hero course. Most of them failed the entrance exam and were slotted into General Studies because their grades were just barely enough to qualify for admission at all; what chance did they fare in outperforming the ones who'd passed the exam with flying colors and maintained that seat thus far? And Yuei wouldn't admit them into the course until the year following, as the principal had made exceptionally clear. Not even the empty seat occupying Class 1-A was open to them.
It was open to him.
Katsuki grumbled, lying on his bed and glaring at the poster of All-Might's bronze age uniform taped to his ceiling directly above him. If anyone in Yuei's shitty attendance record had the chance of following in the greatest hero's image, it was him. The weaklings in General Studies were only hellbent on some revenge fetish with the hero classes, and those homerooms were filled to the brim with equally weak and unmotivated children who didn't stand a chance at shining, much less enough conviction to be real heroes like the Top Ten. But he was different; he was better than any of those extras pussyfooting around the school trying to convince everyone they were tough shit. Because he was tough shit. Katsuki understood the dangers of hesitation, the problems with holding back, and the importance of beating villains as soon as they showed their face. He wasn't someone so pathetic as to focus his efforts on some pathetic hero-wannabe on his quest to surpass All-Might.
"And I'm not acting like I'm better than you, Katsuki. I'm not acting like I have the balls to tell to shut the fuck up. I'm telling you to shut the fuck up. I know that I'm better than you; that I'm better than a villain."
Katsuki could hear his teeth grind together. For all the nobodies he could toss to the side and forget in the back of his mind, one grating, pestering voice and face continue to prod the forefront of his consciousness, going so far as to bother him in a dream just a week ago. Deku was the one freak throughout the school that refused to follow the lawful order of the world around them and refused to leave the blond boy alone, even now that they were so separated from one another.
If Katsuki wanted his seat back in Class 1-A — if he wanted his first year at Yuei spent speeding through his hero training and surpassing even his seniors by grade level — then he had to prove himself worthy in the Sports Festival. No targeting or assaulting other schoolmates, no brutalizing or maiming if the events called for direct combat, and above all else prove he was above "discriminating against his peers" like the principal had directed him. Not like he was to begin with; those extras mattered too little to his goal to target and conflate into a problem for him. Deku, on the other hand…
This treatment of him was bullshit, Katsuki grumbled. Deemed the problem, treated like a bully, and tossed around like some child who didn't understand the world; how the hell was Yuei so stupid? And they promise him a chance to 'earn' back his seat in class 1-A after judging his actions so poorly up to now? The only thing they weren't blaming him for was taking his gauntlets into that training exercise, as they'd found the culprit and could deem him absolved of any suspicion prior; like he had any fucking clue how that shit happened. They put a quirkless kid in the hero course to nearly get himself killed, they misplace his gear and suspect him of coercion with the culprit, and they thought he was the problem?
But that would be remedied, Katsuki mused with a slow breath, rolling over in his bed and shouldering the image of Japan's greatest hero. With the Sports Festival approaching, every shit head with a quirk in the school would be huddled together to fight, and within them but a single quirkless freak who wouldn't be able to compete. Katsuki didn't have to do anything to Deku — that stupid rat of a principal would be watching the blond like a hawk if he targeted the quirkless kid — while everyone else around him, no matter how weak their quirks would be, would overshadow the green-haired teen and kick him from the competition before the real events even began. All Katsuki had to do was show off his own skills and take his rightful place at the top against anyone who fumbled the courage to stand against him, no fighting Deku required.
He was going to be the greatest hero Japan ever knew, and he wasn't going to let the stupidity around him stall him any longer, not without using it to his advantage.
There was little a time Momo would turn down a game of chess with her father, but regretfully turning down his offer was the choice she had to make.
"It's fine," he reassured her, waving his hands over her shoulders to pull her up from her bow. "You have the Festival in a few days still to train for. I don't want to hold you back."
A frown painted her lips while her hand connected with his. "You could never hold me back," she fought his claim. "I'm only here because of you and mother." She pulled herself into a hug, squishing his chest as he ran a hand down her straightened hair.
"And yourself. Credit where credit is due, memorizing all you have isn't because your mother and I are reading them off in your ear every day. We're proud of what you've done already. Everything we'll watch you do now is just icing on the cake."
Momo hummed into his shoulder. "Don't say that around mother or she'll try baking another one tomorrow." Her body shook from the laughter that bounced his chest.
"She'll want one ready for you when you come home from the Sports Festival anyways," he guessed. "Our cooking books may or may not be in her study, but you didn't hear that from me."
"I'll be amazed when I see it regardless," she reassured him, pulling back from his embrace with another bow. "Thank you father. I'll come down for dinner tonight."
"I'll let you know when," he responded, taking his own path down the spiraling stairwell. "If Inoue calls you for dinner first, just know I didn't send her. It was not my fault."
Momo gave her father a simple reply of affirmation as he disappeared below the railing and she made way to her room. Housemaid Tessai was leaving as she approached, duster in hand and mask stretched across her face, and bowing to greet the raven-haired teen as they swapped places at the door and the Yuei student returned to her dust-free room. The notebooks she had left on her desk in the morning rush had remained while she was at school, but she thanked the maids for only moving them away temporarily to clean the surface beneath before attempting to replicate the mess she had made herself. She had plenty of ideas for tools and gear to use in the festival, both for offense and defense, but without the permission to carry them on her person for the events she would have to memorize their compositions and dimensions prior, as to take advantage of her preplanning.
And she would have, had she not stopped behind her chair to bore holes into the paper she had titled 'Midoriya.'
Momo had worried over her worth and acceptance into the Yuei hero course, even way back when she was taking her entrance exam. From what she saw Midoriya and their friends go through, her test was far easier to work through and pass; it almost felt like cheating even if the prerequisite to the recommendation exams was being recommended by a hero or figure in the heroic scene, even if just a desk worker. Her parents had gotten Death Arms to review her skills and quirk and pass on to Yuei, and a raring review it was according to her mother's words and cheers at dinner that following night. It simply involved too much outsider intervention and participation from her own, and those plaguing thoughts that followed her into class the weeks following the school year's start.
But the opportunities to prove herself had arisen more than once already. In securing their victory in the battle trial; in her nomination for class vice presidency and aide in calming their school body as the press broke in; in providing gear and guidance to her group when villains were hunting them in the Unforseen Simulation Joint; she felt trusted and relied on by her classmates and friends, that she was capable and welcomed in helping them. And Midoriya…
She believed the first friend she made in the school before getting into the school trusted her. Even though he was the one who had directly fought villains on two occasions — that she knew of — and had been pivotal in saving their lives and that of a child's, he had still pushed and argued that he was undeserving of the class president vote he had rightfully won and insisted the position should have gone to her. With all she had ashamedly envied of his accomplishments so soon achieved, that assurance alone led her to believe he wholeheartedly trusted her and her capabilities.
And though that perception of hers had not waived, there were still shocks erupting from the truths he had admitted from her. His quirk and how he talked about it always struck her as odd, but she didn't dig for answers she couldn't begin to assume. How was she supposed to have known that not only had he grown up as quirkless for most of his life and still saw himself as such when they had first met in December but the new power he found himself displaying was not agreed to be a quirk by him or their teachers? She was surprised when she assumed he lied to the detective the day of the mall attack about using his quirk, but since meeting him through the weeks following why would she have assumed he lied to her about the specific restrictions and capabilities of his quirk? They were both going to attend the same hero school, and they ended up attending the same homeroom, ended up being classmates — seeing each other as friends. Why lie to a friend and use them to perpetuate the lie?
But she mulled over it the first week since learning the truth, and why would someone without a quirk openly present themselves as such? And in Japan, no less. She knew very little of what it was like, living as a biologically primitive human in comparison to their modern age of society — though the blogs she found archived online about the topic using said language and description tasted like sandpaper to say herself — but the most she could do from her place was watch as ones and zeros took over the roles of kanjis and letters. As quirks and heroes climbed into prominence and domination all over the world, Momo could list the articles and blogs and videos she found herself buried in when she was supposed to be training for for the Sports Festival, categorize them by their dates posted and see how their voice disappeared; how the outside perspective became all she could find on their lives. In some places of the world news about the quirkless population and their conditions didn't look too bad, but in Japan? All she found from the last few years were in numerical form.
Momo wondered if this was the life Midoriya lived before meeting her — before meeting any of their friends in Yuei. If he was treated like a dismissable number by his peers. If people wondered when he'd be the next tally on a police report. If his voice was drowned out by those around him so deep that it pushed him to the point to take up a baseball bat and beat his way into heroics over scrap metal and his own sweat and blood.
She wondered if it was why he refused to even consider calling his new power a quirk.
So Momo understood his hesitance, she accepted and fell back in her chair with a sigh. Iida and Ojiro were good people if they had learned he was quirkless from the outset and showed no qualms or disdain she could find on social media sites from disgustingly loud accounts. Knowing that only led her into another question: why hadn't he been honest with her the day they met, or anytime since until the situation changed? Back when even he thought he was still quirkless, why did he choose not to tell her?
She wasn't a good enough friend, she answered for herself. She assumed he had a quirk — insisted he had one after what she had witnessed at the mall — and continued to believe and talk as such through several more of their visits until he told her what ended up being a lie of an explanation after over a month of knowing one another. She pressured him into playing along, another voice that never assumed there would be anyone without a quirk that she'd ever meet. He outright told her he lied simply because he didn't want to lose someone who had thought something highly of him, even if it meant playing along with the lie they had started for him.
Things are different now, Momo declared as she picked herself up and sped to the other side of her room. Midoriya wasn't just someone without a quirk telling everyone he did; he was someone in hold a power no one could feasibly explain trying to work his way out of the lie he'd dug himself in. He had told only four of them the truth, leaving the other fourteen of their classmates in the dark of it all because he trusted them now to know only the same story. He now had new goals for himself to meet, and all the while shining light on a new one for her.
Momo plucked a nesting doll from the palm of her hand, a small one no taller than a finger, and decorated with the depiction of her green-haired friend. His face was flat and smooth before the villains had split it open, his hair coating every side of his head before he was forced to shave more of it, and a smile she trusted was real when he could pass a daughter back to her father the day they first met; the original image of Midoriya she still had to become a friend to before she could call herself the friend of the Midoriya they had now.
She had to prove she was not just someone her class could rely on, but that she was trustworthy enough that they needn't consider lying to her. That Midoriya could trust them all with anything.
There were only three days left until the Sports Festival and Mei only had two completed babies sitting on her desk and not even a prototype for a third. Okay, one and a half completed babies: the Swiss Army Backpack was functioning properly and to its coding and utility, but the Hatsume Hovering Hooves with Heels weren't syncing with the controller panel and would only connect with one or the other but never both as she needed them to. Refiguring bluetooth in both boots to match wasn't making strides through her computer, either; maybe she should buy a new source and rebuild their brains with a precoded system, Mei wondered.
But then it and a third baby wouldn't be done in time for the Sports Festival, she complained. The school board had approved her request for three home-built babies to use in the events, and following the trouble Power Loader and the principal explained she had made, had to submit the specific babies and construct them within a permitted parameter of safety precautions. The first two babies she made and presented followed those rules to a T well enough on their first one to be approved, and all she had to do was design another baby and present it to the principal and her homeroom teacher two days before the Festival in order for it to be allowed.
That window closed in one day.
"These are unsuitable working conditions," Mei muttered to herself, pushing off her desk and riding her chair across the room. "My babies are coming out imperfect like this. Investors won't be convinced or sold by them if they underperform. And they work together so well, too. How can my third baby benefit them?" Various support studios and companies were sending scouters of their own to browse the heads of the support and business courses. Performing nothing sort of excellence would find herself seen and picked for an internship of her own shadowing studio hands in the workplace and their collaborations with heroes, and eventually run her own workshop and studio to develop official hero gear for…
Midoriya.
Her chair spun slowly as she faced her desk once more, her quirk zooming in to spot the little electronic box on the highest shelf beside it. She left her chair where she rolled it to, walking slowly back to her work table and sliding her phone down between her work for the Festival.
She hadn't talked to Midoriya in a long time, Mei mused. Steampunk had sent her texts that he was hurt from the villain attack that sent everyone home early just over two weeks ago, and she had sent their green-haired pal a get well text of her own, along with an inquiry to any changes to his physical layout so she could design attire and gear accordingly. He replied the next day reporting all his limbs remained intact along with a photo of a very funny looking new haircut that reminded Mei of a peacock. She noticed the scar trailing down his face, one he barely showed by taking a photo from the other side of his face to snap a shot of his hair, but she made no comment over it and replied with a picture of the bird she saw in her head. He never texted back.
Then the afternoon of the following day she learned of what became of her choice in tampering with the hero course's costumes, and that same evening returned to the image she had received. Power Loader had mentioned Midoriya healed from the fight fine, so why was his face scarred and misaligned? He and his class had just made it out of a villain attack; had one of the villains tried cutting open his face? Why wasn't he being protected by their hero teachers? Why didn't he have any gear to protect him? Why hadn't she made anything for him like she promised?
Why was he calling her?
She blinked before she registered the text of "Metal Bat" lighting up her phone, a baseball jingle playing through the speakers with it. Her thumb instinctively jumped to press it, but stopped just a centimeter too high. Why was he calling now?
"Hatsume?" his voice suddenly appeared, with her thumb now resting on the screen of her phone. "You there?"
Her thumb moved to click on the speaker before she set it back down on the desk. "Should someone else be answering my phone?" she asked back.
"Fair point," he conceded. "How are you?"
Mei blinked again at how fast Midoriya was to move on. She gazed at the two babies on either side of her before she answered, "My babies are struggling. I can't think of a third one to compliment them for the Festival."
"Yeah, you guys get to take in inventions you build in time, right? Is your little carrier guy gonna be there?"
She looked back over her shoulder to the broken device on her "Scraps" shelf across the room. "She died a few weeks ago. I need to design something bulkier to hold itself and the weight it carries but I wasted all my propeller engines."
"...Did you build a SpaceX rocket?"
"No! I rebuilt Rocketeer's boots!" She turned back to her desk and snatched up one of the boots with a shine in her eyes. "I don't have any more jet fuel replacement to replicate them to a T, but I tore apart some old computers and remodeled their cooling fans as propeller bases to work as hover boots until I can find more fuel sources and remake them again."
"The ones with the two base tanks and a heel propellant?"
The thing she liked most about her green-haired friend? The fact he had a wealth of hero-related knowledge to match her own. "Exactly that one! Even built a companion baby modeled after Airjet's suit with a few extra appliances to control aerodynamic movement and catch onto surfaces for quick redirection. Remapping the control schemes to one controller for all three is making things troublesome for my babies though. They won't be perfect unless I can align them in time for the Festival. Support companies will hesitate to give me an internship."
The green-haired boy hummed over the line. "Guess you would have someone to impress, too, or they wouldn't be encouraging everyone to compete." Mei let their conversation go quiet as she set her baby down beside its other half, fingers brushing along the pair of boots as she quintuple-checked for any misaligned plating or differences in size and shape. Support studios would be looking for balanced designs and proper functionality, which meant she had to choose her remaining days between designing a third baby in time for approval or reformatting the controls to a more streamlined system— "I'm sorry I haven't been a better friend."
Her hands froze atop the boots, and she looked down at her phone, the smile and elation he had drawn her into dripping away. "What?"
"I'm sorry we haven't really hung out since we got into Yuei," he elaborated. "We spent months training and practicing to get in together and when we finally did, we got into our separate classrooms and now I barely talk to you or spend any time with you. We're friends and I feel like I've been ignoring you. I'm sorry I haven't tried harder to spend time together."
Midoriya was a good friend, Mei argued internally. He had spent months with her and Iron Treads on the beach helping her test inventions and inviting her to support them with gear and designs and babies that would help them be heroes and help her continue to better her work to become the next greatest inventor. He'd introduced her to other hero students he knew that she could supply and accompany into the future for their dreams and her own. He was nothing but a good friend; better than her, in every way.
"You shouldn't apologize," she argued back. "You're a good friend. I should be saying sorry."
"For what? I get it if you've been busy designing things; it's part of your dream. I have everyone's numbers anyways, I should be the one bringing us together to hang out more, or try to visit you so we can have lunch together and shit. You haven't—"
"I almost got you killed."
Midoriya was quiet for a long time — so long that Mei had to check the clock just to make sure time didn't freeze when she admitted the truth. "Is this about the fridge you almost hit me with one time, because you already apologized for that. I forgive you."
She shook her head to deny it, even if he couldn't see her do it. "One of your classmates had gauntlets that could use destructive force. The teachers told me he wasn't supposed to have them, but I put them with the rest of his costumes before I knew that. They told me he tried to kill you with them. I'm sorry."
"Oh," was how his glamorous reply began. "That…huh. I mean, I thought it was weird they let him use those, but I didn't know any of that." His voice trailed away into a whisper the phone barely picked up, as he asked, "Did All-Might not know about that?" She assumed it wasn't directed at her; she barely knew the hero was on school campus were it not for the villain incident her friend was caught up in.
"I was just trying to look over your costume so I could build a baby for you, but then I saw them in the corner of the room and thought it should be with the rest of his costume. I didn't know…"
"Katsuki didn't ask you to do that, did he?"
"No," she admitted. She didn't even recognize that name. "It's just my fault."
"Right, you probably wouldn't know who he is," Midoriya commented softly. "He probably wouldn't even talk to you anyways. He's…Mei, that's not your fault. That's just an accident. He got expelled from our class for using them, and I goaded him into doing it—Shit, you weren't expelled too, were you? Is that why I haven't seen you at school?"
"They didn't expel me," she answered weakly. "I can't build anything in class anymore, and they won't let me make certain things. I don't want to cause another incident."
"Thank Christ," he breathed out. "Mei, the only thing you did was accidentally. You didn't try to kill me, you just didn't know. I don't blame you for what he did; that was his choice. Just…please don't do something like that again. I don't want to lose one of my friends here. Please?"
Mei didn't want to go either. Leaving Yuei by expulsion would put a mark on her record that any other school would probably see and turn away at if she tried to transfer anywhere else this side of Japan. She entered Yuei to fulfill her dreams and not even a whole month in had she put it on a wire to keep her chances at all. Trying to find and develop babies to keep her friends alive and she aids in nearly killing her best friend? How was she not at fault for that?
"I promise you it's not your fault," Midoriya continued over her silence. "You're my friend, Mei. I know you wouldn't try something like that intentionally. I know you're a good person. I was actually meaning to call about something else I've been meaning to tell you…it can wait. It's not as important." His voice drifted away a moment, a huff of static ringing through the silence. "Do you want to hang out after school tomorrow? Catch up a bit, make up for some lost time?"
Mei considered it for a moment, hands twitching to see him in person and check up on his physical wellness and the changes to his head, but her hands fell to her lap in defeat. "Maybe some other time," she turned down his offer. "You still have to train to be scouted by a hero agency and I have to finish up with my babies. We should stay focused for now."
The lack of his immediate response bit at the hairs on her neck, and she wished he was in front of her just to see his face and know better how he was feeling. His soft tone of voice was enough to give her a hint, but he had no reason to sound sad or sorry for things that weren't his fault. "Alright. After, then, before either of us have to go on a trip. See you soon, ri—"
Mei ended the call before he had to hear his voice any longer, letting her screen fall back to its locked picture of I-Island's famous inventor: David Shield. She heard the man was once All-Might's first sidekick of sorts, designing his early costumes and partnering with him around the hero's first time in America. It fit to have an image of the man on her phone; a reminder of who she was going to be to her own All-Might. Though the one time she mentioned it to Midoriya, his face soured before he thanked her for the support. What problem he had with the two men, she didn't know nor asked to; she just never mentioned the thought to him again.
She had promised to design costumes and gear for him and the rest of their friends, but all her notes had remained notes as they sluggishly provided her the information she needed to properly design her babies to their needs. There was only one she didn't need more info for, after sneaking a peek at his oddly simple costume and knowing all he had was that weird strength that dented the metal balls all those months ago, and yet she hadn't designed anything for him. Her one promise and she hadn't fulfilled it after an entire month of chances.
She didn't hesitate a second to rip one of her sketchbooks off her shelf and slam it on the desk in front of her. She didn't need a third design for the Sports Festival, and reconfiguring her babies could wait another day. If she was going to give Midoriya a proper apology, it'd be with a baby that could protect him properly.
Izuku stared at his phone screen, the page of Hatsume's contact information staring back at him. He hadn't been able to pull a text or a call out of her over the past few weeks since he recovered from the USJ incident — bar one text wishing him to get better and the picture of a peacock to end that conversation — and he'd been unable to even find her at school through the passing days, but three days before the Sports Festival she chooses to answer him and end the call without a goodbye? He was happy she answered at all, given what she had been withholding all that time.
The fight with Katsuki that had occurred almost three weeks ago, a week before the field trip to the USJ, felt like it happened almost three years ago; even for its intensity in combat, it melded in with every other time the blond went the extra mile to impress his superiority. Beating him in the exercise should have felt like a tremendous feat — the first fight he was declared a winner after losing so many squabbles year after year — but for all he had said to Katsuki and what he'd done do win, he was fine pushing the fight to the back of his mind. He didn't feel like a victor for his actions.
That couldn't compare to how Hatsume must have felt. He hadn't really thought about why Yuei let Katsuki take such weaponized gauntlets into a battle exercise if they were going to crack down on him so hard the day after; even knowing Katsuki's parents had sent the school a warning about his behavior, he left the school's decisions over others' costumes be theirs to worry about. Had he known how accurate that was, maybe he could have pressed for answers himself instead of worrying about his shitty, uncontrollable super strength to actually corner and talk with Hatsume. He wasn't going to blame her — he doubted she even knew who Katsuki was with how his name never came up before — but maybe finding her and saying it to her face would make her believe it more than she tried to convince him over the phone. He'd have to corner at school, if he could find out where she hid for lunch all the damn time.
"Another one of you midgets got hurt?" Izuku tore his eyes away from his phone to gaze up at Hunter, the taller boy striding past his seated form to stand closer to the shoreline. The older teen's face quipped an eyebrow up as though in genuine interest, but the green-haired teen just snickered and slapped his phone down on his lap.
"Not physically, no," he answered. "Friend of mine just made a mistake. A bad one. She's blaming herself too much for it."
"You tellin' me you need to run off to your girlfriend's house and comfort her for the rest of the day?"
The Yuei student cupped a clod of sand in his hand and tossed it at the older boy, watching as the wind swept most of it away before it could land on his pant legs. "Not my girlfriend," he immediately grumbled back at him. "And I don't know where she lives. Doubt she'll tell me if I ask now."
His new 'trainer' grunted to signify he was even listening, but Izuku continued to stare at the back of his head in the following silence. Hunter and Hatsume were in oddly similar boats to Izuku, when he thought about it. He considered them both good friends he was close with, but it really did feel like there was a great distance between them more than with the rest of his surrounding friends and classmates. So rarely did he spend time with or talk to them when he could, but they never really talked about themselves when they did. Aside from Hatsume's goals and her dream career path, he knew nothing about her family or homelife like he did Ojiro's martial arts family, Yaoyorozu's popularity, Uraraka's countryside life and Iida's hero legacy. And outside of Hunter's gruff and honestly pessimistic worldview and teachings he had shared with Izuku, the only other thing the young teen knew for certain was the other quirkless kid he had lost.
Izuku hadn't asked about who they were, the only other quirkless person the green-haired teen had ever heard about in his lifetime. With how less often their kind was born, he'd begun to wonder if there were any even alive in Japan. Not even of the adults he knew, or those he'd seen on the television working any sort of job; hearing there was ever a second one around brought Izuku to truly consider just how isolated he was in a sea of quirked society. But he never asked more about them, because he could tell Hunter never wanted to talk about it. Whatever had taken the other kid away from him — whoever they were to him — seemed too sensitive a subject to revisit, and he respected that. But Izuku was also aware that sharing and talking about such subjects was healthy, and if anything it was commendable that Hatsume even admitted to him something she could have withheld because it meant nothing to him but meant very much to her. Maybe that was her asking for help to move past it.
Maybe silence was Hunter's.
"Hey, Hunter." Izuku turned his head slightly, glancing at the older boy who looked back over his shoulder.
"Yeah?"
The green-haired teen bit his lip, taking a second to breathe. "What was he like? The other…quirkless guy you knew?"
Hunter stared at him quietly, his expression of peace — maybe the first time he'd ever looked serene in front of Izuku — slowly melting away into something flat, before turning back to the shore in its entirety. "What, you thinkin' of dedicating your fight in the Festival to him?"
The teenager shrugged. "Might. S'not a bad idea." When it became clear the older boy wasn't going to look his way again, Izuku turned his eyes back to the rolling waves of the shining sea. "I've just never met anyone else like me. Always wondered what things were like for them, better or worse. Sometimes I feel like I got the luck of the draw."
"Getting your ass beat in the middle of the street is considered lucky?"
"Getting to live my dream is." His lips quipped at the older teen's joke, and stayed a small smile as he continued, "Getting to be a hero. I don't think I really believed Yuei would accept me into their school, much less the hero course, until I got accepted. I don't think everyone wants to be a hero or do what I want to, but I don't feel" — he licked his teeth in reflection, scoffing another laugh behind a breath — "hated by everyone around me. Like everyone wished I wasn't around anymore. Did he get to live like that?"
He couldn't tell if the older boy was actually considering an answer to his question, but Izuku didn't really mind it if he decided against it. Mentioning his quirklessness was a sure fire way to get Hunter's jaw to clamp shut and up the intensity of his training, and the green-haired teen guessed it was one of the triggers to remembering the other kid. Izuku being born quirkless wasn't what triggered it, and he never humored it to be a problem between them, but the reminder of the powerless population was definitely the sensitive subject the older boy hadn't moved past.
Nedzu's theory rang through his ears — the humorous concept that his mysterious strength and durability was inexplicably linked to his quirkless genome — and Izuku wondered if Hunter's other friend ever showed signs like him of being something more than the perceived weaklings they were taught to be. Was there anyone like that out there, growing up quirkless and finding some untraceable power later in their life, or was he some unrepeatable case with no comparison or connection to the rest of mankind's evolution? He liked the theory less and less as time went on, Izuku mourned.
"He lived fine," Hunter finally spoke. He continued facing the ocean front, shoulders slouched as his feet rested in the sand. "Don't worry about him. You still have your own shit to work on. Those quirked kids will probably kick your ass if you're not paying attention."
"I pay attention and you still kick my ass," Izuku argued back, childishly blowing a raspberry at the older boy. "Thank you, by the way, for even doing this shit. Not sure YouTube videos would be enough to learn half of this shit in time."
"We stick up for each other." Hunter looked back at him, a frown pulling down his lips. "Have each other's backs. That's how we get by."
Despite the shape of the other boy's mouth, Izuku upturned his lips into a smile. "I'll vouch for you if you get arrested then. With the advice you give about 'talking' with people, I'm surprised you haven't been yet…You'd tell me if you've been arrested before, right?"
The older teen shrugged absentmindedly. "Can't get arrested if they're not fast enough to catch you. Get up." He kicked a wad of sand Izuku's way as he spun and walked back to the open space behind them. "You've rested enough. If you're not going anywhere, I might as well make you fast enough too."
Izuku shook his head at his friend's exaggerated advice and hauled himself to his feet, ready to trade blows with Hunter's blue-glowing fists and learn how to emulate it himself. If the older boy didn't want to talk about it, then he wasn't one to push. He understood that.
Izuku didn't like to talk about his father, either.