His eyes held so many emotions, but they were quickly overshadowed by his overwhelming hatred. In twelve years, he hadn't changed at all.
A smile grew on my face, watching him open and close his hands, over and over, grumbling under his breath while the redhead tried to calm him down.
The fact that no one came to his defense told me all I needed, chuckling as I put in my earbuds and called up Tim.
Tim was busy working on some computer thing, strings of zeroes filling his screen for a moment before he switched the camera.
"Hey, sorry about that. How was the flight?"
"Pretty good. I landed, got on a bus, and met my classmates. We're headed to, uh, I didn't ask, but we're probably headed to the main campus."
A grimace took the place of his smile, and I knew I'd missed something.
"You didn't read all of the instructions, did you?"
Quickly pulling out the paper, I read through, silent for a minute before I caught it. Camp? Ugh, I thought there'd be time in-between so I could adjust a little bit.
"Damn, that sucks. Guess it's a chance to show up these nobodies, though."
Tim laughed, and his wristwatch beeped before he switched his camera out the window, the batsignal shining.
"Already? Well, be safe, okay?" I told him, staring at the signal before the phone pointed at him again.
"You know I will. Have fun, Izu." He winked, and my heart beat sped up a little before he hung up, leaving me with a group of people I didn't know.
I spent the rest of the trip listening to music and staring out the window, right up until the bus stopped abruptly.
"Time for a break?"
Seeing everyone shuffling off the bus, I hopped off too, my bag over my shoulder, trailing after everyone else, catching the last part of a woman wearing a cat costumes explanation, another similarly dressed woman and a young kid standing nearby.
"Foot of that mountain over there."
A few of the others muttered nervously, and I pulled my earbuds out entirely.
"Is this not a bathroom break?"
I heard the grumpy guy mumbling from behind us as the mountain rumbled, prompting me to hover upwards before a dirt avalanche knocked everyone else off into the forest below.
I floated over the two cat woman, looking at the others down in the woods.
"Sorry, I wasn't listening. Why did you launch children off a mountain?"
They both hissed at me, apparently in surprise.
"You have to get to camp by twelve thirty or no lunch." The blonde cat woman explained, and I rolled my eyes.
"Whatever. I just wish U.A. could live up to the hype."
Floating off, I had no trouble high above the forest where the trees told me of dirt monsters fighting the others. It wasn't my problem, landing at the camp after about thirty minutes of casual cruising.
"Great. Nap time for Izu." I mumbled, wondering what time it was back home. Nine minutes after ten here was... like nine o'clock at night? Shit, timezones were confusing.
"Welcome! You're the first to arrive, so let us show you around." A green haired woman and a big buff guy in cat costumes told me, posing together before I started to walk off. God, was every hero a weirdo here?
"Hey! Come back here!" The buff one yelled, picking me up by the neck of my shirt and holding me before I turned into gas and slipped out of his grasp, solidifying and feeling my shirt sagging around the back of the neck.
"You dick! You stretched the neck of my shirt out! This was a limited edition collectors shirt. Man, this thing survived an attack from parademons and the time Riddler took over my school, and you ruined it in six fucking seconds! Fucking asswipe!"
It didn't matter how I came off, or If I got expelled from this shit academy. This thing was special, and he'd ruined it.
"I-I'm sorry. I did not mean t-" He started, reigniting my fury as I moved quickly in front of him, the vein in my forehead bulging as I solidified and pushed him hard.
I was yelling now, and I had no idea why I thought being a hero was the path for me.
"You suck! All heroes suck!"
It wasn't much, but it was enough to shock the both of them, turning on my heel and storming off. God, the villains in Gotham City were more polite than these bozos.
The trees calmed me, talking to me about the surrounding area and showing me a good place to hide away, a secret lair I could watch others struggle from for a little, learning their names and seeing their power in action, only leaving to go back for lunch. My anger wasn't enough to ignore that I hadn't eaten breakfast.
"Huh, I expected the others to be here by now. Well, that's the time it would have taken us to get here." The green haired catwoman, Ragdoll, spoke, but I was too busy with my meal to care. The bunch of idiots could go through the death forest if they wanted, I was not going to.
"You know, that was supposed to be a way for us to evaluate your skills." The grumpy guy told me, standing next to me while I ate.
"And? There's no way you'd let any of us die, so I checked out the situation and realized I wanted lunch. But you wanna evaluate somethin'? Let's go evaluate."
Standing and abandoning my meal, I stared him down.
He looked bored with me, like I didn't faze him, staring back down at me like i was more nuscance than person.
"No. I'll be doing that tomorrow anyway. But you, you're alienating yourself from your classmates. Every hero, no matter how powerful their quirks or powers, is only as strong as their allies. Where are yours?"
Clenching my jaw, I took a step forward, my stupidity disguised as bravery.
"Hey! Looks like a few of the others are finishing up!" Tiger called, and as my hobo looking teacher turned his head, killing any tension that had built.
"Oh, looks like a deer. My mistake."
The others didn't arrive until almost dinner time, an area full of ingredients that the shaggy looking guy had made me help set up. Turns out he was my teacher. Weird, I thought he was that elbow guys dad.
"About time. You guys missed lunch and nap time." I called to three of them in front. Iida, Bakugou, and that guy who looked like knockoff Zuko.
"How the hell did you beat me here!?" Bakugou screamed, looking furious at the thought that he wasn't the first one here. It was time to add fuel to that fire.
"I got here in around thirty minutes, I don't know what took you guys so long." I replied with a smile, waving to Uraraka and Iida. They were nice, and I didn't mind them as much
"You cheated, didn't you!?" The blonde screamed, my grin growing at his rage.
"I can fly dipshit, I never had to fight those things. But if you're so torn up about it, get me a sturdy baseball bat, preferably metal, and I'll do it tomorrow. And you know what? I'll do it in less than an hour."
I was only taunting him, but the hand gripping my shoulder definitely did not feel friendly.
"Great Idea Midoriya. How about we make this part of your physical exam? If you fail, you get cut." Aizawa told me, and I regretted running my big mouth. As much as I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to disappoint Tim, who thought I could do this.
"Sure thing. But when I do, I'm going to call you Hobo-man."
Making dinner went fairly smoothly, although the meal itself was kind of... not good. At least not compared to lunch. I guess that's what happened when you had high schoolers making food.
My table had Iida, Uraraka, and Tsuyu. At least everyone here was friendly. Except for Todoroki and Bakugou, but eighteen out of twenty was still pretty good. They didn't seem to mind my bad attitude too much.
"So, tell us about yourself, Midoriya." Tsuyu spoke, and I wonder what about me made other people think I wanted to be friendly.
"About myself? Man, I already spilled the good stuff on the bus, but I guess I could pull some juicy bits out from somewhere." I put my chopsticks down, glad to have an excuse not to use fail at using them in front of my peers.
Making a little list in my head, I turned my attention to the people looking at me. I wasn't that interesting, so why were they interested.
"Uh, I was born in Japan and immigrated to America when i was younger. I'm quirkless. Let's see, uh, oh, my favorite band i -"
The purple haired boy, Shinso, interrupted me in the middle of my sentence.
"Earlier, you said you flew here, but you're quirkless?"
Oh, yeah, I guess that made sense for the confusion.
"Yup. My powers don't come from a quirk, I have what's called a meta gene, and when my life was in danger, it activated."
Standing up, I moved back a little, demonstrating how I could fly when I made my body turn into gas while keeping my normal appearance.
"I can turn my body and clothes into helium and absorb other gasses to use for later. Right now, I'm full of a deadly toxin that makes people laugh to death, but I can control how much someone inhales and microdose them before reabsorbing it entirely. Or, if I'm dealing with multiple enemies, I can do this."
I moved further up, spreading out into a green cloud of toxin, letting them see before pulling myself back together.
"I'm also immune to most toxins, venoms, and poisons. Oh, and Herbaphony, or the ability to speak with plants. But those aren't a result of my meta gene, I had my DNA altered for that."
Some of them didn't seem to care, others thought it was cool, like Kaminari, who showed me his electricity quirk, which wasn't able to be aimed and hit the grass, starting a small fire that we had to take care of.
Iida began waving his arms roboticly again, making me wonder how one man could be such a square.
"You have powerful abilities, I'm sure your parents are proud of you."
Man, the Pandoras box he was prying at. If I kept it in, it was my secret to keep, and their memory was mine alone to remember. But if I did that, no one knew who they were, and they faded a little more.
"I hope so. When I was four, they were killed in a mugging. I don't know really how they'd feel, but I think my mama would be happy I'm safe, and my papa would be glad I'm turning my life around."
I'd never talked about them with someone else. It hurt a little, but it felt good. Maybe making peace didn't mean having to forget. But regardless, I made it awkward, and no one said anything for a moment.
"They have to be. I mean, after everything, you seem like a good person." Tsuyu told me, and I wanted it to be true, but I knew deep down I was awful.
"Oh, you did mention you lived with a rich guardian. What's that like?" Uraraka changed the subject, her accent slightly different from the others. Then again, I had a Jersey accent when I spoke Japanese, so who was I to compare?
"The secrets gonna come out sooner or later, so sooner it is. Mostly because the rich in Gotham are the worst kind of people, but also, I like the three of you. Sonic here reminds me of my boyfriend, Tim. Kirby makes me think of my friend Stephanie. And you got green hair like me, so we're friends because of that. Well, that and you all respected the forest earlier. The trees were grateful for it."
Tsuyu knocked on my forehead, and I wondered if I should retract my statement already.
"You were telling us about your guardian. If you're worried about being treated differently, there's a few people in class with rich parents."
Haha, I can't believe I got on a tangent and forgot already.
"Oh yeah. It's no big deal, but my guardian is Bruce Wayne."
That shut everyone up, and I felt nervous for a second. What could the difference possibly be between Bruce and the other rich kids' parents?
"Jeez, when you said rich, you meant rich. I mean, the Japanese branch of Waynetech funds ninety-seven percent of U.A." Iida told me, uncharacteristicly informal about it.
"Yeah, and at the end of the day, I'm here too. Bruce took me in literally yesterday. Or the day before, I guess? Time works weird on this side of the planet. Before that, I bounced around foster homes and the streets of Gotham. At least you know I was serious about the nepotism thing."
I sat back down, and thankfully, no one pressed the issue while everyone finished eating and helped clean up, the boys and girls separating so we could go to hot springs. Man, if this was U.A. camp, I could get used to this. The only weird part was being in my birthday suit around strangers, but hey, when in Rome.
Sitting comfortable in a spot away from Kaminari. One sneeze, and we were all gonna be belly up.
"Hey, what happened with the person I replaced? What's the story with that?"
Kirishima answered that one, looking a little awkward as he cleared his throat.
"Um, well, you see, the guy you replaced was a tiny midget with um, problems understanding the word "No." He touched the wrong person. She beat him, burned him, knocked his jewels up inside him. She was so manly when she gave him that beatdown."
Well, that answered one question and gave me another.
"Manly like she's got a lot of muscle or manly like she's got a mustache? I mean, I'm not judging, just curious."
Shaking his head, he splashed water on a few of us.
"Nah, like, manly being a way to describe things. It's just my own way of saying something is cool."
That cleared that up, and as I sank further into the water, I let my worries wash away. It seemed that for the first time in a long time, things were gonna be okay.