The students had a few days off after the UA Sports Festival, a much-needed break for the first years who had given their all in the event. But for the teachers of UA, there was no rest. They had to prepare for the next phase of their students' education: the work placements and internships. This was a crucial task that involved all the teachers, regardless of their specialty, as they had to assess each student's abilities and interests and match them with suitable heroes or agencies.
In a large well lit conference room inside the school, the staff members had gathered together to discuss the logistics of the upcoming placements, but another topic was on the minds of Sekijiro Kan (Vlad King) and Higari Maijima (Power Loader). Namely, what to do with Kuri Kuri?
"He's dead set on a transfer, Kan," Power Loader began, "Are you willing to give him a chance?"
Vlad King nodded, keeping his usual serious expression, which was hard to avoid with his teeth. "The lad has something unique, he'd fit in well with my lot. But heroics is a tough road to walk, and the competition is fierce. While he did well in the festival, you and I both know a lot of that was due to lucky matchups. He'd need to put in twice the effort of my other students to keep up. Tell me, as his teacher, do you believe he possesses the qualities we look for in a hero? Have you seen any of the signs of heroism?"
"I have, Kan," Power Loader replied, "but I've got concerns. Kuri Kuri is, to be blunt, one of the most academically gifted students I've ever taught. He's exceptional. The problem is his complete lack of self-confidence. The Kuri we saw during the festival is a far cry from the quiet boy in my class." Maijima stroked his chin in contemplation. "But maybe that's what would make him a great hero. He always pushes himself to do better because he thinks what he's done so far isn't enough. When he applied for my course he brought in more than a dozen pieces of gear that would have guaranteed him a spot, all because he kept thinking what he had already wasn't enough. When he found out he'd be competing in the festival, he trained non-stop for two months and mastered techniques I've seen pro heroes struggle with after years."
"That could be a double-edged sword. I don't want anyone in my class who lacks a sense of self-preservation," Vlad King remarked.
Power Loader reclined in his chair, reflecting on the words of the blood hero. While the conference room buzzed with other teachers discussing student placements, Kan and Maijima remained engrossed in deliberating Kuri's future.
"I get your worries, sure." Power loader said. "But we've been in this business for a long time. We've seen heroes from all kinds of backgrounds. Some of them started with too much confidence, others with too little, but I think it's our job to help them find that balance, right?"
Vlad King sighed and ran a hand through his silver hair. "Yeah, maybe he just needs the right environment. Putting him straight into my class might not be helpful, but a trial period could be a good idea."
"Thanks, Vlad. He could go far, he just needs some help."
The two teachers shook hands, agreeing on their plan, then turned their attention back to the other student's placements. In the short few hours since the festival there had already been a flood of heroes offering spots in their agencies or support teams. This year, the support course had impressed everyone, so the pile of papers on Power Loader's desk was much bigger than usual. It was still nothing compared to the piles on Kan and Eraserhead's desks, though.
The trouble was, the papers for Aizawa were unlikely to start going down any time soon, considering the underground hero still hadn't shown up to work.
As Maijima diligently worked on sorting through various offers for each of his students, he couldn't help but steal glances at the empty table nearby, a mixture of disappointment and frustration evident on his face. He muttered under his breath, "Makes me wonder if Aizawa even cares about his students…"
Present Mic, seated nearby, swiftly came to his friend's defence, his trademark sunglasses concealing the subtle annoyance in his eyes. "Hey, man! Don't be too hard on him. Aizawa has his own way of caring."
Maijima sighed and responded, "Yeah, well, he sure has a funny way of showing it."
Across the room, Toshinori Yagi sat in relative silence, immersed in the details of potential placements for his general education and business studies students. He wished he could be there today as All Might, helping with hero agency placements, but he was preserving One for All in case it was needed later. Yagi harboured his own concerns about Aizawa, both in his role as a colleague and as a mentor to the students. He desperately wished to address the issue of his students' diminishing trust in their homeroom teacher, which had been weighing heavily on his mind.
Amid Power Loader's ongoing rant about Aizawa's perceived negligence, he added with a hint of exasperation, "The guy does even less paperwork than All Might, and that's saying something." Suddenly, violent coughing erupted from across the room, sending a wave of concern rippling through the staff.
"Whoa, Yagi! You okay over there?" Power Loader asked, worried.
Hastily, Yagi grabbed his polka-dotted handkerchief and clamped it over his mouth, wildly waving his other hand to calm the room. "Sorry, sorry, nothing to worry about, just swallowed a bug." Maybe he should pretend to go to the bathroom, then come back as All Might to do some paperwork as the big guy. Would anyone notice? It seemed to work for Clark Kent. But then again, Clark Kent was a comic book character, and this was real life. Probably best not to tempt fate.
Mei Hatsume hated sleeping in. Despised it. To her, it felt like an absolute waste of time. If she could have her way, she'd function on less than an hour of rest per day – a feat she'd attempted a few times with varying levels of success. So, when she finally stirred from her slumber and realised that she had just squandered eleven precious hours of her life, she wasn't particularly impressed.
She rubbed her eyes and unstuck the hair from her face, and heard her joints emit faint cracks as she stretched, wincing at the discomfort in her lower back. "Arghh! Crap, what the hell?!" she yelled, rubbing her aching muscles. "What did I do to myself…?" It took her a few seconds to remember her battles in the tournament, getting tossed around the arena, fighting a mech, losing her crossbow.
"Oh, God damn it, I fell asleep in public." she muttered to herself, rubbing the bridge of her nose in embarrassment. Now everyone would know she was just a regular human! Well, that only meant she had to work even harder today to compensate for the lost time.
Mei, with her ability to change into her Mayhem suit in record time, had turned getting dressed into an art form. Within a minute, she was all set to tackle the day, her backpack loaded with various spare parts, and her mind buzzing with ideas for new babies following the sports festival. Her top priority was addressing the main weakness in her crossbow – being stepped on. But even before that, she had one essential daily ritual that she'd followed ever since her parents gave her a phone to stop her from taking apart the TV trying to make her own: texting Izuku.
Mei swiftly tapped out a message on her phone: "Morning/afternoon. Slept in. What's the plan?" She knew that Izuku was the kind of person who always responded quickly to messages, or at least, he always responded quickly to her messages. It wouldn't be long before she heard back.
Okay, there's an S on the message, so it definitely sent. It's usually turned into an R by now to say he read it…
She headed downstairs, passing her mother, who appeared to be tinkering with the light fixtures. Her mother stood precariously on the back of a dining chair, holding a glowing lightbulb between her teeth, occasionally poking her finger into different open sockets. "Oh mor'in 'ei!" she greeted Mei before removing the bulb from her mouth. "Nice of you to join us in the land of the living!"
"Hi mom," Mei answered, distractedly looking at her phone. "Are you rewiring the house again?"
"Yeah, I'm trying to! I keep getting a toothache every time I walk by this lamp, so I think the voltage is off," Misaki Hatsume explained. Her quirk, Current Insight, granted her the ability to sense electrical currents and electromagnetic fields, while also rendering her immune to electrocution. It had made her a renowned electrical engineer, a talent her daughter Mei had inherited. The downside was that Misaki constantly felt disturbances in electrical systems, leading to her frequent tinkering and rewiring around the house.
Mei, still waiting for a response on her phone, suggested, "You could just use a multimeter to check the voltage, Mom."
Misaki shrugged off the idea. "Nah, that's too boring. I like to feel the current in my veins. It's exhilarating!" With that, she placed another lightbulb in her mouth and resumed her work.
Mei shook her head and walked into the kitchen, where she found her dad tinkering away on his own pet project. If Mei took after her mother when it came to gadgets, she definitely took after her dad when it came to quirks. Takumi Hatsume's quirk, Microscope, allowed him to magnify his vision to extreme levels, but only from a distance of about 12 inches. Although he could have pursued a career in biology or medicine, he followed his true passion – creating intricate miniature woodworking and textiles. Hatsume brand dollhouse furniture had become a household name among those in the know.
"Morning sweetie," he said, carefully inserting a tiny thread into a needle. "Did you sleep well?"
"Mmhm," Mei replied, her mind clearly preoccupied. She leaned against the kitchen counter, her thoughts on something else entirely. "Hey, Dad, how long do you think you should wait for someone to not respond to a text before you start getting concerned?"
Takumi pondered the question for a moment, his quirk deactivating as his eyes dilated to their normal state. "That's a tricky one. How long has it been?"
"About six minutes," Mei replied.
Takumi considered the timeframe. "Hmm, longer than that, I'd say. Izuku's probably just caught up in something, or maybe his phone's on silent," he suggested optimistically.
"Yeah, maybe... Hey, I never mentioned it was Izuku!"
Her dad chuckled, "Lucky guess. I'm sure he'll get back to you sooner or later! Now, how about some delicious pancakes to start the day?"
While the breakfast did make her feel a little better, It had now been a full thirty minutes since she'd sent her message – an unusually long time for Izuku Midoriya. Normally, he couldn't stand to be away from his phone for that long, especially leaving a text unanswered. Concerned, prompting her to open the messaging app and head for the support course group chat. Scrolling through the messages, she noted with growing anxiety that Izuku hadn't posted anything there since before the festival.
She quickly typed out, "Izuku?" into the group chat, hoping for a response. But there was no reply from the boy in question. Instead, a response from Hana popped up.
"Hi Mei! What's up?"
"Has anyone heard from Izuku? He's not answering texts."
"Oop! Nopee not heard anything. I hope he's okay!"
Kazutani was next to answer, "Izuku please answer your texts, thank you. Kazutani."
"You don't have to sign your messages, it says your name next to them." Yamashita responded. Kuri Kuri sent a bitmoji of himself waving hello, which everyone liked.
Realising she wasn't getting any concrete answers from the group chat, Mei decided to take matters into her own hands. She made up her mind to head over to Izuku's house and find out what was going on in person.
Mei's heart raced with every instinctive glance at her phone, no matter how much she tried to stop checking the unread messages and unanswered phone calls. Though it hadn't been that long, an unsettling blend of concern and unease settled within her as the silence from his end gnawed away at her. It was hard to shake that feeling that something was wrong.
Determined to find answers, Mei boarded the bus bound for Izuku's apartment. On the journey there, she reached out to more of their mutual friends on the off chance someone else had heard from him more recently. Ochaco, along with others from the hero course, all replied disconcertingly. Nobody had heard from Izuku since yesterday.
The sinking feeling in her chest kept deepening, but she kept telling herself he was probably just busy, or his phone was on silent, or he dropped it down a manhole, or a crow stole it. All just a simple misunderstanding! Nevertheless, the dread lingered.
Once she got to the apartment building, she sprinted up the stairs and urgently banged on the door. No response came from the other side. Tentatively testing the door, she found it unlocked and swinging open effortlessly. "Hello?" she called out, stepping hesitantly into the unlit apartment. She glanced around, desperately hoping to find some sign of Izuku or his mother, but the apartment was completely empty. No signs of life to be found anywhere.
Fitting her goggles over her eyes, Mei scanned the room for clues, spotting their phones partially hidden underneath the living room couch. It looked as though they'd been abandoned, but why would that be? Where had they vanished to?
Five minutes later, Mei stumbled out of the apartment, gasping for breath, her body trembling with shock. She steadied herself against the wall, her mind reeling as she tried to come to terms with what she had just seen.
There was a body in Izuku's bathtub.
She squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to regain her composure. "Okay! Okay okay okay!" She muttered frantically. "Breathe, Mei! This is not weird! There's nothing weird happening here! Everything is totally normal! Apart from the body in Izuku's bath!"
Opening her eyes once more, she forced herself to think rationally. "Alright, here's what I know. Izuku and his mom are missing - check. Their phones were left behind - double check. There's a dead guy in the bath?! Triple check!" She was not making a very successful attempt at calming down.
Panic surged within her, the questions mounting up. What happened here? Where had they gone? Were they safe? Her trembling hands reached toward her phone, but indecision was holding her back. Was calling the police really the best course of action? The recent conversation with Eraserhead about potential corruption in the police force was fresh on her mind, after all.
This was one of those moments where she wished she'd gotten her teachers' phone numbers. There would definitely be someone at UA who could help.
Wait! There IS someone at UA who can help!
Sprinting away from the apartment, Mei rapidly scaled a nearby building and crouched behind a low wall. Her backpack contained her Mayhem helmet, which she placed in her lap, fingers expertly working on the inbuilt communications unit. She remembered that when Izuku was helping with her vigilante activities the night she tested her wingsuit, he'd used his laptop on a closed network. But it wasn't entirely closed; there was one other piece of technology sharing that connection.
"Wow, look who's finally decided to grace us with his presence!" Maijima jeered as his hands came together in a mocking applause as Aizawa sauntered into the room. Undeterred, the underground hero took his seat, picked up a document and indifferently flicked his eyes from one page to the next. The room bristled with tension.
"Typical." Power Loader muttered under his breath.
Eraserhead swivelled in his chair, fixing his colleague with an icy stare. "Got something you want to say?" he inquired.
Power Loader shot back, "If I did, I doubt you'd actually listen. We all know how tough it is to get you to consider other people's opinions."
Eraserhead frowned, "Is this still about the entrance exam?"
Power Loader scoffed, "No, Aizawa, this isn't about the entrance exam anymore. It's about your whole attitude. That holier-than-thou, 'I'm-better-than-you' persona you've got going on. You stroll in here four hours late for a meeting and can't even muster a tiny apology. Frankly, it's a miracle when you show up for work at all..."
Aizawa's eyes narrowed, and he clenched his jaw. "If you've got issues with my teaching methods- "
A new voice joined them from across the room, unable to hold back any longer. "I do have a problem with your teaching methods," Mr. Yagi declared in a calm yet firm tone. "You're excessively hostile, you feed your students lies, and you threaten them with expulsion at the slightest provocation without giving them a chance to improve. Aizawa, you're not a teacher; you're a tyrant."
Aizawa's anger simmered as he locked eyes with the stick thin man before him. "You're not even a hero, Yagi. How can you claim to understand how this world works? You sit in your office all day, hiding behind All Might. You call me a tyrant, but I'd rather be that than a coward."
The room fell silent, the other teachers gazing at the two men in shock. They knew there were differences in their teaching philosophies, but nobody expected things to get this heated and personal.
Mr Yagi's eyes flashed with anger, and smoke started to rise from his shoulders. Vigilant, Midnight saw this and slammed her hand on the table, before All Might could burst onto the scene. "Enough!" She yelled. "This is not the time or place for this kind of argument. We're here to review internships, not to hurl insults and start fights!"
She paused, hoping for an apology or at least a sign of contrition, but both Aizawa and Mr. Yagi remained silent.
"Both of you need to calm down and act like the professionals you are," she admonished. "You're supposed to be role models for your students, not each other's enemies. If you can't work together, then you can leave right now."
The room hung in a tense silence as the two teachers begrudgingly returned to their work, the confrontation temporarily defused. It was a brief respite, broken like the glass in the door which suddenly shattered, and a small robot rolled to a stop in the centre of the room.
"Emergency! Help needed, urgent, like right now!" The little robot Deku blared, but something was definitely off.
Power Loader was the first to detect the change. "Hatsume?! Is that you?" he exclaimed, recognizing her voice.
Back near Midoriya's apartment, Mei had strapped on the Mayhem helmet and was frantically pacing the rooftop, with Deku mirroring her every move. "Yeah, it's me! There's trouble, Izuku and his mom are missing. And there's... There's more, but I don't know what's safe to tell you. But it's... It's really bad."
Power Loader leaped from his seat, vaulted over a table, and dashed for the door, only to be intercepted by another teacher.
"Hold on there, partner! We're taking the Snipemobile!" Snipe declared, brandishing a shiny set of keys. Power Loader nodded in agreement, and the two of them sprinted out of the room.
"Someone needs to inform Nezu or call the police!" Midnight urged.
"Fear not, dear teachers," Nezu's voice spoke over the intercom system, ever vigilant of his staff and students. "I have the police on the line as we speak."
Suddenly, Eraserhead barked, "Hang up the phone immediately, sir! Trust me on this!"
"Oh my! Very well, Shota," Nezu responded. "I trust you have our best interests at heart. Please come to my office at once to provide the details!"
"An compromised police force, you say?" Nezu asked, his voice calm and measured. "That's a serious claim. Do you have any proof?"
Aizawa pulled out a small device from his pocket and set it on the table. "This is what I recorded in Detective Omasuba's office," he said, pressing a button.
"Rosa! It's so good to see you!"
"Hi Kiko, just checking up on you"
A few weeks prior, a woman lounged on a chair in her sister's office, feeling relaxed. "So, what kind of crazy case are you working on now?"
"You won't believe this, but someone tried to attack UA with the most ridiculous weapon ever!" Kiko Omasuba exclaimed. "Guess what it was!"
"Umm... A giant slingshot! No, a swarm of bees!"
"Cutlery!" she squealed. "They were throwing forks at the students, can you imagine?"
"Wow, these villains are really running out of ideas, huh?" Rosa Omasuba said, leaning on her sister's desk with her chin in her hands. Under the table, her foot gently tapped the side of the detective's computer.
Eraserhead stopped the playback. "Did you catch that? That tapping sound?"
"I most certainly did," Nezu nodded. "It appears they were dangerously close to discovering your surveillance device. However, I'm curious about your allegations. While the detective shouldn't be sharing classified information with family members, it doesn't exactly point toward corruption! Where is this accusation coming from?"
"The very moment I detected that sound, an additional 70MB of files mysteriously appeared in the police system," Eraserhead explained.
"Why, Mr. Aizawa, are you suggesting that you've been delving into the police force's databases?"
"Yes."
"Capital work!" Nezu exclaimed with a grin.
"Rosa Omasuba has visited her sister three more times since I bugged their system, and every time, new files have appeared on their computers. I have reason to suspect a connection between this woman and the attack on my person. One of my field operatives has been assisting me, and based on her information, it seems likely that the new files are being used to divert Tsukauchi's attention elsewhere," Eraserhead continued. "At this point, we're in the dark about who's pulling the strings within the Musutafu police department."
"A deeply troubling thought," Nezu acknowledged. "But I believe our top priority should be locating Rosa Omasuba. Don't you agree?"
Meanwhile, Power Loader and Snipe had finally arrived at the apartment, where a restless Mei Hatsume was pacing outside. She spotted them and ran towards them, waving her arms frantically. "Took you guys long enough!" she exclaimed. "What took you so long? Did you stop for coffee or something?"
Maijima, taking charge of the situation, directed Mei to wait. He was about to enter the apartment, when Mei urgently grabbed his forearm. "Wait," she interjected, her grip firm. "There's... There's a body in the bathroom." She saw the shock and horror in his eyes, and quickly reassured her teacher, "It's not them! I don't know who it is, but I don't think Izuku had anything to do with it."
Power Loader nodded. He turned to Snipe and said, "Snipe, can you stay out here with her?"
"You got it, partner," Snipe replied with a flair, rolling the barrel of his gun dramatically.
As Power Loader entered the building, Snipe turned to Mei, attempting to shift her focus away from the grim discovery. "Saw your fights over at the festival, lil lady, you're a damn good shot with those peashooters."
"Peashooters?! I'll have you know those were top of the line-!"
Snipe cut her off with a hearty laugh and a friendly hit on the back. "I'm just teasin'! Shucks, kids're easy to rile up. I think you an' me need to have a lil chat about you building me some new gear, whaddya say? O' course, that'll depend on whether you pick me for your internship…"
Before Mei could answer, Power Loader returned, his expression grave. In his hand, he held two forks, stained with dried blood. He showed them to Snipe and said in a low voice, "Hatsume, go home. We can handle this. Snipe, we're going to the Yaoyorozu estate." He insisted, showing Snipe the distinctive Y sigil on the end of the cutlery.
