Chapter 4. The Day Before

RIN-RIN! RIN-RIN! RIN-RIN!

Izuku Midoriya stretched out his limbs, yawning up a storm as he returned to the waking world. As he was want to do to determine the tempo of his morning routine, he double checked the alarm clock and the calendar several times to make sure he didn't accidentally oversleep and that nothing too big was happening that day.

'8:15 AM. Thursday. 8:15 AM. Thursday. 8:15 AM. Thursday.'

After repeating that info in his head a few times, he figured he could take things at a normal, unrushed pace since he remembered the buzz was all for Friday, had another couple stretches and yawns for good measure, and jumped out of bed.

He shuffled to the bathroom to brush his teeth, wash out any stanky breath, comb his head as well as someone with hair as naturally poofy and spikey like him could, and generally do his best to make himself look clean and presentable as befitting someone trying to live up to the high standards he set for himself.

After, he got dressed up in his school uniform, grabbed his bookbag, made sure both his hero notebooks and all his other school stuffs were present in their proper order, threw it over his right shoulder, and hopped down the stairs with an extra pep in his step, humming blithely to himself.

After all, while today wasn't the day, it was only a day away!

"Good morning Izuku!" His mom, Inko Midoriya, said in her cheery voice, flipping over eggs and rice for his breakfast. "How did you sleep?"

"Morning, mom!" he chirped, clearing the final step and strolling normally to the kitchen table. "I slept well."

The short, portly, green haired woman smiled in relief, and noticed that despite his assessment, there was certainly something… more… about him today. "Are you meeting All-Might again today? Or is it that, combined with another whatever-it-is that has you as jumpy as a rabbit?"

Izuku beamed and was about to speak, but caught himself at the last second. He struggled a bit with how to phrase things in light of what All-Might had told him so as not to make his mother worried like he knew she'd be. Even if that info honestly only made Izuku himself even more giddy with anticipation.

Soon, however, he settled in just telling her what any normal kid attending UA sans that kind of inside baseball would know. "We're getting some foreign exchange students soon! Tomorrow!"

"Ooooo! So exciting! Where are they exchanging from? Brazil? China? Okinawa?" the supportive parent who worked so hard for her son asked, almost getting just as giddy herself. She often wondered what it would be like to travel to different places. How exciting that Izuku would experience some culture!

Izuku politely chuckled to himself at her accidental faux pas about Okinawa and said, "Actually, they're all from America."

"Oh! Uhhh… how… unique!" she said, slightly disappointed but no less happy for her son to experience some variety of different perspectives. The West was a wild place, full of intrigue and adventure, and the people there had many great experiences to share.

"Just make sure you mind your Ps and Qs, alright? And ask All-Might his advice before acting rashly. He studied abroad, so he's your best source of information."

Izuku nodded, going, "Hai!"

His mother nodded back, the final bit of food finished cooking. Putting it all on a couple of plates, she walked towards the kitchen table, but as soon as she placed them down, she looked at time and went, "Oh no! The clock! The battery stopped… which means it's fifteen minutes behind!"

Izuku's eyes went wider than the breakfast plates before him and his mouth dropped so low as to hit the table. "Fifteen minutes behind!? WHAAAAA!?"

He immediately jumped from the tables, scarfed down as much of his food as he could, and dashed for the front door in his socks.

"IZUKU WAIT!" Inko screamed, catching him by the back of his collar and dragging him back inside, forcefully shoving his feet forwards into his shoes, and hurriedly giving him his bento and onigiris. "Be safe! I'll see you when you return! I LOVE YOU!" her voice trailed off as her son bolted away, giving a wonderful impression of the stereotypical high strung japanese teen high-tailing it to school with toast in their mouth.

On his marathon sprint to school, he ran into Mineta, who had acquired a moped from… somewhere… and was speeding behind a very familiar limo. Izuku waved to him, and ran on, determined to get to school before the chime sounded.

Mineta however, was determined to keep up with the vehicle, pulling up alongside it and winking suggestively, pointing to his ride and gesturing frantically.

"Momo-chaaaaaaaaaaaan! Look at meeeee! Don't I look cool? Available, hunky ride right?! Will you join my harem now?"

A metal pipe flying out of the window of the limo was the answer that literally knocked him flat on his caboose and wrapped him around a telephone pole. Before he could even pick his petite purple head out of said pole, he had to watch as his beloved moped sailed past him, right into oncoming traffic. His eyes became dead inside as he watched the white angelic vehicle skid into the path of an oncoming delivery truck, and meet its untimely end in a burst of exploding plastic composites.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he wailed, the ensuing wreckage just crushing any dreams he had of acquiring the necessary entertainment he so craved. "What… how… how am I going to buy a new one now?" The ocular gushers spewed, and flooded the street nearest him.

"How about you work for it like everyone else, sonny?" a small old lady with a trench coat and walker said as she shuffled away. "Everyone else does it."

Still devastated, the pint-sized perv dragged himself to the school, moping over the moped all the way, but pondering the stranger's words, thinking it might not be such a bad idea… later.

The old lady watched him go and then slunk into the sewers, cackling madly, her high-pitched voice evolving to a more masculine, high-pitched howl.

MHA-MHA-MHA

Tomura Shigaraki looked at the man who had entered the lair with not a hint of suspicion. After all, why should he bother? This was his stronghold and he held all the powerups. The blue-haired skeletal teen cocked his head and asked in slight annoyance, "So, you are a quirkless, but powerful piece that thinks he can be an asset to my party. You dress weird. Pick a color, black or orange. I don't like you. Tell me why I shouldn't disintegrate you right now."

Slade snarled as he remembered the rapt conversation that happened three weeks prior. He might have been a mercenary, but he was no one's lapdog. Especially not a lapdog's lapdog. He didn't need to prove anything to anyone, least of all a spoiled, overly-ambitious brat who wore a literal hand as a face decoration! One who for all his faith in his powerset, could not hope to affect Slade even if suddenly mutated into a hecatoncheir.

He slunk around the city streets, and took to the roof to observe his surroundings. He was in the bustling district of Shibuya, this much was obvious. The 105 building standing proudly above the Scramble Crossing, and the Hachiko statue peering down at the passers-by like his inspiration, a guard for the masses.

Shigaraki had tasked the mercenary with gathering a few new recruits as official spies, and the individual he sought was supposedly native to this district. A thief or so it was claimed. Slade thought anyone like that would be redundant at this point.

However this was no ordinary thief.

"I hear you've been looking for me."

The merc didn't even flinch. He was surprised, however, that the voice behind him was so young. Hardly older than a high schooler. He turned his head and looked at the Phantom Thief, in his red gloves and black outfit, the white mask a stark contrast but highlighting his burning yellow eyes.

"I need your skills," the man said. "You'd be a part of writing history. All you have to do is keep your eyes open and mouth closed. A new era is coming, and you don't want to be on the losing… dying… side."

The thief snorted. "I may be a thief, but I'm not interested. I subscribe to a justice people like you would never understand."

Slade frowned under his mask. This was all so tiring. Why was there so much honor among thieves nowadays? Stupid, pretentious, puerile heroes inspiring even the lowliest of bottomfeeders.

He narrowed his eye into a very testy slit. "Really? Hmmm… you'd go against a massive army just to please your conscience?"

The thief got ready to jump off the roof. "Buddy, I've taken on two literal gods and won. What makes you think your army is any threat?" With that, the young criminal literally yeeted himself off the roof and vanished into thin air.

"Well… this is an inconvenience… for Shigaraki," Slade said with a growl. "That brat will never let me hear the end of this…"

With that, the mercenary took out his list and moved on down it, deciding to jump a district over and get in touch with another candidate. One, he hoped, would not be a total waste of time.

MHA-MHA-MHA

'Just one block away! Just one block away!' Izuku thought, huffing and puffing on the toast still lodged in his teeth as he drew so close to his beloved Hero Academia.

Normally, under the circumstances, he wouldn't use up precious oxygen on thinking in complete sentences even given his proximity, but the delicious wagyu butter his mother had slathered generously on the toast this morning gave him a bit of excess strength/oxygen to spare.

'Man. This stuff is REALLY good. Gotta remember to ask mom to make it a regular on the grocery list, assuming it's not too expensive. Money's a little tighter in this economy than normal, and she already works so hard that I don't wanna burden–'

Unfortunately, while the wagyu butter was energizing and both delicious and nutritious, it didn't render Izuku anymore aware of his surroundings, myopically laser focussed in on getting to school on time as he was. If it did, he might have reacted to the rustic Schützenschuh that suddenly decided to poke out of the alley he was passing just in time NOT to be tripped and fall straight down, right into an awaiting straight punch to his face.

After being knocked hard on his back onto the pavement, Izuku hardly had the time to groan and spit out a couple drops of blood running from his nose into his mouth before a pair of massive hands wrapped around his throat and forced him off the floor. Legs dangling helplessly nearly fifty odd centimeters in the air, hands trying desperately yet failing miserably to pry away the fingers slowly choking the life out of him, Izuku got his first good look at his surprise attacker.

He was a tall teen. A very tall teen. Well over two hundred centimeters in height.

His arms and legs were both like tree trunks compared to Izuku's noodly toothpicks.

He wore lederhosen, a short sleeve trachten shirt, and a tyrolean hat with a white feather.

His head was a curly mop of raven locks.

He was snarling with his mouth open so wide that Izuku couldn't help but notice the great big gap in between his two front teeth.

Overall, he reminded Izuku of some sort of food mascot for nuts or something he saw one time but couldn't place.

Definitely some sort of German, maybe Austrian.

As if to give the gagging, struggling teen final confirmation, the giant teen then said, in broken, heavily accented japanese, "Izuku Midoriya! Bleaaaggghhh! I got you! I finally got you! Learning this silly girly tongue of yours! Leaving Austria on that cargo plane! Stalking your every girly move for the perfect moment, and now I got you! I finally got you! Bleaaaggghhh!"

"Wha… who… who even… are you!?" Izuku managed somehow to gasp out.

"I am the terror that sings in rapid pitch shifts into the night! Bleaaaggghhh! I am the batteries that are not included in your authentic electronic black forest cuckoo clock! Bleaaaggghhh!"

'Someone… sounds… cuckoo here… and… it's got… nothing… to do… with me!'

"I am the overgrown fingernail that scrapes the Schultafel of your no good, goody two-shoes soul, Izuku Midoriya! Bleaaaggghhh!" the big, buff, Austrian ALP of a man pulled Midoriya closer to his granite chiseled face. "I am Der Jodler, and now, I can FINALLY prove that my quirk is the greatest to all the little girly men back at schul by defeating the so-called greatest teen hero in training in Die Welt, you girly man! Bleaaag–!"

Izuku had heard enough. Everything he both needed and wanted to complete the Crime Triangle in his mind.

Motive.

Means.

Opportunity.

Charging up One For All, he'd already formulated his plan of attack. He'd kick this weirdo in the gut to get out of his hold, make a break for the nearest Hero Agency with this guy on his heels, and let them handle things to avoid any issues of legality or morality or ethicacy. Yes, he had his hero license already. But there were still so many pitfalls considering when and where this ambush was taking place that he didn't want to accidentally fall into that his gambit was honestly the safest bet.

So, he went with it. Both his legs struck out and sent the muscly man crashing into a trash can hard enough to dent it and knock both it and him over. Landing wobbly on his feet, Izuku turned tail and ran, not stopping to enjoy being able to breathe properly again, though he did take some time to wipe off some of the blood still leaking from his nostrils as he went. He racked his brain, trying to remember which Hero Agency exactly was the closest.

'Probably either MT Lady's or Kamori Wood's,' he thought, rounding a corner. 'They always seem to respond the fastest in this area!'

Before he could decide which one was the one for him though, he turned his head back to see the crazed Austrian colossus sprinting towards him at olympic level speeds as said oversized, titanic teen shouted, "Midoriya, you girly man! Bleaaaggghhh! Get back here and face your DOOM! YODELAYHEEEHOOOOOOOOOO!"

"AHHHHH!" a noise, a terribly shrill, terribly blaring, terribly abrasive noise assaulted not just Izuku's ears but his very mind. So painful was it that he tripped and fell, ignoring the resultant scrapes and bruises and curling into a ball, hands pressing as tightly against his ears as he could without resorting to superpowers. Powers he couldn't call upon anyways because all he could think about was making the agony stop.

"Hahahahaha!" laughed Der Jodler, casually strolling up next to him, somehow still audible over his and maintaining his yodeling at the same time. "I vuld not bother if I vere you, bleaaaggghhh! Covering your ears does about as much good as putting goggles ovah your eyes! Ze jodles I make are not physical, but psychic–directly stimulating the auditory receptors of your little girly man mind! You could have vibranium earplugs and it vuldn't do you any good, you bishonen pretty boy!"

Izuku at this point was so beside himself with pain over the psionic yodeling that he hardly felt the rough kick to his back Der Jodler made to emphasize his point.

Whether that was a good thing or not, he didn't know. All he did was that the pain needed to stop. It needed to stop. It needed to stop. It needed to stop.

'Please, someone, anyone! Make it stop! Please!'

After a few minutes of such torture, punctuated every couple of seconds by another kick or punch to various points of his body from the crazy quirk abusing Austrian and his triumphant, evil german laughter, Der Jodler's voice suddenly caught. Both his normal one and his psychic one.

As intense as his mental assault yodeling was, once it was over and Izuku could think for even a moment, any lingering pain was near instantly evaporated by him calling on the power of his quirk, his system now flooding with supercharged adrenaline dulling any such sensations. Like a cornered animal about to spring out, his body fairly erupted in arcs of green electricity, he jumped to his feet, and twisted around with a kick designed literally to sweep the mad Austrian off his feet…

…Only to find the giant teen suspended in the air, a familiar microfilament band wrapped around the body of the annoyance.

"Bleaaaggghhh! WHO DARES TO!?"

Der Jodler clearly was trying to fire his quirk, his face scrunched up like he was thinking way too hard. Or was really constipated. Or maybe both. Izuku didn't know. He wasn't exactly a good judge of others' bowel movements. Not even he would go that exhaustive in his research.

"Huh." Turning his quirk off, Izuku followed the band all the way up to the rooftop of a nearby building where, as he expected, he found his homeroom teacher standing as stiff and dispassionate as ever.

"Hmmmmph. And here I was expecting not to have to exert so much effort this early in the morning. Midoriya, get to class," Eraser Head said tiredly.

Izuku blinked owlishly a few times, looking between the depowered Austrian teen and his instructor before going, "Uhhh… right. Thank you, sensei!" He made to straighten up and bow, but as he did, he groaned out, Der Jodler having apparently gotten in more and better kicks than he'd thought while he was writhing in pain on the ground and at his mercy… or lack thereof.

"And while you're at, go and see Recovery Girl on the way. Tell her I'll explain when I get there."

Izuku settled for a simple nod, and shuffled as best he could the final stretch to UA.

"Foreigners," Aizawa said, rubbing his temples in exasperation, as he pulled Der Jodler up towards him and leapt from building to building to the nearest police station. "So many foreigners these days."