You know, there were days when Izuku hated being right.
And the current reason he felt this was the U.A. school board, people who were acting more like a group of investors than people supposed to be looking after the children's best interests.
Naturally after learning of Togata's woefully poor costume and lack of proper work-out gear had him texting Nezu-San for some clarity on the matter, since this kind of oversight was not something that would've happened without it being one hundred percent intentional.
And the reply he got in return was as lack luster as it was infuriating.
Because apparently, the current support company they were legally contracted to quite far behind in modern practices and did not employ anyone specialized in either D.N.A. costume making or one person with a hair lengthening quirk, despite those things being an unspoken but agreed upon rule now in support circles.
A company known for some poor quality that the students were basically forced to use if they didn't have the resources to make your own because U.A's previous principal signed an exclusivity contract that Nezu-San wouldn't be able to try and over turn until much later in the year.
Nezu-San wasn't sure if he could though with the company's owner being directly related to one of the better loved (and highly manipulative) board members, Nezu-San tried to overturn the contract five years ago but wasn't able to convince the board to do it and switch to a cheaper and higher quality company because they didn't trust an animal over the woman they'd been friends with for years.
Okay Nezu-San didn't say that last bit, but Izuku was able to fill in the blanks, and the students were all the worse off for it.
Nezu was able to get some wiggle room for the students though, allowed to personally commission another company for a second costume, though he could only do this once for very student and had to basically argue with the board why a new costume was necessary in the first place.
Either way, Izuku was irate and had little to do about the matter himself given the board wasn't any more likely to listen to him, what with being the two-toes they didn't want Nezu-San to hire in the first place, and another tried to get him fired earlier in the day.
Izuku was sure that the Vespas would be more than willing to help him with this issue though, either by helping him make a great argument for why they were being conned, or by making the company's name all but mud and forcing them to break ties for P.R. reasons.
He wouldn't entertain such methods usually, but this was hardly a problem that just affected his students and frankly these people were making sub-par gear that was going to get people killed.
The hundreds of zero-star reviews mostly being from people without emitter quirks on the websites 'hero' page certainly hadn't raised his opinion of them.
The amused hum of Hiro-San reminded Izuku of where he was, on a bench researching the Red-Song company as he waited for Hiro-San to finish distribution for the day at an underground 'clinic'.
Hiro-San was leaning on the bench and offered him a bottle of water "Thanks Hiro-San." Izuku mumbled taking the water and having a sip while Hiro-San placed his face in one of his hands.
"You are more than welcome Deku-San.~" Hiro-San replied with a purr "You've been a busier bee than normal, what with having to placate the masses and all." Hiro-San commented as he twirled some of his marbles in his free hand's fingers.
Izuku groaned and let his head fall back as the man teased him for what felt like the thousandth time for the day.
Having spent today once again reassuring his students Izuku no longer had any doubts that they would go to war for him like Raven told him, maybe not his more casual students but a good chuck of them would rally themselves under his name regardless of their previous alinements.
And the trash and debates about him running in the news, for plausible deniability, weren't taken too kindly and he might or might not have spent an hour convincing them they did not need to do any sort of vandalism in his name.
He did not under any uncertain circumstances threaten any of them with writing a fifty page minimum paper about both the first and second world wars compared to the three quirk wars if he found out they so much as sent a strongly worded letter to the news stations.
Not wanting to deal with any more teasing Izuku got up and took out his phone to text Kurogiri to send him on his way, pointedly ignoring the fact Hiro-San was following him.
Izuku walked out of Kurogiri's portal a few blocks from the building Aiko-San and Jared-San lived in an alley.
Jared-San had texted him that Roland-Kun hadn't been handling everything too well, Roland-Kun was still recovering from being called a villain on T.V. for what happened and watching him get thrown under the best wasn't helping the boy deal with all of that unsurprisingly, so Jared-San asked if he could come by to talk with Roland-Kun.
As if Izuku would ever leave one of his students to suffer.
Izuku did have to be a bit more careful about teleporting to see them though, Aiko-San lived in a much nicer place and he'd rather not want to deal with the headache of having to explain Kurogiri just yet, much less how he knew the man since that could put Kurogiri in just as much danger if not more than himself.
Izuku tensely walked through the lobby of the apartment building in a hoodie he kept in his bag for when he wanted to not be noticed and snuck pass the front desk clerk and over to the elevator and pressed the button for one of the upper floors.
Thankfully no one else wanted to go up or down so Izuku was able to make it all the way up to the right floor without any problems, well the elevator jingle was more annoying than usual but complaining about that would be more like whining.
Izuku moved to step off the elevator when he bumped into Aiko-San "Ah! Midoriya-San apologizes, but I've gotten a call about work and have to go, do keep Jared from utterly trashing the place would you." Aiko-San quickly said before pressing the button for the lobby.
Izuku barely got off an 'of course' before the doors to the elevator closed, it wasn't uncommon for a lawyer like Aiko-San to get a call about a break in a case and need to investigate the new evidence in person.
He merely continued on to the Aiko-San's apartment and knocked on the door, Jared-San didn't fail to open it within a few seconds "Hey Deku, kid's in his room." Jared-San told him moving out of the way so Izuku could come inside.
Izuku quickly made his way to Roland-Kun's room, having remembered where it was since Roland-Kun first showed it to him in his excitement at having a whole room that big all to himself, Izuku knocked at the door before he poked his head in.
The first thing Izuku saw was Roland-Kun's empty body under the bed and that the boy had tried to hide it away with some blankets, Izuku sighed at the sight of Roland's attempt to hide it and fully entered the room then walked over to the corner with a baby sized kiddie pool where Roland-Kun was currently bobbing a rubber duck with his body.
Izuku sat himself down next to the pool and rested his crossed arms on the rim of the pool before he laid his chin on them "Hey." Izuku softly called knowing Roland-Kun knew he was there already.
"Hey... " Roland-Kun dejectedly replied pulling the rubber duck to the bottom of the pool before letting it go and watching it pop back up to the surface near immediately.
"I'm guessing you saw the news?" he said and Roland-Kun proceeded to pout at that.
"Everyone's been saying a bunch of crap about you being stupid and useless because you don't have a quirk." Roland-Kun grumbled.
Izuku frowned at the curse but ultimately decided to let it slide this once "Yeah, people tend to do that." he told him knowing it would be better to be honest right now.
A gurgling sound came from Roland-Kun, the boy's version of a huff outside of his body "It isn't fair... " the boy heatedly muttered glaring at the duck as if it was somehow responsible for this all.
"No, no it isn't... " Izuku admitted.
The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes before Roland-Kun said "People are dumb." and Izuku couldn't help a mirthless chuckle "Yeah, they are." Izuku agreed and that made Roland-Kun smile and as he finally turned to Izuku.
Roland-Kun rose out of the pool and proceeded to nuzzle Izuku somewhat "Thanks for not being completely dumb Deku-Sensei." Roland-Kun told him.
Izuku snorted "Well I should hope so, it is part of my job after all." Izuku commented rubbing the part of the slime that had come out of the pool as if it was the boy's head.
Izuku left Roland-Kun's room about an hour later after he put the boy to bed, he already had supper, so he didn't have to worry about that and only made sure Roland-Kun had brushed his teeth before tucking the kid in.
Izuku sighed and raised an eye when he didn't see Jared-San anywhere, Izuku moved through the apartment to find the man.
It wasn't all that hard, a large pool of green sludge wasn't the stealthiest of forms after all and Jared-San wasn't exactly hiding as he stood in front of the fridge in kitchen, a red eye lazily slid over to him before focusing back on fetching a pair of bottles.
Jared-San slithered across the floor to settle down at the table in one of the chairs and popped the cap off of one of them then took a swig, letting out a long sigh afterwards before his eyes slid back to Izuku and he held the other bottle up to him, clearly silently offering it to him.
Izuku scowled back crossing his arms and Jared-San rolled his eyes "As if the tight-wad would have any actual liquor with the kid around, it's just ramune Deku, the shit they sell at the festivals." Jared-San said and upon looking at the bottle again Izuku saw it was ramune.
Izuku stood at the entrance to the kitchen for a few seconds before letting his arms fall back to his sides and let out a quiet exhale and walked over to Jared-San's side and took the offered blue bottle "Just this once, Jared-San." Izuku relented sitting in the chair next to him.
It probably said something about Izuku and how well he was doing mentally when he finally broke down and accepted alcohol from one of his students, ramune had less than six percent sake mixed in, but it was more of the principal of the thing.
And his mom would probably have a heart attack if she ever heard about this either way since neither he nor Katsuki were allowed a sip of ramune during the festivals before.
Izuku popped off the cap and tried to take a sip despite the odd-looking top underneath, but nothing came out confusing him, Jared-San huffed bemused and made a thin strand to point at the glass marble "You need to push that out of the way first Deku." Jared-San explained.
Izuku's "Ah." in reply was a touch clipped as he avoided looking at Jared-San and did as Jared-San advised then was rewarded with his first sip of the drink, it... wasn't horrible but Izuku decided he wasn't a fan of the blueberry flavor rather than anything else.
He quietly drank with Jared-San getting half of it down before Jared-San set his down and letting his sludge retreat from the bottle, which was odd since he hadn't finished it yet and Izuku cast a glance at him.
"I know you can't talk about what's been going on," Jared-San said turning his eyes back to Izuku "Not seriously around the kid and the tightwad anyways... but are you okay Deku?" Jared-San asked.
Izuku smiled back at him "I'm fine Jared-San, spent my whole life being talked down to for being a two-toes, people doing it on T.V aren't much different." he answered smoothly, it really was like water of his back at this point.
Jared-San gave him a pointed look at that "You know what I mean Deku, with... him." Jared-San corrected and Izuku's shoulders slumped.
Izuku took a deep breath and looked at Jared-San, really looked at him.
The large shapeless puddle of dark green sludge wasn't his real form any more than Roland-Kun's slime was, Jared-San once had a body and Izuku had even seen pictures of it with his sister and he looked fairly normal disregarding the larger than normal mouth, his eyes also weren't yellow before.
Izuku had also seen that Jared-San's form was once a near clear greenish slime like Roland-Kun's, and Izuku also knew exactly why Jared-San didn't have a body any more.
Jared-San's sister was not a good person... and she got into debt with the kind of people that Izuku would never do business with.
And in order to save her on skin she offered Jared-San up to repay her debt after she was locked away in prison, such a trade likely wouldn't have worked admittedly in most circumstances, but the people she owed were underlings of All For One who knew a good quirk when they saw it.
As awful as it was Izuku could see how, useful Jared-San's quirk would be for a Nomu and they knew that too so they gave Jared-San a choice, either be handed over to All For One or become their new cash cow, Jared-San had picked the latter for obvious reasons and for insurance they burned away Jared-San's real body.
Getting caught was an accident and was probably the best thing that could've happened to Jared-San because Izuku had managed to get Aiko-San to hear his student out and honestly it was a miracle that he did what with how strait laced the man was.
But this put Jared-San in a rare and very not enviable position of knowing exactly what it was like to be hunted by All For One, and he could be the only person to truly come close to understanding part of what Izuku was going through that he personally knew.
Izuku took a swig from his bottle, more to settle his nerves than anything else before he answered "I, couldn't stay in the shadows forever, we both know that."
Jared-San nodded, silently imploring him to continue.
"And as bad as it seems... this controversy with U.A. is probably a good thing, it's the only thing that'll keep me from being an easy target right now." Izuku commented.
Jared-San gurgled, the man's version of a hum "About all you can hope for with him breathing down your back, especially with you being a two-toes out in the open." Jared-San mused as his sludge extended and wrapped around his bottle.
"Here's hoping it'll be enough for now Deku." Jared-San said raising his bottle not for another drink but to hold out in his direction, knowing the gesture by heart from movies Izuku raised his bottle in return and tapped them together with a soft clink.
"Here's." Izuku agreed and took another swig, momentarily wishing it was something a bit stronger than ramune.
Some people on here thought Jared(the sludge villain) was Roland, he is not.
I had to rewrite this one so apologizes for taking longer for that