It was the last day of the semester. Izuku had woken up bright and early in order to speak with Aizawa about something that had been bothering him in the days since the practical portion of the class's final exams. He was on his way toward 1A's classroom, where Aizawa always was when he wasn't required to be anyway but it was still within his work hours. Izuku was familiar with the labyrinthian nature of UA's hall by now, but he still got lost every now and then, which seemed to be the case for him today. It was almost always resolved within a moment or two, but Izuku still got embarrassed at getting lost in the place he'd lived in for the better part of three months.
He walked into the classroom and saw Aizawa sitting at his desk, writing what looked like hastily compiled notes with red marker. If Izuku had to take a wild guess, he'd say that Aizawa was doing some last minute grading on the class's final exams, but that wasn't any of his business. What was his business was the fact that Aizawa and the other teachers were hiding things from the students. Izuku saw all of their shared looks and whispered worrying. He knew that the others did as well, so he wanted to get Aizawa to come clean so that he could ease his classmates' fears.
"Morning," Aizawa lazily greeted.
"Good morning to you, too, Aizawa. How are you this morning?" Izuku asked, sitting in his seat quietly.
Aizawa immediately looked up from his paperwork and stared at Izuku for a good long moment. Izuku, to his credit, did not stop smiling. He just sat there, letting himself get analyzed by Aizawa for what was probably less time than it felt like. The two of them sat in silence, the absolute quiet causing Izuku's ears to ring slightly, which was broken by Aizawa sighing heavily and setting down the papers that he was working on. He gave Izuku a tired look, which was returned by his sunny smile that never wavered, somehow.
"What do you want?" Aizawa asked.
"Well, if you're offering, I'd like to know why all the teachers are on edge. Something is going on, and you all know it. If it has to do with the League of Villains or All for One, I want to know," Izuku got to the point immediately.
"Fine. I guess I can tell you so that you can be the one to tell everyone else. We're converting to a boarding school," Aizawa admitted.
Izuku felt like his eyes bulged out of his skull. He stared at Aizawa for a good long moment, probably looking exactly how the man himself had moments prior when he'd done the same to Izuku. A boarding school? It would be easy enough for Izuku, because he already lived on campus, and Ochako would probably benefit from the change since she lived alone at the moment, but everyone else would probably be devastated to be away from their families, probably for the first time for most of them. Izuku truly didn't know how they'd react to that news, and now he was regretting asking Aizawa what was going on.
"Alright, why?" Izuku asked.
It was then that Aizawa listed all of the things throughout the semester that were being considered reasons that UA students would be safer on campus. Izuku had to admit, it was an extensive, well put together list of examples of UA students being attacked, injured and killed at multiple points because they were away from the main campus. Izuku agreed with everything that the school considered, and eventually came around to the idea. The more he thought about it, the more Izuku was excited at the prospect of living with his friends . That idea seemed like a dream come true for Izuku, for everyone he'd grown to care about during the past few months all being under the same roof.
As Aizawa went on, however, more students started to arrive. They had to cut their conversation short, in fear of spoiling the 'surprise' that was the dorm system. After a while, everyone in class, sans Tokoyami due to his condition still being unclear, as Recovery Girl had called, had arrived. Izuku made his way over to the front podium and waved to the class, his signature opener in times like these. Izuku had never been one for public speaking, and even though he felt more confident these days, it still didn't come naturally to him like it did for someone like Shinso.
"Hey, everyone. So, the school has been internally discussing some options for something … different. They've decided to go ahead and transition into a dormitory system for the next semester," Izuku said.
The class was silent, staring at Izuku like he'd told them their puppies all died. Izuku cleared his throat and continued.
"I know it may come as a shock, but I'm able to answer any questions you may have—" Izuku said, and was immediately talked over by most of the class.
The sheer amount of noise made it so that Izuku couldn't understand any one question clearly enough to form a proper reply, so he shushed everyone until the barrage of sound died down. Izuku took a moment to calm down from the assault of words, and then randomly picked Kirishima out of the class and asked if he had any questions.
"Does living on campus mean twenty-four hour access to the gym equipment?" Kirishima asked.
"Oh, that's … actually a good question," Izuku said, turning slowly to face Aizawa.
Aizawa slowly dragged his eyes across the class, most of which looked incredibly interested in the reply they'd get, and sighed. He turned back to Izuku and gave a quiet 'why not?'. Izuku smiled and relayed that information to Kirishima's elation. He moved onto the next person he randomly selected in his mind, Ashido.
"Will we be allowed to have sleepovers? Oh, can we have movie nights?" she asked, practically vibrating in her chair out of excitement.
Izuku felt himself crack a smile due to her energy, energy she'd regained after her and Tokoyami had supposedly talked with each other. She'd been far more upbeat the last few days, as opposed to the heartbroken aura she'd given off after the final exams had concluded. Izuku was glad that she had found her way out of that place, and raised an eyebrow as it was another question to which he didn't have an answer.
"Look, there will probably be questions about the logistics and privileges of living on campus that I'm sure will be covered when this actually starts to happen, but for now I think the one question that needs to be asked is if everyone is actually okay with living on campus," Izuku explained, laughing at the way that this had gone.
Ochako raised her hand slowly, her face contorted into an odd nervous expression. Izuku expected her question immediately upon hearing about the dorms, and had thought to ask Aizawa if living on campus would cost the families of students any money. Izuku smiled, and gave her the answer he'd heard from Aizawa.
"Not a penny," he said, seeing Ochako slump in her chair and breathe out a sigh of relief.
The next person to raise their hand was Tsu, who was looking about as nervous as Ochako had. Izuku knew what they were worried about, too; their family was very important to them, and being away from them would probably not be good for Tsu's family-centric nature. Izuku nodded and once again confirmed that there was nothing to worry about.
"You'll be able to visit family every second weekend, escorted by a Hero approved by UA," Izuku said, smiling.
"Is living on campus mandatory for enrollment?" Todoroki asked from the very back.
Izuku had expected that question since he'd started taking them. He'd also expected to hear from Todoroki at some point during this session, so it was fitting that those two moments were one and the same. He tried his best not to let his smile slip and addressed Todoroki politely.
"For now, no, but if all goes well with this new system, it may be in the future," Izuku answered.
Todoroki seemed content with that answer, but there was a certain kind of contemplation that was going on just behind his eyes that Izuku was able to pick up on. It seemed like there were a hundred gears turning in his brain, and Izuku could empathize with that. Izuku looked around at the class, and it seemed from the majority of his classmates silently staring into nothing that that was it for the questions. He nodded to Aizawa and walked back to his seat.
Aizawa made his way to the front podium with the stack of papers he'd been working on before. It seemed like he'd been given time during Izuku's announcement to the class, and he smiled knowing that Aizawa was even able to fall behind on work. He wondered what had caused this delay in Aizawa's grading, but Izuku decided to attribute it to the worry over the dorms. After all, having all of 1A in the same building, twenty-four hours a day, seven days of the week? That was going to be a catastrophe.
"Alright, class, listen up. Grades have been finalized, and I'm not showing you twice. Here you go," Aizawa said.
Taking a step to the side, Aizawa turned on the projector and put the ranking of everyone in the class compared to each other. Izuku, in his time at UA, had discovered that they loved doing that; pitting the students against each other just the right amount boosted performance without getting the kids to hate each other. That was what the secondary purpose of the Sports Festival was; the primary purpose being to entertain the masses with the Hero course kids and the tertiary purpose being to weed out extraordinary kids in other tracks who deserved a shot at being a Hero, but didn't get in the first time for whatever reason.
Izuku looked over the results and found himself in third place. An overwhelming surge of satisfaction and pure bliss washed over Izuku, and he couldn't help but smile the widest, goofiest smile possible. He'd worked hard this semester, so it felt good to see written results. Yaoyorozu and Bakugo were the only ones ahead of him, and Izuku was willing to bet he knew why. He knew for a fact that Bakugo spent every little bit of time he had outside of school studying alone, and Izuku was fairly sure that Yaoyorozu could afford the best tutors in Japan. Izuku had been spending real time with friends outside school since he'd started at UA, so his focus had been drawn away from studying.
Izuku's mental abilities were fairly niche in the first place, his only real areas of expertise being Quirk analysis and strategy. Those were fairly irrelevant in the classroom, but the things he learned while honing those skills, mainly his Quirk analysis, had proved to be useful in his academics enough that he was thinking of branching out and studying a wider field of subjects, but keeping a focus on information that would be practical for a Hero to know. Mostly the physical sciences were what Izuku was aiming at, but he knew that he could find more to study as he grew.
In fourth place was Todoroki. That made sense, since Todoroki was, similar to Yaoyorozu, able to afford all the best tutors and a parent who could incinerate him if he failed. Moving on from that dark thought, in fifth place was Tsu, which was a pleasant surprise to Izuku. They deserved it, of course, but it seemed like Tsu had snuck up the rankings just a little bit, which got Izuku to chuckle under his breath. Jiro was in sixth place, Ojiro was seventh, Shinso was eighth, Shoji was ninth, Koda was tenth, eleventh place went to Ochako, twelfth was Sato's place, the absent Tokoyami got thirteenth place, fourteenth place was Kirishima's, Hagakure got fifteenth place, Sero was in sixteenth, Aoyama was seventeenth, Ashido took eighteenth and Kaminari snagged the last spot at nineteenth.
Izuku felt the atmosphere of the room shift as it seemed that everyone realized that there were nineteen places on the list at the same time. It was a powerful reminder of the friend they'd lost, and it silenced the room for a moment before Aizawa seemed to take note of this realization and step back into the spotlight.
"All of you passed, but some of you were cutting it close," Aizawa said, narrowing his eyes at the students who placed fourteenth and lower. Seeing that those he'd subtly singled out, namely Kaminari and Hagakure, were beginning to become visibly upset, Aizawa's expression softened considerably.
"I know that it may be disappointing to see how far ahead of you some of your classmates are, but don't take this to mean that you aren't smart, or that you're somehow unintelligent. All of you passed the same academic test to be here, so don't let this discourage you. Those of you who scored the lower spots are simply the average in a room of incredibly intelligent young men and women. It's been … okay teaching you for the past few months. All of you have submitted your permission forms for the training camp, so I'll see you all when we leave on the eighteenth. The assembly is after lunch, so get out of here," Aizawa said, turning off the projector.
With that, 1A as a collective bolted out of the classroom and began to move toward the lunchroom. Izuku let himself be dragged along with his friends as everyone rushed to get lunch. He thought about how lucky he was to have found this place for himself, and how he felt like a whole new person now that he'd finally made himself a future. Before, it felt like waking up in the morning was an effort of unimaginable difficulty, but Izuku now had trouble falling asleep some nights because he was still excited from the day's events. It was a silly thing to get caught up on, but he had people who he loved, and who loved him the same. There wasn't any of Bakugo's abuse or his mother's neglect, or the longing of a father figure Izuku knew wasn't coming back. He had a family, and that felt good. It felt right .
Soon enough, Izuku was sitting between Ochako and Hagakure with a big bowl of katsudon in front of him. Izuku dug in immediately, only really stopping his feast to have quick, broken conversations with the people around him as the noise of everyone in 1A occupying a block of four tables, all right next to each other, got a bit too much to hear over. Eventually, Izuku snapped back to reality when his shoulder was tapped by Ochako trying to get his attention.
"I can't help but feel like I'm kinda an odd one out here," Ochako said, staring into her own food with a look that told of a brain going a mile a minute.
"Why would you say that?" Izuku asked, gulping down his food to speak.
"I just feel like with you and Tsu being so smart, and Shinso being so good at reading and talking to people, I contribute the least amount of wit or brainpower, you know?" Ochako admitted, smiling weakly.
"That's not totally true," Izuku said absent-mindedly, thinking out loud.
"Yeah. I mean, sure, they're wicked smart," Shinso said, pointing at Izuku and Tsu, "and I'm reluctantly what you'd call a 'people person'. But, we still lack in areas that you excel in," he explained.
"Exactly. I'd say that you're emotionally intelligent. You can so quickly identify if someone's feeling bad, or if all a person needs is a little bit of love. Hitoshi can talk himself into getting what he wants, but he has little regard for peoples' feelings in that pursuit," Tsu said, taking a moment to shoot a look at a grimacing Shinso. "Midoriya and I get good grades, but we're not great at public speaking. You're a people pleaser in the best sense, Ochako," they continued.
"We sorta balance each other out, if you think about it. None of us have any more merit as friends than the others, so don't think for a second that any of us value you less. We all love you, and we know that you love us. I think that's good enough, so I don't want to hear any more self-doubt out of you. Okay?" Izuku said, placing a comforting hand on Ochako's shoulder.
"Okay," Ochako said, a small smile spreading on her face.
Lunch passed without much fuss, but a part of Izuku's mind kept getting caught on the fact that things had been weirdly quiet on the topic of All for One and the League of Villains. It was impossible that All for One would just stop going after him because Izuku beat him one time. Izuku had also been getting the feeling that Shigaraki was alive. He obviously hadn't wanted to kill him when he'd hit the man with one hundred percent back at the USJ, but Izuku had the uncanny hunch that he'd taken that hit and survived. He didn't know how, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know how, but Izuku had the gut feeling that they were going to come after him again.
As the class began to head toward the auditorium for the assembly that would signal the official end to the semester, Izuku wondered what All for One and his lackeys were up to now. Probably nothing good, but only time would tell. For now, he was content to just live his best life with his classmates and friends.
End of Arc 7: Anything for an A
Author's Note: This one will be a shorter chapter as well. There are just some things that you can't make into 5k words. This does end the final exams arc, so please tell me what you think of it and the story so far! Next chapter, we delve into a different POV to catch up with some old friends we haven't seen in a while.