A full day had passed since the hero course student's made their return to class. For 1-B, things pretty much went back to how they normally were. The classroom was pretty lively and everyone went about their days as usual. They all even managed to get through one of Ectoplasm's infamous pop-quizzes yesterday without anyone failing. However, over in Class 1-A it was a much different story.
It was hard for the students not to notice the storm cloud looming over their sister hero class everywhere they went. Sure they never interacted with them much before. But even they knew that this wasn't exactly normal behavior for them. A few of them had tried to strike up conversation with the forlorn students, but it was to no avail.
As much as the students of 1-B wanted to help out their fellow future heroes, there really wasn't anything that could be done. None of them had a clue about what to do or even where to begin. Eventually, they just decided to leave it alone for the time being and let them mourn in peace.
Once lunchtime came and went, Kan announced that he needed some students to help out for a training exercise. No one even got the chance to volunteer before he called the names of seven students and ordered them to head over to Ground Gamma and wait there for their instructor. Midoriya, Tokage, Honenuki, Yanagi, Kodai, Shoda and Fukidashi were the lucky ones to be selected and quickly made the journey down to the training area.
In no time, the hero course students were suited up and patiently waiting for the teacher to arrive. Completely ready for whatever was about to get thrown their way. However, there was one thing that the students couldn't help but take notice of.
"Whoa Midoriya-kun, are these the new upgrades to your costume?" Honenuki asked while he and the others took in the boy's appearance.
For everyone minus Tokage, this was not only their first time seeing the boy's helmet but the newest addition to his costume as well. Midoriya decided to go with the black jacket for this particular outing instead of the green. There wasn't any real reason for this, it just happened to be the first one that he grabbed. He figured that he could switch them out whenever he felt like it.
"Yeah." The boy replied.
"You didn't have that jacket with you last week." Tokage pointed out. Only slightly irritated at how this new piece to his wardrobe was hiding his build.
Yanagi was the next to put in her two cents. "Is that the gift you got from Blizzard?"
"Yeah, she actually gave another one that's green. But this is just the one I threw on."
"You totally should've worn the green one. But the all black is pretty cool. I'm sure Kuroiro-kun would appreciate it." The lipless teen joked.
"He's got a point Midoriya-kun." Shoda interjected from his position in between Kodai and Fukidashi. "You look super intimidating with the full getup."
"You really think so?"
"Hmm." Kodai nodded in confirmation.
The students stood around and talked for a few more minutes before a hulking mass of muscle dressed in red, white and blue appeared in front of them carrying a yellow sleeping bag.
"I am here!" All Might stated his signature slogan as he put Aizawa down on the ground beside him.
"Thank you all for coming here." The black haired man lazily stated. "We need some help with a training exercise that my class is doing this afternoon and I asked Vlad if he could loan a few of his students. I asked him for people with long range and destructive quirks so I guess you all fit that bill."
The 1-B students looked at each other as they processed that information. That was actually a pretty good assessment of their group. All of them could easily be considered mid to long range fighters. And out of everyone aside from Shiozaki, Kamakiri, Tetsutetsu, Kendou, Shishida and Tsunotori, they could cause some real damage at the drop of a hat.
"So what are we gonna be doing?" Tokage asked.
"My students will be going through a team building exercise as a class. To keep things simple, they're going to have to cross the training ground while navigating some obstacles. They're not too difficult, but there's a lot of them out there. So it stands to reason that they'll be pretty winded once they're done." The nocturnal hero explained.
"That actually sounds like fun." Honenuki commented.
"What I want you all to do is set up and ambush for them near the end of the course." The man continued.
"Alright." Tokage nodded. "What are the rules? Obviously we can't just go wild, but we're pretty outnumbered here sensei. There's only seven us and twent- I mean nineteen of them."
"You all can do whatever you want as long as it's not too dangerous. Actually... the more chaotic it is, the better. I'll give my students their instructions once they come out of the locker rooms. But for you lot, all you have to do is try and capture one of them. They have to finish as a group or they all fail."
"Man, that's a pretty wide margin of error." Shoda stated.
"All Might and myself will be watching and officiating in the monitoring area. If you do manage to capture one of them, we'll call it. I predict that they'll take about thirty minutes to make it to that point as a class. So that should be plenty of time for you to come up with a plan."
"Simple enough."
"You can all head over to the other side of training ground and get set up. Once you hear the horn sound, that means my class has started."
"And remember students, you all can use this as a learning opportunity as well!" All Might interjected in his usually boisterous tone. "There are many times when heroes have to team up with one another on raids and rescue operations. So think of this as one of those situations. Vlad King will be reviewing the footage of your portion of this test and I'm sure that you'll want to impress him."
"That does make sense." Read Fukidashi's thought bubble.
With that, the group of 1-B students began making the journey over to their designated stakeout point at the opposite end of the training ground. The mission was pretty simple, but a couple of them had doubts about how effective of an ambush they could mount. They were still outnumbered almost three-to-one and 1-A had some heavy hitters that they would need to work around.
"So...what's the plan, vice-rep?" Honenuki looked to Tokage.
"I'd say we take the easiest route and just grab one of them as soon as they show up. To be honest, all we really need to do is just distract them long enough for Izuku to scoop one of them and fly away." The girl answered.
"Hmm." Kodai nodded a she shook her head in agreement.
"So what, we just go in fast and loud?" Shoda inquired.
Midoriya would be lying if he said that he disagreed with that plan. It was the simplest course of action and required the less amount of energy. However, knowing that Bakugou would be there meant that it was going to be far from easy. He wasn't one to underestimate the 'explosion' quirk user before, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start today. Also, this was a good chance for him to get to see all of 1-A's quirks since he only got to see a few during the Sports Festival.
"Actually…" Midoriya nervously spoke up, catching everyone's attention. "I have a different idea."
"Oh yeah?" Tokage quirked an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah, Aizawa-sensei said that he wanted it to be chaotic, right? So why don't we just have some fun with it?"
"Did you have something in mind?" Said Yanagi.
"I have a few things. But I want to know what you guys think."
Tokage immediately threw her arm over the boy's shoulder and gave him a toothy smirk. "Well spill man! What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?!"
~45 Minutes Later~
"Hurry up and stop slacking off you damn extras!" Bakugou shouted to the rest of class 1-A as they rounded the corner.
"God, does he ever stop yelling?" A tired Jiro mumbled under her breath as she did her best to keep up.
"Just deal with it for now." Yaoyorozu told her in a hushed tone. "We're almost at the gate."
To say that 1-A was not having a good time would be putting it mildly. When they were told that they were going to be doing a "team building" exercise as a class they were actually pretty excited. With everything that had been going on over the last few days, they could use a more relaxed day of hero training to take their minds off things.
However, what they got was over thirty minutes of non-stop obstacles, problem solving scenarios and a bit more than their fair share of robots from the entrance exam to fight through.
Their mission was simple, finish as a group. On the surface it seemed like a pretty simple objective. But that proved to be easier said than done. The first issue for the class was Bakugou and Todoroki constantly getting away from them and going off on their own. There were more than a few times already that the 'explosion' quirk user just flat out left them with his only instruction for them being to "keep up". And Todoroki's less than stellar communication skills caused them to waste valuable time having to thaw out Hagakure and Koda after getting caught up in one of his ice attacks. If everyone was being honest, it was almost like the two of them were having a race.
If that wasn't bad enough, Kaminari had gone over his wattage limit fighting some of the robots. Satou was completely out of sugar cubes after having to do a lot of heavy lifting on an earlier obstacle. Uraraka was on the verge of throwing up from overusing her quirk. And Yaoyorozu was already halfway through her fat reserves.
Looking back, a few of those tasks could've been handled differently if they thought things through a bit more. But most everyone in the class was off their game. And it might have something to do with the fact that they were short one member of the group.
"Alright, I can see the gate!" Hagakure cheered, thankful that they were about to be done with this hell.
"I still don't get why we're being timed for this!" Sero complained.
"We'd get there sooner if you idiots stopped slowing me down!" Bakugou launched himself forward with another blast. There was no way that he was about to let that half-and-half bastard be the first one to cross instead of him.
"Bakugou-san, we have to stay together in a group!" Yaoyorozu said for what felt like the fortieth time today. To be frank, the raven haired girl's patience was starting to wear thin. She liked to think of herself as a level headed person, but even she had her limits.
Somehow, class 1-A was able to stay together in a relatively tight formation as they came upon the last intersection. Only three hundred more meters and they were going to be done. And from the looks of it, there were no more obstacles in sight. A sense of relief began to wash over the students only moments before being completely negated.
From out of absolutely nowhere, a pile of gigantic metal pipes and what looked liked screws suddenly fell from the sky right in the middle of the road a few dozen meters away from them.
"What the-"
"KA-BOOM!"
A massive wall of text literally spelling out the word "Ka-boom" appeared in the area behind them while crashing through a few of the nearby structures.
"What's going on?!" Ashido shouted.
'An ambush?' It only took a second for Yaoyorozu to realize the situation that they were in. But by that time, it was already too late.
"God dammit!" Bakugou suddenly shouted.
Everyone in the area turned their attention to the ashen teen only to see him floating in mid-air. Actually, it wasn't just him. Without any warning, Todooki, Asui, Tokoyami and Rin also began levitating along with Bakugou.
Suddenly, the group of five were brought together and collided with one another. Whatever force had taken control of them, it was determined to keep them in place. The students began struggling to break free, but it was to no avail.
'This is…' Todoroki gritted his teeth at the familiar feeling.
'I only know of one person who can do something like this.' Yaoyorozu thought to herself before looking up towards the sky. There, a few dozen meters above the buildings was a hooded figure dressed in all black. "It's Midoriya!"
"What the heck?!" Ojiro suddenly blurted out.
Without any warning, the ground beneath the 1-A student's feet turned to some sort of mud and they rapidly began sinking into the pavement. Confusion quickly switched to understanding as the students finally registered what was going on around them.
"It's the guys from 1-B!" Said Satou.
*Bam!*
A few meters to the brunette boy's right, the sound of a fist making contact with flesh caught his ear. Him along with Jiro, Ashido and Kirisihima all turned their heads to see Aoyama doubling over in pain while clutching his face. Floating above the blonde haired boy, was the upper half of Tokage's body. The green haired girl was sporting a wide grin on her face.
"Alright! Pretty boy's down!" The girl cheered.
In the air, Bakugou was ready to burst with anger. This was not happening, shitty Deku and his loser classmates were not about to get the upper hand on him. There was absolutely no way in fuck that he was going to stand by and let this happen. The ashe blonde teen had half a mind to try and blast his way through that nerd's telekinesis, but there was one problem. He couldn't move. Bakugou was sandwiched in between Todorki and Rin to the point where he wouldn't be able to user his quirk without blowing a hold through them. As good as that idea sounded right now, he knew better than to do that on camera.
"Bird brain, use your stupid shadow!" Bakugou yell was aimed at Tokoyami.
"I can't." The raven headed teen admitted.
"What?!"
"We're too bunched together for me to call upon 'dark shadow'."
"You're fucking useless! Frog face!"
"I don't know where the enemy is. And we're too high up for my tongue to reach the pipes below us, gero." The frog themed girl answered bluntly.
"God dammit!"
Above them, Midoriya was doing everything in his power not to break his focus. His role in this plan may have been simple, but it was arguably the most difficult. Not only was he tasked with taking out most of 1-A's long range fighters. He had to hold them in place and keep them from using their quirks to break free.
Forcing them together with Bakugou in the middle was the best he could think of to avoid the ashe blonde's wrath. He had no clue if the boy's explosions would be strong enough to break his hold on him, but he wasn't going to risk it. 'I'm surprised that I'm able to keep Tokoyami-san's quirk under control like this. The only reason I'm keeping them at this distance is because I don't know the range of his quirk. I guess I lucked out.'
Down on the ground, Tokage had completed part one of her job. Aoyama was the next biggest threat seeing as his 'navel laser' could easily cause Midoriya to lose focus on his targets. So her job was to try and knock him out the second she got the chance. With the blonde boy now out of commission, she set her eyes on her next target.
"Sero-kun! Grab Kyoka and get out of the mud!" Unfortunately, Yaoyorozu was able to beat the girl to the punch.
In the raven haired class rep's mind, Jiro was their best option for offense right now. 1-B may have known about their quirks, but not about their support items. And seeing as Midoriya neglected to remove her from the area as well, he wouldn't be expecting a sonic attack from the girl's boots.
The 'tape' quirk user quickly shot a line out of his right elbow and attached it to a nearby pipe before grabbing the purple haired girl next to him. However, Tokage was quick enough to break up her left arm and send four pieces of her flesh flying towards them. The two 1-A students could do nothing as they were struck mid-swing.
Sero and Jiro let out a couple of grunts when they hit the ground. But what they weren't prepared for was Shoda to activate his 'twin impact' and replicate the previous blows to their abdomens with twice the force.
"Juzo, we're done!" Tokage shouted.
The lipless teen gave a quick nod before re-solidifying the ground. Locking Yaoyorozu, Ashido, Kirishima, Satou, Uraraka, Ojiro, Koda, Kaminari, Shoji, Hagakure, Aoyama and Mineta in a coffin of waste deep concrete.
"Alright, that's enough. The exercise is over." The voice of Aizawa said over the speaker system. "Everyone get yourselves in order and return to the monitoring area for your review. And don't keep me waiting."
"Wow...I'm surprised that we actually pulled that off." Shoda gave a slight chuckle as he walked out of a nearby alley way. Across the street from him, Yanagi and Kodai were also making their approach.
"Seriously." Honenuki added on before he reactivated his quirk and jumped into the mud to retrieve the trapped 1-A members.
A few minutes passed by as the students got situated. Once everyone was safely back on/above the ground, the hero course hopefuls grouped up into one giant mob. The only person not present for this was Midoriya, who for some reason decided to fly back over to the monitoring area ahead of everyone else.
'What's that about?' Tokage wondered as she watched him retreat behind a couple of nearby buildings.
"What the heck are you guys doing here?!" Ashido pointed an accusatory finger at the 1-B group.
"All Might-sensei and Aizawa-sensei needed some bodies for this exercise you guys did. And we were the ones picked for the job." The green haired girl answered on everyone's behalf.
"That was Midoriya who just flew away, wasn't it?" Todoroki asked.
"Sure was."
"Deku…" Bakugou growled in a low tone with an expression of absolute rage on his face.
It suddenly became clear to Tokage why her friend decided to just go off on his own. More than likely he was avoiding any type of interaction with Bakugou outside of the watchful eye of a faculty member. The girl knew that there was some type of history between the two of them, but didn't know the exact details. All she could say for certain was that it wasn't pleasant and Midoriya obviously wished to avoid the guy if he could help it.
"Let's hurry up and get back to the teachers." A dejected Yaoyorozu stated in a neutral tone before making her way to the gate.
Back up at the monitoring area, Aizawa watched his class drudge their way onto the platform. Everything had more or less gone according to plan up until the last part of the exercise. The pro hero had to admit that he was impressed with the ambush that his colleague's students had put together. It may have had a few gaping holes that any pro worth their salt would've been able to exploit. But considering the fact that they were heavily outnumbered and had an ample amount of time to think it up, he couldn't argue with the result.
"Excellent work students! You all did well to navigate through those obstacles." All Might announced to the hero course hopefuls as they gathered around him.
"Yeah, but we totally got our butts handed to us at the end." Kirishima stated.
"Let's go ahead and start from the beginning" Aizawa interjected while scrolling through the footage of each obstacle.
A few meters off to the side, the students of 1-B were huddled up together in their own little group. They weren't really sure if they were allowed to leave or not. So just to be safe, they stuck around. While the pro heroes were going through a review of the first obstacle, Tokage leaned over to Midoriya and whispered to him.
"So…any particular reason why you decided to go off on your own like that?"
"Sorry, I-I umm…." The boy fumble for a brief moment.
"Hey don't worry, I get it. You're trying to avoid Bakugou aren't you?"
Midoriya shot the girl a stunned look before adjusting his gaze over to the blonde haired student in question. In the back of class 1-A formation, Bakugou was glaring daggers at him. Thankfully he still had his helmet on so the boy wasn't able to see his face. However, the 'telekinesis' user also noticed the cold gaze of Todoroki focused solely on him.
"Yeah…" The boy breathed out in response.
"If you ever need some help with that guy, let me know. I'm sure I can think of a few good pranks to knock him down a few pegs." The girl smirked.
"It's fine Tokage-san. You don't need to worry about me, I can handle him myself." He waved off. It's not like anyone ever bothered to help him out before. So why start now?
"Alright."
A little over fifteen minutes passed before the video of the ambush finally came into view on the main monitor. Deciding to just go ahead and rip the band-aid off, Aizawa let the footage play out a single time just so everyone could get a good view of happened. It was hard to miss a good portion of the 1-A students cringing at how things got out of hand so quickly.
"So, who wants to go first?" The man lazily looked to his class.
"Well obviously we got set up." Kaminari was the first to voice his opinion.
"Seriously, we weren't told something like that would happen beforehand." Sero added on.
"You're never going to know when you'll get attacked in real life." The teacher stated somewhat harshly. "Does anyone have anything constructive?"
Asui was the one to raise her hand. "To be honest sir, the ambush was executed really well. The 1-B students seemed to cover their bases and knew exactly who to go after, gero. I'm having a difficult time seeing what exactly we could've done."
"I agree for the most part, but there were some holes in their attack strategy that could've been exploited if you didn't panic. Would anyone care to guess what those were?"
Aizawa was met with silence from his students as they all pondered about what they could've done. Most of them were drawing a blank seeing as it was over before they really had a chance to do anything.
"What about you?" The man turned their attention towards the 1-B students. At some point a few minutes ago Midoriya and Honenuki had removed their helmets so everyone could get a good look at their faces. And it was hard for the green haired boy not to blush at nineteen sets of eyes focused on him.
"Well, from our perspective we pretty much gambled on catching you guys off guard." Tokage started as she propped her elbow up on Midoriya's shoulder. "We knew we only had one chance to pull our plan off so we needed to cause as much confusion as possible. If Aoyama fired off that laser of his at Izuku here, it might've broken his focus and let your classmates escape from his hold." She pointed to her green haired companion.
"If that happened we would've been hosed." Fukidashi's thought bubble spelled out.
"I was pretty worried about Sero using his quirk to try and capture me before we could get situated." Honenuki followed up.
The 1-A students nodded in agreement. Now that it was said out loud, the aforementioned students were kicking themselves for hesitating for so long and not reacting to neutralize a threat.
"Okay but still, this almost wasn't even fair. They had all that time to come up with a plan and Midoriya over there took out all the heavy hitters." Ashido complained while pointing a finger at the green haired boy.
"Yeah, how can we fight someone who can move things with his mind and fly? He's overpowered!" Mineta whined.
What the students got in response was the sound of Honenuki and Tokage letting out a couple of quick laughs after hearing that. "Well, Midoriya-kun is pretty much our class ace."
"You g-guys really give m-me too much credit." The 'telekinesis' user blushed with a wobbly smile. Never one to miss an opportunity to tease him, Tokage was quick to playfully pinch his cheek.
"Aww you're so adorable!"
'Are they like a thing or something?' A few of the students blanched.
"If the walking 3-D printer over here used her quirk to put up a smoke screen then shitty Deku wouldn't have been an issue!" Bakugou made is presence known once again after being silent for the last few minutes.
Deciding to ignore the rude comment, Yaoyorozu considered Bakugou's words and almost slapped herself for not thinking about that. She saw first hand how putting up a cloud of smoke affected the boy's ability to use his quirk. She got so caught up in the moment that the thought of making some smoke grenades didn't even come to mind.
Tokage was about to mention how that wouldn't have worked considering she knew that the boy's helmet had an infrared setting. And that once he has you under his control there's almost no way to get out of it. But she held her tongue. It wasn't a good idea to tell people about her classmate's weaknesses.
"I agree that we could've tried to stay more level-headed, but all of you guys have long range quirks right? Once you took out most of our long range fighters, there wasn't a lot that we could do." Ojiro stated.
"That's certainly not the case, young Ojiro." All Might interjected. "You shouldn't count yourselves out so easily. Yes, they all have quirks suited for this specific type of scenario but that was not the only factor. Quirks aren't everything after all."
"Tch…"
Every set of eyes in the area immediately shifted over to Midoriya. Hearing that comment coming from the mouth of the "Symbol of Peace" of all people didn't sit well with him in the slightest. But the boy quickly recovered by pretending to cough into his hand and giving out an apology.
"Excuse me."
"Not a problem, young Midoriya." All Might's eyes lingered on the green haired boy for a moment. That was just something else to log into the file that Tsukauchi was currently putting together for him.
"In any case, I want you all to use that part of the exercise as an example of not only how to react in situations like that, but how to execute on the opposite end. Class 1-B did their job rather well, even if their entire plan relied primarily on one person." Aizawa told the group.
"I have one more question, gero." Asui raised her hand before directing her gaze towards the 1-B students. "This seemed like a pretty excessive way to go about things. Why didn't you guys go a more direct route?"
Shoda was the one to explain. "Our original plan was just to have Midoriya-kun grab one of you right before you crossed the finish line. And the rest of us would distract you while he got away."
"Why didn't you do that?"
"Aizawa-sensei said that he wanted something chaotic." Tokage smirked.
"And Midoriya-kun wanted everyone in our group to get the chance to participate." Yanagi stoically added on for the first time in this conversation.
The attention was once again turned back to green haired boy who just gave out a weak chuckle. For the majority of 1-A, this was their first time interacting with the guy who pretty much defeated most of their heavy hitters in the Sports Festival. They had no clue what he was actually like, and the only thing they had to go on were Bakugou's less than stellar comments about him. Now that they got a chance to see it for themselves, they were quite surprised to see that the boy was rather quiet and non-threatening.
"Seriously?"
"Hmm." Kodai nodded.
The last few minutes of the review went by pretty quickly after that. Once everyone had a chance to speak their peace, the students were released to get changed and go back to their respective classrooms.
"Deku!" An angry voice shouted at the green haired teen from the other end of the hall as he stepped out of the locker room.
Quickly deciding that avoiding this confrontation was the best course of action, Midoriya chose to pretend as if he hadn't heard a thing. Unfortunately, the universe wasn't kind to him today and he barely made it a few steps down the hallway when a hand placed itself on his left shoulder. The moment this happened, Midoriya felt his anger spike before recomposing himself and turning around.
"You and me need to have a little talk!" Bakugou almost snarled at him.
"No we don't…." Midoriya flatly stated.
"Wha-?"
The 'explosion' quirk user paused. Of all the things Bakugou was expecting to hear, that certainly wasn't it. The nerd's voice was cold and indifferent, but that wasn't the only thing that didn't sit right with him. The way that this useless shit was glaring at him forced a wave of anger to wash over the ashen blonde's body.
"You little shit. Since when the hell do you have a quirk?" Bakugou regained his focus and started his long overdue inquiry.
"That's none of your business."
"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to like that?"
"You…obviously."
"You motherfucker!" Bakugou raised his right hand as he primed his quirk and prepared to let off a small blast next to the boy's ear. However, the blonde haired teen was stopped when his body was suddenly flung back to the nearby wall. Bakugou tried to move his body. But just like during their earlier training exercise, he found himself unable to do so.
"Look Bakugou…" Midoriya dryly started as he approached the now immobilized teen. "I'm only going to say this once, even though I already know that you won't actually listen to a word I say. I've done some "growing up" over the last few months and I'm not the same person you used to torment every single day. I don't expect you to suddenly start being nice to me after making my life a living hell. But at the very least I'd like for you to just leave me alone."
"I'm going to kill you, you damn loser." Raged burned behind Bakugou's eyes with each passing second. How dare this worthless shit think that he can do something like this?
"And you will not be threatening me like that anymore." Midoriya continued as his face contorted into something that Bakugou had never seen before in his life. He couldn't exactly place what kind of expression the greenette was wearing. But it was something between hatred and contempt. "Make sure this is the last time something like this happens. Have a wonderful day…Bakugou."
That was the last thing Midoriya said before making his way down the hall and out the door. The green haired teen was smart enough to maintain his hold on the boy until he left the building just in case he was to attack him while his back was turned. Once Midoriya was a safe enough distance away, Bakugou once again regained control of his body.
'Deku! You're gonna pay for that you damn freak!' The boy snarled as nothing but rage filled every last corner of his mind.
"Hey Izuku, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Tokage said to the boy as she packed up her bag. The final bell of the day had just rang and most of the students were already out of the classroom.
"Sure."
"When's the next time that you're volunteering at that orphanage?"
"Tomorrow…." He gave her a confused look.
"You mind I come with you?"
"Huh?" Okay, if the boy was confused before now he was downright befuddled.
"I don't have anything to do tomorrow afternoon and I think it would be pretty fun. I'm interested to see what the place is like since you spend so much time there. Plus, I could help out with tutoring the kids since I do have better grades than you and all." Tokage smirked and shrugged. In reality she just wanted another excuse to hang out with the boy after class and this seemed like the best time to do it since he was already going to be in the area.
Midoriya stood silently for a moment as he thought about it. He was absolutely certain that the 'lizard tail splitter' user had some ulterior motives behind this request that would surely lead to him getting embarrassed in some way, shape or form. But it wasn't really his place to tell her that she couldn't do it. On top of that, he was spread pretty thin the last time that he was there and the staff could really use the extra help.
"I'll call over tonight and see if it's okay with the staff. But, I think they'll be fine with it." He told her.
"Awesome!" The girl smiled sincerely. 'Hell yeah! Phase one is complete!'
With that, the two greenettes said their goodbyes and parted ways. Midoriya was in a hurry to get back to his apartment on this particular day. And for good reason.
Once Midoriya returned home, the boy gave a quick greeting to his mother and made a beeline straight for his bedroom. As soon as he was inside, he didn't even bother taking off his uniform before planting himself in his computer chair and opening the video chat app on the screen. The 'telekinesis' user patiently waited as the dial tone buzzed for a few seconds before the image of a man with curly black hair and black eyes came into view.
"Wow...five o'clock on the dot. I see you're still as punctual as ever." Hisashi Midoriya said with a grin.
"Yeah well, I know how hard the time difference is on you so I at least want to make sure that I'm on time with our chats." The boy replied in a joking tone.
"Well I appreciate the consideration." The man replied. "So how have you been? Besides the new haircut?"
"Oh this?" Midoriya twisted the tips of his hair for a brief moment. "I had to cut it so that the helmet for my hero costume would fit."
"Are sure you didn't do that just to impress some girl? Come to think of, I do remember you mentioning that one of your classmates was from close to where I work." The black haired man arched a curious at brow at his son.
"N-no…" The greenette slightly blushed.
"Whatever you say, Izuku. Besides that, how's class going? I remember you saying that you had to cut your internship short in your last email. Is everything alright over there?"
"Yeah, something happened that the school doesn't want us talking about and we had to cut the program short."
"Would this "something" have anything to do with all those bombings going on over there? I've been reading a few news sites from back home and those have been happening all over the country."
Midoriya didn't really have the heart to tell the man that he was almost caught up in the middle of one of those attacks. "No, uh...a classmate just got injured and the faculty thought that it was the safest option."
"That makes sense. Just make sure that you stay safe out there."
"Yeah." The green haired boy nodded. "So how has work been treating you?"
"Same as always."
Just like Midoriya had told Tokage on their last outing, Hisashi had a job as a welder in the U.S.. What he didn't tell her was that the man worked on satellites and other aircraft. As it turns out, the elder Midoriya male was a specialist in a specific type of welding technique that was in high demand in the aerospace industry. Most of the man's time was spent working on weather and communications satellites that were sent up into the Earth's orbit.
Not too long after his parents got divorced when Midoriya was still a child, Hisashi accepted the job offer that forced him to relocate all the way to Texas in the U.S.. And had been living there ever since. The money was fantastic and he got to do quite a bit of travelling around the country.
"Cool."
"How's your mother doing?"
"Same as always." The boy replied in a neutral tone.
"Izuku…" Hisashi furrowed his brow. "As much I enjoy being the person you come to when you want to vent stuff out, you really should try and talk to Inko more. You know she's been worried about you ever since what happened last year."
The 'telekinesis' user let out a short sigh before responding. "I know...it's just...I don't want her to get worried over every little thing like she always does. You know how she gets. Plus, talking to you just easier and you don't freak out over the smallest stuff. Every time I try to talk about certain things she's liable to flood the apartment."
"Well, she has a good reason."
"I know…" The boy folded his arms with a guilty expression on his face.
"Can you at least try to talk to her more? I think she'd really appreciate it."
"Yeah…"
"Good." The man smiled. "So I'm really interested to hear how your internship with Blizzard went. Did you learn anything cool?"
The two men continued on with their chat until Hisashi had to call it quits about an hour later. Midoriya was glad that the man took so much time out of his routine to do these video calls as often as they could, despite it being a fifteen hour time difference.
Once that was over, the green haired boy slipped on his tracksuit and made his way down to Dagoba beach for some late afternoon quirk training. Some more junk had washed up onto the shoreline since the last time he was there. And now was as good a time as ever to practice using "Hellstorm" again since the sun was setting.
'I really should thank Fubuki-san for letting me keep this tracksuit.' He smiled to himself as he hopped down the steps, ready to spend some time in his makeshift sanctuary of discarded rubbish.
Author's Notes: A bit of a random chapter this time around. Just some more world building and fleshing characters out really.
1. It was actually really hard trying to find a way to get everyone of the 1-B students getting involved in the "ambush" without it seeming too outlandish. Like I said, I plan on every 1-B character getting their moment in the spotlight. So Kodai and Shoda will definitely have some more screen time. Also when it comes to the ambush, I'd like to think that even though it was only seven of them, 1-B had the advantage of ample time to come up with a good strategy. I firmly believe that if you give Honenuki, Midoriya and Tokage half and hour to come up with a plan (along with this specific combination of quirks), it was going to be something good. Sorry if you guys think I jumped out the window too much with that part of the chapter.
2. Yes, Hisashi is actually involved in Midoriya's life in this story. Most fics just write him off as deadbeat/villain, but I wanted to switch things up. Not everyone's parents are together, and just because we haven't seen him in canon that doesn't necessarily mean he's a deadbeat. Plenty of people grow up in "split households". Don't really put too much stock in his job, my friend honestly thought it up and just said: "Fuck it, that's reasonable enough". He won't be appearing a lot outside of a few key scenes and events, but I felt like this was a good time to introduce him. He's pretty much the person that Midoriya talks to about his problems (For now).
3. Don't think that I'm attacking Inko. I enjoy her character, but in my opinion she isn't exactly the paragon of emotional stability. And that's not really what Midoriya needs in his life right now. Also, with this version of Midoriya he'd find it really hard to talk to his mom about his problems when she's liable to breakout into tears and hover over him all the time. But that's just my opinion.
Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.