The Way of the Bat
Chapter III
That same evening, in a rundown bar in Kamino Ward, Shigaraki Tomura stared at a screen. "A quirkless hero? Are you sure, Sensei? It doesn't make any sense. How could a quirkless child get into the hero course?" On the opposite side of the room, a woman who had been rotating some balls of earth around her hand growled out, and the balls were turned to dust. Goto Chikaru was the most passionate when it came to UA and their plans when it came to the school and All Might. Tomura on the other hand had been listening to a serial killer who had been slowly making waves in hero society, and he'd been coming up with his own plans. While Chikaru was essentially the same spoiled brat she'd been when All For One had recruited her, Tomura had matured due to having to care for their mentor after his last fight with All Might.
"I'm not sure, Tomura, but that's what my spy reported. It seems the time has finally come for one of you to start spreading your wings. But first, let's get the media involved. You know what to do."
"A quirkless hero isn't as impossible as you think," an older American gentleman in a black business suit said, replying to the original question. "I was beaten by a quirkless hero several times, and his predecessor ruled my city for decades."
"Then how useful can you be?" Chikaru demanded.
The older man's eyes glowed a poisonous green before he responded. "I'm more dangerous and deadly than you know, little girl. If I wanted, I could destroy this entire city without a second thought." Shigaraki shook his head, hoping the two would get over this argument faster than their previous ones, then went to work on the computer. Before setting their plans in motion, he sent a private message to his sensei, requesting a new base for his own operations, then he joined a chatroom where people talked about heroes and UA.
AshGamer: Hey, I heard a rumor that UA's taken on a quirkless kid as a hero student. Is that even possible?
SpanishInquisition: It's not possible. I tried getting into UA, and there's no way a quirkless kid could pass the test.
HunterTroll: There's still quirkless kids out there? I thought they were going extinct.
Insomnyac: I just joined the GenEd program after failing the entrance exam for heroes. If there is a quirkless kid in the Hero Course, I'm going to be mad.
PhantomThief: Please, Inquisition was right. It's impossible for a quirkless kid to get into the hero course!
Komodo: How can someone without a quirk make for a good hero? There's no way that's true.
RocksforBrains: Oh, it's true alright. I went to middle school with him, and you would not believe how much the teachers went on and on about him after he got in. One of my other classmates was right about him, he's just a worthless Deku.
The next morning, Toshinori was once again waiting for them. "Alright, to start things off, I have two announcements. First, we're holding elections for class and vice reps at the end of the day. I'm letting you know now so that you can spend the rest of the day thinking about what you want in a representative and who best fits that goal. For those of you who want to be the rep, you can campaign during the breaks between classes, I already told your other teachers so they know what to expect.
"Second, about your Heroics class yesterday-"
"Sir, didn't we go over them after each round?" Yaoyorozu Momo asked. She'd been one of the main commentators after the rounds, enough so that Toshinori had been forced to step in and tell her to stop answering so that others had the opportunity to do so. She'd taken the rebuke a little hard, but gracefully and by the end of the class she absolutely understood his reasoning as the students had actually taken to debating some points.
"Yes, we did, but there's something I need to say. Some of you were too good at your roles, to the point that the other team and sometimes even your teammates didn't get the chance to shine. So, I'm putting what should be our next lesson on hold and we're doing another round of battle tests today. It will be the exact same scenario, but this time I'm picking the heroes' teammates and who's going to be hero or villain. Now, here's the villains."
Aoyama Yuuga
Asui Tsuyu
Hagakure Toru
Iida Tenya
Jiro Kyoka
Kaminari Denki
Midoriya Izuku
Mineta Minoru
Sero Hanto
Todoroki Shoto
"The villains are free to pick your partners, and I will create hero teams that should push you to your limits. I will be coming by every so often to check on your progress. Good luck!"
During lunch, Iida made his argument in favor of being elected class representative, and his speech was so refined that Uraraka made a comment about it. "You're super rich, aren't you?"
"Well, of course he is," Izuku stated. "He's one of two legacy students in our class, the other being Todoroki, of course."
"Iida's a legacy?" Jiro asked in shock. Todoroki's heritage was famous, or infamous depending on who you asked. But Iida?
"His father is Iida Tenjirou, his brother Tensei, and both of them carried the name Ingenium," Izuku explained.
"How did you know that?!" Iida asked in shock.
"What, like it's hard? Your agency is called IidaTen, a reference to your family's naming conventions, and all of you have engine quirks. Besides, your brother is the same age as Aizawa, Hizashi and Kayama-senseis, anyone could find out what I did," Izuku pointed out.
That afternoon, most of the class had made their cases to be class rep, and the villains had chosen their teammates, making the selection for their hero counterparts relatively easy for All Might. Round one pitted Iida and Kaminari against Yaoyorozu and Uraraka. He had figured that Yaoyorozu would be smart enough to be able to create something to insulate herself and Uraraka against Kaminari's electricity, which she did, but Kaminari's attack had a … side-effect. All the cameras flashed white before the entire training area returned to the blank slate it was before the city had been programmed. "The villains win by technicality. Return to the classroom."
"So, what happened?" Kaminari asked when they returned.
"What happened is that you were careless with your quirk, young Kaminari. Your attack set off the bomb, a possibility due to the nature of this training area, and it resulted in you killing everyone. So, technically you won, but you died doing so."
The second round pitted Aoyama and Asui as the villains against Ashido and Tokoyami. The heroes easily won that, with Ashido taking advantage of Aoyama's weakness and then joining Tokoyami to double-team Asui. Sato and Shoji were up next against Hagakure and Jirou. The girls won that round by keeping the heroes busy long enough to run out the timer. Koda and Ojiro went next against Sero and Mineta. Young Koda's extreme shyness kept him from participating much, again, resulting in the villain team winning the fight. That left only one fight, one that everyone was looking forward to. Toshinori hadn't wanted it to go this way, but when it came to sheer power, only Bakugou stood a chance against young Todoroki, and Kirishima should prove a challenge for his favorite.
The two boys entered the building with Kirishima taking the lead. While Bakugou knew Midoriya best, they had agreed that the redhead would be able to take the most punishment from Midoriya's gadgets. The pair had barely made it to the second floor before there was an explosion, causing the floor to give way beneath Kirishima, resulting in him falling back to ground level. "Damn, I thought explosions were your thing," Kirishima complained while Bakugou pulled him out of the hole he'd created.
"The damned Bat must have rigged it while we were waiting outside. Who knows what else we'll have to deal with. That's the problem with Bats, they're completely unpredictable." Just as he finished speaking, Bakugou took a hit to the head, knocking him to the ground. "What the hell? What hit me?" Kirishima found a piece of metal laying on the ground and picked it up. Bakugou immediately recognized it. "Damn that Bat! Didn't know he'd added remote control batarangs to his arsenal!"
"Remote controlled? You mean he could be anywhere in the building and could still hit us?" Kirishima demanded.
"He could have been halfway across the city and hit us, Shitty Hair!"
Upstairs, the duo playing villain were having the time of their lives as they watched the 'heroes' deal with the toys they were using. "That was great," Shoto said with a smile. "Can I direct another?" Izuku just laughed and threw another, while Shoto directed it to hit Kirishima in the back this time, using Izuku's remote control. "Hey Robin, let's wait to blow the stairs until they're at least on their way to the third floor."
"Shoto, I love the way you think!" Ten minutes and another blasted floor later, and Shoto detonated the stairs, having far too much fun with Izuku's gadgets in the greenette's eyes. But he couldn't blame the bi-colored boy, he was the same way every time he got a new gadget. The blond on the other side of the explosion on the other hand, well, Izuku could hear him cursing up a storm even from their location. The duo rushed to the other set of stairs, but in their rush, they forgot their previous caution, and once again, the stairs blew up once they reached the second floor.
"Can't we destroy the building itself?" Kirishima asked.
"We could, but there's three problems with that," Bakugou replied. "First, were you told anything about civilians being in there yesterday or today?"
"No, why?" Kirishima honestly couldn't tell where his partner was going with this.
"Neither was I, so as heroes, we need to assume that there are civilians whom we need to protect or save. The second problem, I have no idea how to safely bring buildings down, which means I could make this building fall against another or into the street, again, putting civilians in danger. Third, if we could bring it down, we risk having it end up like Pikachu's scenario and causing the bomb to go off. No, we need to take down the villains and secure the bomb." Unfortunately for Bakugou, before they could make another attempt, they ran out of time.
"Well, the villain team won that without question, but I do have a criticism: you left yourself without a way of escape should the heroes find another way to you."
"Actually sir, Midoriya had that covered already," Shoto stated. "As proven by the fact that we are here right now. He glided out, while I generated an ice slide." Toshinori acknowledged it before letting the class discuss the battle and dismissing them from Heroics. As his last act as a teacher for the day, he held the class rep elections. Yaoyorozu won the election easily, with Izuku winning vice rep. Afterwards, Shoto whispered something to Izuku, which he quickly agreed to.
Forty-five minutes later, the two boys were on a train to Tokyo. "Why'd you ask me to come along, Todoroki?" the greenette asked.
"Because you're the first person that I could even start considering a friend, and I think my mother would like to meet the person who finally convinced me to see her again." Izuku could understand that, and the two boys spent the rest of the ride getting to know one another. When they arrived in Tokyo, Shoto lead Izuku to a hospital and announced "I'm here to see my mother, Todoroki Rei."
"Todoroki Rei, you said?" an oddly familiar voice called back. Izuku turned and immediately recognized the doctor who had spoken. He was an older gentleman, shorter than Izuku, plump, but in the sort of way that implied a pleasant man who enjoyed life, wearing distinctive goggles over his eyes and a bushy mustache. "She's doing quite well, and would gladly welcome visitors. Come along, she's just this way."
"Not so fast, Dr Tsubasa," Izuku said, pulling his staff out and putting one end at the man's throat. "What are you doing here?" he asked while subtly tapping a button on his belt.
"Do I know you young man?" Garaki asked. He had to admit, the boy did look familiar, but then his patients started to blend together after a few years of not seeing them. If this boy knew who he was though, it could mean big trouble for the master and his plans! How long had it been since he used the Tsubasa pseudonym? How did the boy know him?
"What are you doing to Dr. Garaki, young man?" another doctor demanded.
"Well, that confirms at least one crime: using a false identity," Izuku said with a savage grin.
"Midoriya, are you sure you have the right man?" Todoroki asked.
"Like I could possibly forget the face of the man that told me I was quirkless. Not to mention the fact that he's my father's favorite doctor." Garaki's eyebrows raised in shock and fear. Now he remembered the boy! He had been so shocked at the initial results of his test that he had run every test imaginable, yet everything had come up the same: the boy was quirkless and couldn't possibly gain a quirk unless it was from his master, the boy's own father. This was bad! The master needed to be told about his son immediately!
"If you're quirkless, what do you think you're doing threatening the doctor?!"
"He's my classmate at UA," Shoto said, standing up for Izuku. "You can call my father if you think it's necessary." The doctor went off to do just that, while Shoto turned to Garaki. "Now, why is a pediatrician here in a mental hospital? This is hardly your normal place of work, is it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, young Todoroki. I'm a regular doctor just delivering medications for the patients here. My usual hospital is in Jaku, call them and ask about me!"
"Oh, you can believe that I'll do that," a new voice called out. Everyone turned to see a man in plainclothes with a fedora on his head, and a police officer with a cat quirk. "Sansa, get to it," the man said to his partner. "So, Robin, what's this about?"
"This is Dr. Garaki, but I know him as Dr. Tsubasa, the man who told me I was quirkless." True. "He also works for my father." True, and very concerning, considering what he knew of the boy.
"I don't know what he's talking about, officer." Lie. "I've never seen him before in my life." Lie. "I was just here delivering medications for the patients." Partial lie. "I've done nothing wrong." Lie.
"Right, I've heard enough. We're going to the station so I can get some better answers." Bats are always trouble, Tsukauchi Naomasa grumbled in his head as he lead the doctor away. Part of the reason for that was that they were so often right though, and considering what his quirk had told him, there was something fishy going on with this doctor. The boy was lucky that he'd been patrolling nearby, but Toshi believed in him, and he'd helped them take down All For One, so Tsukauchi was glad that he had been.
The boys on the other hand resumed their visit to see Todoroki's mother. Shoto knocked on the door and called out "Mom?"
"Shoto?" Todoroki Rei called out. Just hearing his mom's voice for the first time in ten years caused Shoto to break and run to her. Mother and son hugged and cried every tear they had held in, just happy to have each other again. Izuku stayed just outside of the room, unwilling to interrupt the beautiful reunion. Scenes like this were why he wanted to become a hero in the first place, to save people, including from themselves. Sometimes one just needed to find some acceptance, others required more intense and long-term help, and most just needed to be rescued from their circumstances. He loved the idea of saving people, which was why he continued watching All Might's Japanese debut video several times a day.
Once the pair had cried themselves out, they started apologizing to each other for their mistakes (Shoto for not visiting sooner, Rei for the boiling water and her attempt at fixing it,) then they started catching up. Once Shoto started telling her about UA, Rei interrupted. "I think I know why you came here now. Either your father or a friend said something about using your fire, right?"
"A friend, he actually came with me as moral support," Shoto agreed.
Rei looked at the door and easily spotted the green hair, even though Izuku was doing his best to hide while still being close enough to know if Shoto needed help. "Well then, let me remind you of something, Shoto. I already told you that it's okay if you want to be a hero, and for you to use your fire. In fact, I think if you're choosing of your own free will to be a hero, then you need to use your fire. No one becomes a hero by giving it only half their effort, and you would lose people by holding back. Stay true to yourself and your heart, and you won't end up like your father." With her speech ended, she called in Izuku and she got to know her son's friend.
A/N: Kudos to anyone who figures out my cameo characters in the beginning of this chapter. Also, there's a reward for those who figure out my publishing schedule.