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2025-06-18
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2025-07-29
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6/?
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Death's Best Friend

Summary:

What if Izuku Midoriya wasn't quirkless? What if he had a really powerful quirk, except he can't tell anyone about it. And the fact it activates only when he dies.
It's a good thing his friends keep him sane... right?

Midoriya has a modified version of Return By Death from Re:Zero

Notes:

Implied/attempted suicide

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Double-Edge Quirk

Chapter Text

A scrawny, nervous looking, green-haired teenager with diamond shaped freckles was staring over the edge of the roof. His school uniform was burnt and torn all over. Twelve years of incessant bullying all after being declared quirkless. He was done with this world. He didn’t choose to be quirkless, why should he be punished for any of this. Name calling, the lack of friends, being ignored by the adults in charge who clearly didn’t want anything to do with him and the physical assault? It was just too much for him to bear at this point. With a deep breath and an uttered apology to his mom the teenager jumped.

CRACK

And all of a sudden he was back on the roof.


Izuku awoke with a gasp, that same nightmare that had been haunting him for the past year arrived once again. He took a few deep breaths, to calm himself and looked over at his alarm clock. 4:30 A.M. He sighed, figuring that he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep, he had trouble sleeping since he discovered his quirk. He got out of bed and decided to be productive. A quick body workout wouldn’t hurt him.

He looked towards the mirror, and nodded in slight approval. He was no longer scrawny as he put the time into shaping his body ever since that day. But he knew he could still improve, do better. The burn marks and scars that littered up and down his body were constant reminders. He didn’t have much of a choice. With a crack of his knuckles, he got to work.


The green-haired boy came down the stairs for breakfast, drying his wet hair as well as activating his quirk. He got a good two hour workout in and was feeling hungry. His mom spotted him as he arrived in the kitchen.

“Izuku, good morning! Did you sleep well? I see you’re all ready for school.”

“Yeah I did mom,” he lied. He lied about a lot of things to his mom, he never wanted to burden her with his problems. She was too good of a parent to be dealing with that.

“Are you excited for class today? Oh, and remind me, do you have your martial arts class today or tomorrow?” Inko asked her son as she put a plate of food in front of him.

“Yeah I am,” Izuku said after a short pause. Another lie. “And it’s tomorrow, not today.” He had convinced her to let him sign up for lessons, pleading that he needed to learn how to fight in order to become a hero. It took quite some time, as Inko didn’t approve of that dream of his too much, but in the end he managed to do it. He was glad he was able to, it got him his only real friend.

“Alright then. Enjoy your breakfast, I need to get started on the laundry.”

“Thanks mom. I will,” he responded. He then opened the parkour video on his phone and began watching as he ate. He had to learn as much as could whenever he got the opportunity.


“Mom, I’m leaving for school.” Izuku called out as he adjusted his singed uniform.

“Alright honey, come home safely.”

“I will,” and with that he was out the door. He knew he would always come home in a safe-ish condition. His quirk let him do so most of the time.

He headed down the street and quickly darted into an alleyway. After a quick stretch, he leaped up onto the wall and then began to wall jump his way to the roof. This was his route to school, by going from roof to roof, his way of practicing parkour. It was a bit risky, but most people were asleep when he did this anyway. And he didn’t have to worry about slipping and falling to his death, his quirk wouldn’t let him.

He couldn’t die in any way, shape or form. Whether he asphyxiated, fell to his, got his throat slit, he would always find himself back to some point during the day.
It turns out after all this time Izuku Midoriya wasn’t quirkless, he did have a quirk. It just activated when he died.

After a few different suicide attempts after his first one, using different methods for each one, he realized that he wasn’t going crazy and that he couldn’t die.

He tried to tell his mom his discovery, only to find out that he couldn’t. Whenever he tried to tell anyone, he would feel what he would describe as a hand, caressing, squeezing his heart, threatening to pop it like a balloon if he managed to say the words “I’ve died.”

After a week of very uncomfortable experiments, to learn more about his quirk, Izuku came to an understanding of how it worked. He could choose a point to reset to, three times a day, with the latest point overriding any prior one. However, annoyingly, his quirk could sometimes activate on its own. When that happened, not only could he not choose his respawn point, but he could not set a new one until the next day.

With a grunt, he let himself down from the wall, close enough to school to begin walking there normally. He checked his watch to see how long it took him, and was pleased to see a slight improvement from yesterday’s time. Though he couldn’t give himself full scores considering he almost slipped once. That wasn’t good enough. He readjusted his backpack and continued heading to school.


Izuku looked through his notes after class, making sure he had enough about the new hero from this morning, Mt. Lady. His notebook had plenty of analysis on current and past quirks as well as training tips for himself. He made sure to write plenty of notes on heroes who didn’t have any quirks that would help them in combat or rescue, such as Easerhead and Sir Nighteye. He also had ideas and notes of what weapons and support items intrigued him the most.

He nodded content with his work, and began to think about his quirk. While the way his quirk worked was awful, it was also an extremely powerful quirk and his ticket to becoming a hero. Unfortunately, because he discovered his quirk so late, and it made him practically quirkless when it came to fights he was still playing catch up. His brains would help sure, but physically he was still behind other students who had more training or strong, fancy quirks.

Speaking of people with strong and flashy quirks…

He turned to look over at the loud, obnoxious, blonde boy a few desks over. Like every other day he was yelling about how he was gonna be the best hero ever to another classmate, all while causing miniature explosions from his hands.

Can he not be annoying for a single day? Is that too much to ask?’ Izuku thought, rolling his eyes. He turned his eyes and began finishing his sketch of Mt. Lady.

He didn’t get to do that for long before a hand slammed onto his desk.

“Hey Deku! What the hell do you think you’re doing?! I thought I told you to keep those stupid notebooks at home!” Bakugo snarled.

Ah yes, Katsuki Bakugo. Izuku’s childhood friend and current bully. The loud, obnoxious blonde from a few moments ago if it wasn’t obvious enough. Izuku had thought that the boy would stop the bullying once they got into high school, but he was unfortunately wrong.

“My bad Kacchan,” Izuku drawled. “I didn’t realize that the teacher died and put you in charge.”

Oops. Wrong thing to say.

In one swift move, Bakugo grabbed the notebook and blew it up in his hands before tossing it outside the window.

“And I told you to cut it out with that attitude. Things were a lot better for ME when you were just a wimpless crybaby.”

Midoriya did everything in his power not to roll his eyes at that.

“And what was that about the teacher saying you were planning to apply to UA huh nerd? Do you have brain damage or something? It’s a the university made for heroes, not for fucking quirkless people like you!” Bakugo spat out with the harshest glare he could give, his lackeys snickering behind him.

“Give it up before I make you! You got that Deku?” And with that, he turned around and started walking out. “Let’s go, the future number one hero doesn't want to spend anymore time around this loser.”

Izuku waited until the group left and with a sigh, started packing up his stuff. Now he had to look for his freshly charred book. He knew that he probably would have avoided that whole interaction if he just kept his mouth shut but he couldn’t help himself.

He knew that he had changed since the day he learned he couldn’t die. It wasn't an overnight change in his behavior but between knowing he had a quirk (which wow helped his mental state more than he thought it would), working out, and dying a few times he became a bit more blunt, snarky and at times a little angsty. He wasn’t trying to be like that but he reasoned he needed some sort of outlet for all of the bullying and deaths. He already didn’t like the fact he had to keep his quirk a secret and really didn’t feel like bottling stuff up.

A bonus was that he became a lot more confident in himself. What years of being bullied and then discovering that you can’t die does to a person he supposed.

He was still at the end of the day, kind and caring with a heroic heart and still him. He loved heroes and quirks just like he did as a kid and was always there to help someone in need. He was just a lot less likely to take anyone’s shit and less likely to cry over every little thing now.

He found his notebook in the school’s koi pond. Now, not only was it burnt, it was also soaked. Groaning at the fact that he either had to recopy everything to a new journal or had to put some work into making it usable again, Izuku shook the book a few times to get the water out and started walking home.

On his way home he began planning his newest idea. He had recently learned of a beach that was more like a dump at this point and figured that cleaning it up would be a great way to build up some more muscle. And if he was lucky maybe he’d find some stuff that he could turn into makeshift weapons. He’d just have to find a balance between his martial arts and parkour lessons, school and that.

Because he was so deep in thought, Izuku didn’t hear the strange noise coming from the manhole cover or the giant sludge creature appearing out of it at first. And by the time he did realize it, it was a little too late.

“Don’t worry kid. I’m just ‘borrowing’ your body. It’ll only be painful for a few seconds and then you won’t ever feel a thing again!” the monster gurgled out.

God this stuff is fucking nasty,’ Izuku thought as he struggled to get out of the villain’s grasp. ‘And this is why I make sure to set a point in the morning. For when bullshit like this happens’

The thought wasn’t that comforting, especially with the sludge going down his throat. His lungs began to burn, vision became blurry and his legs felt weak and shaking. He knew this feeling. The feeling of death.

Izuku knew there wasn’t much he could do. The sludge’s body was more liquid than solid making it impossible to break free. And so he just resigned himself to death’s embrace, mentally noting to avoid this route when he restarted his day, he heard a voice shout-

Fear not kid! I AM HERE!” followed up by a mighty “TEXAS SMASH!!” and a gust of wind, sludge monster being blown off him.

Izuku hacked up whatever sludge was left in his throat before looking up to see who his savior was. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped when he saw who it was.

“Holy shit it’s All Might.”

All Might, who was putting the villain into a soda bottle (whatever worked Izuku supposed), turned around with a booming laugh.

Yes it is I! I’m glad to see you’re doing alright kid. I apologize for letting you get caught up in my villain hunt. Still getting used to these parts.

“Wow it's such an honor to meet you! I’m like the biggest All Might fan around!” Izuku held up his burnt notebook and with a bow, “Could you please sign this for me?"

Of course my boy!” All Might said, taking the notebook and flipping through it to find an empty page. “You know, you've seemed to recover pretty quickly for someone who almost died.

Izuku could only sheepishly shrug. Muttering under his breath, “It’s not like I don’t have experience with it before…” He quickly slapped his hands to his mouth, hoping All Might didn’t hear that.

Luckily for him, the hero in question was engrossed in the notebook in his hands.

My these are very detailed notes you got here my boy! Do you plan to become a hero?” he asked as he finally turned to a blank spot and left his signature.

“You got that right sir. It’s been my dream since I was a young child. In fact you were one of my inspirations when I was growing up. I’m applying to UA’s hero course next Spring.”

Is that so? Well I wish you the best of luck kid, hopefully I get to see you on the field one day.” All Might said while handing the book back to Midoriya. “I would love to stay and chat with a super fan longer but I must turn in this villain as soon as possible!

Izuku nodded in understanding, and gave a bow. “I understand sir. Thank you so much for the autograph! I'm definitely going to treasure it."

It’s no problem, young man!” All Might said as he got into a crouch “And with that I wish you a good farewell!

Just like that the number one hero was gone. Izuku stared for a minute before shaking his head and continuing his way home. He was even more determined after that encounter.

He was going to be a hero. No matter the amount of resets he would have to go through.

Not even death could stop him.

Chapter 2: The Green-Haired Boy and the Orange-Haired Girl

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

10 months until the UA exam
Takoba Municipal Beach 5 A.M.

Izuku looked out around the beach. Well if he could even call it that. It was more akin to a garbage dump than a beach. Everywhere the eye could see was more and more trash.

Which was actually more than ok with the young man. He recently discovered this place existed thanks to an online thread and learned that nobody really ever showed up here. This meant he was free to use it to his heart’s content.

Izuku had two goals here: clean up the beach as much as he possibly could, this would help him build endurance and muscles, and then finding parts that he could turn into some sort of weapon.

When researching all possible ways to fight with a weapon, Izuku was drawn to bojutsu and so he wanted to find something similar to a bo staff. He was hoping there would be some sort of metal pipes, clubs or even bats around here that he could find. That way he could at least practice his form and techniques. The inspiring future hero figured that he could use whatever he found here for the entrance exam and then once he got into UA have the support course make the weapons he needed.

With a hum, he took off his green sweatsuit and started to stretch, knowing he only had a few hours before he had to return home and get ready for school.

“You know, you must be crazy Midoriya, dragging me out here at five in the morning to this dump,” a voice rang out behind him.

With a grin, Izuku turned around to greet the person. That person was a girl with teal eyes and orange hair tied into a side ponytail, who was currently walking towards him. She was wearing a blue tracksuit and was carrying a water bottle in one hand.

“Maybe I am, Kendo. Maybe I am. But you know, you probably are as well seeing that you agreed to join me.”

Itsuka Kendo. The only person Izuku Midoriya knew that he could confidently call a friend.

Kendo sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah it’s because you threatened me. Saying that if I didn’t show up, you’d quit the dojo. You didn’t give me much of a choice, I’d lose my sparring partner.”

“And it worked did it not?”

“You know you can be kinda annoying at times right?”

The two teens stared at each other before laughing. Kendo sat down her water bottle and began stretching alongside Izuku. “You really think we can clear this dump in just ten months?” she asked, giving the green-haired boy a look.

“Maybe not all of it but I’m hoping we can clean at least 75% of it,” he replied with a shrug. “Tell your Pops that I’m grateful he said he’ll let us use his truck to move this garbage to an actual dump. And that I’ll bring him something as a thank you when I show up later today.”

She waved a hand at him. “He says it’s not that big of a deal. He’s pretty happy the two of us are happy cleaning up the community or whatever. Plus you know that he’s willing to help you out with whatever you need.”

“Still doesn’t hurt to have good manners.”

“Yeah I guess you’re right.” The two of them finish up their stretches and start heading towards the first pile of trash. “You know when we first met, I would’ve never predicted that we’d be doing something like this. Especially you, no offense.”

Izuku shook his head in response as he started to move some stuff to their designated pick up area. “None taken. I also wouldn’t have guessed I’d be doing anything close to this. Getting stronger at your dojo has given me some confidence I guess. The older me definitely wouldn’t have even thought about trying to clean an entire beach.”

“Well I’m glad that you decided to join our dojo.” Kendo replied with a smile as she activated her quirk to pick up a desk. Her quirk [Big Fist] allowed her to grab heavier items more easily than the average person. “Remember the first time we met?”

Izuku groaned. “I do but I wish I could make you forget how that happened.”


Around five months ago

Izuku was getting a little annoyed. Scratch that, he was really annoyed. It really shouldn’t be this much of a pain to find a single dojo but nope it was.

The first one rejected him for being “quirkless”, as did the second(which he thought was complete BS). The third accepted quirkless people but that dojo was out of his price range. Not their fault, but it didn’t help his growing annoyance.

“At this rate it’s gonna be easier to learn how to do martial arts online…” he grumbled to himself, currently walking to the next closest dojo according to his phone.

As he was making his way he heard someone say in an extremely annoyed tone, “I already told you guys no. Now leave me alone before I do something you’ll regret.”

Turning his head towards the alleyway, Izuku saw three men trying to hit on an orange-haired girl who appeared to be around his age. Who clearly wasn’t having it with these guys.

“Aw come on honey, the four of us can have a grand old time hanging out with each other, what’s the harm in that?”

Izuku sighed, activated his quirk, and began walking over to the group. He didn’t like using a checkpoint, especially when it had been a calm day so far, but it wasn’t like he was going to let these guys harass a young lady.
He just hoped that he wouldn’t have to use this respawn point at all. If he was lucky it wouldn’t get violent. Which he was really hoping because he had no clue how to actually fight.

“The harm is that she already said no once and you guys aren’t listening. Not to mention hitting on a person who has to be half your age is just creepy behavior. Leave her alone now.”

The three harassers turned around in mild surprise before the ringleader sneered. “Oh lookie here young lady. A hero has come to save the day. Teach him a lesson boys.”

The two other men nodded and got ready to attack. One man turned his hands into mallets and charged at the young teen. He took a massive swing which Izuku dodged but before he could launch a counter attack the second man’s arm punched him square in the stomach knocking the wind out of him. He turned in surprise, considering the fact that the man never moved from his spot, though he had his arms raised with his hands missing.

Great, some sort of quirk that allows one to change his hands into weapons and another one that allows him to shoot his hands out like rockets. A pretty decent balance of long range and short range.’ Izuku thought to himself begrudgingly.

He avoided another strike from mallet hands, making sure to keep an eye out for the flying hands. He had to time this up perfectly, otherwise he’d be in a good chunk of pain.

He waited till he was standing in front of mallet hands with the two fists directly behind him. Predictably they tried attacking at the same time. When they did, Izuku jumped to his side and turned around to see the flying fist go straight into the mallet hand’s face. Using his momentum he swung a kick at mallet hands making sure he was out for the fight.

Before he could feel good about taking one guy out, rocket hands quickly pivoted his hands and landed a hard punch to Izuku’s face, who fell down with a curse.

The ringleader of the group grinned ferally. “See that’s what you get for rudely interrupting us. Now lets-”

Before he could finish his sentence he was punched in the face by a giant fist instantly knocking him out.

The person who did that was none other than the girl they were hitting on minutes ago. Izuku's eyes widened in surprise as he watched the man drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Rocket hands turned around to face the new threat, sending his hands towards the orange-haired teen, who effortlessly smacked them out of the way before rushing the man. With no hands available to protect himself, the girl easily got a few palm strikes in before kneeing the guy in the stomach, ending the skirmish.

She gave him one light kick, just to make sure he was out, before turning and offering a hand to Izuku. “Hey, are you ok?”

The freckled-face boy gave her a nod, and graciously took her hand. “Yeah I’m fine. That punch hurt like a bitch though.” He touched that spot where he was punched with a hiss.

She gave him a sympathetic look. “Yeah, hopefully it doesn’t swell up too badly. Anyway thanks for stepping in, most people would’ve just walked by without a second thought.”

“It’s no problem, I wasn’t just going to let you be harassed like that. Besides, you took out most of them anyway. I didn’t do too much besides getting my ass smacked around.”

The other teen shook her head. “I only had the opportunity because they were distracted by you.” She gave him a look. “You handled yourself pretty well though for a two versus one. Do you have any fighting experience?”

“Nope. Unless you count avoiding classmates trying to bully you.” Izuku responded.

The girl raised her eyes in surprise. “I know we just met, but you don’t give me the impression of someone who’s being bullied. Not to be rude or anything.”

“Don’t worry about it. In fact it’s a good thing, it means I’m doing a good job with my overall appearance. But yeah I get made fun of and a bunch of other ‘fun’ stuff at my school.”

“Do you mind me asking why?”

Izuku paused for a second. He considered making up a lie but decided against it, people would find out if he got into UA anyway. “It’s… it’s because I’m quirkless.” The green-haired teen gave a little wince, he always feels a little guilty whenever he has to say that. It’s not like he’s actually quirkless, but what could he do if his own quirk wouldn’t let him tell anyone.

He mentally prepared himself for the girl to give him a look of disgust, call him a few names and then leave him. What he didn’t expect was the response she gave him.

“Wow, some people are just complete assholes huh,” she replied with a scowl. “Picking on people just because they don’t have a quirk. How lame can you be?”

The boy gave her a look of surprise. “First time I’ve heard anyone talk like that.”

She shrugged. “I mean, does it matter if someone has a quirk or not. We’re all still people at the end of the day. Besides, most quirks are either fairly useless or unimpressive anyway. Like mine isn’t anything cool.”

“That’s not true! I haven’t had time to really analyze it but I think your quirk is awesome! Can you tell me about it?” The words came out of Izuku’s mouth before he could stop himself.

He got a puzzled look in return. “Uh sure yeah, I don’t see why not. My quirk is called [Big Fists]. I can grow my hands to a massive size and when I do I gain some extra strength there.” She grew her hand as a demonstration before turning towards the boy, who was furiously writing down notes and ideas in a notebook (where did that even come from?) and muttering at breakneck speeds.

“Fascinatingaquirklikethatwouldbeamazinginbothcombatandrescuesituations,Itwouldmakeanormalpunchhitsomuchharderandwouldmakemovingdebrismucheasier,Iwonderifshecancontrolhowmuchshegrowsherhandsand-”

His muttering spread was interrupted with a light chop to the head. He looked sheepishly towards the girl who had an amused look on her face.

“Hey don’t forget to breathe you know, can’t have you passing out on me now.”

A light blush adorned Izuku’s face. “Sorry about that. I just really get into quirks. It’s kinda my hobby.”

“I can tell,” the girl laughed in response. “And don’t worry about it, we all have something we’re passionate about. Besides, it feels nice to hear someone gush about my quirk. Most people think it’s basic as hell.”

“I think almost every quirk has the ability to be useful in one way or another. It’s just all about how you use it. You clearly know how to use it well. That was martial arts, no?”

The orange-haired teen gave a proud nod. “Yep! I learned it when I was little. I want to go to UA and become a hero with my quirk, and my family running a dojo. It all just kind of came together.”

Midoriya’s face lit up. “Wow that’s an awesome goal! I want to go to UA as well. I don’t care that I’m quirkless, I'm going to do whatever it takes to become a hero.” He paused for a second. “Wait, your family runs a dojo?”

“Well you certainly have the spirit of a hero, stepping in to help someone out even when they didn’t ask for it.” The girl replied teasingly. “And yeah my family owns a dojo. My dad’s in charge of it, we teach kids martial arts.”

“Do you guys take quirkless people? I’m actually looking for a place to teach me how to fight. That way I, you know, don’t get knocked to the ground by some random creeps. The last few places discriminate against quirkless so I’m still searching.”

“Of course we do! Here I’m actually on my way over right now, we can go together. I can introduce you to my dad and get you registered.” The two teens started to walk out of the alley before the orange-haired one stopped with a gasp and smacked her head. “I just realized we never introduced ourselves.”

Izuku blinked, thought about it for a second before realizing she was correct. “Oh. Yeah you’re right. I guess I forgot, considering everything that happened.”

“Well that makes two of us.” The girl held her arm out in front of her and gave Izuku a grin. “I’m Kendo. Itsuka Kendo.”

Midoriya copied her actions. “Midoriya. Izuku Midoriya.”


Kendo gave him a teasing smile. “What you don’t like the fact our first meeting was you stepping in to help a pretty young lady like myself?”

“That part was fine. I don’t like the part where the pretty young lady watched me get knocked to the ground, had to finish off the other guys and then watch me go on my nerd spree afterwards.”

“You and I both know I would’ve learned about your nerdiness at some point anyway. And you know it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.” The two teens continue to move trash around. “If it makes you feel better, I feel confident in saying if those three guys showed up again, you’d be able to easily handle them on your own. You’re a quick learner and you have some pretty good skills for a guy who just started learning martial arts a few months ago. Hell even back then I thought you'd be fine that day, I just didn't want to see you get hurt too bad so that's why I stepped in.”

The green-haired teen groaned in response before giving Kendo a soft smile. “I guess you’re right. And thanks for your words. They mean a lot to me.”

He dug through a pile of trash, pulling out a long metal pole. “Hey Kendo, could you try to bend this? Need to see if it’s sturdy enough to use as a weapon.”

“Sure, toss it over here.” The boy obliged and Kendo caught it. Grabbing both ends of it, she pushed her hands towards her body. The pole didn’t completely bend but it bent enough to make Izuku shake his head in disapproval.

“If it’s started to bend without you using your quirk there’s no chance it’s durable enough. Don't throw that away though, I could probably use it to practice for now.” He sighed. “Maybe I have to just bring a ton of metal poles and just toss them aside when they become useless during the exam.”

Kendo gave him a pat on the back. “I’m sure you’ll come up with some sort of plan. Anything in your notebooks help?”

“Considering there’s no quirkless heroes to take notes on, no,” he replied back dryly. “Though watching pre-quirk movies is where I got the idea to use items like grappling hooks, boomerangs, bo staffs and all that from. I just don’t have the resources to make them on my own. I know when I get into UA the support course will be able to make our gear but it would be nice to have it now,” sighing as he dragged a washing machine over to the pick up pile.

“Well we can come up with ideas of what you can use later. We probably have to get ready for school now.” She gave him a look. “You better not skip out on today’s lesson cause you’re tired from this morning.”

“You put me in a chokehold last time I had to miss a lesson. You know that I haven’t missed a single once since then.” Izuku replied exasperatedly. “You’re really scary when you’re mad.”

Kendo smirked. “I know I am.” With a heave, she tossed whatever she had left in her hands into the pile, before smacking them together and grabbing her water bottle.

“So I’ll see you later then. You better be ready for me to kick your butt.” She said, holding out her hand in the shape of a fist.

With a smile Izuku bumped his fist against hers.


A certain pink-hair girl was grinning at her phone. She was running low on materials for her precious babies but she had discovered a goldmine. She discovered online that this one beach had a bunch of junk and garbage which was a shame but more importantly, that meant there was plenty of material ripe for the taking! And she was sure she could just take apart some of the bigger machines for more specific parts to use. And nobody would get mad at her for doing so! What a win!

Her grin grew even wider just thinking about all the stuff she could build using the excess scrap.

She knew exactly what her plans for this weekend were.

Notes:

Second chapter wowie. I'm pretty nervous about writing character interactions so I'm hoping it's not too bad here.
Anyway I decided Izuku needed a friend and thought Kendo was a good choice. I thought about having pairing the two together but I think I'd rather try writing them as best friends. Hopefully it goes well.
Oh and my editor and closest friend is also writing his own mha fic (partially what inspired me to give a shot at writing this one), and I think you should check it out. It's called "Down But Not Out". It's pretty different from my story but it's also really interesting. Gonna leave the link here. https://archiveofourown.to/works/66844150/chapters/172509562
Criticism and comments are always welcomed, just don't be a prick
And with that, until next time

Chapter 3: Inventors are weird man

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Midoriya!” A chipper voice ranged out behind him.

Izuku turned around, seeing the ginger girl running over towards him, looking ready to start their training. Judging by the sound of her voice, he figured that she probably had her coffee this morning. While the girl could handle the early morning cleaning sessions, she wasn’t always super energetic, unless she had her coffee. Izuku learned that while she could function fine without it, having a cup would always put her in a good mood.

Normally the two of them would do it early in the morning, before school because that was the only time they were available. After school was too difficult between martial art lessons, homework and personal training.

Weekends were different however. They both agreed that because they didn’t have school, they could sleep in for a little bit (more for Kendo than himself), and show up to the beach later in the morning. They figured because the beach was more like a garbage dump than a beach, nobody would be there anyway.

“Sup Kendo. You seem pretty lively this morning. Had your abomination of a drink you call ‘coffee’ I assume?”

Rolling her eyes, she punched him lightly in the shoulder, “Just because I like it black doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

“Many normal people would disagree,” Izuku said with a chuckle, as he ducked under another swipe from the girl.

“You just don’t have good taste in coffee. Anyway I didn’t think anyone would be here,” Kendo said, pointing over at a pile of scrap.

Turning his head to see where she was pointing, Izuku saw that there was some girl with salmon pink-dreadlocks, wearing what looked to be a pair of goggles, and some grime already on her face. She had a black tank top, with a jacket and belt tied around her baggy pants, and a wagon filled with a bunch of junk next to her. She was frantically digging through one of the piles of trash, occasionally shouting something about… her babies? Izuku wasn’t too sure, he couldn’t pick out everything she was saying. He felt a little concerned considering she seemed to be about their age.

“Er, do you know her?” Kendo asked warily, looking at the girl zoom from one pile to the next.

“Not in the slightest.”

“Should we introduce ourselves then?”

“I’d really prefer not to. She seems nuts.”

Kendo slapped him on the back of the head, giving him a look, "Really now? Besides I know you could use some more social interactions, I know the only people you talk to are me and your mom."

Rubbing the spot where he was hit, Izuku shot her a glare before he mumbled, "I guess introducing ourselves can't hurt…" The redhead wasn’t exactly wrong, he did need to start talking to more people, preferably those who didn't want to shove him into a locker. And the girl didn't seem like one of those people so what did he have to lose?

The two walked down the stairs towards the girl, Kendo deciding to make the first move. “Hey! What are you doing here?” she shouted out.

The girl stopped digging through the trash, turned and looked at them, and the next thing they knew, she was already face to face with them.

“Hey, are you two also here to look for spare parts? This place is awesome! There’s so many things I can use for my babies! And it’s just sitting here for the taking! For free! Now I don’t mind having competitors because my babies are top tier but you're welcome to try to reach their peak! And-!”

Was this how people felt when he went on a ramble? Izuku held up a hand, stopping her from continuing on. “Ok, ok, slow down. First of all, who are you? Second of all, what are you doing here? And third of all, what the hell do you mean by your babies?”

The girl gave a huge grin, lifted her goggles up (revealing she had crosshair-shaped irises which Izuku assumed was part of her quirk) and pointed at herself. “The name’s Mei Hatsume! And you’re looking at the future CEO of Hatsume’s Industry! And I’m here to look for stuff to create even more babies!”

Oh my God this girl had way too much energy.

“Well, I’m Itsuka Kendo and this is Izuku Midoriya,” Kendo introduced herself while pointing a thumb at Izuku. “You still didn’t tell us what you mean by your babies though.”

At that, Hatsume whipped out her phone, shoved it in their faces and started swiping, showing off a bunch of gadgets. “THESE are my babies!”

Izuku and Kendo stared at the phone, then at Hatsume, then at the stuff in her wagon. “Soooo, you’re an inventor. And your… babies are your inventions, is that right?” Izuku finally said after a minute of silence.

“Yep!”

“Why can’t you just call them ‘your inventions’ like a normal human being?”

This earned him another hit, this time a chop to the neck, from Kendo.

“And so you’re using excess parts from the trash here to help build them?” Kendo asked, ignoring the fact she just assaulted him.

“Correct! So much potential just lying around here!”

“Well, me and Midoriya were using this beach to train for UA. We’re training for the hero course. I don’t think there’s any issues with you grabbing stuff as long as you don’t interfere.”

The erratic girl gave a thumb’s up. “No problem! I also plan to go to UA! For the support course though, not the hero one. My babies are gonna help out so many heroes and then they’ll be used when they go pro, giving me even more exposure and-” she started to spiral into a long spiel about her inventions, popularity, and her future company.

Izuku turned to look at Kendo warily, “I mean it’s a public beach and whatnot, but are you sure you wanna deal with her? She seems a little eccentric.”

The orange-haired teen shrugged. “She’s a little… unique, that’s for sure, but I don’t see the harm. And she doesn't seem to be a jerk. Besides, there's a chance she will make our gear for us if we all get in UA.”

Cupping his chin, Izuku internally debated before nodding. “I suppose you’re right. Hmmm. Maybe I can work with her here...”

Turning back to Hatsume he asked, “Hey Hatsume, if I offer some help in dragging over the heavier items, how would you feel about making some support items for me?”

Immediately Hatsume shut up about her old items and with stars in her eyes asked excitedly, “A chance to make more babies!? You bet! As long as you sign a contract with me if you get in the hero course saying that I‘ll be your personal mechanic we got a deal!”

“Uh. Sure. Why the hell not.” Izuku shook her hand. “Pleasure working with you Hatsume.”

“Wonderful! Now show me what you want made so I can start planning how to build it!”

“Sure. Kendo, do you want to get started on whatever while I show Hatsume what I’m looking for? I’d feel bad if you just stood around the entire time. I’ll join you once we’re done.”

Kendo nodded. “Sure! I wanted to work on toughing up my hands for when I need to punch harder opponents anyway. I think I saw some metal sheets to practice against the other day.” And with a wave, she headed off to look for those sheets.

Izuku waved back then pulled out his notebook and his phone for Hatsume, showing her some of the items he wanted.

“I know most of these probably aren’t possible to make using just the stuff here, but I’d like to at least have a staff and the grappling hooks,” he said, pointing at a staff on his phone and another more detailed one in his notebook. He turned the page to show off the hooks and other gadgets he’d like. “At least for the entrance exams a basic but sturdy one will do. Everything else I want can be made later.” Izuku figured that the more complicated bombs, boomerangs and special tweaks for the bo staff would be impossible to make using just garbage.

Hatsume looked at his notes and photos and nodded feverishly. “Oh yeah, I can make a prototype pretty easily! It’ll probably take me about a week or so to build if I got the right stuff. The mini sticky and smoke bombs could be possible if I just stay out here 24/7 looking for materials though.”

“Please don’t do that, I should be fine with just the two I asked for.”

“Geniuses never rest!”

“That’s… not how it works…”

“Nonsense! Anyway-” the inventor grabbed Izuku’s notebook from his hands, as well as a pencil from her belt, scribbling down a few things, “-I need you to grab these items for me if you see them at any point. If you see them while I’m here, just throw it in the cart with all the other stuff. If I’m not here, just put it in a pile and I’ll pick it up on my next run. My number is at the bottom there.”

“Oh, alright! Thanks Hatsume.” Izuku said with a slight bow.

“Don’t worry about it, future sponsor number one. You get me what I need, showcase my work and we’ll get along great!”

Izuku grinned as he prepared to meet back up with Kendo.

“Yeah I think we will.”


It’s been about two weeks since they’ve met Hatsume. She occasionally showed up to grab some new items to use for her inventions. Though she came and left in a hurry saying something along the lines of, “if I’m out here, I’m wasting time not building my babies!”

Also she didn’t care at all when Izuku revealed his “quirklessness” to her. In fact she seemed pretty happy about that. “If you're quirkless then you need support items which gives more opportunities to create my babies!" She had told him. A bit egocentric, sure but Izuku preferred this version over "I get a kick out of bullying other people" kinds of personalities.

Besides just cleaning up the beach, Izuku and Kendo had created a makeshift obstacle course using certain pieces of trash. Stuff they could climb over, duck under, punch, and kick. They got really competitive when racing against each other’s times which would lead to some playful arguments.

Things were going pretty well for them. And for Izuku, it got even better when Hatsume showed up on Saturday morning with a grin and a few cases in her hands.

“Number one! Orange! Come over here real quick!” (The two teens learned fairly quickly that Hatsume didn’t bother to remember names and would just call them whatever she felt like at the moment.)

They placed the tires they were carrying down and jogged over. “Morning Hatsume!” Kendo greeted cheerfully, with Izuku giving a hello as well.

“Morning! Now this isn’t as important to you as much as it is for muscles over there,” she started while looking at the taller girl, “but I figured that you’d be just as interested in this!”

She opened the box, revealing a sleek, metal bo staff and a pair of grappling guns.

“Now because I only had what was around here and around in my lab, this is a prototype. It doesn’t have all the capabilities you wanted but it’ll get the job done for the entrance exam! It’s durable and hits like a truck! The grappling hooks aren’t anything crazy but they’re just as special because it’s made by yours truly.”

Izuku looked at his new gadgets in awe, picking up the staff and feeling it in his hands. He took a step back and swung it around a few times before nodding in approval. The weight was perfect for him.

“Hatsume, if I had any romantic feelings towards you, I’d probably kiss you right now. This is great!”

“Just wait till I get to modify it at UA and get you all that you want! I will say the biggest annoyance for now is that it’s not retractable like you wanted. Which is why I have the case for you here.”

The green-haired teen took it with a grateful nod, “That’s fine. Wow, this is just awesome. I’m forever in your debt.”

“You know it!”

“Well this means we can start some actual practice with it now,” Kendo said with a sly grin. They’ve sparred with metal pipes so Izuku could see what he learned from all the videos he’s studied and what he needs to work on, but it wasn’t helpful when Kendo kept breaking them after a minute or so.

“Oh I’m so gonna kick your ass with this.” Izuku replied with a cocky tone.

“I’d like to see you try shortcake.” Kendo shot back with an equally smug voice.

“Ouch, low blow there Orange.”

“Yeah seriously, you just had to go for the height,” Izuku said dramatically, clutching his heart.

“Yep. And I will continue to do so until you hit a growth spurt.” She turned towards Hatsume, “So what would you like for us to grab before I show him who’s the boss?”

“Hmmm, just throw anything with usable screws in a pile. Been needing some. I’ll collect them another day though, time’s a wasting and these babies aren’t going to make themselves! Have fun getting sweaty!” And with that, she was gone before the two could say anything else.

“Well it was nice of her to drop it off,” Izuku chuckled, before turning to give Kendo a glare. “And who’s supposed to be showing who’s the boss now?”

“Me obviously.”

“Oh is that so? Who’s won the last three spars, huh Kendo?”

“Who has the all-time lead so far, huh Midoriya? You know I always kick your ass.”

At that, he twirled his new bo staff around a few times and shot her a smug look. “Oh we’ll see about that Kendo.”

Enlarging her hands with a wide smile on her face she replied, “You’re on!” And with that the two teens charged at each other, spending the rest of the day trying to one up the other in so many spars that they eventually lost track of time. But neither had any problems with that.

Notes:

Everyone's favorite quirky inventor is here! Yahoo. She's fairly important for all the equipment Izuku has and I'm hoping I can get some scenes here and there with her. She won't be a mainstay in the group I have with Izuku though for anyone hoping that. Sorry to all Hatsume fans. But she will be here from time to time so there's that.
As always comments and critiques are welcomed as long as you're civil about it. Hopefully I get the next chapter out sooner than later as well. Until next time!

Chapter 4: Everything's Bigger at UA

Notes:

Quick Author note for people who have already read the first 3 chapters (thank you so much by the way): Minor changes; the characters are now aged up and UA is a university, not a high school and Aldera will now be a high school. Everything else stays the same, the only difference is that the students are older.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Day of the UA entrance exam

A pair of teenagers were sitting on top of a pile of scrap watching the sunrise together. Besides the pile they were sitting on, there wasn’t a single speck of trash left. The two took in the sight, feeling the warmth of the rising sun, as they admired the water.

“What did I say a few months ago? That it be nice if we could clean up 75% of all the junk lying around?” Izuku asked Kendo.

“I think we did a lot better than just that,” she replied with a wide grin. “I would’ve never thought this place could look so nice when we first started here.”

“Neither did I. It’s a beautiful looking beach. I can’t believe we did this.”

The redhead nodded, “Yeah it feels pretty surreal. But I’m happy we did, partly because this beach is actually usable now, but really, just look at us! It’s clear we’ve both gotten stronger, you especially.”

Izuku lightly blushed, but he couldn’t really refute her claim. Between cleaning, sparring, and training he had really filled out. His body more cut and lean, with bigger biceps and pecs, and with a six pack to boot. Though the six pack was hard to notice, after all Izuku never went out without a shirt. He didn’t want people to see his scars after all.

“Well you look pretty good yourself.”

Kendo slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Yeah, but I used to always have more muscles than you. Now look at you, you’re built like a Greek statue.” She said while poking his arm.

Izuku rolled his eyes, before poking her back. “You’re over exaggerating. Don’t act like your muscles aren’t big themselves. You got a pretty good body as well,” Izuku pointed out.

“Yeah I know, and you better not forget it. I’m proud of these babies,” Kendo said in a teasing tone, flexing her arm, while sticking out her tongue.

“You won’t ever let me forget. You let me know every time you pin me down in a spar.” Izuku said bluntly, giving the girl a deadpan stare.

She just shrugged, “Someone has to keep you from getting a big head.” And with a little “hup”, jumped down onto the sand. “Now let’s get going, I’d like to get some coffee and a quick shower before the exam. I prefer not to be all sweaty while I’m taking it.

The boy rolled his eyes and followed suit. “I still don’t understand how you drink so much of that stuff. Like you only drink it black no matter how many options are available.”

“Hey! Lots of people drink it without adding sugar or cream or anything else.”

“Yeah and those people are usually referred to as ‘psychopaths’.”

Kendo swatted his shoulder when he said that. “You’re such a prick, you know that?”

“I try my best.”


Izuku was staring at the UA’s entrance gate, the impressive building looming behind it. He was currently waiting for Kendo, as the two agreed to at least meet each other at the gate, before heading inside.

“Midoriya!” he heard a voice call out, and turning around he saw Kendo jogging towards him.

He raised a hand to greet her, “Hey Kendo, you ready for this?”

“Yep! I’m a little nervous though. Looking at the building shows how impressive this school really is. How about you? Here we should walk and talk,” and with a tilt of her head, the two started walking to get signed in.

The green-haired boy fidgeted with the bo staff strap on his shoulder and shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not sure it’s really sunk in yet for me. I’m sure I’ll be plenty nervous in about an hour or so.”

Kendo chuckled, “That sounds like you. You got everything you need?”

“Mm-hmm. Got the grappling guns in my backpack. How about you, did you bring anything?”

“Nah, I’ll just let my fists do all the talking. Don’t need anything else!”

Izuku smiled and held out his fist, “Hell yeah. I’ll see you after we both pass then. Plus Ultra.”

The orange-haired girl returned the favor with a smile of her own, “Plus Ultra indeed.”


“WELCOME LITTLE LISTENERS. EVERYBODY GIVE ME A ‘HEEEEEEEY’!” Present Mic screamed out to the examinees. Naturally, the room greeted him with deafening silence. Undeterred by the silence, the hero continued on with his introduction.

“Well that’s fine! I’m here to explain the guidelines for the practical! Who’s ready!?”

The Voice Hero was met with silence once again, so he let out his own very loud “YEAH!”

Izuku was both very excited and very unhappy. He was excited to see another pro hero in Present Mic, and was hoping to secure his autograph after the exam. What he wasn’t happy about, involved the guy he had to sit next to, Bakugo. Fortunately the two seemed to have come to an unsaid agreement of not talking to each other at all. Izuku could live with that at least.

“Alrighty listeners! You’ll be experiencing ten-minute long ‘mock cityscape maneuvers! You can bring whatever you want!” He pointed at the photo that appeared on the screen behind him. “After this presentation, you’ll each head to your assigned testing location!”

Izuku nodded and looked over at Bakugo’s paper to see if they were in the same location. They weren’t. He figured that people who went to the same high school probably got separated to avoid them teaming up.

Bakugo, also realizing this, murmured to Izuku, “You’re lucky we aren’t in the same group. I’d kick your ass in ten different ways.”

Izuku felt his eye twitch but ignored it, instead focusing on what Present Mic was saying.

“Each site is filled with three kinds of faux villains. Points are awarded for defeating each according to their respective difficulty levels! Destroy them and gain points! That’s your goal, listeners!”

“However,” the hero continued, “Playing the antihero and attacking other examinees is prohibited of course!”

He couldn’t help himself, “They made that rule strictly for you Kac-chan.”

Oh if looks could kill.

“Excuse me, may I ask a question?!” a voice called out, getting the boys’ attention. The voice came from a tall, glasses wearing, blue-haired boy who was currently standing up with the handout in his hands.

“On the handout, there are clearly four types of villains listed but you stated there’s only three! Such an error is unfitting for a top tier academy such as UA!”

This guy has to have a stick up his ass or something,’ Izuku thought dryly.

“Good point, examine 7111!” Present Mic exclaimed cheerfully. “The fourth type of villain is worth ZERO POINTS! ZIP! NADA! NOTHING! There’s only one at each site! Think of it like a ‘gimmick’, you see it going crazy and you run the other way!”

“Ah I see. Thank you for the clarification sir!” and with a bow, the blue-haired boy sat back down.

“If there are no other questions, then that’s all from me!” Present Mic said as he struck a pose. “Now let me leave my little listeners with our school motto.”

“PLUS ULTRA!! Go break a leg everybody!”


Izuku was currently standing at the front of the gate of his test site, taking in what appeared to be a whole mini city. (How UA had the budget for this stuff was beyond his understanding.)

He took a second to do one last check to make sure he had everything. In his utility belt, his two grappling guns, as well as a knife in case something went extremely wrong during the exam, and on his back, his bo staff. While it wasn’t the worst way to be carrying a weapon like this around, he couldn’t wait till Hatsume was able to make it collapsible for easier access.

After feeling around, he nodded to himself, satisfied, and set a set point here. He figured right now would be a good spot to start over, though he was really hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

With that, the green-haired boy took a look around to see his competition. He recognized the boy that asked the question about the robots, but there were plenty of interesting standouts. A guy with six arms, another boy with a blue and white headband, a boy who was… sparkling? God, quirks could be so weird. He was a little disappointed Kendo wasn’t in his group but he expected to not be so lucky.

After a few more glances, Izuku had his fill of scouting out the competition and cracked his neck. He had to get mentally locked in, after all the exam should start any minute-

“And begin!”

-now. While the rest of the competition stood around, confused, Izuku took off. He figured that because of the nature of the exam, there wouldn’t be countdowns of any sorts. After all, villains didn’t let you know when they would be attacking.

He ignored the sounds of the rest of the examinees rushing in behind him, and darted down a street where he was quickly met with a robot.

A one-pointer. Let’s see, the handout said they’re quick but fragile… so let’s try this out.’

Izuku jumped out of the way of the arm that swiped at him, grabbing his bo staff off his back in the same move. He quickly jumped onto the wall next to him and leaped into the air, right above the robot, the staff pointing straight down. With a grunt, he aimed right in the middle of the body, and stabbed it, breaking it in two cleanly.

“And not so much as a scratch on this bad boy,” he said, examining his staff. “I gotta get her that chocolate she likes so much as a thanks.”

After shaking his head to get any dust out of his hair, he took off once again. He found a pair of two-pointers which he was able to take down fairly easily, but had to avoid the three-pointer that came around the corner. While he was sure he could destroy it, one look at it told him it was more durable than the other two, and didn’t want to waste much time on it.

He focused his sight on what appeared to be a stray single-pointer, and went after it, not noticing the two-pointer approaching behind him.

The staff-wielding boy dodged the attacks thrown at him by the one-pointed, before striking it a few times to take it out, but that’s when he finally noticed the two-pointer behind him, already in a position to strike.

He grit his teeth, knowing he didn’t have time to dodge, and got ready to parry the incoming claws as well as he could, until a giant bolt came flying by, destroying the robot before it could do anything.

Izuku turned to look at his rescuer and saw a girl with black, shoulder-length hair, in a bob-shaped style, who was looking at him with a neutral expression. She was wearing a simple black and red jacket, with black sweatpants and a white t-shirt.

“Thanks for the assist,” Izuku told her, with a slight wave of a hand.

“Mm,” and a quick nod was all that he received, before the girl touched her fingers together, which caused the bolt to shrink down to a normal size, and took off back into the streets.

Before he could think about the interaction, he heard a voice shout, “SIX MINUTES REMAINING!” That was his cue to get back to looking for robots. He grimaced, knowing he didn’t have as many points as some of the other competitors did, almost all of them were keeping track out loud, and rushed to try to find a few that were grouped up.

While he wasn’t having a hard time destroying the robots, he was having difficulty finding them. If he saw one, some person with a long-ranged quirk always seemed to get it before he could run over. He was so looking forward to getting those boomerangs.

He saw another pair of robots about 50 feet away, and not wanting to risk someone snipping his targets, shot his grappling hooks over towards them, and launched himself at them. Using his momentum, he readied his staff and swung down at the first one, destroying it, before bouncing off that one and kicking the other one in the face. Which hurt. A lot.

The green-haired boy made a mental note to ask for iron soles shoes for his costume, as he smacked the two-pointer a few times to take it out. Izuku winced as he stood up, his foot feeling the effects of his stupidity.

Just use the staff next time you idiot.

He then ran out to what he assumed was a main street, judging by all the people and robot parts around, when the ground started to shake. He and all the other examinees looked up in shock, when a skyscraper-size robot appeared out of the ground, crushing one of the buildings.

Well that’s obviously the zero-pointer,’ Izuku thought as dust and debris flew everywhere, with the other examinees running and screaming past him.

“LESS THAN THREE MINUTES REMAINING!!” Present Mic announced, shaking Izuku out of his thoughts. He figured he should do the smart thing like everyone else, run away and find some weaker robots, but before he could turn around and run away, he saw something, no, someone, on the ground out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to get a better look, he realized it was the same girl that saved him early, trapped beneath some rubble.

And before he could process his thoughts, his body had already moved into action, running towards her and the zero-pointer.

His brain was screaming at him, asking what the hell he was doing, but the body ignored it. Izuku aimed his grappling gun up towards the zero-pointer and shot himself up to the shoulders of the giant machine. Once he landed on the top, using his second gun, shot himself to the top of the head. The plan he came up with in the last ten seconds or so was simple enough: get to the top, find a panel, and destroy whatever wires or parts that were inside and hope that would cause the Godzilla-sized robot to stop moving.

Of course he wasn’t that lucky though.

There didn’t seem to be any on top of the zero-pointer’s head, and when he heard Present Mic say that there were less than two minutes left, Izuku’s mind raced.

Obviously, bashing it with my staff will do jack shit. And for whatever fucking reason there’s nothing that looks like I can break into it and destroy it from the inside. And now time is running out. Great.

Coming to the realization that there was nothing else he could do, he came to the conclusion to do the only thing he knew he could do.

At least I’m only going to need to go back ten minutes. And because I know when the zero-pointer is going to arrive, I should be able to put myself in a position to at least save the girl from being trapped so she could run away.

And with a shudder and a deep breath, Izuku Midoriya leapt off the zero-pointer, from some 300 plus feet in the air. It was either that or using the knife and he assumed that the fall would kill him faster than bleeding out.

As he was falling, he only had one thought.

I hope it happens too fast for my brain to process the pain

CrAcK


When Izuku gasped and opened his eyes, he was expecting to see the front of the city’s gate, with all the examinees around him. Well there were still examinees around him. They were all just running the other way. And a bunch of dust was in the air. And the zero-pointer was crushing a building.

“LESS THAN THREE MINUTES REMAINING!!”

His goddamn quirk just had to choose its own stupid checkpoint huh. Fan-fucking-tastic.

His old reset point would’ve given him enough time to help prevent the girl from being trapped by the falling debris, but now he had to improvise on the spot.

Repressing a groan, he once again sprinted towards the girl and robot, but this time he had a different plan in mind. Hopefully her quirk did what he thought it did. Otherwise he’d have to use another reset and he really preferred to avoid that option if he could.

Stopping in front of the black-haired girl, Izuku held out his staff and asked, “Hey, you can make things bigger with your quirk, right? Via touch?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice so soft Izuku almost didn’t hear the reply.

“Alright, great. Listen I need you to use your quirk on my staff here but do not activate it until I get ready to swing it down. Do you understand?”

She gave him a nod and touched his staff. Izuku nodded and slid the staff back onto his back and then looked at her.

“Not to put any pressure on you, but you better not screw up here,” the agitated boy told her, already regretting his tone, but he didn’t have time to apologize, “ I’m putting all my eggs into your basket here.”

And with that he pulled out his grappling gun and shot it up towards the building in front of the zero pointer. He was really lucky it had to bend down to crush the buildings, because otherwise this plan would be a no-go.

He took a deep breath, grabbed his staff, prayed this plan would work, and then took off across the rooftop, trying to get as much momentum as he could. He flew off the roof, with both arms over his head, in a position to swing it down as hard as he could and let out a scream.

“RAAAAAAAAA!”

And right as he started to swing his arms down, the staff exploded in size, growing to at least 50 feet. It was still nowhere as big as the zero-pointer but now was in the perfect position to smack it straight on the head.

BOOM

Metal struck metal and the robot’s head exploded. Izuku figured the staff must’ve hit the thing just right because that set off a chain reaction, with the zero-pointer collapsing on itself, parts exploding up and down its body. He wasn’t going to complain about this good stroke of fortune, or that this plan seemed to work on its first try.

However he realized that he didn’t exactly plan what the next step was after he destroyed the zero-pointer from a few hundred feet in the air. And he already had experience falling from this height, so he knew exactly what would happen.

Shit, now what? The staff is useless here,’ he thought. Maybe he could’ve worked something out if it was still 50 feet big, but it had shrunk back to its normal size after it did its job. The girl must’ve deactivated her quirk, he surmised.

Ok, so I guess my best play is to try to shoot over to another building. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hook onto something stable but I don’t really have any other choice,’ and deciding that was his best play, Izuku reached over, pulled out a grappling gun and prepared to aim…

Only to see out of the corner of his eye, something round and white growing right under where he was about to be. He quickly turned his body so his shoulder and sides would take the brunt of it and not his neck and head.

He felt his body go through whatever the ball was made of, unable to catch him completely, the material was soft but not super dense, but it did slow his momentum a fair amount to avoid a life-ending injury. Not enough to avoid any injuries however.

Izuku felt a sharp crack in his shoulders, and felt something in his ribs snap, as he reached the bottom of the white ball, but that was more than fine to him. He was just glad he didn’t die again.

Before he could get up, he heard a voice mutter “release”, and then watched as the giant ball shrunk down, revealing that it was a cotton ball. He then saw a pair of cerulean colored eyes looking down at him with concern.

“Are you ok…?”

“Not too sure, I think my shoulder’s all screwed up though.”

“AND THAT’S IT! TIME UP!” Present Mic bellowed out, causing the two to look up. The exam was over.

Izuku sat up and winced, shoulder and ribs aching. His shoulder was definitely broken, and would guess some of his ribs were as well. He was grateful that it didn’t seem or feel worse, considering he fell what had to be about some 200 feet.

Turning to look at the girl he asked, “Well how about you? Are you ok?”

“Hmm. For the most part, probably sprained my ankle.” came the slightly monotone reply. Izuku raised an eyebrow at how collected the girl sounded.

“You don’t sound very concerned about that.”

“It’s just a sprain. You have multiple broken bones. I’m probably more concerned about that than my own ankle.”

“I’ll be fine, it doesn’t hurt that bad.”

It was her turn to quirk an eyebrow, “You sure?”

“...”

“...”

“...No, it really fuckin hurts,” Izuku finally admitted under the girl’s unwavering stare.

“That’s what I thought,” she replied in what he thought sounded a slightly victorious tone, though it was so minor, he wasn’t sure if he just misheard her or not. She sat down next to him and pointed a finger towards the crowd, “It’s a good thing the nurse is here.”

Turning his gaze towards where she was pointing, Izuku saw an old lady walking towards them, handing out candy to the examinees as she did. He recognized her at the Youthful Heroine: Recovery Girl, and he wished he had his notebook on him to get an autograph. He watched as she stopped right in front of them and looked at the two’s injuries.

“That was a pretty reckless thing you did, young man.”

“I saw her stuck under the rubble and moved before thinking,” he replied with a tilt of his head towards the girl he saved.

That earned him a whack on the head with the old lady’s cane. “And that’s how you get yourself killed,” she scolded. “Now come here and give me some sugar,” Recovery Girl said, giving him a kiss on his head.

Izuku could feel his bones shifting back into place, and then a wave of exhaustion hit him.

“Holy shit, I’m wiped.”

Another smack on the head. “Language young man. Now eat these gummies, they should replenish some of your energy,” Recovery Girl told him, dropping a few into his hand. “Now let me check out your ankle sweetie, let’s get you healed up,” she said, turning towards the girl next to him.

Izuku stood up, letting the hero do her thing, to check out how his shoulders and ribs felt. Unsurprisingly, they felt perfectly fine. Recovery Girl was well known for a reason. He then checked on his equipment, making sure nothing was broken, and then turned his attention to the girl, after Recovery Girl healed her and left the two.

“Sorry for being so curt earlier by the way. I was kinda under a lot of stress.”

She shook her head at him, “Don’t worry about it. Besides you saved me, so thank you.”

“Well you saved me from being a red splotch on the ground. So I should be thanking you.”

“You saved me in a cooler way. So don’t thank me until I repay the favor.”

“That… makes no sense?”

“I know.” she said in that monotone voice, expression unchanging. Izuku couldn’t tell if she was fucking with him or not.

Choosing not to reply, he just sighed. “Well in any case I’m glad you’re not hurt.”

“Mm. Same to you. Should we head to the gate?”
Not being able to find a reason to go on his own, the green-haired boy gave her a nod, “Sure, let’s go.”

They walked for a bit in silence, before the girl asked, “So what’s your name?”

“Midoriya. Izuku Midoriya. And yours?”

“Kodai. Yui Kodai. But you can call me Yui.” the black-haired girl responded bluntly.

This caused him to stop in place and give her a look. “I can’t do that, this is the first time we’ve ever met.”

Kodai hummed and shook her head. “You saved me from getting crushed and you seem like you’re a nice person. That’s good enough for me. So call me Yui.”

“Kodai I can’t-”

“Yui.”

“Seriously, it doesn’t feel right to use your first name just like that.”

She gave him a look and got up in his face. “I want you to call me Yui.”

Izuku took a step back, and gave her a deadpan stare, “...There’s nothing I can say that will change your mind?”

“Nope.”

Izuku stared at the stoic girl, and sighed, “Ok. Fine. Yui. Does that make you happy?”

“Very,” she replied though her face and voice showed no difference.

“You’re a strange one,” he told her bluntly. Whoops. He didn’t mean to say that out loud. Kendo was right, he really needed to work on not saying everything that came to mind.

At least the girl didn’t seem to mind, or at least if she did, it didn’t show on her face. “I get that a lot. But you’re pretty interesting yourself. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Would it bother you if I called you Izuku?”

Now normally in a situation like this, Izuku would say “I prefer Midoriya, at least for now”, but there was something about this girl that made him hesitate. He sighed, “It’s… fine. Call me whatever you’d like.”

“Thank you Izuku,” Yui replied as the two reached the entrance to the city. “I have to leave right after this, but do you happen to have your phone or a piece of paper on you?”

“I don’t have my phone but I have my notebook here,” he said, notebook and pen appearing in his hand out of nowhere. “Do you need something?”

She nodded and gestured towards the pen and notebook, and Izuku obliged, handing them over. The quiet girl quickly jotted down something before handing it back to the boy. “I wrote my number in there. I look forward to talking to you soon.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond back, turning the other way and jogging off, though she did stop when there was some distance between them, to give him one last wave before leaving for good.

Izuku stared at her back for a second longer, before looking at the numbers written on the page.

What an interesting girl you are, Yui Kodai.’ he thought. She was direct and blunt, similar to Hatsume, but yet so different. Hatsume was demanding, needing all the attention on her, and while Yui didn’t ask for it, she managed to capture his.

And for some reason that he couldn’t explain, Izuku Midoriya didn’t mind that.

Notes:

First time I get to show off the quirk in use, that was fun to come up with. And the first scenes with Yui, who I'm excited to write about. One of my favorite 1B characters which is why she's one of the pairs in this story. Coming up with a somewhat justifiable way to save Izuku was a bit of a pain though lol. As always, don't be afraid to leave a comment, just be civil about whatever you write.
Until next time!

Chapter 5: The Results Are In

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A few days after the entrance exam

Three people were sitting at a large table, though it would be more accurate to say two people and a mammal of some sort. In front of all of them were many pieces of paper, as well as a computer for each of them.

“Alrighty Shota, so you’ll get Mr. Tokoyami and Sekijiro you’ll get Mr. Kuroiro, does that work for the both of you?” Nezu asked the two teachers.

“Yes sir,” replied Sekijiro Kan, also known as the Blood Hero: Vlad King. “I have no issues there.”

The other man, Shota Aizawa, also known as the Erasure Hero: Eraser Head, just gave a grunt in response before sucking down yet another energy jelly drink.

“Splendid! Now let’s see the next file…” Nezu started, before trailing off as he read the next student’s file. “Oh my, my. This will be an interesting one. Can you two please grab Izuku’s Midoriya’s files?”

The two teachers did as they were told, reading over what was written down, before looking up at the principal with looks of surprise.

“...The kid’s quirkless?” asked Kan, with a raised eyebrow. “And he still got 70 points on the exam?”

“Seems like he did pretty well on the written portion as well. Where’s the video located?”

“Under his folder, just open it up and it’ll be under ‘video’,” Nezu responded, with Aizawa following his instruction to watch the clips of Midoriya during the exam.

“So I believe there’s good arguments for him to be in either class, but I will offer the chance to grab him before I explain what those arguments are. So will either of you be willing to add him to your class?”

Both pro heroes remained silent, clearly wanting to hear more before making a decision.

“Alright then,” the mammal continued. “Let’s start with you Shota. The fit here is fairly obvious. Despite you having a quirk, you have to engage in combat without it, and obviously your quirk doesn’t help you with your stealth skills. It stands to reason Mr. Midoriya here could learn a thing or two from you.”

Aizawa nodded but didn’t say anything, so Nezu turned toward Kan.

“As for you, Sekijiro, Mr. Midoriya probably fits better in your class. Shota’s class is filled with a lot more explosive, erratic and potential dangerous quirks. While I’m sure the boy can handle himself, it may be safer to put him in your class. Not to mention you have the girl he saved and was seen talking to afterward, Ms. Kodai, in your class already. I’m sure you’re both aware of what quirkless people have to go through, so I’m sure having someone he’s familiar with would be a nice thing for him.”

“By going with that logic,” Aizawa interrupted, “Would you put him in my class because I have Katsuki Bakugo? Their files show they went to the same high school.”

“Ah, a valid point, Shota. But you see I have reason to believe those two are not on the best of terms. When Hizashi was going over the rules for the practical, despite sitting next to each other, the two hardly said anything to one another and often gave the other person disapproving glares. I would like to keep the two separate in case they do have bad blood. I understand that Mr. Bakugo’s records are fairly clean but do trust me when it comes to these things.”

Nezu continued on, “However, I will not stop them from being in the same class if that is what you prefer Shota. That is mostly up to you and Sekijiro to decide. I will keep my preference to myself to avoid bias.”

Vlad King decided to speak up, “I don’t mind having him in my class, but it’s also up to you Eraser. You do match up better in terms of fighting style.”

Eraser Head was silent for a minute, mulling over his options before he sighed. “You can have him. If Bakugo and Midoriya do have something between them, that just sounds like a headache waiting to happen. Besides, both of you are overestimating my fighting capabilities. Sure he has to fight quirkless but he uses those gadgets, while I only fight with my capture scarf. He’ll probably learn more from you Vlad when it comes to fighting.”

“Excellent!” Nezu cheered with a clap of his hands. “I personally believe that was the right choice to make. I believe he’ll be good with your class Kan. Now Shota, who would you like to take?”

As the Erasure hero looked over the list of remaining students (“I’ll take Nirengeki Shoda then,” he finally said after a few minutes of looking), the Blood hero used this time to look at Midoriya’s file and video some more. The kid had some guts, that much was obvious, and judging by his written test score, some brains as well. It was just going to be tough, being the first quirkless hero and all, and Kan knew that the boy needed all the help he could get to succeed.

And so he vowed that he’d do whatever it took to see this boy become a hero. He just hoped that he wasn’t going to let the kid down.


With a grunt, Izuku set down the weights he was working out with, getting in a minor post-dinner workout, and sent a quick text back to Kendo, confirming that he’d call her after he got his results. Apparently her letter had just arrived and she was going to take a look at it.

If Izuku could be honest, the week after the entrance exam was uneventful, and he was getting a little anxious, just waiting for his letter to arrive.

He spent most of his free time training and either talking to Kendo, Yui, or Hatsume. He spent most of his time talking to his fellow hero course hopefuls though, as the inventor girl was often too busy creating things to chat. She did tell him and Kendo that she made it into the support course, which they were all excited about.

With Yui, most of their chats were mostly them learning about each other. Their schedule didn’t allow them to meet up often, but they did call or text each other a fair amount, though the calls were mostly Izuku talking and the girl listening. Neither had a problem with this arrangement though, Izuku liked talking to Yui and Yui liked listening to the boy talk.

As they had more and more conversations, Izuku took notes of her likes (he was not expecting tomatoes or matryoshka dolls being that high on her list) as well as some of her vocal habits (he’d like to think he was doing a good job of telling what her hums meant). As for Yui, she learned of Izuku’s tendency to lose himself to the world when talking about quirks and heroes. She enjoyed listening to him ramble on about her quirk though and was content just listening quietly.

She also learned that the boy was quirkless, but to his surprise, she didn’t seem to care about that. The quiet girl told him he was even cooler for rushing in to help her despite having no powers, which made Izuku slightly embarrassed when she recapped the event from her point of view.

As for Kendo, they spend most of their time talking about their exams and sparring against one another as a way to distract themselves. The redhead felt good about her score of 25 points, but she lauded the fact that she probably could’ve gotten more if she didn’t help out the other examinees so much.

Izuku told her he only racked up around 10 points, which worried the girl, but he reassured her that he did help out a few examinees and he figured that had to count for something, though he did admit that it could just be him coping. When telling her about his rescue, he did conveniently leave out the fact that his help involved destroying the zero-pointer as he wasn’t in the mood to have the girl strangle him with her quirk. Kendo did seem happy when he mentioned that he did make a friend after helping them out during the exam, she was always worried about his social life considering his status at school. She would never admit it out loud though but whenever Izuku brought up the fact she acted like an overprotective sister, she just chopped him on the neck.

The girl did agree that the logic of helping others out would surely gain them some bonus points, and felt better about her score after the two talked about it for a bit. Both felt like they did well enough on the written portion so they were just worried about getting enough points on the practical part. They promised to let each other know their results, good or bad, the minute they received them.

For now though, all they could do is wait for the letter to arrive in the mail. Izuku knew it was supposed to come any day now, especially considering Kendo had just got hers, so maybe it would even arrive today. So all he just had to be patient for a tad bit longer-

“Izuku, honey! It’s here! Your letter!” his mom shouted, shaking him out of his thoughts. He got up from his spot on the couch to go grab the letter from his mom, who was currently shaking with worry.

“Thanks mom,” Izuku said with a smile, grabbing the letter from her. “I think I’m going to open it in my room. I think I’d be too nervous to do it out here in the living room.”

“O-of course honey. Do whatever you need. I’ll be here if you need anything, ok dear?”

The teenager smiled, and gave her a hug, “Thank you mom, I appreciate it. Hopefully I come back out with good news.”

Inko only nodded wordlessly, clearly nervous for her son, before she sent the boy back into his room so he could open the envelope up.

Izuku took a second once he got back to his room to stare at the letter, before sighing and sitting at his desk. He’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t worried about what lay inside the letter, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it at this point. He quickly tore open the letter and hoped for the best.

A metallic disk fell out and before the green-haired boy could examine it, the disk blinked blue before a video feed appeared above it. On the screen was a mammal of some sort, (he wasn’t sure if it was a bear, dog or rat or a mix of all three) wearing a suit while standing on top of a desk, in front of a flashy background.

This is a projection!” the mammal said. “Now you may be wondering, am I a mouse? A bear? A dog? And I say none of that matters too much because I am the principal of UA!

Izuku felt his eyes widen as he saw who was on screen, recognizing the mammal. Who hasn’t heard of Nezu, the guy in charge of UA after all? He was expecting one of the teachers to be the ones telling them if they passed or failed, not the principal himself. Didn’t he have better things to do?

You may be questioning, ‘the principal of UA? Doesn’t he have better things to be doing?’ And to that I say, this is something worth doing! I don’t record many of these messages, normally I leave it up to the teachers you’ll be under, but I believed after looking through your medical records, I should record yours personally. But we’ll get to that in a little bit.

“To start off with, you passed your written portion with flying colors! Your score would rank in the top ten percentile of students taking the exam this year. A job very well done.” the chimera cheered, while clapping his hands. “However,” Nezu continued, “I’m sure you know that it’s the practical portion that determines if you’ll make it into the hero course.

You scored a total of 10 villain points, which I’m sure you were well aware of. While this score wasn’t the lowest of this year’s crop of examinees, it alone would not get you into the hero course.

Izuku felt his stomach drop and his breath tightened. God did he need some sort of “but…” at any point just about now. He knew life wasn’t fair but it would be a kick to the nuts if all his efforts the last few years were all for naught.

But I would be out of a job if we only graded our future heroes based on how well they were able to beat up a few robots!” Nezu said cheerfully, throwing his hands into the air. “There’s so much more to being a hero than just brute force and strength. You see we kept an eye out on those willing to sacrifice their points and times to help out others and for those people who were willing and caring enough to do so, well, we had to reward them with rescue points! What kind of hero school would we be if we rejected those who put themselves over others after all?

The chimera pointed to the screen next to him, which was playing a video of Izuku rushing into action to save Yui. Nezu watched it for a moment before turning to the camera.

And your actions certainly caught all of our eyes. You didn’t even take a moment to rush in to help out a fellow examinee, despite being at an extreme disadvantage! Not everyone has the courage to take on what seemed to be an unwinnable matchup, but you sure did Mr.Midoriya. You showed off what it truly means to be a hero, and as such you gained 60 rescue points! Which gives you a grand total of 70 points! And with that I’m very pleased to inform you that you passed! You’ll be in class 1B when the school year starts.

A new screen popped up to show Izuku’s final score, which placed him fourth overall. He was also extremely pleased to see Kendo in the top 10, placing sixth overall. But before all of this could really sink in for him, the principal continued talking.

Now, for the not so fun stuff,” Nezu started, his tone more somber than it was a minute before. “You see Mr. Midoriya, you are the first student in UA’s history to pass the entrance exam without a quirk. And obviously that means you’ll be the first quirkless hero in UA’s history. First of all, do not think that we gave you your score so we could brag about having a quirkless student, you earned all your points fair and square. Please don’t think otherwise, no matter what people say to your face or online.”

“Second of all, understand we will not baby you because of your quirklessness. You passed this exam like every student before you and you will be treated as such. You should and will be treated like a normal student here at UA, which leads me to my final point.

Nezu hopped off his desk and walked toward the camera with what seemed like a smidge of sadness and understanding on his face.

I know very well how quirkless people are treated in this day and age. And because of my own life, I know what they can go through. So please don’t be afraid to speak to me, our counselor Hound Dog, or any of your teachers if you suffer any bullying or discrimination at this school. I will always have time to talk with a student about any issues, so don’t think of it as a bother. We will do our best to make sure you are treated the same as every other student here. And please be assured that we will do our best to calm down the media when this eventually gets revealed to the public. We know how nasty those sharks can be after all.

Izuku gave a soft smile at that. He wasn’t really expecting them to do much, after all, the teachers at his high school did absolutely nothing and at times encouraged the bullying. Hearing the principal of one of the biggest hero schools in the country had his back was certainly strange to him, but at the same time was a very pleasant thing to hear and the boy greatly appreciated the gesture.

He wasn’t sure if all the students would share the same viewpoint as Nezu, but maybe he could give them the benefit of the doubt (though Izuku also knew he couldn’t get his hopes up too much).

Nezu then straightened up and held out his paw with a smile. “And that’s what I wanted to make sure I conveyed personally. Now it’s my honor to welcome you to UA! I look forward to seeing you soon!

The projection faded away, signaling the end, and Izuku leaned back in his chair, trying to process it all. He was going through about a million different emotions and did think he was going to have a heart attack at one point but at the end, he did it. He got into UA. The hero course at UA. He couldn’t stop the grin that appeared on his face. He then remembered what he and Kendo agreed to do, and grabbed his phone to call her.

Midoriya? Did you get your letter as well?

“Yeah I did! I assume you already finished watching yours?”

Hm-mm. I just finished watching it. Want to say our results on three?

“That works with me.”

Ok, then, on one, two, three…

“I passed.”/”I got in!

Wow I can’t believe it! We both passed! We really did it Midoriya!”. Izuku smiled softly at the excitement in the girl’s voice.

“Yeah neither can I. I’m not sure if it’s even sunk in at this point. I’m kinda riding on cloud nine right now.”

Same here. It just doesn’t feel real. Our dream schools! Training to become heroes! I mean it’s everything we worked so hard for. What class are you in?

“It was, uh, class 1B.”

Kendo let out a little gasp before excitedly saying, “No way! So am I!

Izuku let out a sigh of relief when she said that. “Thank God. I would have hated joining a new class without knowing anyone.”

Now let’s just hope Bakugo isn’t joining us…’ he thought bitterly, before shaking his head. Now was a time for good thoughts, not none of that.

“I hope Yui also passed the exam, and ends up in 1B. I’ll have to text her after we’re done talking. It be nice to have multiple people I know be in the same class.”

It would be nice to meet her as well. After all, you’ve never talked about anyone as much.

“I don’t exactly have people to talk about.” Izuku said with a laugh. “It’s basically you, her, and Hatsume that I know.”

You know, that’s only girls you talk to then. It sounds like to me, you’re a bit of a lady’s man, Izuku.

“Oh my God, shut up,” the boy replied with a roll of his eyes. Then he realized what she called him. “Wait. Izuku?”

Yeah! We’ve known each other for awhile now and you’re my best friend, so I thought we could start using each other’s first name. If you’re ok with it, of course. I understand if you’d rather stick with last names though. I’m not pressuring you.

“...Sure why the hell not. You’re right, you’re my best friend as well and we see each other nearly every day. I don’t have a problem with calling you ‘Itsuka’.”

Really? I thought you were going to say no for sure.

“I’m already calling Yui by her first name. Granted she’s kinda forcing me to,” Izuku said, which got a chuckle out of the redhead. “So I don’t see the issue with calling you by your first name. Not like you’re asking me to do something impossible.”

I guess you’re right. I guess I was a little worried for nothing” Itsuka said with a light laugh.

“Don’t be. I got your back and you got mine.”

I know, I know. And thanks, Izuku.

“It’s no problem, Itsuka.”

A moment of silence passed before the orange-haired girl spoke up again. “You know, this all still feels so surreal. Like I still can’t believe it.

“Yeah, same here,” the green-haired boy replied. He took a second to think before deciding against his better judgement, jabbed out, “Do you mean getting into UA or the fact that I scored higher than you on the practical portion?”

Oh my God I just knew you were gonna bring that up at some point,” Itsuka groaned. “You’re such a dick you know that?

Izuku snickered before retorting, “Yeah but you still love me.”

Jury’s still out on that one.


Izuku spent another 30 minutes or so, talking about miscellaneous things with Itsuka, before he remembered he had left his mom waiting, and bid his friend a good night.

When he told his mom the good news, she almost flooded the house with her tears and crushed him in a giant bear hug. It felt good to hear her say how proud of him she was, like it almost made everything he’s had to go through worth it. Izuku knew she still wasn’t the biggest fan of him becoming a hero, due to the dangers and risks that came along with the job, so her words meant the world to him.

They decided to celebrate with a bit of ice cream before both decided to call it a night, heading to their respective rooms to go to sleep.

Izuku sat on his bed, just about to put his phone away and go to sleep when he saw he got a message from Yui.

THE QUIET ONE
I passed the exam, hbu?

YOU
I did as well. What class are you in? I’m in 1B

THE QUIET ONE
Same here. :)
Congrats to both of us
I would’ve texted sooner but I was celebrating with my parents

 

YOU
Congrats indeed
and dw about it
I also would have texted sooner but I was talking to my mom and Itsuka
sry

THE QUIET ONE
Don't be
Itsuka is the martial arts girl right?
You’re on a first name basis now?
You were calling her Kendo last time iirc

YOU
yea
She asked me to start using first names recently
I figured why not
Oh yeah
She’s also in 1B

THE QUIET ONE
That’s cool
I look forward to meeting her
I hope she has some embarrassing stories about you to tell

YOU
...
why?

THE QUIET ONE
:)
Not telling you
Secret

YOU
...why are you like this?

THE QUIET ONE
It’s part of my charm
Anyway I gtg
Gn Izuku
Ttys

YOU
Good night Yui

 

Izuku smiled as he plugged in his phone to charge for the night. He was actually looking forward to school for the first time in, wow, he couldn’t remember the last time he was looking forward to school. Probably not since he was a child. It kinda sucked he had to wait about a month to start but he could bear with that.

And with it being a completely new school, perhaps not everyone will be complete assholes when it comes to him and his “quirklessness”. Wouldn’t that be nice. Well, even in the worst case scenario he at least had Itsuka and Yui in the same class. He was happy about that.

With a sigh, he tucked himself into bed, hoping that all the good news would let him sleep soundly for the first time in a few nights.

Notes:

This the last chapter before we officially go into UA, so I'm looking forward to writing about that. On a non fic note, Umamusume is really fun, highly recommend.
Like always comments and critiques are welcome, just be civil about them.
Hope everyone has a great one!

Chapter 6: New School New Classmates

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Izuku wandered down the halls, looking for his classroom, with a somewhat tired expression on his face. He yawned, sleep eluding him once again. He grumbled to himself, annoyed, but unsurprised. His sleep schedule hasn’t exactly been consistent the last few years.

No real point in complaining though. Just gotta make the most of it instead. Besides, getting here early isn’t exactly a bad thing,’ he thought as he walked down the hall, eyes scanning around to look for his classroom.

He had to walk a bit more before stopping in front of a massive door labeled 1B.

Izuku stared at it for a second before sighing. ‘If there’s a God out there who’s listening, all I ask for is not to have Bakugo in this class,’ he prayed. Lord knows he could be thrown a bone, he really didn’t think he could handle another three years of being in the same class with that guy. The last six was more than enough for him.

He shook his head, cleared his thoughts, took a deep breath, and then swung the door open, hoping for good news.

His eyes were greeted with the sight of Itsuka chatting with a furry looking guy wearing glasses. He glanced around the room, no one else. Must be the first few to arrive, though that didn’t surprise him, he did show up fairly early. In fact, he was expecting to be the only person here, so it was a nice surprise.

Itsuka’s eyes caught his, and she waved him over with an inviting grin.

“Izuku! You’re here early. Come over here and meet Shishida!”

Izuku walked over and stuck his hand out. “Izuku Midoriya, it’s nice to meet you.” He stared at Shishida before bluntly stating, “You know you’re probably the hairiest guy I’ve ever met before.” He internally facepalmed when the words slipped out of his mouth. Goddammit Izuku.

“Izuku!” Itsuka hissed as she slapped him over the head. “I’ve told you that you need to fix that habit of saying whatever comes to your mind! People who don't know you will take it the wrong way!” Turning around to face Shishida, she apologized, "Sorry about him. He's a bit of a social mess and can lack a filter at times."

To their relief, the glasses-wearing boy just laughed and returned the handshake, “It’s a pleasure to meet you Sir Midoriya. My name is Jurota Shishida. And please don’t worry about what you said, I take no offense to it, I know there was no ill will behind it.”

“Still it’s pretty rude to just come out and say it, so I apologize”, the greenette replied with a bow.

Shishida shook his head in response, “Like I said, no harm, no foul. Now if you don’t mind me asking, judging by how Lady Kendo is acting, I presume the two of you are already acquainted with one another?” he asked, looking between the two of them.

“Yep!” Itsuka confirmed with a nod, “We’ve known each other for a little while now, we’re best buds! Though he can be a pain at times to handle, I always have to keep him in check.”

“Yeah what she said, minus the last part. I could handle myself fine.”

“Could you now?” Itsuka said, giving him a skeptical look.

Izuku deflated slightly, “Probably not…”

“That’s what I thought,” She smirked.

Shishida smiled at their banter, “I see. It’s very obvious the two of you are very close. It must be nice to know someone familiar when you’re in a new place.” He then cleared his throat a little before looking at Izuku a bit sheepishly, “Now please Sir Midoriya, excuse my rudeness, but it’s been bothering me since you’ve walked in the room. I’m not sure you have your tie on properly,” Shishida said pointing at the green-haired boy’s tie.

Izuku and Itsuka gazed down at the poor excuse of a tie, with Itsuka sighing at the sight of it.

Izuku shrugged in response, “I, uh, never exactly learned how to tie a tie. What you see is the best you’re gonna get out of me.”

“You could’ve just asked me Izuku,” Itsuka deadpanned, staring at him.

“Yeah but that’s embarrassing.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Even more embarrassing than being almost 18 years old and still walking around with your tie like that?”

“Yes.”

Before she could retort back, the door opened letting a few more students trickle in, snapping Itsuka's attention to greet the newcomers. With that, Izuku, eyes shining like headlights, swiveled towards Shishida, notebook and pen facing a mildly alarmed Shishida.

“So, Shishida, if you don’t mind me, I have a few questions about your quirk. You see, I like analyzing quirks, so do you mind if I ask them?”

“Uh sure Sir Midoriya. But can I ask where that notebook came from?”

“Nope. Nobody gets to ask where the notebook comes from. Anyways, I assume your appearance correlates with your quirk?”

Shishida sputtered at the rejection, before straightening up and adjusting his glasses. “You would be correct. You see my quirk is called-”

“HOLY SHIT! YOU’RE THE GUY WHO DESTROYED THAT ZERO-POINTER!”

Izuku and Shishida turned towards a boy wearing a blue and white headband, which held up his spiky black hair, who was pointing at Izuku. His eyes seemed to be as shocked as he stared at his new classmate. Izuku recognized him as one of the examinees in his group.

His statement halted all other chatter, as all eyes looked at Izuku. It would've been complete silence if a silver-haired guy didn't yell,"THAT'S MANLY AS HECK BRO!"

“Er- well, uh. While that’s correct, it was mostly Yui’s quirk that did most of the heavy lifting.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” said girl suddenly piped up beside Izuku, startling him a little.

“Jesus Christ Yui, you scared the hell out of me.”

“Mm,” she hummed, looking down at his tie and then back up at him with a look.

Izuku groaned exasperatedly, "Yes I know my tie isn't on properly, you don't have to say anything."

"But she… didn't say a word? How did you understand that?" Shishida pointed out in a very confused tone.

"Her eyes were judging me."

"What-?"

“Forget that part, she’s totally right!” the headband boy interrupting their interaction. “It was super badass to see you jump off the building and then slam down your, uh, what was it? Metal stick or whatever onto it!”

Before Izuku could respond, he felt a hand grip his shoulder, turning around to see Itsuka giving him a very unnerving smile.

“Now when you told me about helping someone out during the test, you seemed to leave out that part about taking on the zero-pointer. Care to explain Izuku?” she asked him in a very, very scary tone, the smile never leaving her face.

Oh I’m so fucked.

Before he could give out some sort of excuse, the door slammed open behind them, turning all attention to the next loud interruption. Stepping into the room was a tall, muscular man, who had pale gray hair and an underbite, with two lower canines sticking out of his mouth.

“I know the first day is always exciting but students, settle down,” he spoke with a gruff tone. “Please head to your seats. You will sit based on your class number, with number 1 starting at this desk in the front and going backwards.”

The students began shuffling to their seats, with Itsuka giving Izuku a glare that let him know he was still screwed. Izuku was no. 17, placed in the second seat of the column near the window. As he sat down, he scanned the room to see if Bakugo was anywhere. With no obnoxious blonde in sight, he let out a smile. Pretty good start so far. He decided then, to take in the appearance of his seatmate.

In front of him was a large, yellow boy, with his head resembling a glue dispenser. Probably related to his quirk. Izuku would try not to say it out loud but he thought his body proportions were a bit strange, with really wide shoulders and giant hands, but with a thin waist and lower half.

To his right, was a boy with semi-long, silver hair and sharp teeth, and some very strange looking eyelashes. Izuku recognized him as the loud student shouting things about being "manly" earlier. Checking the reflection of the window, he spotted the student sitting behind him. A blonde boy with slicked back hair, eyes half closed, and his lips in minor smirk. Neither boys' appearance gave any indication of what their quirks were.

The teacher walked to the podium and glanced over at the class, eyes stopping on Izuku for a brief second, before he shifted his view towards the entire class. The green-haired boy noticed the brief gaze on him, and raised an eyebrow. Hopefully that was a good look and not a bad one.

“My name is Sekijiro Kan. Some of you may know me better as the Blood Hero: Vlad King. You can call me Mr. Kan or Vlad King, either works with me,” the man grunted out. Izuku recognized him and started to sketch a more detailed drawing of his teacher as he spoke.

“Today will be pretty simple, as all we have is orientation and then an assessment test. Now we do have a bit of time before the orientation starts, so you’ll get to know each other. I’ll call you up one by one and you’ll give your name, your quirk, and if need be, a short explanation of it. Any questions you have for one another can be done on your own time. Understood?”

After hearing the class let out a chorus of understanding, Vlad nodded and looked at the chart he had. “Alright first Yosetsu Awase, come on up.”

The headband wearing boy bounded up to the podium with an excited look on his face. “I’m Yosetsu Awase! My quirk is [Weld]! I can fuse things together by touching them together!”

“Sounds good Awase, nice to have you in my class” the pro hero replied. “Next up, Sen Kaibara.”

If he could be honest, this was one of the main things Izuku was looking forward to. If one thing stayed the same since he was a child, it was his passion for quirk analysis, and there were plenty of new quirks to record. Due to time he couldn’t write as much as he’d like but he could always ask them questions later. For now, just scribbling down as much as he could was good enough for him.

He was actually having fun writing down all these new quirks, from Awase’s [Weld], to Shiozaki’s [Vines], to Fukidashi’s [Comic] and not to mention Tokage's [Lizard Tail Splitter]. He was crazy interested in learning all the ins and outs of everyone’s quirk. He was having so much fun, he’d almost forgotten he’d have to eventually introduce himself and reveal his status to about 17 new people and have them judge him.

Key word being almost.

“Alright, Izuku Midoriya, could you come up here?”

Izuku took a deep sigh and walked up to the front of the class, mentally preparing himself when he felt a hand be placed on his shoulder. He turned to see Vlad King looking at him with a slightly worried expression.

The pro hero bent down so he was closer to Izuku’s head before talking in a lowered voice, “Hey kid, I know of your quirklessness. If you aren’t comfortable with revealing it just yet, we could have you do it at another time. But I also know that you probably want to be treated like everyone else, so if you want to tell everyone I won’t stop you.”

Izuku blinked, then gave a small smile in return. “Thank you sir, but I’d rather just get it out of the way. I appreciate you looking out for me though.” He was glad that it appeared Nezu was keeping his word.

Vlad King stood back up and nodded. “If that’s what you prefer then go right ahead.”

Izuku gave another smile and looked towards the class. He scanned the faces of his classmates, most of them looking confused at the interaction between him and their teacher. It didn’t surprise him, after all this was the first time their teacher did anything before an introduction. The only ones who didn’t look confused were Yui and Itsuka, who both figured what their conversation was about and gave him looks of concern. He wished he could tell them it was all ok, even if he didn’t feel like it.

With another deep breath, he focused his attention on the class once more before starting out with a bit of a shudder, never fully comfortable with the lie.

“My name is Izuku Midoriya. As for my quirk, I don’t have one. I’m quirkless.”

The moment the words came out of his mouth, he felt the air still for a second. He watched the faces in front of him morph from confusion to a mix of shock, disbelief and surprise. He stared for a bit longer, before giving the teacher a nod and headed back to his seat.

Once he moved he heard scattered whispers begin.

”Quirkless? There’s no way right?”
“I didn’t even know quirkless people could enter the hero course.”
“Dude he took on the fucking zero-pointer with no quirk?! Holy shit man.”
“He’s not pulling our leg, is he?”

At least they don’t sound disgusted, or like they hate me. That’s a nice starting point,’ Izuku thought as he sat back down with a small roll of his eyes. At least they’re being civil about it, something that his old classmates failed to do.

The whispering came to a halt when Vlad King slammed his hands down on the podium. “Quiet down now! Listen I’m sure you all have questions, but just like everyone else they will be answered later. Do you all understand?” he asked with a slight glare.

Seeing his students quiet down and nod in return, his look softened and he let out a sigh. “I completely understand that you guys have a lot to ask, but you need to understand that it’s up to Midoriya to decide when he’s going to respond to any questions and if he chooses to do so in the first place. Let’s not make him, or anyone in this class uncomfortable. Especially on the first day.” Vlad glanced down at his chart, “Neito Monoma, please come up and introduce yourself. I’d like to finish this and we only have a few minutes left.”

To the pro’s and Izuku’s relief, the rest of the introductions went on without a problem, which helped when there were only three students left after him, and once the pro checked off Hiryu Rin’s name, he nodded and turned to address the students.

“Alright then, that’s everyone. Now we’ll head to the auditorium for orientation before we do your assessment test. Now come on, let’s move out.”

As the pro hero left the room, the other students got up to follow suit. Itsuka took charge, making sure they all left in a single file line without being too disruptive. She gave Izuku a look that told him while he was still dead meat, she was a little worried. To that, he gave her a small smile and a thumbs up in return. She could only shake her head as the last of the students exited the classroom, and they all followed Vlad King to the auditorium.


If Izuku could be honest, orientation was pretty boring. Nothing really stood out from Nezu’s speech, it was fairly generic after all, and he was getting uncomfortable and pretty annoyed with all the looks he was getting from his classmates. The only thing that stood out to him was the fact they were the only first year hero course students there, the other class apparently skipping orientation completely. He kinda wished they did the same.

But that was over with so he decided to focus on his current problem. Which was all the guys currently staring at him as he got dressed into the UA tracksuit. After orientation Vlad had told them to get changed and show up on the field to get their assessment test done. Which meant heading into the locker room with the rest of the guys who were getting changed.

At least he didn’t have to worry about having his scars exposed, the compression shirt he wore underneath his uniform meant they would stay hidden. Unfortunately he couldn’t do the same with all the stares.

With a sigh, he zipped up his jacket and turned around to meet the stares. “You all know you’re not exactly being subtle right? Listen I’m getting pretty annoyed with all the looks so I’ll let you ask some questions now. But if I don’t like the question, I won’t answer. Is that fair for all of you?”

They looked at each other sheepishly, slightly embarrassed they were called out like that, before nodding back at Izuku.

The lipless boy, Honenuki decided to bite first. “Not to sound like I’m calling you a liar, but are you really quirkless? It’s hard to believe.”

Izuku felt his heart tighten, knowing the response he’d have to give despite actually knowing the truth. On the outside though, his expression never changed as he responded.

“It’s all good, Honenuki, did I get your name right?” pausing to get confirmation, and continuing on when he got a “yep” in return. “I’m quirkless. Don’t have any powers to speak of.” One of many lies he’d have to tell.

“So how did you beat those robots?! With your hands? That’d be so manly!” Tetsutetsu enthusiastically asked next.

“Er no. I used a bo staff. I’m not the best with it, but I have enough training with it to beat up a few robots.”

“That’s so metal bro!”

“How strong are you?” came the next question from the mantis looking boy, Kamakiri, if Izuku remembered correctly. “You have to be either pretty skilled or strong to avoid all the robot’s attacks, even if you had a weapon or not.”

Izuku simply shrugged, “Depends on your definition of strong. You’ll be able to get somewhat of an idea during the test.”

Kamakiri didn’t look super pleased with the answer, but didn’t push for another response.

“I assume the rest of you had similar questions? And what I’ve said should be satisfying enough for you all? If that’s all, we should hurry up and head out before Vlad King gets mad at us.” Izuku started to walk out, before pausing and turning around.

“Oh by the way, if any of you do have a problem with me being quirkless, say it to my face. I’m not gonna wanna deal with a bunch of shit being talked about behind my back. Spent way too many years having people do that. But I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that, I'd like to get along with all of you.”

And with that, the “quirkless” boy made his way out. Though he wasn’t the only one as the headband wearing boy, Awase, joined him.

“Hey wait up man! I know you’re probably tired of us all, but I gotta say what you did at the entrance exam was hella cool! And I wanted to introduce myself personally, I’m Yosetsu Awase!”

“Nice to meet you Awase.”

“Same here! But like I was saying, what you did during the exam was awesome! I mean the fact that you rushed in to save that girl despite not having any quirk to use against the zero-pointer, that’s like what real heroes do! Doing all that quirkless especially makes me respect you a ton! Everyone else was just running away, myself included. I mean, shit, I feel bad that I didn’t run back to help out…”

“Don’t be. Nobody would blame you for running away from that thing. The school encouraged it anyway. I’m just a little crazier than most. And thank you for your words, I do appreciate them.”

Awase gave him a grin and slapped him on the back, “It’s no problem dude! And your words make me feel better about myself so we’re even.” His face then changed into one of embarrassment, which caused Izuku to look at him curiously.

“What’s the matter Awase?”

“Uh, can I ask one more thing?”

Giving him a slightly wary look, Izuku shrugged his shoulders. “Haven’t refused to answer anything yet, go ahead.”

“So, uh, what’s your name again man? I was kinda, uh, not paying attention during introductions.”

Izuku gave him a deadpan look. “You’re shitting me right?”

“Hahaha… No?”

Izuku could only groan and slap a hand over his face.

The two made their way out onto the field, seeing that the female classmates were already out there, with Vlad King setting up some equipment in the distance. Izuku decided to jog over to where Itsuka and Yui were, the two of them having what seemed like a hearty conversation. Yui spotted him first and pointed over at him with a hum, causing Itsuka to turn around, see him jogging over and give him a glare.

When he was in range, she punched Izuku on the shoulder. “You know I’m still gonna strangle you later Izuku. Leaving out that little tidbit about the zero-pointer. Don’t think you’re safe from me.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

Her glare sharpened before it faded, and she sighed and gave a soft smile. “But I suppose that’s just the type of person you are, rushing in to help someone else out.”

“Just did what a hero should do. Though I admit in hindsight it was kinda reckless.”

Very reckless. Just be more careful in the future, we don’t need you dying on us.”

Izuku gave a weak chuckle at that, before turning to face Yui. “You guys seem to be getting along well.”

Itsuka grinned and gave a thumbs up. “Yep! I’m glad I finally got to meet her!”

“Hm. Same here. Itsuka is very nice. I got her to tell me some stories about you. She was more than happy to share” Yui added on in her normal monotone voice.

“Did you only ask her about embarrassing ones or did she at least tell you about my good moments?”

“What do you think?”

Izuku studied the blank look on Yui’s face (though he could see a twinkle of mischief in her eyes) and then looked back to Itsuka’s knowing grin before sighing. “I think having the two interact with one another was a mistake for me.”

“Well it’s too late for you to do anything about it!” Itsuka said with a teasing look, with Yui nodding along. “You’re stuck with us from here on out.”

“Joy,” he drawled out in response, causing the redhead to giggle and the ravenette to give a small smile.

At this point, the rest of the boys had finally come out, and Vlad King was making his way back from setting up the field. The blood hero did a quick head count, making sure everyone was there, before nodding and letting out a cough to get the attention of the class.

“So I’m sure you’re all familiar with the physical assessment tests you did in high school, correct? Today we’ll be doing all that,” he told the class as he pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it. “The softball throw, standing long jump, 50-meter dash, an endurance run, grip strength, side-to-side stepping, upper-body training and the seated toe touch. The only difference between these tests and the ones you took in high school would be the fact you’re able to use your quirks here.”

He gave the class a grin, which did appear a bit terrifying due to his appearance, before continuing on, “Now I understand that not all of your quirks will help you for some of these tests, so please don’t worry about not having a good score. We’re doing this so I can get a rough idea of how far you all are with your quirks and physical capabilities. I just ask you to give it your all. You won’t find me acting pleasant if I catch you trying to coast along. Now let’s get a move on, we’ll be doing the 50 meter dash first.”

Izuku frowned a bit, understanding that he was at a pretty severe disadvantage against the rest of his classmates, but at the same time it was always going to be like this. Oh well, at least he could see how much he’s physically improved since high school.


Izuku took a swig of water as he glanced again at his score. Overall, he felt fine about his scores. He was in the middle of the pack, which wasn’t awful considering he was doing all the tests without any quirk to aid him. He had pretty good numbers for his age and middle meant he was more fit than about half of his class which he gave an internal smile at. After all, there was no way he was competing with genetic freaks of nature like Shishida, or people with super useful quirks for these tests like Tsunotori, Tokage or Monoma.

The real goldmine was the opportunity to write down a ton of notes on a bunch of new quirks. Pretty solid assessment test if he did say so himself. All of his classmates’ quirks had caught his eye but there was one person, and quirk, he had to watch out for. Monoma’s [Copy] quirk. While it was super cool to see Monoma utilize other people's quirks, Izuku shuddered inside. He had no idea if Monoma would be able to copy his quirk or not.

However, thinking about it a little more, Izuku gathered a few ideas between Monoma’s quirk and his own, if Monoma were to successfully copy his quirk. Izuku wasn’t going to test his ideas until he got a better read on the kind of person Monoma was.

Which would probably be fairly difficult, Izuku mused. The blonde boy kept switching personalities from a kind,smooth talking classmate one second, to a psychopath when their sister class, 1A, was brought up at any time, calling them “entitled” and “prideful”. Izuku had no idea where that came from but he made a mental note to not make contact with the copy user for the time being. He didn’t want the slightly erratic guy to discover he wasn’t actually quirkless.

He really didn’t want to think about the consequences of that, so he turned his focus back onto his notebook. They were on the last test, the side-to-side test, and he already went, so Izuku only needed to finish up his notes. He was currently writing notes on Tokage’s quirk, which he was pretty enamored with.

He overheard her talk briefly about her abilities to the vine girl (Shiozaki, if he recalled correctly) and was blown away by all the possible strategies he could come up with using her quirk. The obvious ability to break apart her body into pieces, but how she was also able to fly when she broke apart like that, and she also had the power to regenerate body pieces if she lost them at any point. The possibilities felt endless, it was a really incredible quirk. Great for stealth and recon but there was some pretty solid combat potential in there as well. Granted she could only break apart about 20 pieces or so right now, but he was confident with the right training that number would grow in the future. Man there was so many things he wanted to ask her about-

“Parsley, if you're that curious, you could always just ask.”

Izuku jumped in the air slightly, and whipped around to see the girl he was writing notes about directly behind him. She was giving a wide grin that showed off her sharp set of teeth.

“Parsley?”

“Yeah you! You’re Parsley! Cause your hair looks just like a patch of parsley. Though if you don’t like it I can always find a different nickname for you.”

He shook his head, “No, no, you can call me that, I don’t mind. It’s not like you're insulting me or anything, I was just a little surprised. Most people don’t give nicknames to people they’ve barely met. Especially good ones to quirkless ones.”

The wide grin reappeared, “Well I’m not like most people! And I have no issues with quirkless people, they’re still humans too.” she said with a laugh. “Anyway, I’m the one and only Setsuna Tokage! And that’s good to hear then! And if you’d like you could also give me a nickname! Anyway, yeah if you have questions to ask me, ask away. I don’t mind talking about my quirk, it gives me a chance to show off.”

Izuku smiled at her eagerness, “Oh, ok. I’ll probably just stick with Tokage though. But uh, before I ask about your quirk, was I saying all that stuff out loud?”

“Yep! You were muttering up a storm there, wasn’t even sure if you were gonna be able to hear me!”

Izuku sighed, he thought he had at least fixed that habit of his, and while he stopped muttering whenever he saw a hero, he apparently couldn’t help himself when it came to quirks.

“Well sorry about that Tokage. I’m kinda a quirk nerd,” he said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. He showed her the notebook in his hand. “I like writing down quirk-related stuff here.”

“Really now? Could I look at what you got on me so far?”

“Hmm. I’m not really comfortable showing off my notebook to people I don’t know well. Had issues in the past with bullying because of my notes you see?”Tokage's expression turned sympathetic at that, but before she could say anything, Izuku held up a hand to continue speaking. “However you don’t exactly give me the vibes of someone who would try to destroy my stuff, so I’ll show you what I’ve got under one condition: you let me ask you a few questions about your quirk.”

“That’s fine with me!” Tokage cheered, expression brightening up and she scooted closer to Izuku to get a look at her page. Her eyes widened when she saw how much Izuku had already written as well as the quick sketch of her.

“Wow Parsley, that drawing is pretty good! And you have tons of notes already! I didn’t know you were keeping tabs on little ol me. You like what you see?” she struck a pose, and asked teasingly.

Izuku was unfazed as he explained, “I’ve been doing the same for everyone. Once I see more of your quirk in action I can probably write better notes. And the drawing could be better, I just didn’t have a lot of time obviously.”

Tokage looked surprised and whistled a little.“Wow you take these seriously. I thought you were just taking notes for fun.”

“Of course I do, I have to do whatever gives me a leg up on the competition. I’m not exactly on the same playing field as the rest of you.” he said in a tone harsher than he intended.

Tokage winced at the tone, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was insulting you.”

Izuku sighed,shaking his head. “No I’m sorry Tokage, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I know that wasn’t your intention. I’m just… a little sensitive when it comes to my notes.”

“Still I should have been more considerate." She placed a hand on her hip and raised the other one out to him, "And to make up for my lack of awareness, you can ask me as many questions about my quirk as you’d like!”

With a chuckle he reached out and shook her hand, “That was our original agreement but thank you Tokage.Though how about I ask them another day? It seems like the rest of us are finishing up the test,” the green-haired boy replied, pointing in the direction of the remaining test takers.

“Sure thing! You know what, let’s have lunch together tomorrow! You could ask then! It'd be like a lunch date!” Tokage suggested with a playful wink.

“We’ll probably have other classmates with us, so no it won’t be like a date. But I’m down to eat together.” He chuckled.

She gave a mock gasp and put a hand over her head. “An attractive lady like me, rejected! How could you do that to me?”

“Very easily,” Izuku replied without any emotion.

The green-haired girl faked a gasp before sticking out her tongue. “You’re no fun Parsley. Don’t you know you could hurt a girl’s feelings if you talk like that?”

“Why would that hurt anyone’s feelings? I only rejected the idea that it was a date. I think you’re very pretty looking, I’m not going to deny that, I just don’t want to call it a date.”

Tokage blushed and started sputtering out unintelligible words, clearly not expecting him to be so blunt. She opened her mouth but before she could dish out a retort, their teacher’s voice got their attention.

“Alright guys, come back here. I finished scoring your tests.” The grey-haired man gruffly said, pressing a button on a remote, causing a holographic screen to pop up. “Don’t be upset with your placements, but if you’re unhappy with your score, use it as motivation for the future. That’s all for the day, so once you’re done checking out your scores you can get changed and go home.”

With that, Vlad King shuffled away, leaving the students to look over the results from their test.

1. Neito Monoma
2. Jurota Shishida
3. Itsuka Kendo
4. Ibara Shiozaki
5. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu
6. Setsuna Tokage
7. Pony Tsunotori
8. Juzo Honenuki
9. Izuku Midoriya
10. Kojiro Bondo
11. Togaru Kamakiri
12. Hiryu Rin
13. Sen Kaibara
14. Yosetsu Awase
15. Yui Kodai
16. Kosei Tsuburaba
17. Shihai Kuroiro
18. Reiko Yanagi
19. Manga Fukidashi
20. Kinoko Komori

Izuku nodded, pretty happy with his score. Top half of the class was a big deal for him, it meant that his efforts over the last two years were paying off. He’d reckoned that he was in the top five if it came down to physical strength as well. Not bad at all.


Izuku was currently chilling in the classroom, waiting for Yui and Itsuka to return. They had plans to walk to the station together, but the stoic girl realized that she had left her phone in the locker room and Itsuka volunteered to go back with her to get it. So he decided to check out the hero forums to see if anything interesting happened as he waited for them to return.

He probably wouldn’t have noticed the floating head in front of him, until he heard snickering and looked up, jumping back in surprise when he finally did, almost falling over his desk.

When he did, Tokage’s face burst into laughter, and zoomed back to her body, and Awase,standing next to her, hunched over, snorting at his reaction. Izuku just groaned as he balanced himself back up, “What’s with it and girls trying to give me goddamn heart attacks today?”

“Dude you should see your fuckin face!” Awase said, wiping a tear from his eye, “Holy shit, that’s gold man. How did you not notice her? She was just next to your face for a solid minute!”

“Parsley was just lost in his own little world,” Tokagel snickered. “So whatcha doing here? Basically everyone has already left.”

“I can ask the same to both of you.”

Awase pointed at his desk as he started explaining, “I forgot my schedule here. Tokage had something to ask to Recovery Girl, and then we both kinda ran into each other. She offered to tag along and then we saw you just waiting here. And she wanted to do a little prank on you.”

“I see. Well I’m just waiting for Itsuka and Yui to come back from the locker room, Yui forgot her phone there. We were gonna walk to the train station together.”

Tokage immediately gained a mischievous look when he said that. “Wow, first name basis already? I didn’t take you for a player Parsley, you keep surprising me. Are you actually some sort of smooth talker with the ladies?” she teased.

Izuku looked confused, not really getting what she was trying to say, before he shrugged. “I’ve known Itsuka for a while now, and Yui kinda insisted on it. It was more their decision than mine.”

Awase glanced between the two greenettes, bewildered. “Wait, who are you guys waiting for? I’m still learning names here.”

“He’s waiting for the orange-haired girl who was leading us to orientation earlier, and the quiet black-haired girl,” Tokage explained. “Kendo is the one with orange hair and Kodai is the one with black hair. And it just so happens that Parsley over there is on a first name basis with both of them!”

“Woah,” Awase said turning to look at Izuku with wide eyes and a massive grin, “You really are a fucking player! What’s your secret man?!”

“Oh my God did neither of you guys listen to me?”

Before the two could continue teasing Izuku, the door slid open revealing Itsuka and Yui. They both looked a little surprised at the amount of people in the room, but Itsuka recovered first and gave a wave to them.

“Oh! Hey Tokage, Awase. Didn’t expect to see you guys still here.”

“Yeah, Knucklehead over there forgot something and I ran into him on the way,” Tokage told her, pointing at Awase. She continued on, ignoring the “Hey!” that came from the headband wearing boy. “And then we started chatting with Parsley when we saw him waiting here. Said he was waiting for you two.”

“Oh yeah that’s correct. We were planning to walk to the station together.” She then cupped her chin with a hum, “Say, cause we’re all here would the two of you like to join us on our way to the station? It’d be a good way to get to learn more about each other. You guys don’t mind, do you?” Itsuka asked, looking at Yui and Izuku.

Yui hummed affirmatively and nodded her head, while Izuku shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t see why they can’t.”

Tokage and Awase smiled as the five students headed out of the class. The green-haired girl starting a conversation as they left, “You know…”

Izuku trailed a tad bit behind them all, just taking it all in. He wasn’t used to being able to do simple normal student things, like poking fun at one another, or leaving school together, he never had the opportunity to do so before, but he wasn’t going to complain about having the chance to do so. He just wasn’t used to people accepting who he was as a person, everyone had always judged him because he didn’t show any signs of a quirk.

It was… different from what he was used to, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It was fun. Something he didn’t get to experience for most of his life.

When Awase turned around to yell at him to hurry up, a smile appeared on his face as he jogged to catch up.

I could really get used to this.

Notes:

I've been reading Torchbearer by FalseSeraph and it's one of my favorite fics I've ever read. Highly recommend. Umamusume has also taken over my life, I was not immune to horse propaganda. Part of the reason I haven't written as much as I'd like
Also I really gotta start coming up with title names ahead of time. I am not good at those at all lol

Notes:

Something I wanted to try writing while I rewatch MHA. Hopefully it works out well. Comments and feedback are appreciated, just don't be rude about them please.