Shinso honestly couldn't say for certain what he had expected Midoriya's house to look like, but for one thing, he had expected to find an actual house.
Instead, he'd gotten out of his taxi and found himself looking up at an apartment building - and not a very nice one at that. It wasn't at a point where he would consider it dilapidated, but it was far from being considered as the nicest of places.
His own home, which had the advantage of being an actual house, was much nicer to look at from the exterior, and he had no doubts that the same would be true for the interior.
The Midoriya Family lived at #77, or it would be more accurate to say that they lived in #77, he supposed, which was on the third floor, and given the state of the building, Shinso wasn't surprised to find that the elevator was out of order, which was how he found himself walking up three flights of stairs, which was three flights of stairs too many, as far as he was concerned, and all of this was just so that he could meet up with the most annoying guy at school.
He could've asked Midoriya to meet up somewhere that was in the middle of where their respective homes were; there had to be a café or coffee shop somewhere in the area, or he could have just decided that they were going to use his house as their workspace and made Midoriya come to him, but if he'd done that, he would've either had to have dealt with other people while he was working, or worse, he would have had to invite Midoriya into his personal space.
That was a solid no - on both counts.
Instead, he found himself walking up the stairs.
Annoyed at having had to walk so far, before finding the right apartment and knocking twice. They didn't have a doorbell, and the roughness of their wooden door left his knuckles stinging, before it was pulled open to reveal Midoriya waiting for him.
"Hi Shinso", he said, with a bright smile that was as annoying as it was obviously manufactured, "did you find the place okay?"
"Yeah".
"Great! Please, come in, take your shoes off, there are guest slippers just there", he pointed out the several pairs of plain white slippers that were stacked neatly behind the door, "and make yourself at home".
Shinso shook his head, as Midoriya retreated to wherever he had popped up from.
This place looked to be as far from his home as he could imagine.
Kicking off his trainers and swapping them for the pair of cheap and disposable slippers left by the door, he also took a moment to remove his jacket, placing it alongside the two coats and spare jacket, which he assumed belonged to Midoriya and his parents, which were already hanging beside the door. The coats were similar, though one was noticeably longer than the other; both plain black in colour, rough and scratchy to the touch, which told him how little they had likely cost, but the insides were padded, capable of keeping whoever wore them warm.
Practical, he had to admit, even if they weren't particularly nice.
On the other hand, the jacket was of much nicer quality than the coats. Where they were unbranded, the jacket came from the 'Mighty Legacy' line of All Might merchandise that had been released to commemorate the hero's thirtieth anniversary, and was designed to mimic his Bronze Age costume, being black in colour with red detailing. He'd knew of a few kids in junior high school who'd owned them, and a quick check of the label told him that the jacket was a legitimate one, which surprised him. While they weren't collectors' items, at least as far as Shinso knew, they were still actively selling the line, they also couldn't be considered cheap either.
"Shinso, hey would you", Izuku's head popped around the corner, "oh, that's my jacket. Do you like it?"
He shrugged, "It's alright, I guess. It's one of the Mighty Legacy ones, right?"
"Right", Izuku grinned, looking thrilled that he'd recognised it, "the one based on his Bronze Age outfit. Grandma gave it to me last Christmas".
"Cool".
"Are you a fan?"
"A fan?"
"Yeah - a fan of All Might?"
Shinso shrugged again, "He's alright, I guess".
"But you prefer Eraser Head".
The way he said it, Shinso didn't think that Midoriya was asking him a question. Shinso was pretty sure that he'd already mentioned Eraser Head being his favourite Pro Hero, even though he was one of the Underground, but he doubted that someone like Midoriya would bother remembering that, so he nodded.
"Yeah".
"You know, he does a lot of local patrols around here", Izuku continued, seeming to be completely unbothered by the apathy in Shinso's tone, "we could try going out to look for him at some point, try and get some photographs of him in action".
"Maybe", the fight to not roll his eyes was real, taking every ounce of Shinso's willpower to hold it back.
Eraser Head wasn't just a Pro Hero. He wasn't even just a normal Underground Pro Hero; he was the Underground Pro Hero. Shinso had been trying to track his career for years now, and he knew that Eraser Head was next to impossible to plan for. He was an ambush predator, who varied up his routine without set patterns, took out the villains before they knew what was happening to them, and then disappeared before he could be captured on any kind of camera. On the rare occasions that villains claimed to have avoided the initial attack, they quicky found themselves rendered useless with their Quirk erased and made for easy pickings.
But sure Midoriya, the eye roll was getting even harder to contain, the more he thought about it, we'll just go and take a quick photo. If we left now, maybe we could be back in time for dinner.
He forced himself to cough back a scoff as well.
People with Quirks like Midoriya's never even bothered to consider that other people might have skills they didn't. He could already see him thinking that his Quirk would take care of everything, and all he had to do was go looking for a real Pro Hero and then he'd probably find him in under an hour.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine", he said on reflex.
"Oh, are you sure? Your cough sounded weird, so if you're-"
"I said, 'I'm fine', already".
"Right! Sorry. Do you want something to drink? I can get you a glass of water, or some milk, if you'd prefer that. I like milk, but my mom says that tea can work really well for-"
"Midoriya", he cut the other boy off before he could start offering to show he around the place, small as it was, "let's just get started".
"Alright".
=== === === === ===
"You're wrong".
Izuku bit back the urge to groan, "No, I'm not. If you look at the data that can be pulled from them, then-"
"You're looking at blogs, hero watch sites and online chat boards, not police reports or HeroNet messages".
"Even criminals have a right to privacy. Police reports aren't accessible to the general public and to even gain access to the HeroNet, you need to have a Pro Hero Licence. We are not police officers, nor are we Pro Heroes".
"-Tt-", Shinso clicked his teeth, "we could probably ask a Third Year to look up some of them for us".
"Third Years only have provisional licences. They don't get full ones until just before they graduate".
"So, the ones who just got them?"
"They were all members of last year's graduating class", Izuku confirmed.
"So, we've got nothing".
"No, we have the data".
"It's not data".
"Yes, it is".
"No, it isn't".
"Well, what would you call it".
"A bunch of stuff you pulled together from a bunch of different places".
"I'm now curious as to what exactly you think data is?"
"You know what I mean".
"I really don't".
"It means you're wrong".
"No, it doesn't. If you try actually looking at what people are saying, then the sources clearly tell us-"
Shinso shook his head, "That's not how his Quirk works".
"Maybe it's not", Izuku conceded, "but the accounts clearly-"
"The same accounts that think he wears a pair of goggles", Shinso cut in, not bothering to not roll his eyes this time, "when 'sources'", he made a pair of finger quotes around the last word, "will tell you that most vision-based Quirks don't work through glass or plastic of any kind, let alone thick lenses".
"Most", Izuku pointed out, "is not all. It's not unreasonable for us to read the accounts and then assume that Eraser Head's Quirk can work through a pair of lenses".
"The odds of that are what, one in a hundred?"
"Officially, I think it's one in ninety-nine".
"Like that even matters".
Izuku frowned, "Of course it matters. It's the truth".
"Why do you keep bringing that up like that, like it matters somehow?"
"Why wouldn't the truth matter?"
Shinso scoffed, "You do know that everyone in the world - literally everyone - lies at some point?"
"And that makes it so much more important that we always do our best to tell the truth".
"You sound like you grew up listening to those All Might public service announcements".
"Well, if the alternative is sounding like you, scoffing and rolling my eyes every time somebody says something I don't like", Izuku shrugged, "then I think I'll take it".
"I don't sound like that".
"It's quite literally all you've done since you got here".
"Well, if you'd-"
"You also keep telling me how Eraser Head is some untraceable Pro Hero that no one knows anything about, but then you also seem to think that you're some sort of expert on Eraser Head", Izuku looked away from his laptop, which he'd relocated from its stand in his bedroom to the dining table, to stare at Shinso directly, "so tell me, have you ever actually seen Eraser Head?"
"I don't see what that has to do with-"
"It's a simple question: have you, or have you not, ever seen Eraser Head in person?"
He saw the curl in Shinso's lip, "No".
"Do you know Eraser Head personally?"
"No".
"Do you even know anyone who knows Eraser Head?"
"Y-"
"And Yamada-sensei doesn't count".
"No", Shinso managed to get out between grinding teeth.
"So, what you're telling me is that you know even less about Eraser Head than the people on these blogs - these same blogs that you've decided that you don't like for reasons that you refuse to actually say - but then you expect me to treat you're some kind of expert witness".
Shinso scoffed once again, before flushing bright red when Izuku raised an eyebrow in response, having just proved the very point he'd tried to dispute. He turned away from him, Izuku returning his gaze to his computer screen, before he muttered something under his breath that would have been too quiet for normal human ears to pick up.
Izuku didn't bother looking back at him, as he updated his notes, "And just so you know, the physical enhancement aspect of my Quirk improves my senses too. I have fantastic hearing".
"Just… write the damn report".
=== === === === ===
Just as Izuku had expected it might, spending almost an entire day with Shinso left him feeling drained, and by the time his mom arrived home after her shift, Izuku's patience had long since given up. He and Shinso had agreed to finish for the day, the other boy was quick to leave and as much as Izuku liked the idea of what their English assignment was asking for, (it was, after all, essentially a journalistic report), he simply had no desire to continue with what he already knew was going to be his most tiring submission for the semester.
Possibly his most tiring submission for the entire year.
Instead, he returned his laptop to its place within his bedroom and swapped it out for his notebook. Unlike the notebooks he used for school, which were numbered, titled and colour-coded to their subject and teacher, his new one was plain black and had no given number or title.
This one had no description whatsoever, and all it had inside…
Was a bunch of gibberish.
Gibberish that he was desperately trying to make sense of.
He'd stopped for a half hour, taking a break from staring at the page, as he heated up dinner (after making sure that there was enough for his mom), before taking a look at what he had available to him.
"Ci ti u es tas Kal El de Kryp ton", he murmured to himself, the words clumsy on his tongue, as he sounded out each syllable, trying to parse some sort of meaning from them, or even form the beginnings of a sentence. They'd been recorded by what sounded like some type of machine, leaving the words with a flat cadence, which meant that even with just the first ten syllables, he had no way of knowing if he was looking at ten words or just one.
The first word could be 'Ci', 'Citi' or 'Citiu', and he wouldn't be able to tell. For all he knew, the first single word of the message could be, 'Citiuestaskaleldekrypton'.
Even if, by some miracle, he managed to separate the syllables into each individual word, he'd still have no way of translating the words from whatever language they were in, into Japanese.
He threw his pen down in frustration, "I just don't know enough".
"What don't you know enough about?"
"Mom!"
He would forever deny how high-pitched his voice had reached that day, "I didn't hear you come in".
Her lips quirked up into an amused smile, "Clearly", she flicked her head towards the notebook in front of him, "is that your assignment? Is your friend still here?"
"What? Oh, no, that's just something I was trying out, and Shinso left already".
"Did you offer him something to eat?"
"I offered him a drink when he got here, but when we decided we were finished, he didn't stay long enough for me to offer him anything else".
"Hmm", she hummed, "Ci ti u es tas, these are the words from when you found your crystal", she frowned, "are you trying to translate this?"
He sat back, his frustration evident on his face, "For now, I'm just trying to form it into words. I don't even know how I could translate it".
"You couldn't", she told him simply.
"Thanks for that encouragement, mom. I now feel so much better".
"I'm sorry Izuku, but without any kind of reference point, you have no way of knowing what any of it is supposed to mean", her eyes glanced down the page, "some of this looks like Latin".
He sat up, "It does?"
"Yeah", she said, her voice quiet, "you've got 'es tas', which sounds like 'estas'. I think it means 'is' or 'are'. I only really know some of the medical terms though".
"It's something though".
She sighed, "Izuku, even if the words are the same, and by some universal miracle, they have the same meaning, you still wouldn't have a sentence structure, grammar or even any understanding of their culture".
"Right…"
"And I'll also tell you that there are over fifty Latin-based languages, so your options will probably be pretty varied".
"So, what you're saying is, I still have nothing".
"I'm sorry Sweetie", she told him, rubbing his back, the way she had when he was a child, "I know it's not what you wanted to hear".
"No", he murmured, "it really wasn't".
=== === === === ===
When Izuku boarded the train for his morning commute, Togeike was, as he expected, already on board and the two of them jammed themselves in together, as he did his best to use his broader shoulders to try and keep some distance between them and everyone else.
It didn't take long for them to reach Padwan Station, where they met up with Agoyamato and Asa, who were already there when they arrived, standing on the opposite side of the road, casually chatting with each other, while waiting for them. The four of them exchanged casual greetings, talking about their weekends, as they made their way towards U.A. for another day of lectures and classwork.
It had started out just like any other day.
Which was what made it so surprising when they turned the corner to find a sea of television reporters camping outside the school's main entrance.
"What the hell?"
"The fuck is this?"
"Language", he chided Agoyamato and Togeike, while Asa looked at the assembly with wide eyes, "and I have no idea", he added, answering their questions.
They drew closer, Izuku and Agoyamato using their height to try and spot a pathway through the reporters, but all they could see were people, cameras and microphones, as well as some of their fellow students that seemed to be grouped up against the fence.
"They're blocking the entrance", Asa pointed out, "are they allowed to do that?"
"As long as they're not impeding the flow of traffic, it's up to the police to decide if they're causing a public nuisance or not", Izuku told them, having looked into it after a rare occasion when a group of reporters had set up outside of the hospital when a child had had a bad accident, "other than that, I think the only thing they have to worry about is if someone needs help and they block the way, then there's a whole mess of criminal and civil stuff they have to worry about".
By now, the three students who had been boxed in and seemed to be surrounded had been joined by a handful of others, and from the shape of their body language, they looked uncomfortable.
"I don't want to walk through that", Asa told them, and the others murmured in agreement, while Izuku tried to look for another path. Even if he and Agoyamato tried to simply barge their way through, they ran the risk of injuring one of them, and in his case, since it seemed that his powers were entirely biological in nature and he presumed that he didn't have Quirk Factors that allowed him to turn them off, he could hit someone too hard and be arrested for illegal Quirk use.
No, what they needed was a way to move everyone out of their way, without using physical force. The obvious solution was to convince them to move themselves, but Izuku didn't think that they'd be inclined to. He of all students knew that reporters were naturally nosy people, who weren't supposed to take no for an answer and usually went out of their way to try and force answers out of people.
It would take an actual emergency to convince them to do that.
An actual emergency…
He turned to look at the others. Agoyamato was too big to be moved comfortably, but Asa and Togeike were much shorter.
Sensing his eyes on her, Togeike frowned, "What?"
He smiled, "Do you think you can pretend to faint convincingly?"
"Do I think I can what?"
=== === === === ===
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
"WE NEED RECOVERY GIRL!"
"Move!"
She'd known that Asa had the quietest voice of their little group, but Togeike couldn't help but notice that while neither Midoriya nor Agoyamato had a problem yelling at the crowd to move out of the way, even Asa's attempts at shouting at them came off as subdued as the placid girl.
She let her head loll enough to hide her laughter in Midoriya's surprisingly beefy shoulder. He was tall, broad and had a superstrength Quirk, so him being able to lift her with ease made sense, but she was surprised by the nice layer of compact muscle that he had beneath his shirt.
And now she was wondering what he looked like with his shirt off.
She was willing to bet that he had visible muscles to go with the feeling.
Very nice ones.
"I SAID MOVE!"
"MOVE IT PEOPLE!"
"Get out of the way please!"
She couldn't open her eyes to look, but Midoriya's dumb plan seemed to be working, because she hadn't been knocked into anyone yet and she was still moving forwards. She kept her head turned away and tried not to laugh, as Midoriya thanked people for moving in between yelling at them and heard the 'bleep' of U.A.'s security system, as it registered her student ID card, and then everyone else's.
The rapid set of 'bleeps' meant that quite a few of them had crossed the threshold together, and it wasn't hard to imagine that some of the other students had used their clever distraction to slip in behind them.
"Huh", she heard Agoyamato say from beside her, "we made it".
"I can't believe that worked", Asa added, as they stepped inside of the main building.
"Not bad, little listeners", despite her best attempts, she tightened up, twitching in Midoriya's arms when she heard her homeroom teacher's voice
"So, I'm guessing that Miss Togeike isn't in need my services".
"Ah", she said, as she rolled her head around to find that not only was the school nurse standing with her homeroom teacher, but so was Hound Dog, their guidance counsellor, "I mean, uh, I suddenly feel a lot better?"
The school nurse was unimpressed, her voice entirely flat, as she shook her head and deadpanned, "Oh my. What a miraculous recovery".
"For the record", Hound Dog growled, but she couldn't tell if it was from anger, or if that was just the way he spoke, he'd sounded pretty angry during their orientation, but had otherwise been fine, "we don't approve of you faking a medical emergency".
"But it was pretty clever though-"
"Yamada", Recovery Girl warned.
"-look, all I'm saying is that U.A. does have a drama club. You guys should consider signing up", he held his hands up in surrender, "but yeah, other than that, faking medical emergencies is bad guys. We'll make sure the press is gone after today, so I don't want to hear about you guys doing this again, okay?"
"Yes, sensei!"
"Right!"
"Okay".
"You got it".
"Oh, and Midoriya?"
"Yes, sensei?"
Present Mic grinned, tilting his head forwards and letting his glasses slide down his nose, until he was looking over the top of them, before running his eyes over them with a wink.
"You can probably put Togeike down now".
=== === === === ===
"Good morning class!"
"Good morning Yamada-sensei!"
Stood at the front of the classroom, Present Mic grinned as his class chanted back at him. There was something oddly fulfilling about a roomful of people chanting back at you, which was why he made sure to do it every morning. It was fun for him and had the delightful side effect of making sure that he had everyone's attention, which he was certainly about to need.
After all, it was a big day for his class.
"Right then", he clapped his hands together, making sure that everyone's attention remained on him, "now, I know we all had a bit of excitement getting in this morning. Please rest assured that the press will not be back tomorrow, even if I have to go out and personally remove them", he took a moment to let them nod along, seeing more than one relieved face among them, before he added, "and if you were among the group that managed to sneak in with Midoriya and Togeike's little performance earlier, then you can take a moment to thank them at lunchtime".
The class broke out into hushed whispers, some of them grinning while most of them looked curious, and he knew that some interesting rumours would abound before lunch arrived.
"Onto business", he exclaimed, momentarily silencing them once again, as he rubbed his hands together, "we have a class task to get through this morning and it's a big one. One that could decide the course of your entire future at U.A., so let's get serious for a moment", he let that hang a moment, letting the anticipation build, "you need to elect your Class Representative!"
"Cool!"
"Oh, is that all?"
"That's so normal".
"You mean, that's so lame".
"Well, when you're all done talking", as he spoke, they quieted back down, "get on with the electing".
"Err", Togeike raised her hand, "Yamada-sensei?"
"Yeah?"
"How do we elect them?"
"That's completely up to you guys. I'm not getting involved. You have until the end of the period to make a decision. Good luck!"
=== === === === ===
True to his word, the moment he was finished speaking, Present Mic pulled out his laptop and sat back at his desk, tapping away, while the class tried to sort out a system for selecting their class representative. Some of the students had simply called for it to be them, while others were listing the reasons against them, and then others were trying to agree on forming a system but were yet to agree on anything. Some of them just wanted to know what Midoriya and Togeike had done that morning, and Agoyamato was leaving Asa with a scarlet face with every second he told of her involvement in the plan.
In short, Present Mic was continuing to ignore them while the class devolved into chaos.
Togeike was trying to corral them into something resembling order, while quite a few of the boys were happy to use their free time to talk about this morning, instead of actually doing what Present Mic-sensei had asked of them.
"Enough!"
His mom was the Deputy Chief Nurse at a good children's hospital, and with that came the need to make her quite oft loud and somewhat argumentative colleagues stop fighting and do what they were told.
"It's like dealing with children", she'd told him once, laughing it off when he'd asked about it.
The trick, she'd told him, was to talk loudly enough to be heard - without yelling at anyone - and then speak as if you already know the answer.
Admittedly, his attempts weren't perfect. His first word had been a bit of a yell, but everyone had gone quiet and were now looking directly at him, so Izuku was willing to count that as a win.
"We need to elect a Class Representative", he reminded them "now, I suggest that we propose candidates and then vote on those few. We haven't been together as a class for very long yet, but we should know enough about each other to manage that much", as he spoke, he made sure to move his head, making eye contact with everyone he was able to - his mom had told him that was an important thing to remember when speaking with people - he let his head stop, as he finished speaking, "now, does anyone want to say anything else, or would anyone like to nominate a candidate?"
Agoyamato shot to his feet, "I nominate Midoriya!"
"Wait, what are you-"
Togeike was quick to join him, "Seconded!"
=== === === === ===
As a teacher, Hizashi knew that it was his job to guide his students. To lead them on their journey of growth and self-discovery throughout some of the most important years of their lives. He had to be a guiding light of comfort and reliability, so that they would know that they could depend on him when the time came that they needed him.
It was a shame that laughing at Midoriya's misfortune would only serve to undermine his entire image.
Midoriya didn't like being the centre of attention - that much was obvious to anyone who'd ever interacted with him - but he had a way of stepping up when he was needed that made people look to him for leadership. He'd done it during their first few classes, helping out those who were struggling; he'd done it this morning, when he'd managed to help people get around the press blockading U.A.'s main entrance; and now, he'd done it during the vote for Class Representative, which meant that people had naturally voted for him, even though he hadn't wanted them to.
He could see it in his eyes when he'd congratulated him on winning the election. Midoriya didn't want to do the job they were asking of him, but because they'd actually voted for him, he wasn't going to let them down.
Democracy at its finest.
If only that was how they elected their actual officials, then he felt the world would be a much better place.
Togeike had ended up being nominated too, even if she'd lost the second vote, so it wasn't surprising that Midoriya had named her as his Deputy Class Representative, and when he'd given him the list of roles that needed fulfilling, Midoriya had been as quick as he'd expected to ask Agoyamato and Asa to join them as the Attendance Manager and Communication Liaison. They still needed a Class Treasurer, and personally, Hizashi thought that Shinso would be a good fit for it, but that would be up to Midoriya to decide.
They'd had their first review with him on Friday, just before he'd sent them home for the weekend and it had not gone well.
It hadn't been as bad as it could have been, but it was clear that those two were far from being on the same page.
He doubted that they were even reading from the same book.
They'd obviously not planned out a single thing, and even though they had plenty of time to come together, Shinso had instead made up their assignment on the spot and instantly assigned them roles within it. Midoriya could have called him out on it there and then, and if he had, he would have split them up as partners, but Midoriya had surprised him by covering for Shinso.
And on the very slim chance that they'd managed to sneak one by him, they were busted the moment he heard their little spat in the corridor.
Seriously, he knew teenagers were supposed to be dumb, but they could have walked more than five steps away to start their argument, especially if they didn't want him knowing about it.
He hadn't even needed to open his door to hear them.
Midoriya wanting to transfer to Seijin next year was a surprise, but became understandable when he heard him talk, brief as it was, about journalism and his search for the truth. He could admire that about him, the desire to choose his own path to walk, that drive to hunt for the truth in a world where black and white had given way to what felt like nothing but ever-increasing shades of grey.
He was going to tell the others about Midoriya's desire to study journalism at their staff meeting at the end of the day. Hopefully, it would help the others understand why he hadn't joined the hero course, even though he'd been handed a golden ticket.
While Hizashi could understand the idea of taking your own path, he had to admit that personally, he found the idea of anyone Midoriya's age not wanting to become a Pro Hero to be a little bizarre - and he wasn't the only member of staff who felt that way. Some of them had been paying particularly close attention to him, as if they could mentally draw out his reasoning, without ever actually asking him anything.
They didn't have any journalism courses at U.A., or at least, none that were especially dedicated to the art. As a school, they focused directly on training Pro Heroes and their more immediate supplemental courses: agency management, advertising and especially the design and manufacturing of support equipment. Journalism and reporting of any kind simply didn't have a space in the school, meaning that other schools, such as Seijin, had to fill the void.
It was natural that an aspiring journalism student would want to transfer to Seijin, which he knew was one of the best schools for studying journalism, but it begged the question of why Midoriya had applied to U.A. in the first place, if he never intended to join the heroics course.
Midoriya seemed like a pretty straightforward kid, but maybe there was more to him than meets the eye.
If he really did decide to leave U.A. at the end of the year, then he already knew that he'd miss the kid. He was definitely one of the good ones, but at the same time, he couldn't wait to see how he'd develop as a journalist.
No one in the HPSC would be safe from him and his pen.
=== === === === ===
There was a difference between real journalism, the kind that Izuku wanted to one day be a part of, and the glory hunting TV reporting that had been camped outside of the U.A. gates that morning. One apparently involved shoving cameras into the faces of legal minors, while the other involved the ability to not act monstrously while searching for genuine news to report.
Present Mic had promised their class that the media outside would be removed today, but the way they had all acted towards his fellow students had left a bad taste in Izuku's mouth. Beyond what felt like harassment of his peers, they'd also parked on the sidewalk, their vans and equipment taking up most of the available space, before blocking off the main entrance and could have potentially caused an injury.
Thankfully, they'd gotten out of the way when he, Asa and Agoyamato had yelled at them, using Togeike to help fake an emergency and they'd gotten out of the way, but even still…
"It never should have come to that".
"We know", Togeike responded, not looking at him as she opened her bottle of water.
"You've said it three times", Agoyamato added, as he cut apart some of his beef katsu.
"Since lunch started", Asa murmured, before she bit into one of her lettuce wraps.
"Yeah, well… really?"
"Uh huh", Togeike murmured around the mouth of her water bottle.
"I mean", Agoyamato shrugged, "you can keep complaining about it, but it's done now".
"I know, it's just, urgh", he jabbed at the cutlet on his plate with a bit too much force, and all four of them winced at the shrieking noise of metal scraping across ceramics. For a moment, he feared that he'd broken the plate but let out a quiet sigh when he realised that it was still intact.
His record of unbroken crockery remained.
For now, at least.
As he brought a piece of the cutlet up to his mouth, he missed the look of concern his friends shared, as they gestured with their eyebrows, until Togeike relented.
"So, Midoriya…", she began, trying to sound as casually non-interested as she could manage, "how was your weekend?"
"Good?"
"Right, right… so…", she tried to trail off and leave it there, but the way Agoyamato was jerking his head told her that she wouldn't be able to get away with that and she decided to just go for it, "how was working with Shinso?"
"Fine".
Togeike frowned, "Is that all you have to say".
"Yeah, 'fine' pretty much sums it up".
"So, he wasn't an ass".
"Oh, no, he was definitely an ass", Izuku confirmed for her, "but I was expecting that, so it was fine".
Agoyamato scowled, "What did he do?"
"He seems to think that his opinion counts as fact. He wants to be considered as an expert on our chosen Pro Hero without ever having seen or met the guy, and on top of that, he also thinks we'd be better off if I just let him write the paper and took his score".
"But it's an English paper", Asa pointed out, looking confused, "and you want to be a journalist, don't you?"
"Oh, yes".
Togeike grinned, "And did you make him realise that?"
"Oh, yes".
"Great!"
They all shared a laugh at that, as Izuku absently turned his head, searching out Shinso's face. He found him, sitting alone at the end of someone else's table again, staring directly at him. Izuku raised a hand in greeting, only for Shinso to turn his face away, determined to ignore him.
Shinso very clearly didn't understand why he had chosen not to join the heroics course, or why he wanted to focus on something 'mundane' like journalism, instead of the more 'exciting' world of Pro Heroism, but Izuku felt like there was more to his dislike of him than just that.
He tried to (half-heartedly) disguise his thoughts about his and his mom's home, but Izuku had good eyes and better reflexes; he saw the disdain on his face. For all he knew, Shinso lived in a mansion, while he and his mom barely scraped by in a two-bedroom apartment, but that didn't mean that they had a bad life.
And the way Shinso had eyed everything, acting as though it was all beneath him?
He didn't like that at all.
It was one thing to think badly of him. He was fine with that. He'd never been popular, and he didn't ever expect that to change, but thinking badly about his mom?
His mom gave her life to working with sick and dying children. She wasn't a doctor, who had their praises sung every time they made a tiny incision; she was a nurse. She changed their clothes, sheets and bedpans. She was the one who carried out the tests. She wiped away sweat, drool and other bodily fluids that he didn't want to think about. Every second of spare time that she had went to those kids, and Shinso had walked into her home and then had the nerve to think badly about her?
Oh, hell no.
As far as he was concerned, there was a line and Shinso was in danger of crossing it.
"Just ignore him".
"Hmm?"
He turned to face Togeike, having missed what she'd said while locked in his own head.
"Shinso. Just ignore him when you're here. Meet up, do your assignment and then leave. You can't force him to not be an asshole".
"Doesn't mean I have to be one in return though".
"You know, saying crap like that is why we voted for you to be Class Rep".
He groaned, covering his head with his hands, "Why did you guys do that? I don't want to be in charge. I am in no way to qualified to be your Class Rep".
"Dude", Agoyamato shook his head, "you are literally the best choice. You're smart, you're always on time. You keep offering everyone in class help. If we can' trust a guy like that to be the Class Rep, then we really shouldn't have one at all".
"You're nice", Asa said, looking away when Izuku turned to look at her, "even when other people are being rude. That's good".
"I get that from my mom".
"You're also a momma's boy", Togeike added, "I don't know if that's good or bad. I just felt like pointing it out".
"Gee, thanks, I-"
Anything else he could add was cut off when the school bell began ringing.
"Warning! Level Three Security Breach! All students evacuate the building in an orderly fashion! Warning! Level Three Security Breach! All students evacuate the building in an orderly fashion! Warning! Level Three-"
"Huh!"
"What the-!"
"Level Three means the U.A. Barrier's been breached", Izuku said, even as he rose to join the others, intending to walk out with them to their assembly point, but before they managed to take a second step, Asa was knocked over and sent tumbling to the floor.
The students of U.A. were panicking.
They were cramming in, crashing into each other and as the door created a bottleneck, if they didn't stop soon, then people were going to be crushed, injured and if the worst happened?
Dead.
"Stop freaking out!"
A kid with bright red hair tried to yell everyone down, but went ignored, as the crowd managed to pull him down. People were being jammed into the walls, and some had ducked under the tables for cover. They needed to-
"AH!"
That was Asa.
Izuku mentally slapped himself: if this really was an emergency, then he needed to focus.
Asa hadn't managed to get back to her feet. She was pinned to the floor and rather than helping her, people were quite literally walking over her body.
Enough was enough.
He stepped forwards, his strength and invulnerable skin meant that people bounced off of him, instead of bouncing him around, and with what he hoped was a gentle tap, he shoved the people around Asa, sending them stumbling into their friends, before scooping her up and setting her back on her feet.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah", she gasped out, but the way she held her right foot up from the floor, told him how that was feeling.
The reprieve didn't last long, before more students rushed to fill the gap that he had created, "There", Izuku said, as he pulled the others towards him, "let's try and get next to the window".
"Right".
By his own admission, Agoyamato wasn't as invulnerable as Izuku himself was, but there was an element of it that inherently came with having a superstrength Quirk. The two of them formed a wall, forcing students to go around them, as they led Togeike and Asa to the windows.
"Our heroes" Togeike snarked, as she slipped under Asa's arm, helping to take the weight off of her injured leg.
They were close when a few others ducked in front of them, using the shield created by their bodies to help keep themselves safe.
"Sorry about this".
"Don't mind us".
"Thanks for the save".
Agoyamato took the spot beside everyone, while Izuku turned until his back was to the crowd. He could feel people bumping into him, but they bounced off of his back and shoulders, while he remained unmoved.
"Nice Quirk", one of the newcomers told him.
"Thanks".
She was on the smaller side, with purple hair and it took him a moment to realise that what he thought were cables for a pair of earphones were in fact, her extended earlobes, which tapered off into a pair of audio jacks. It didn't look like much of a Quirk, but he knew better than to judge someone on their appearance and given that the epaulettes on her jacket marked her as a hero course student, Izuku was willing to bet that there was more to her than that.
"Midoriya", his gaze snapped up to meet Agoyamato's, who used his broad jawline to gesture out towards the window, "look. It's the reporters from outside".
Anger flared through him for a brief moment. The morning's press hadn't just harassed the students - the still underage students - on their way into campus, but now they had broken into the school, not only trespassing but also triggering U.A.'s defences, starting a panic and getting Asa hurt.
And he didn't doubt that she was the only one injured.
They needed to find a way to calm everyone down and stop them from panicking. They needed to find a way to be heard over the noise of the crowd.
Heard.
He turned back to the girl with purple hair, "Hi, my name's Izuku Midoriya. It's very nice to meet you. Please tell me that you have a sound Quirk".
"Ugh, what- no", she shook her head, then shrugged, "I mean, kind of, but I can only plug in and hear things".
"You can't broadcast anything? Send sound out?"
"No".
"Dammit", he muttered, "we need to-"
"Excuse me?"
There were three other students that had joined them, ducking in with his and Agoyamato's human shield wall. The girl with the purple hair was one, a perfumed blond boy, who was currently pressing himself into the corner, and the latest speaker, another girl, who was taller than her friends, and Izuku wasn't trying to look, but it was hard not to notice that she was more developed than purple hair.
"Oh, yes- what are you doing?"
The girls snickered, as he and Agoyamato turned away, while the taller girl hiked her skirt up, revealing the pair of shorts she was wearing beneath her skirt, which she then hiked up, exposing the skin of one of her thighs, before it began to sparkle with colours.
His question of what she was doing with her hiked skirt was answered when, from the glow of her skin, she reached down and handed him a megaphone.
"Would this help?"
"Did you just make this?"
"Yes", she nodded, smiling brightly, "my Quirk allows me to create any material I know the make-up of from my body's fat cells".
"That's amazing! Do you know if-"
"Midoriya", Agoyamato snapped, the strain of forcing people back evident in his voice, "not now. Stop this first. Talk about her Quirk later".
"Oh, right, sorry!"
He fumbled with the controls for a moment, before straightening up and hitting the switch to power it up, "Please, excuse me".
The girl blinked, "Not at all".
"He-hem", he cleared his throat, as he turned around to face what was quickly becoming a mob, "May I have your attention please… there is no need to panic… now, everyone, please CALM DOWN".
Slowly, but thankfully, people were listening to him and already, the chaos of the cafeteria was starting to calm down.
"Everyone, there is no intruder. The press have pushed their way in past the gates. The teachers are already handling the situation. Please calm down and WALK to your assembly point. I repeat, there is NO INTRUDER. Please proceed to your class's assembly point at a WALK. Thank you".
His words had the desired effect, and everyone seemed to calm down once the sense of group panic wore off. Slowly, but surely, everyone began to continue their journey towards the school's assembly points, but they were doing so at a more casual walk. Some people were limping, or clutching injured body parts, but they were moving peacefully, and for that, Izuku was glad.
"Nice work, class rep!"
"See! We told you - that was totally class rep material!"
"Oh, laugh it up", he told them, as he turned back to face them, his eyes moving to Asa's limp, "are you alright?"
She tried for a reassuring smile, but it came out more as a grimace, "I'll be fine. I'm worried about Agoyamato's back though".
"Nah, it's probably nothing a good night's sleep won't fix".
"You're both going to see the nurse", he told them, "and no, that's not up for debate".
"I want a new Class Rep".
"Tough. It's what you get for being the one who nominated me".
"And I'm regretting it already".
The three newcomers chuckled at that, and Izuku realised, as he handed back the megaphone, that none of them had introduced themselves yet.
"Ah, my apologies, but it's nice to meet you all properly now. I'm Izuku Midoriya, the Class Rep for Class 1-C. This is my friend and Deputy Class Rep, Chikuchi Togeike-"
"Hey".
"-our friend, Tsutsutaka Agoyamato-"
"Hi".
"-and our other friend, Choga Asa".
"Hello".
"It's nice to meet you all", the taller girl spoke, "I'm actually the Deputy Class Representative for Class 1-A. My name's Momo Yaoyorozu. These are my friends", she smiled as she said that, which made Izuku think that she didn't get a chance to say it a lot, "Kyoka Jiro".
The girl with the purple hair, who he now had a name for, raised two fingers in greeting, "Yo".
"And this", the blond boy wearing the nice perfume stepped out of the corner that he'd jammed himself into, "is Yuga Aoyama".
He dipped his head in greeting, "Bonjour".
"Bonjour", Midoriya replied, "ça va?"
Aoyama's eyes lit up, "Ça va bien, merci! Et vous?"
"Ça va bien, aussi".
"Is that… French?"
Midoriya nodded in answer to Togeike's question, "Yes, it is. I picked some of it up at the hospital".
"My father is the French Ambassador to Japan", Aoyama told them, "French is the language of my family, but because of his job, I grew up speaking both languages", he turned to face Midoriya, his eyes lighting up once again, "but I never thought anyone else here would speak Française. Your accent is very good as well!"
"Thank you. I've never spoken with another person before. It's always been videos and music in the hospital".
"Well", Aoyama told him, as their group joined the others, beginning to head outside, "personally, I think you sounded super".
=== === === === ===
Nezu was not accustomed to feeling threatened in what he considered his home territory.
He'd sent most of his staff away to oversee the evacuated classes, taking a post-lunchtime registration, before guiding them back inside. Hound Dog and a team were sweeping the school, in case there were any intruders that they didn't know about, while Recovery Girl and her team were already hard at work overseeing treatment of the injuries caused from the day's break-in.
He'd also sent Present Mic away to handle the still-present media, and he'd taken Eraser Head with him for additional security, as in between answering the questions posed by the press's new arrivals, they were detaining those who had broken in, so that the police could arrest them when they arrived and then Nezu would be able to see to it that they were appropriately charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent that the law would permit.
Nobody was going to harass children, break into his school, cause injuries to his students and then get away with it.
Not while he had anything to say about it.
The police had already blocked off the road in front of the school, preventing anyone else from taking advantage of the break in their security to sneak in.
As he approached the gate which served at the main entry point for the U.A. Barrier, flanked by Cementoss and Power Loader, with All Might's decompressed fall walking behind them in a suit that was far too large for his reduced frame, he finally caught sight of the damage.
Even from a distance, it was clear that what had been done to the gate was irreparable, but it was only once they drew close enough for a more in-depth examination, that he realised the full extent of what had transpired. The gate hadn't just been destroyed by force, or even simply broken into electronically.
No, the clumps of metal particles told him that the gate had been decayed. Someone had disintegrated parts of it, leaving behind a mass of useless metal pieces, which had kept no one from entering and worse of all?
Nezu had no idea who could be behind it.
He was a superintelligent mammal with perfect recall, and not even he knew of a Quirk with such immediate potential for destruction.
"Only a Quirk could have done this", Power Loader murmured, "this isn't the work of any machine".
"And it would have to be a powerful Quirk at that", Cementoss added, "to work so quickly, before anyone realised what was happening".
All Might's tone was curious, but laced with his own doubts, "Could it have been a member of the press?"
"I'm having all of their identities and registered Quirks confirmed against the HPSC and WHA databases", Nezu told them, "but it's unlikely that this was their handiwork".
"A new villain then", All Might concluded.
"Yes, and now they've proved that they can infiltrate our school", Nezu reigned in his urge to growl, "but now we need to find out if this was simply a show of force… or a declaration of things that are about to come".
=== === === === ===
Author's Note
The number for the Midoriya's apartment: #77. The release date of the very first chapter of My Hero Academia? 7th July 2014 (07/07). The year the very first Star Wars movie was released? 1977.
Something I discovered while prepping for the use of writing out the Kryptonese language in this, is that Japanese medical professionals still use Latin words, just like the European countries do. It's not exclusively used, and it's mostly used for anatomical and scientific terms, but it's the closest thing we have to an international standard.
Padwan Station, which services U.A. is named for the term, "Padawan", from Star Wars, which is the term given to Jedi students and apprentices. A fitting name for where the students come and go from.