Chapter Text

"I may not like whoever my father is," Valkyrie said. "But I can respect how well-buried all information about him is…"

Fletcher nodded as he tiredly searched through the newspapers dating back the last fifty years. They'd tracked All Might's career, figuring that if Valkyrie's father was as big of a villain as they suspected, he'd have had to have come in contact with All Might at least once. The only thing they'd found was that around five years prior, All Might started appearing less and less in public, and his villain count went down by sixty-five per cent.

Kenspeckle walked through the front door, eyes weary from his shift, only to blink at the sight of Fletcher and Valkyrie still hovering in the same position they'd been in when he left that morning.

"I admire the dedication, Children, but have you eaten or drunk anything today?"

"We would," Fletcher mumbled as he picked up an article about a woman named 'Nana Shimura' and how she'd been found dead. "But this is such fascinating history. It all seems so weirdly connected. All Might's power levels, despite his childhood being boring and set in the middle of a major crisis, are one thing, but his sudden hidden weakness, swiftly followed by the League's arrival? It's interesting."

Valkyrie clicked her tongue. "And it's connected to Midoriya somehow. Anton heard Recovery Girl scolding All Might during the Sports Festival for pushing him too hard and trying to make Midoriya like him… Furthermore, their Quirks are the exact same brand of weirdness. Multicoloured and almost sentient. All Might's Quirk started dulling after Midoriya came into the picture as well, if my guess is correct."

Kenspeckle's frown deepened. "And what does this have to do with your father?"

Valkyrie shrugged. "Quirks seeming to be the exact same, weakening when someone else has a similar Quirk, specifically someone younger? It's like it's being passed down…" Valkyrie straightened. "What if All Might's Quirk can be passed down? The power keeps getting bigger and better the more people have it!"

"So when Midoriya got it…"

"His body couldn't handle the pressure of such a powerful Quirk because it had accumulated too much power!" She stared intently at Kenspeckle. "Would you get me Midoriya's hospital records if I asked really, really nicely?"

"Ordinarily, no. It's such a breach of privacy I would shout at you usually. But this seems rather important, so I will do my best." The doctor walked away, pulling out a tablet.

Fletcher finally sat down, "What does this mean for Midoriya, if his Quirk was passed down?"

Valkyrie bit her lip, she didn't really want to think about it. But realistically the best case scenario was that nothing would happen but Midoriya having a boost in the hero world. But the worst case scenario was: "All Might may very well have put Midoriya in a lot of danger unintentionally."

Fletcher buried his head in his hands. "I'm going to kill the number one hero. Good to know where my future is taking me."

Exam season was always a fun one for Valkyrie. She didn't enjoy the tests themselves, but there was always a practical part of the exam that she could look forward to. That being said, with her current theory about Midoriya's Quirk, she'd decided that he might benefit from some more practical study groups since he'd been so busy attempting to train his Quirk.

"And that's how you form a complex sentence in English," She finished, glancing down at her notebook. Gordon had drilled writing techniques into her brain many years ago, and his lessons had made those techniques stick for years to come. He'd been a fun teacher.

"Oh, I see what I was doing wrong now!" Midoriya nodded. "I was doing two dependent clauses instead of one dependent clause and one independent clause."

Valkyrie snapped her fingers towards the boy, conveniently not noticing the small flinch. "There you go, you'll be good at writing English in no time. You already speak it pretty decently, you just need to learn some Grammar."

Midoriya nodded eagerly and Valkyrie's mind drifted. Midoriya's lack of self-worth and habit of flinching gave her theory more weight. Japan had a 75% suicide rate in Quirkless individuals. Whether it be because of bullying, neglect or discrimination, the numbers were high enough to make Valkyrie feel sick to her stomach.

His consistent fear of Bakugou would also make sense. Quirkless people in certain countries often fall to bias from teachers. The students would then pick up on the discomfort and exile the Quirkless child. Bakugou and Midoriya were apparently childhood friends, so if that happened to the two of them, then Bakugou grew up with a very toxic outlook of people weaker than him due to Midoriya's constant exile.

Or at least, that was the assumption.

Midoriya tilted his head. "Is everything okay, Valkyrie?"

Interrogation time.

"Random question, Midoriya, but were you bullied before UA?"

Midoriya blinked and Valkyrie spotted the usual subtle cues of shrinking pupils and back straightening. "I'm sorry?" He shook his head weakly. "No, I wasn't bullied."

Valkyrie arched a brow. "So you and Bakugou are just- What exactly? Theatre kids?"

The boys eyes flitted to the door of the library. The exit. "I mean… I suppose there were times when I was teased."

"Seems odd to tease someone like you, you have such a powerful Quirk."

"Well, Quirks aren't everything…"

Valkyrie nodded. "Very true, but we have that view because we're smart people, Midoriya. The average middle schooler absolutely does not. So why would they bully you?"

Sweat beaded down Midoriya's forehead. "This all seems very personal, Valkyrie. I'm not sure how's it's relevant to our English."

Valkyrie stared at him, eyes narrowed. He was deflecting. Poorly deflecting, but still deflecting. But pushing any harder would probably result in All Might finding out and being on her case about something or another. She wanted this investigation to remain under the radar, she could never be too sure who was listening in.

Aoyama passed by them, smiling a dazzling grin as he passed with his own books in his arms. It seemed they weren't the only ones studying.

Sighing, Valkyrie smiled ruefully. "Sorry. I got carried away, that was my fault. I won't ask more. But Midoriya, know that you can come to be with any problem. Momo and I are in charge of our dumb class and you are in those numbers of dumb students."

Midoriya smiled, curls falling over one eye as he weakly gave her a thumbs up. "Of course, apology accepted!"

"You only have one week left until your final exams," Aizawa said as he looked through a pile of papers Valkyrie was sure were cat photos. "I'm sure you've all been studying constantly, right?"

The study groups she'd been attending studied ruthlessly. Momo and Iida had whipped everyone into shape in a matter of days. Even Valkyrie had learnt new things, and she knew a lot of information about heroes considering where she grew up.

"Don't forget to keep training, the written exam is only one part of it." Aizawa smirked. "There's also the practical exam to worry about.

Physically, she was fit and ready for the exam, training consistently with the Dead Men and Fletcher, who was taking quite the beating from Corrival at every session. She'd also recently received her gun licence from Sniper the week prior, though she was only allowed rubber bullets until she got her provisional hero licence.

Valkyrie tapped her finger against the desk. Her issue was with the physical training. From what she'd heard, everyone is typically put into pairs, so Valkyrie had taken to studying Midoriya's notes to get a feel for every partner she could possibly deal with.

The moment Aizawa was gone, complaints broke out.

"We've barely had time to study!"

"We've hardly had enough free time to open our textbooks…"

Denki flopped over Valkyrie's desk. "Can you give me more study sessions?"

"The ones you didn't attend because you thought you were smart enough without them?" Denki nodded. "Not a chance. I don't repeat myself."

Midoriya turned to her. "But if we study now, as hard as we can, we can all go to the Summer Camp together!"

Valkyrie withered at the mention of the camp. She didn't want to go. Why would she want to spend days brutally training her Quirk, a Quirk that wasn't hers originally, in the blazing sun and sleeping in a giant warehouse with children more annoying that several Omens and Nevers?

She didn't.

But once again, she was becoming weak to Midoriya's beaming hopefulness and caved. She could tutor so long as she got more refreshments from Momo and her lovely mother.

At this point she could only hope that whatever pairs were made, Aizawa wasn't stupid enough to make Midoriya and Bakugou work together. They'd get nothing done if he did that. Not if Bakugou couldn't wind his neck in…