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Uraraka was being weird. Not like when she had been deliberately avoiding him a few months back. Or her fierce demeanor when she was determined to succeed—the Sports Festival was a prime example there. No this was a different kind of odd. An eerily familiar sort of bizarre.
It had been a week or so since she had talked to, well, anyone as far as he could tell! She would arrive in class early; but she was always engrossed in a notebook, frequently looking between it and another hardcover book she had kept in her backpack as of late. If someone attempted to start up a conversation, it was shot down with an amazing swiftness; either because Uraraka was clearly not invested in the topic, or she would look up and bluntly tell them that she was a little busy and would need a rain check.
It was during lunch, sitting with Iida and Todoroki, that he decided to voice the concern aloud after Uraraka had sat down at another table. A table not only separate from their group, but from the girls of their class as well. Instead she had settled herself beside Koda, her notebook set beside her tray and her mouth moving occasionally in her work despite eating as well.
Iida paused as he looked across the table with his chopsticks hanging in midair, blissfully unaware of the few grains of rice that fell out from between them. “I just assumed that Uraraka-kun was buckling down in regards to her schoolwork.” He raised his other hand in a quick motion, looking between his two friends as he said, “We should strive to follow her level of dedication in such matters!”
“I don’t think it’s school stuff though, Iida-kun,” Izuku said as he prepared another bite as well, glancing over to where Uraraka had settled once again. Once he had finished chewing, he turned back to the others. “That book she’s been looking in doesn’t look like one from any of our classes. Besides, she’s only been writing in her notebook, not on any assignments or anything. And have you noticed she’s been talking to herself a lot too? I keep hearing her whispering under her breath—”
“That sounds like you,” Todoroki’s voice was quiet but level from beside him as he interjected his thought. There was a clack as Izuku’s utensils slipped from his fingers and landed on his tray beneath them, his other hand coming to rest over his mouth. “Midoriya?”
“You…you’re right. That does sound like me…” What exactly did that mean? It wasn’t as though those were his more positive traits to emulate. Was it some form of flattery? Wait, did she even know she was doing it? In which case, it probably wasn’t flattery. That still led him to a myriad of other questions. What was that book about? And what was leaving her so engrossed that she was mirroring his obsessive behavior?
“Just ask her.” Izuku’s quiet rambling came to a halt at his friend’s simple instruction, but his index finger and thumb were still cradling his bottom lip. “You aren’t going to figure anything out this way.”
“Todoroki-kun has a valid point.” Iida nodded his agreement and lifted his hand to gesture back at Izuku. “And besides that, if you share with Uraraka-kun that you are concerned about her actions, I’m certain she would be more than happy to divulge the reasoning behind her behavior.”
He hummed in quiet agreement as he picked up his fallen chopsticks, throwing one more glance to the distant table before wondering what the other two had thought about the Art History lesson they had earlier. He did want to find out what was going on, especially realizing she was acting like him—he knew how his head worked, and, well, that alone was reason for concern—but he didn’t feel it would be a good idea to bother her during lunch. Especially when she was clearly hard at work with, er, whatever it was she was doing.
Instead he settled for waiting until the school day ended. Once Aizawa had wrapped up homeroom, Izuku gathered his things and made a beeline for her desk. “Uraraka-san?” She had been scribbling furiously into her notebook, her own things still strewn across her desk. But she wasn’t fully immersed, giving a small questioning hum after hearing her name. “Is…”—it was still a bit odd that she wasn’t even looking up, so unlike her—“is it okay if we walk back to the dorms together?”
“Eh?” Uraraka finally set down her pencil and closed the notebook on her desk, her brown eyes traveling up to him. She didn’t say anything else, blinking slowly at him; and he felt his face warm slightly when it seemed to go on for a few seconds too long. He was just beginning to repeat himself when she shook her head as though throwing herself out of a daze. “Yeah, of course, Deku-kun! Just let me get my stuff.”
“Sorry,” she said as she shoved the notorious hardcover book in her backpack along with her other supplies, “it took me a second to realize what…”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Izuku readjusted one of the straps of his backpack as he assured her, “Sometimes it takes me a second to process what someone says; I get it.” In spite of his words, he could tell she was still rushing herself with the way she haphazardly threw most of her other things in the bag. He also couldn’t help noticing the way her eyes were drooping as she followed through with the actions.
Once there was only one thing left on the desk, she slid her own pack onto her shoulders, grabbed the remaining notebook, and then they began on their way. And as they walked, it occurred to him that he hadn’t planned out exactly what he was going to say to her. He had been too focused on making sure to catch her before she could vanish from the classroom. “So, um, Uraraka-san...” He drummed his fingers on the bright yellow straps he held in place, giving her a sideways glance. “Are you…doing okay?” He was so great at these word things.
“Eh?”
“N-not that you seem bad or anything…!” He lifted one of his hands between them as though he could physically wave that idea away. “I just, I noticed you haven’t exactly been yourself lately and I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong?”
“De…” She trailed off with a faint smile and gave slow shake of the head; it wasn’t quite an answer but it relieved him all the same. “No, nothing’s wrong. I’ve just been really focused.” Uraraka’s gaze traveled back to the notebook in her grasp. “I need to get this straightened out before Saturday, and I’m just struggling a bit.”
“This?” he repeated, following her line of sight. “What is…?”
“Well, um, see…” Why were her cheeks dusting with color all of a sudden? “Every week, the girls have been doing a girl’s night thing? We each get to pick the week’s activity and—well, Tsuyu-chan’s Dungeons & Dragons idea went so well that we started doing it every other week? And it’s my turn to make a campaign.”
He nodded along as she explained, narrowing his eyes as she continued; and once she had come to a stop, he looked back up to her with furrowed eyebrows. “Dungeons & Dragons? What’s that?”
“Y-yeah, I know it sounds really—” What it sounded like, he wasn’t sure, because Uraraka cut herself off before the thought could escape her. “Wait, what?” she wondered, glancing back to him with those tired eyes as wide as she could make them. “You don’t know what Dungeons & Dragons is?”
“No…should I?”
“Well, it’s just really nerdy. And you’re a huge nerd so—” They both came to an abrupt halt at her declaration, her face going from a pale pink to bright red. Izuku wasn’t offended, not in the least, because he was a huge nerd; but he had to admit that her saying it so candidly had taken him off-guard. She clutched the notebook to her chest with one arm, while her other hand reached up to settle on her head. “That sounded so mean.”
“It, it wasn’t! It’s accurate, anyway.” He took an extra second to assure her that it was fine; he didn’t take it in a bad way in any case. Once she had removed her hand from her cheek, he convinced her they should keep on walking and she quietly agreed. “But anyway, um. So, what exactly is it? Being ‘really nerdy’ doesn’t really explain much about it.”
She began to delve into an explanation for almost the entirety of their five-minute trek back to the dorms. How it was a tabletop role-playing game, how every player made their own character while the DM was in charge of the plot and the whole of the fantasy world in general. Apparently she had borrowed a set adventure book from Asui, but was taking some liberties with it, molding the plot-line to give a couple of side quests based on the info she had been given on the other girls’ characters.
“I spent so much time working on that part of it,” Uraraka continued as they began to ascend the steps to Heights Alliance, “that it totally slipped my mind to try to work out the stats for the first encounters they’re gonna have in the first session. So, now, I’m kinda scrambling to try and get it all figured out. I probably should have thought to do that first.”
“So that book you’ve been looking at?”
“Ah, it’s the Monster Manual.” She pushed open one of the building’s doors as she led their way inside. Uraraka lifted the notebook in her grasp, to draw attention to it as she continued, “I already wrote down all of the monsters that the plot says they’ll interact with during our first session. But now I have to figure out how to balance them with the girls’ character starting stats so the battles aren’t too hard or too easy.”
“Is that hard?” he wondered as they made their way over to the tables between the kitchen and living section of the lobby.
“Ahh, not really? I already know the monsters I want for the encounters and all.” He began to shrug off his backpack to set it on one of the empty tables as she set her notebook down as well. With her hands free, she began to roll her wrists in front of her as she continued to speak, “I just keep thinking of ideas for the story and getting sidetracked. Plus, I really don’t like doing the math for it. Not like that makes me postponing it much better but…”
Yeah, he thought to himself as she continued to ramble on, I can definitely see what Todoroki meant about her sounding like me… He nodded as she continued before pointing at the notebook she had set down, silently asking to look at it. She didn’t stop in her speech but reached out to slide it closer to him. He took it in hand to find that it said “Girl’s Night D&D Notes” on the cover.
Opening it revealed an odd mix of penmanship, the first portion written in a cute, tidy manner, that seemed to progressively become worse the farther along it went. A bunch of quick short-hand notes crammed into the margins in order to use up the available space. He continued to flip through it, his eyes focusing whenever a particular word or phrase caught his attention.
After getting a few pages in, he spoke up, “Well, you know, I could help you out with this, probably.” He looked up to find her blinking those brown eyes at him, her hands still hanging in midair. “Ah—if you wanted help that is! I mean, you said you were on a deadline and kept getting distracted so I just thought… Well, it’s fine if you don’t want me to. But I feel like I could maybe be good at this sort of thing. I guess it is girl’s night though. So offering to intrude on something like that is probably—”
“De-Deku-kun, it’s fine!” Uraraka moved so her palms were out and facing him as she shook them slowly. “It’s nice of you to offer but—I would probably have to ask the girls; and besides, I don’t want to take up what free time you have, asking you to help with this…”
Izuku shook his head. “It wouldn’t be a bother, Uraraka-san! Really, looking at your notes, it seems like it should be pretty quick to figure out.” He handed the notes back to her before he began to rummage through his backpack to get started on his homework. “Just let me know—I wouldn’t mind helping you in whatever way I can!”
“Mm. Thanks, Deku-kun. I’ll talk to them, and I can let you know afterwards.”
“So, let me see if I’ve got this right.” Ochako couldn’t help gulping nervously as Mina leaned forward with a wrinkled nose, narrowing her yellow eyes until her black sclera were mere slits peeking at her. “Midori offered to do the part of the campaign that you’ve been dreading since day one.” She lifted her index finger and poked the gravity girl square in the forehead as she leaned her face ever closer. “And instead of accepting his generous offer given from the goodness of his heart, you told him no?”
“Well—”
“She told him she would need to talk to us,” Kyouka reminded the other. When Ochako opened her eyes and glanced in the direction her voice had come from, she noticed the other girl twirling one of her earlobe jacks around her finger absentmindedly as she gazed up at the ceiling. “That’s not exactly saying no.”
“Well it’s not saying yes either,” Tooru shouted, the sleeves of her shirt moving around frantically as she was undoubtedly waving those invisible arms.
It had been a good few hours since Ochako had her conversation with Deku; thankfully, it hadn’t been hard to get the girls gathered together for the evening. She had expected a little bit of a debate on the matter. She certainly hadn’t expected to be scolded for asking their permission. “I couldn’t say yes without asking you guys first!”
She gave a tiny squeak when Mina poked her forehead with just a bit more force, telling the other that obviously they wouldn’t care. “If there’s any boy that could sit in on our night, without needing to ask any of us, it’s Midori—or Iida.” Her eyes finally widened again as she glanced up in thought. “Okay, maybe Kirishima too but!! Midori is absolutely at the top of those three! It’s not like you’re bringing Mineta in.”
An uncomfortable murmur of agreement passed through the group before Momo leaned forward in her seat. “Uraraka-san,” she began, trying to catch her gaze, “if you needed assistance with the math I would be more than happy to—”
“No, no,” Ochako interrupted, waving her hands in front of her as she pulled away from Mina’s accusing finger. “Yaomomo, thank you; but I want the encounters to be a surprise for all of you! That can’t happen if you help me out…”
“I had already asked Ochako-chan if I could help with the combat side of it since I’m more experienced, but she told me the same thing, kero.” After saying that, she looked back to their designated DM, one of her fingers traveling up to tap her own chin as she said, “I don’t think anyone minds if Midoriya-chan sits in on our session. But he should let me know if he has any questions: I don’t want an accidental total party kill in the first session, kero.”
After Tsuyu had clarified that, Mina began to waggle her eyebrows as she said having him around would be a great opportunity on the love front; Ochako decided to take that moment to dip out on the conversation, insisting that she should probably go and hand-off her notes to Deku. It was a quick trip to her room to gather her notebook and the Monster Manual—and after thinking about it a moment longer, grabbing the Dungeon Master’s Guide book as well for good measure.
A few minutes later and she was walking down the hall of the second floor, clutching all three items to her chest as she passed the first two rooms. She paid a mind to each of their nameplates, realizing with each step closer that maybe she should have messaged him beforehand. But she was so focused on getting away from the ever love-obsessed Mina that her train of thought had missed that station.
Still, there wasn’t much she could do about it now; so Ochako came to a stop outside of his room, giving it a rap with her knuckles before tilting her head to observe the kanji of his own nameplate as she waited. It was only a few seconds wait before the door cracked open just enough for him to peek out. “Uraraka-san?” He tugged the door open a smidge wider, tilting his head as he inquired what she needed.
“Ah, I didn’t need anything I actually I came to—” She cut herself off with a shake of the head, simply holding out the pile of books to him with her thumbs raised from the covers. “The girls said you’re more than welcome to help with the session.” Ochako saw the split second of confusion cross his features, and she recoiled to pull them closer to herself as she said, “Oh! If, if you still wanted to, that is! I’m not about to strong-arm you into it if you changed your mind!”
“U-Uraraka-san, it’s fine!” Deku held one of his hands aloft as he waved it slowly between them. “I was just surprised they decided so quickly.”
He let go of the door’s handle, nudging it into opening more with his shoulder before holding out his arms to relieve her of her load. She handed them over as she explained what each book was for. “You don’t super need the DM’s guide, but it can probably help clear up some of the notes I made since I, uh, made them kinda quick.”
Deku hummed in understanding as his scarred hand opened the notebook on the top of the pile to give her chicken scratch a quick glance. “If anything’s too confusing, you can shoot me a message—well, maybe Tsuyu-chan would be better,” she corrected herself as her eyes drifted to one side. “She actually has experience with this sort of thing! I’m as new as you are, heh…”
He hummed again, this time with an accompanying nod. “Yeah, I’ll do that. And Uraraka-san…” Ochako blinked in confusion as her friend dipped his head down in a small bow. “I’ll make sure to do my best for you all.”
“D-Deku-kun!” She waved her hands in front of her even though she could clearly see that his line of sight was directed downwards. “You, you don’t have to be so formal about it!” Did someone just turn on the heater? Or was it his unexpected formality that made her face so warm? Her hands settled on her cheeks, pinkies raised on each one as she mused, “It’s just something for fun, right?”
“I know but,” Deku trailed off as he straightened back up, his eyes flicking to the side as he pressed his mouth shut. Then after a moment, he glanced down to the stack of books and she spotted just a glimmer of a smile. “I’m really glad to, to have the chance to help out my friends. And it might be for something small but if I can help you guys relax and have fun then. Well, I want to make sure I’m giving it my all!”
As he spoke, she could feel her grin encompassing her face; it never ceased to amaze her how much he threw himself into everything. It was like everything he decided to do was worth pouring his whole self into. It could be a little overzealous; but the feelings behind it were so wholesome, Ochako had no hope of containing the smile they would spur.
“Well, don’t push yourself too hard,” she urged him, raising a padded index finger his way. Deku nearly crossed his eyes as he tried to stare at it but nodded all the same, his mouth slipping back into a determined line. “But”—she pulled the finger back to clench her hand into a fist that she promptly threw into the air—“we’re gonna have loads of fun! That’s for sure!”
He had agreed not to push himself; but holding back on something he was invested in, that was hardly near one of Izuku’s strong suits. He wasn’t putting off homework for it though; or missing out on much sleep—what was an hour’s sleep worth, really, in the grand scheme of things?
He sort of pushed the envelope for the time limit with that being said. It was already Saturday and he was spending any free moment during their shortened class periods frantically putting on the finishing touches. His goal had been to give it a quick once over during the second briefing of homeroom. A goal he had not been able to match, so he decided to save himself some time and look them over during his trip back to the dorms. A decision that definitely resulted in him bumping his shoulder in a doorframe—more than once.
Iida had scolded him about being more careful, but Izuku insisted that he needed to finish reading before they made it back. That statement was exactly why Iida now stood behind him, his hands resting on the smaller teenager’s shoulders and marching them back to their current residence. “Midoriya-kun, if you asked, I’m almost certain the girls would allow you to finish the task while they set up their game.”
“You’re probably right.” The words left him, but Izuku did nothing to cease in his actions, causing his companion to sigh his name in a heavy manner. “Iida-kun, I told Uraraka-san that this would be quick. If I show up and it’s not done, it would basically mean I lied. Do you want me to lie to Uraraka-san?”
“Lying implies that when you made the statement, you were intentionally saying something you knew to be false.” Izuku felt the fingers upon shoulders twitch, as though the other contemplated letting go to gesticulate, but refrained at the last moment and held him tighter as he directed him along. “So no, I’m not requesting you to lie. You’d have simply been mistaken in your earlier remark.”
Izuku frowned as he crossed out one of his notes, scribbling a correction above it. “You’re splitting hairs.”
“You’re simply painting with too broad a brush,” Iida returned. “What I’m saying is perfectly reasonable!”
“Sure, sure.” Once again, his words came more out of an obligation than anything else. But shortly after saying that, Izuku tilted his chin back as though to glance over his shoulder but kept his eyes glued to the notebook. “If you’re determined to guide me the rest of the way, do you think you could walk just a little slower? Otherwise, I can walk myself, y’know?”
“And I’m supposed to simply watch one of my closest friends run the risk of walking into a tree? Tripping on the steps? Breaking your nose from running into the door because you weren’t paying attention?” Iida tutted as he said that he wasn’t going to allow such a thing to happen on his watch.
Izuku did notice his pace seemed to slow; but it was almost robotic, the other needing to force his movements into something more controlled. “Honestly, Midoriya-kun, if you really require more time, why not just tell the girls that you wish to take the time to change out of uniform before you join them downstairs? Then you can spend however much time you need working on this.”
The grip on his pen slackened as Izuku dropped his head straight back to try to get a better look at his friend. “Iida-kun, you’re brilliant.”
“Hardly—you just tend to struggle with finding simple solutions to problems.” A corner of Izuku’s mouth twitched upwards at what he could see of the pleased expression on Iida’s face. The other may deny that it was so great; but he was still glad for the praise. “Does this mean you’re going to pause in looking over your notes?”
“Hmmm.” He straightened back up at the question and took into account the distance that remained until they were to reach the dorms. It was still at least a good two minutes away at a faster pace. “Not if you’re still willing to push me. It’ll be more believable that I’m only changing if I don’t have much left to look over.”
“Very well. But I’m taking you as far as the elevator so I can remain downstairs. After that, you’ll have to avoid bumping into anything on your own.”
“Yeah, that’s fair.”
“Sorry you’re stuck waiting, Deku-kun.” Izuku looked up from where he had been staring at the table to see Uraraka peeking her head around the trifold settled before her. She had a hand raised beside her mouth, as though to keep anyone else from overhearing. It was unnecessary since, at the moment, they were the only two at the table.
He had arrived downstairs to find the other five girls gathered in the kitchen, bickering over something or another; but some of them still had a mind to toss a greeting or wave his way when he apologized for being late. Yaoyorozu informed him that they were deliberating on snacks for the session, and he was more than welcome to wait at their table.
Apparently, being the DM, Uraraka wasn’t supposed to help with that task and instead merely get her things set up and organized for the oncoming game. He wasn’t sure how long they had been waiting for the others, but it was long enough that they had both finished preparing their things. “Oh, d-don’t worry about it. I mean, what’s a few minutes, right?”
She pursed her lips as she mumbled something about how it was definitely longer than just a few minutes. She was right, but he didn’t agree out loud. Uraraka’s brown irises flicked down to the materials in front of him as she wondered, “Anyway, you didn’t have too hard a time, did you? Working on…?”
He gave a questioning noise before following her line of sight. “Ah! No, no, not at all!” He set one hand down on the pile of books she had given to him a few days prior. He admitted to cutting it a little close to the deadline, however. “I didn’t lighten up on my usual workout routine, so I didn’t get it done quite as fast as I had planned. But that was my fault.”
“Ochako-chan, Midoriya-chan.” Asui was the first of the girls to come back, a couple of cartons in her grasp, as well as another being held by her long tongue. “These are for you.” She set the two in her hands down upon the table as she sat across from Izuku. “They should be over with the snacks in just a second, kero.”
“Thanks, Tsuyu-chan,” Uraraka said as she grabbed one.
He gave his own quiet thanks as he grabbed the other, his free hand reaching up to open it. “Midoriya-chan.” Izuku glanced back across the table to see Asui’s probing eyes staring at him. And he wondered, faintly if he was doing something wrong. Maybe they were supposed to wait to start drinking anything? A thought that was immediately cast off as he watched her poke the straw into her own carton. “You ought to move to the end of the table, next to Ochako-chan, kero.”
“Eh?” Izuku felt himself stiffen when he realized that he heard the same questioning tone from Uraraka. He twisted his head to find she was a bit pinker in the face, staring at their mutual friend in what seemed to be disbelief. Would it really be so bad to sit beside him? Oh no, did he stink? He hadn’t thrown on any cologne before he came down because he didn’t want to send the wrong impression. Perhaps that had been a mistake! “Tsuyu-chan, what—”
Asui pointed at the books before Izuku as she spoke again, “If Midoriya-chan is going to be running the battles, he has to be behind the board too so we don’t see what he gets on enemy rolls.” Her index had cut through the air to land on the trifold as she had spoken. He watched as those bulbous eyes focused on the girl behind it, Asui hunched forward as she continued in a careful voice, “It’s how the game works. But normally there’s only one person doing both.”
“O-oh. Right! Okay. Of course.” Uraraka stood up and moved her chair closer to Asui’s side as she waved him over to join hers. He went ahead and moved his chair around the corner of the table, trying not to think about the fact that he was going to be stuck shoulder to shoulder with her for the duration of the session.
It was fine. Yeah. He’d be fine.
They had to push the trifold a little further back on the table to give themselves a little extra space for all the items they needed to keep hidden behind it. He offered to hold the official guide books on his lap to help keep their area from getting all too cramped. She was just handing them off when the commotion from the kitchen approached them. “Alright! We couldn’t decide on just one, so we got some pocky, dango, and some melon bread—”
“For our snacking pleasure,” Hagakure cheered, interrupting Yaoyorozu’s explanation as they set down the various snacks toward the center of the table. Though one of the boxes continued to float in midair, seemingly opening on its own as one of the chocolate covered sticks was pulled out. “Pocky was my pick!”
“You guys’re lookin’ pretty comfy over there,” Ashido remarked as she grabbed herself a stick from Hagakure’s pocky box. He might have been able to brush the comment off if it weren’t for the wink she sent in their direction. So he found himself scooting more to the edge of his chair, setting his elbow on the table so he was leaning away from Uraraka as she shouted the other girl’s name. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding; lighten up, guys! Now let’s hurry up and get the session started!”
“So, kero, did any of you decide to change characters from when we had my session?”
Izuku still had his chin settled in his palm; but he turned just enough to look over the rest of the table as the girls began to shuffle their papers or grab themselves a snack. He was pretty clueless as they continued the conversation, admittedly, so it was hard to really grasp what was going on.
Most of what he gathered were that the characters’ personalities seemed to match up with whoever was playing them. And from the sound of it, they had stayed mostly the same as the previous game with minor tweaks in backstory, or they changed classes from the last one. Apparently, Hagakure had called dibs on being a certain class and the Hearing Hero was very bitter about it. “Well, you’ll just have to call the bard faster next time, Kyouka-chan!” A half-eaten stick of pocky hung in midair, pointing itself toward Asui. “What about you, Tsuyu-chan? What’s your character?”
She had one of her hands on her paper while the other held her milk carton. She delved into her character: a hulking, half-orc barbarian who tended to intimidate anyone from merely shooting them a glance, but he was actually a very demure man in spite of that. Asui shrugged as she glanced around the various shocked expressions among the table. “I experimented a little, kero.”
“All right, now that the introductions are out of the way”—he shifted to look at Uraraka as she opened the notebook on her lap—“You’re all gathered within the village—”
“What’s it called?”
“Is that really important, Yaomomo?” Ashido mused as she leaned over the table, grabbing a package of melon bread.
“Well! I’m just wondering if it’s the same village from Asui-san’s session!”
“No, this is Karui Village.”
Jirou paused in eating the dango she had picked up, shooting a grin towards Uraraka. “The village is named for the word for trivial?” She chuckled as she gave an ever so slight roll of the eyes. “Clearly we aren’t sticking around here for long.”
He watched as the DM’s pink cheeks puffed out, her nose wrinkling a bit as she did. “Coming up with names is hard, okay!” She nodded as though that settled the matter, choosing to ignore the giggles persisting along the table.
“ Anyway , you’ve all gathered in the village. Each of you has come due to the job listing that you managed to find among your travels. You’ve each been biding your time, waiting for the start date that was on the posting, specifying when things were supposed to begin. The woman who made the listing has finally revealed herself; and she’s prepared to give you all the details for the journey ahead…”
It turned out to be a two part mission. First, helping to escort the woman to the capital for a diplomatic matter on behalf of Karui. The second part, the woman refused to say until they were a decent ways outside the village: once they had arrived at the capital, they were to find where the village’s baron was located during his visit and assassinate him.
Well, that got extreme pretty quick! Izuku wasn’t the only one to think so. “You want us to kill someone?” Asui’s voice was lowered in pitch as she asked. He was getting the feeling this was supposed to be her character, Mukum’s, question, not her own. Especially with the very neutral expression she wore conflicting with her more emotive tone.
“This wasn’t alluded to at all in the job description,” Yaoyorozu declared. “We were told this was simply supposed to be an escort!”
“Well, you can’t exactly put murder on a job description,” Ashido pointed out.
He twisted his head when Uraraka sighed. She seemed to be following Asui’s lead when she spoke up again, her voice not quite in its usual pitch either, “I can’t exactly parade the fact that I need the baron out of the picture. If word gets out, his guard will be up and he’ll be that much harder to take out.”
A murmur of understanding ran over the table. “But,” Yaoyorozu began, pausing as she wrote something on a sheet of paper in front of her, “is it imperative that he’s killed, specifically?”
“Look, I’ll level with ya.” Uraraka placed her hands on the table, leaning forward and lifting herself off of her seat to peer over the board in front her. “He doesn’t need to be killed. I just need to make sure that he’s not in the room when I’m making my case to the king. Hiring a third party to kill him is just the easiest way to make sure there’s no difficult bureaucratic aftermath.”
Asui leaned closer to the girl beside her, lifting one of her hands beside her mouth as she said in a hushed tone, “You’re doing great, Ochako-chan!” She whispered a quiet thanks in return before looking back around the table, admitting that she would probably cut their payment, should they go with an alternative measure to keep him away.
Jirou looked over to what seemed to be the more “moral” members of their party, remarking, “Look, I get where you guys are coming from, but we’re gonna be killing people to protect her on the way there anyway. So, really, what’s the difference?”
“Well, people who are after us is an entirely different scenario,” Yaoyorozu said, lifting her pencil before gesturing to Ashido who had just taken a rather large bite out of her piece of melon bread. “Don’t you think so?”
Ashido continued to chew thoughtfully as her yellow eyes glanced among the other’s faces. When she swallowed, she gave a shrug of her shoulders, lifting her empty pink hand as she answered. “Eh, money is money, Yaomomo.”
“Ashido-san, you’re the cleric!"
“Clerics need money for crap just like anyone else, my man.”
Dungeons & Dragons was…something else that was for sure. Izuku was simply basking in the interactions it was creating, laughing along with the others. He was so busy with that and admiring Uraraka’s seemingly boundless creativity that allowed them to partake in this, that he sort of lost track of why he was even there. It resulted in Uraraka nudging him with her elbow, “Deku-kun, you have to roll for initiative, too.”
“Eh?”
“For all the monsters? That they’ll be—”
“Ah—right, right! Sorry.”
Once he had finished his own rolls of the die—Uraraka took the time to write them down on another sheet, along with the girl’s own rolls—they were given a brief recap of what had just transpired. Their group had been taken by surprise by a trio of harpies. Most of the party had rolled high enough perception to notice them right away.
Ashido’s cleric wasn’t so lucky, and ended up being knocked down by a dive-bombing harpy for the first turn. She gave an exasperated sigh, leaning her fluffy head on the back of her chair as she whined, “What’s the point of rolling highest initiative if I don’t get to be first on the starting turn!”
The rest of the round consisted of Yaoyorozu’s fighter teaming up with Jirou’s rogue against one of the harpies after it landed a hit on the former. Asui’s barbarian was attempting to hold his own against another. “Okay,” Uraraka looked back down to the sheet with everyone’s initiative rolls, “now next up is Tooru-chan.”
One of the twenty-sided dice was lifted from the table, twirling in midair as he assumed she twisted the piece of plastic in her invisible fingers. “Okay, I roll to seduce the harpy!”
Izuku could only blink at where he presumed her face to be. “You—what?”
“Okay, which one?” He whipped his head to the girl beside him so fast, there was a sharp pain and then a lingering burning sensation somewhere on the back of his neck. He repeated his question again. But both girls ignored him, Hagakure simply announcing that she would step in between the cleric and the attacking harpy to seduce. “What do you say?”
“What is going on?” he managed to get his question out before Hagakure could come up with something. He looked frantically between Uraraka and Asui. “I thought this was fighting? Seduce—what? ”
“Well, Tooru-chan is using her action to try to distract the monster, kero.”
“Couldn’t she, I dunno, do that without flirting with it?”
“But seduction is so much more fun!” Hagakure bounced mildly in her seat, still rolling the die between her fingertips. He didn’t even have an instant to reply when her bubbly voice cut through the air again, “Alright, Ochako-chan! I get in between them and I say: you don’t have to attack her, you already have your claws sunk into my heart!”
A chorus of giggles erupted around the table; Izuku was still confused as to how things got to this, but he found himself laughing along with them from behind his hand. She ended up rolling too low, and then the harpy attacked her instead. “Okay, Mina-chan, you managed to get up, what do you do?”
“I,” she started with immense bravado, “also roll to seduce the monster!”
“Wh—”
Uraraka leaned closer to him and said in a hushed voice, “Sorry, Deku-kun, but this is probably gonna happen at least twice every session just because of those two.” Izuku gave a small frown, thinking to himself that if he had known that, he might have altered the way things would play out. He would have to keep it in mind for planning the subsequent sessions…
“Alright, ladies—uh, and gentleman,” Ochako added, glancing to Deku at her side. He was busy organizing their papers behind the board, but he still sent a nod in her direction amidst his task. “It’s been a great campaign, and you’ve all come so far. We’ve been through a lot over the course of the sessions. From a character death…”
Kyouka crossed her arms as she slumped down in her seat, and because she was sitting next to her, Tsuyu reached over and patted her shoulder consolingly. “Kyouka-chan, it was bound to happen, kero. Don’t take it so hard.”
“To deceit—” She was cut off when Momo apologized yet again, insisting that those rather base actions had been necessary for the greater good. “To blooming love.” Mina pretended to wipe tears from her eyes as she remarked that she only regretted they were unable to have the wedding before today. But Ochako glanced to the boy at her side for the last statement, “To starting a monster harem.”
She paid no mind to Tooru’s cheer of success. Instead, she took in Deku’s eye twitching while his fingers hesitated for just a moment in their movements before resuming where he left off. Ochako was fully aware how bothered he had been by the invisible girl’s efforts to seduce so many enemies.
It was impossible not to notice from the sessions alone, but one day Deku had actually pulled her aside to talk about it. “Uraraka-san, I just want to have one session, without Ashido-san or Hagakure-san flirting with the monsters we’re putting out. Just one!”
“That’s expecting a lot of Tooru-chan and Mina-chan,” she had said at the time. The other girls hadn’t exactly kept it a secret that they found Deku’s exasperation to be amusing. They might have even given it up for the most part, but Mina actually told her they were wondering if they could make him reach a breaking point. “But we can at least try and make it tough for them!”
Ochako had decided to try and make it a bit easier on him though, informing the guilty party that he was getting sick of it; so it might be best to give it a rest. Neither girl gave her a guarantee though when she made the request. So to be honest, she wasn’t sure what to expect.
She and Deku had both agreed to giving a speech to commemorate the final session. It was short, but meant to be heartfelt as she reminded them all just what they had been through. “This has been so fun; and it was a pleasure being the DM—but, damn, I’m ready to just have a character!” She pointed farther down the table, a smile overtaking her face. “Kyouka-chan, can’t wait for your campaign to start!”
“It won’t even compare to yours, I’m sure.”
Ochako pulled her hands back, touching her palms to her cheeks as she ducked her face to the side. “Oh, stop…! I’m sure you’ll do great. And then…” The chair’s legs scraped on the floor as she scooted it back, just a little, to turn to the friend by her side. “We couldn’t have gotten this far without Deku-kun.”
His sound of disbelief was drowned out as the other girls at the table cheered, throwing out their own individual thanks for his contribution over these last few months. His cheeks darkened to an absurd degree, emphasizing those dark freckles that littered his face. “If it weren’t for you, I dunno if this campaign would be as great as it was. Your attention to detail in the battles was amazing—even if we almost had that total party kill in the second session. And thanks to you taking that weight off me, I was able to throw my all into the story! I can’t thank you enough for your part.”
“Oh, well, I…” His fingers wiggled at his sides, but otherwise Deku was motionless. Green eyes bounced from person to person as he seemed to struggle for words. “I don’t—I really don’t think I did anything that, that you couldn’t have done yourself but, well, you’re welcome, I guess…”
She leaned toward him, playfully bumping their shoulders together as she gave him a bright smile. Since he was already so flushed from their praise, Ochako decided to go the extra mile. Her own digits reached out to touch his wiggling ones, and they came to an abrupt still within her grasp as she heard him take a deep breath in.
“You did more than plenty,” she insisted, giving them a lingering squeeze. He looked back to her, seemingly in shock, and she released the hold and straightened back up. Maybe that was a bit much, but it had just felt right. Hopefully he hadn’t been too uncomfortable with it. “Anyway, ladies,” she started as she looked toward the others, “he has the honor of doing the introduction to our final session. So take it away, Deku-kun!”
“A-ah! Well, um.” The lone boy of their group was spurred back into motion, picking up one of the papers behind their trifold. “So, um, you guys have been in the Underdark for a while. But, ah, last we left off, you had finally managed to locate the lair of the duergar that the drow elves had told you about. Now it’s time for you to make your way inside to face the ancient druid once and for all.”
“Yeah, let’s go…!”
“Before you guys go on,” Deku interrupted, raising his hands up, “I need to warn you all. I spent a lot of time on this one. And before we get into anything, I need to make sure you know.” He clapped his hands together, bringing them up to his lips as he stared down at the table. “I have made this enemy,” his voice fell unbelievably quiet on the final word, “unfuckable.” Ochako had to duck the opposite way, a hand covering the snort that came out of her at the word.
She wasn’t the only one to find it hilarious, the rest of the table also breaking into raucous laughter. It wasn’t all too incredibly often that Deku swore so hearing him do so, and so casually, was always a treat. “How did you manage that?” Ochako noticed Momo reaching for her pen after speaking the question aloud, doubtlessly planning to take notes for the upcoming fight.
“Well, he doesn’t speak Common—he hates the Overworld with every fiber of his being—so if you try to talk to him, you’ll only anger him further. That gives you disadvantage on all charisma checks. He’s also blind so any attempts at gestures or nonverbal communication will mean nothing to him whatsoever.”
“Should you really be telling us this?” Kyouka wondered, spinning one of her jacks between her fingers.
“Technically, no.” Ochako tore her gaze away from him to look over to the “problem players.” Mina looked over to Tooru’s side of the table, and the DM could tell that this did nothing to deter their ideas for the battle ahead. “But I figure if I tell you this ahead of time, you’ll avoid wasting time on it.”
“Oh, Midori,” Mina tutted, shaking her head. She had a huge grin splaying her face as she placed her elbows on the table, setting her chin in her hands. “Your hopes are too high.”
Everyone knew what that meant. One last attempt at seduction—it would come down to Tooru since Mina’s cleric was now in a committed relationship with the drow elf they had met on the surface, four sessions ago. Despite being unable to see her features, Ochako was incredibly certain that the invisible girl was reveling in the challenge.
With that said, it wasn’t at all surprising when the battle began and Tooru’s turn came, and she and Mina appeared to share a glance as well as a nod. “I pull out my lute, and I began to soulfully sing the song Endless Love to the druid.”
Deku forced his mouth into a thin line, staring down at the notebook. “Fine, but you have disadvantage since you’re singing in Common.”
She agreed to the terms and Ochako watched as the die disappeared from sight, presumably as the other girl shook it between her closed hands. There was the clatter of plastic on wood as her bright pink D20 rolled along the surface. “Natural twenty!”
His head snapped up to attention remarkably quickly. But then his movements slowed to a crawl as he craned his neck and just barely lifted himself from his seat. “You…” Deku stared down at the white numbers glaring up from the center of the table. He swallowed, giving a slow shake of the head. “You have,” his voice was remarkably quiet, “you have disadvantage. You have to roll again…”
The die disappeared from view again, and Ochako noticed that Mina—who had sat near the corner, just on the boy’s other side—had pulled out her phone and was angling the camera up to Deku. He was completely unaware, however, waiting with bated breath as Tooru rolled again. It rolled along, but sure enough… “Natural—”
“Fuck this!” Deku abruptly stood up, sending his chair toppling backwards, but he paid it no mind. He took a couple of steps away, his arms flying up over his head, before settling his hands onto his curls. “Unbelieveable. Two natural…un-fucking-believable.”
“Shouldn’t that be ‘fucking un’—”
“DON’T!” He threw one of his hands back behind him to interrupt whichever girl had spoken. He waved it, dropping his head back to gaze at the ceiling. “Don’t. Do not,” he insisted as he shook his head. He mumbled something under his breath that Ochako couldn’t quite catch. She looked back to see Mina still pointing her phone after him, forcing her lips together to remain quiet. “Yep,” he resumed his normal volume as he continued, “I’m done! I’m never playing this game again.”
She decided to stand as well—it was maybe being taken too far if he was saying something like that —and Ochako reached a hand toward him. “Wait, Deku-kun, you—”
“No, Uraraka-san!” Deku spun around to face her, his fingers splayed out as he waved them around. His eyes were wide and manic as he looked to her. “You gotta draw the line somewhere! You gotta draw a line in the sand!” Wait was he seriously meme-ing right now? In the middle of his fury? “You gotta ask yourself, ‘What am I willing to put up with today?’ Well y’know what? Not fuckin’ this!”
“Mi-Midoriya-kun,” Tooru stuttered amidst her laughter, one of the sleeves of her shirt waving through the air, “sorry, sorry! It was fake—it was totally fake! I had Yaomomo make me a weighted die to mess with you one last time!”
Ochako watched as his face went from completely infuriated to absolutely blank, as if he was staring but not really seeing anything. A soft, confused sound escaped his lips when Momo apologized profusely and said she hadn’t thought it would affect him quite so much. When her giggles had seemed to mostly die off, Tooru spoke again, “I don’t really try to sing a love song to the monster, I’ll change my action. Please finish the game with us.”
There was an exceedingly long quiet moment after the invisible girl spoke. But eventually Deku cleared his throat as he took a few steps forward and reached down to straighten up his chair. His green eyes took in each girl at the table as he slowly took his seat, remarking, “You’re all terrible.”