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Hatsume
The recruiting officer shuffles a stack of papers.
“Mei Hatsume… born April 18 in the Southern Territories. Parents… hmm, your parents are both military doctors?”
Hatsume bobs her head enthusiastically. “Mm-hm! They’re who inspired me to become a mechanic.”
The officer gives her a blank look.
“I never was very interested in medicine, but I figured I could help people by building things instead!” Hatsume explains. Her eyes gleam. “Would you like to see my babies?”
“Your… babies?” the officer sputters, tweaking the settings on his spectacles. “No, that won’t be nece--”
But before he can stop her, Hatsume heaves a massive steamer trunk onto his desk, flipping open the latches and reaching inside to pull out a handful of contraptions. She holds a glinting configuration of springs and gears up for him to see, grinning like a proud parent. “This is one of my favorites. It allows you to cook a hot meal out in the field without an oven or fire, and in half the time!”
She pulls out another one. “And this one is my latest! It’s not quite past the prototype stage yet, but someday it will greatly improve the efficiency of prosthetic limbs!!”
The officer stares at the metallic mess in her arms, unable to discern anything that looks even remotely like a human limb. “That’s very nice,” he says. “At any rate, with your impressive credentials and stellar academic record, I think it’s safe to say that you’ll be reporting back here at this station within the week.”
Hatume hums absentmindedly, too caught up in examining her “baby” to process his words.
Eventually, the officer calls an idling private to escort the young woman out of the tent, lugging her comically oversized trunk after her.
He sighs, rubbing his temples. On one hand, they’d just recruited one of the most brilliant young minds in this region of the Confederation. On the other hand, he didn’t know how much longer he could go before that little maniac gave him an ulcer.
Sighing again, he slides her paperwork back into its folder and tucks it into a drawer under his desk. For the sake of victory, he is ready and willing to put up with practically anything.
He needs to be. They are desperate.
---
Shinsou
“...I don’t know, Hizashi,” Shouta sighs into the telephone. “The kid just showed up at my doorstep. He didn’t even ask to be let in. He just stood there in the rain, like some kind of specter.”
Shouta twists the phone cord and leans against the wall, ducking in close to the wood panels in hopes that they’d muffle his voice. “Where is he now? Oh, he’s asleep. On the couch, where you and Oboro used to crash after a night out,” he adds, laughing faintly.
He listens to Hizashi rave for a few minutes, digging up fond old memories. But eventually Shouta needs to cut him off. He’s too worried and pent up for nostalgia right now. Especially after everything the boy told him.
“He said he ‘escaped’ from his parents,” Shouta says into the phone. “That’s how he phrased it. ‘Escaped.’ He said they signed him up for one of those godawful programs when he was just an infant. You know the ones: where they force the Procedure onto kids before they’ve even hit puberty. I’ve… just never heard it happening to a kid so young before.”
The other end of the line is silent. Shouta can sense how intensely Hizashi is fuming at this revelation. If he wasn’t convinced to let the boy stay with them before, he is now.
Shouta knows his friend. They’d been together since childhood, growing up in the same dilapidated neighborhood in their dingy, snow-dusted northern town. They have a lot in common, save for one important exception: when they came of age and had the chance to undergo the Procedure, Hizashi opted in, and Shouta opted out.
Shouta didn’t have a particular reason. It was more that he couldn’t see any practical use in having some sort of flashy superpower, especially if he didn’t even get to decide what that power would be.
The Procedure granted Hizashi a fairly simple ability: he could scream really loud. Shouta liked to joke that it wasn’t even much of a change. But in all seriousness, he begrudgingly acknowledges the usefulness of Hizashi’s quirk, especially now that he was a shipyard manager. He could yell at his men from clear across the opposite side of the harbor.
That doesn’t make Shouta regret his choice, though. And now, peering through the door at the violet-haired boy asleep on his couch, he feels more affirmed than ever. Something isn’t right in their country, and the way their government handled the Procedure is at the heart of it.
“He said his parents are afraid of what he can do,” Shouta whispers into the phone. He grits his teeth. “What kind of parents are afraid of their own kid? Especially when it’s their fault he ended up like this in the first place.”
Shouta listens for a while, eventually wishing his friend a good night and hanging up the phone. He pads into the cramped sitting room, peering at the young boy’s sleeping face. Shouta can tell he’s just pretending. The boy probably doesn’t feel comfortable enough in this house to fall asleep for real, no matter how exhausted he is.
But Shouta resolves right then and there to make the boy feel at home, at any cost.
---
Midoriya
By the time he sets his mug back on the bar, a strange girl has materialized out of nowhere, sitting a bit too close for comfort.
Izuku jumps, nearly spilling his drink.
“Hi there, short stuff,” she says. “What’s your story?”
She’s certainly striking in appearance: long, pink hair, spiraling into loose dreads, topped with a bizarre headpiece riddled with gears and a pair of oversized goggles. Her eyes are yellow, stretched wide and glistening with curiosity.
“Uh,” Izuku says.
“‘S okay. Take your time,” she replies, taking a long drink from her own mug. “I’ve got all night. But based on that uniform of yours, you’re a mechanic for the same ship I’m on, the Matterhorn, and I figured I’d introduce myself before we’re trapped at sea together for eight straight months.”
Izuku frowns, wondering if this girl even knew what a proper introduction was.
Emboldened by the wine, however, he decides to humor her. “I’m Izuku Midoriya. I’m a mechanic from the Southern Isles.”
The girl cackles. Actually cackles, like some kind of mad witch. “That much was clear from your accent! Tell me something more interesting. I wanna know the deep stuff, like why you decided to lie about your age and join the navy.”
Izuku sputters. “H-how did you…”
She puts a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. As a specialist in human prosthetics, it’s kinda my job to gauge a person’s age and development. And you sir are nowhere close to legal age! But your secret’s safe with me.” She takes another drink. “As long as you tell me what brought you here, that is.”
Izuku is quiet, taking another drink before responding. “Well… I’ve always been kind of an outcast. Despite being born in a country where the Procedure is illegal, I’ve always been fascinated by quirks. When I was younger, I begged my mom to let me go to a quirk+ nation to get the Procedure done, but of course she didn’t let me,” he says, laughing. “So instead I threw myself into studying mechanized weapon systems, the closest I could get to actual quirks.”
“Ahh, so you’re a runaway too, huh?” the girl says, grinning.
“Uh, yeah,” Izuku says sheepishly. “Obviously my mom doesn’t know I’m here. She thinks I’m off at a fancy boarding school studying civil mechanics.”
“Well, nice to meet you, Mr. Runaway,” she responds, shaking his hand with surprising force. “I like a guy with a little rebellious spirit! I’m sure you and I will get along great on the ship.”
She hops off her stool. “Oh, and I’m Mei Hatsume, by the way. Your head mechanic. See ya!”
Mei strides out of the bar, leaving Izuku blinking in her aftershock. Working for the navy is going to be harder than he thought.