Archive of Our Own

Horrified screams pierced through the ringing in his ears. He couldn’t even remember who he was let alone where--asphalt? Was he lying in the street? On a blanket in the street maybe? It felt like there was something soft between him and the ground. Emergency sirens ground through his ears--long, droning wails like miserable ghosts. Izuku… right. He was Izuku and he was walking home from school and there was a villain attack? Yeah. Right. That was what happened.

He blinked his eyes open. The blur faded. Wow, he could suddenly see really well--see all the people running to and fro, pro heroes trying to impose some semblance of order. That was… weird. He had a head injury, clearly, so shouldn’t he not be able to see as well as normal? Argh, those sirens were so loud they were killing him.

Gang Orca was here… Oh my gosh Endeavour was here! That was so cool and so terrifying because why would the number two pro be here?

“Ugh,” Izuku muttered, dragging himself up onto all fours. This felt… way more natural than it should. Izuku looked at his hands--paws. He had paws. Okay. He could deal with this. This was fine. He turned to the nearest person, a woman with a phone busily filming the pros at work. “Excuse me, ma’am? Why am I a cat?”

The woman turned her phone towards him, face twisting in fear. Why? “Ma’am?” she backed away slowly before taking off down a side street.

“Hey,” Gang Orca knelt down beside him and Izuku felt himself disintegrate into a puddle of fan boy goo. He clamped his jaw shut to avoid babbling statistics. “What’s your name?”

“Uhh… m-my n-name? It’s M-midoriya Izuku, sir!”

The pro nodded. “How old are you, Midoriya?”

“I’m f-fourteen, sir.” Oh my gosh this was so cool, but also, “why am I a cat?”

The pro assessed him critically. “One of the villains involved in this attack had the ability to transform humans into animals, more or less. Most of his victims did not retain the ability to speak. Some did not retain their intelligence, either.”

“Oh… so I’m lucky… and that’s why I’m a cat.” That made sense. “How long does it last?”

The pro assessed him critically. “We don’t know all the details yet. Is it alright if I carry you to the triage station?”

Izuku furrowed his brow--or did something like it. What did it look like when a cat tried to furrow its brow? “Do you see my backpack? I had a lot of homework...”

The cocked his head. “I doubt your bag is going to be salvageable.”

“Argh! All my assignments will be late! They never give me an extension!” None of his teachers liked him, no matter what he did. On some level, this was completely unimportant, on another level… the important things were too large to focus on and retain his sanity, so he fixated on the unimportant things.

"I will give you my number and if your teachers refuse to give you an extension, I will personally call your school and make them give you an extension, alright?” Izuku didn’t have the slightest idea how to react to that so he just… blinked. “May I carry you to the station?” Izuku nodded and Gang Orca swept him off the pavement. A famous top twenty pro hero was carrying him. Him. A mixture of excitement, mortification and anxiety made him lie limp like a rag in Gang Orca’s grasp.

But he was still a cat. He had yet to come to terms with that, and he wasn’t an ordinary cat, was he? “I’m not a house cat… I’m too big to be a house cat.”

“You’re a jaguar,” the pro told him.

Huh. Interesting. “Like a leopard?”

“Jaguars are cooler than leopards. Weight for weight, you have a more powerful bite than a tiger.”

“Oh.”

Gang Orca set him down carefully in front of a bewildered EMT. “This is Midoriya Izuku. Make sure he isn’t hurt, please. I will be back for him shortly.”

The paramedic continued to stare at Izuku as if he were an alien. Why? Lots of people on the planet looked much stranger than him and, sure, people with mutation quirks sometime got odd looks, got treated badly for no reason… but this was extreme. “Is something the matter? Oh my god I’m naked!” Fur did not equate to clothes. He lay down immediately, hiding himself as much as he could.

The man coughed. “No, uh, no. Don’t worry about it. It’s… are you in pain?”

“My head hurts,” Izuku batted a paw against the lump on his skull.

“Hmm… well, I’m not a vet,” the EMT prodded him, checking for bleeding, then looked a few things up on his phone, sighed and gave up. “As far as I can tell you’re fine. I have no idea what your blood pressure should be or how to check it, so see a veterinarian as soon as possible to check for other injuries.”

“Oh. Okay.” The paramedic turned away, focusing on other patients. All the seriously injured had already been attended to. Izuku lay quietly on the bench waiting for Gang Orca to return, wondering again what had become of his homework. He spent a long time working on that essay and now he was never going to get to turn it in. That wasn’t fair.

It might have been something like an hour before the pro hero finally returned for him. “All right. We’re all wrapped up here. Now I can help you out.”

“How long am I going to be a cat?” Izuku asked again.

“There are some complications we need to discuss. Can you give me your parents’ phone numbers? I really need to talk to them.” Izuku gave Gang Orca his mother’s phone number and followed the pro hero across the street to a waiting SUV. Walking was… strange. It wasn’t difficult--his body knew how to move and he just had to allow muscle memory to do the work--but it felt wrong to him to be on all fours, wrong to be so much shorter than usual. And he was still naked. Fortunately, no one else seemed to notice that... or care.

Gang Orca opened one of the car doors for him and Izuku jumped to the floor of the backseats. He didn’t want to get on the actual seats. They were nice and he was a cat, with fur and claws and dirty feet. “Get up here kid,” the hero said. “You are going to wear a seat belt, even though it will look ridiculous.”

“Oh. Okay.” It did look ridiculous.

The car rumbled to a stop outside the local police station, the one where Izuku had once gone to report that his bicycle had been stolen. The officers there were nice… He followed the pro inside to an interview room. “Mom!” Izuku shouted, leaping at her.

“Izuku oh, oh my goodness,” his mother jumped back a bit. Oh. Right. He was a jaguar still. He had big, nasty claws, even if he didn’t actually know how to unsheathe them. Of course she wouldn’t want a hug from--his mother threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, my dear, it’s nothing like that." Had he said those things aloud? "You just startled me. They didn’t tell me exactly what had happened.”

“Oh, sorry,” Izuku felt like blushing, but cats don’t blush. Instead, he did something strange with his ears.

“Midoriyas?” asked the pro hero who had taken a seat at the table.

“Thank you so much for looking after him, sir,” his mother said, taking a seat. Izuku jumped up onto one of the less nice chairs, letting his front paws rest on the table. Was that alright? Was it rude? “How long does this quirk effect last?”

“On the phone I gave you no details because it is best we have this conversation in person.” Gang Orca leaned forward and continued gravely, “the villain responsible for this was recently released from prison. He was given a lighter sentence in return for using his quirk to reverse the transformation he had caused. Heroes were not able to find any other quirk, drug, or treatment capable of reversing these changes. In other words, his quirk lasts until he removes its effects.”

Wow. That was insane. There were so few quirks that worked like that. This villain could just turn people into animals for as long as he liked? “But you caught him? You can make him fix this?” asked his mother.

“Yes… and no.”

“What do you mean no?” his mother asked, an edge of hysteria in her voice.

The pro sighed. “The villain, Circus Master, was caught when several tons of concrete fell from a building damaged by one of his partners in crime." Oh. Oh my god. "He is dead, and the three people who he transformed in this final battle… will stay as they are.”

Oh. Well, then… there wasn’t anything to be done about that. “And I didn’t ever find my backpack, either,” Izuku bemoaned the loss of his homework yet again.

“Kid,” the hero told him, “I get that you may need to latch onto some minor worry right now, something normal in order to ground yourself, and that’s fine, but I swear to you that if your teachers do not make proper accommodations for your missed school work, I will be more than happy to call your principal and threaten to go on national news and and turn that story into such a scandal that the whole school staff will be fired. I am perfectly willing to go through with that if necessary.”

But he was an important hero and he had better things to do. “It’s fine. It’s not worth your time.”

“It is worth my time. I, and every pro hero on the scene, failed to protect you. The least I can do now is see to it that you adjust to your new reality as smoothly as possible.” Gang Orca was really nice. He always looked kind of scary on television, but he sounded really nice in interviews, and people said he was really nice… and people were right.

“Thank you so much, sir,” Izuku’s mom choked out. She was sobbing.

“Mom? Mom! Wh--what’s wrong?” Izuku called, reaching out a paw to her. She just said she was sorry, over and over. It was like the day he found out he was quirkless--his mother crying, apologizing to him, and Izuku not understanding. Sorry because this happened to him? But it wasn’t a big deal; lots of people had mutation quirks that looked almost this extreme, the hero across from him for one… Did… did she not love him anymore because he wasn’t human now? Was that it? Was he unloveable now? Apparently jaguars were not able to cry, no matter how much they wanted to.

“I will leave you two to talk for a time, but then there are some things we must discuss,” Gang Orca got to his feet and smoothly exited the room, closing the door carefully behind him.

“You can’t stand me,” Izuku whispered, looking at his paws. How could she? They weren’t particularly pretty paws. Gang Orca said jaguars were cooler than leopards, but they really weren’t. Leopards, at least, were elegant. Jaguars were stocky, square, ugly.

“No, sweetheart, no, no,” his mother abruptly grabbed him, clumsily finding a way to hug his strange, new form. “I’m sad for you because someone hurt you and it can’t be fixed. Because someone did this to you against your will--but I will always love you. Always, in any form.”

“Oh… I thought...” That the only person in the world who truly cared had finally given up on him.

“We’ll figure this out,” his mother whispered. “I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Izuku whispered, nuzzling her and marveling at the sensitivity of the whiskers on his snout. She didn’t stop crying right away. It was a good ten minutes of quiet reassurances before the pro hero returned to speak with them some more.

Gang Orca talked about practical things this time, about where they could get counseling, about which specialist medical providers to see, good places to get cheap meat, how to register this occurrence with the government so that Izuku could get identification papers and accommodations from schools and businesses. Apparently this counted under law as a “change in ability due to villain’s quirk use on a bystander, hostage, or other de facto civilian” and anti-quirk discrimination laws would apply to Izuku now. His mother listened carefully… Izuku found himself semiconscious in his chair, drained of energy and emotion. “Adjusting will be difficult, but you seem to be a smart and resilient kid. I’m sure you’ll find creative solutions to any problems that arise. And I’m serious about this,” Gang Orca handed his mother a business card. “If staff at his school give him any trouble about this, not just now but ever, call me.”

His mom nodded. “Yes. Thank you sir… can I take him home now?”

“Of course.” The hero showed them out of the interview room, Izuku padding at his mother’s side. He felt the dozens of stares on him and his keen ears picked up a chorus of whispers. He tried to ignore them.

Izuku and his mother walked home. The entire world had changed. Colors caught his eye that Izuku wasn’t sure he’d ever noticed before. The breeze against his whiskers carried hints of distant movement and whispers of a wild history--scents he couldn’t begin to identify. Someone was shouting about bad fish two streets over. Kacchan was blowing something up in the park half a kilometer away.

It wasn’t just that he saw the world in a new way, though. His entire reality had changed. In the course of five minutes, he went from being “the quirkless freak” to being a jaguar and he still didn’t know how to wrap his head around this, around the fact that this was permanent. That he was always going to be a cat. He was going to have to go back to school like this… explain himself… stand there while everyone stared at him and whispered and probably laughed. “I won’t be able to hold a pencil anymore,” Izuku bemoaned. “I won’t be able to use a smartphone… I’d scratch the screen.”

Lots of people had complicated mutation quirks. Lots of people had complicated transformation quirks. It wasn’t as if Izuku were an oddity, really. The only thing unusual about this was that it happened through no power of his own. That shouldn’t matter that much, right? This just… shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Sleeping under blankets was still nice. He used to be a back sleeper, but as he tried to manipulate the blankets into place, he found himself far more inclined to lounge on his side. “Let me help you with that,” his mother offered, leaning forward to give him a hand.

“It’s fine! I can do it!” Izuku protested, finding the subtle muscles that extended his claws, hooking the blanket and dragging it over his head… except now he couldn’t get it unhooked. He shook his hand--paw--wildly, trying to dislodge the fabric.

Mom laughed, pulled the fabric off his paw, and draped it up over Izuku’s back. “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon enough,” she gave him a painfully strained smile.

“It’s really alright,” Izuku assured her yet again. “I mean, I’d rather it hadn’t happened but it’s fine...”

“You need a bath,” his mom declared abruptly. “You smell like smoke.”

“But I really just want to sleep...”

“In the morning, then.”

“Don’t you need to work?”

His mom shook her head vigorously. “I already gave everyone a call; they’re required under law to give me paid time off to deal with injuries to myself or my dependents from villain attacks. This counts. We’ll take the day…”

Something smelled unspeakably delicious. Izuku leapt out of bed, tried to stand, and fell flat on his chest. Right. He wasn’t a biped anymore… he’d have to learn to stand on his back legs, though. Otherwise he’d never be able to get anything done. All the counters would be out of reach.

Izuku padded down the stairs unsteadily, still not quite sure how to use these new limbs, and arrived to find his mother busily frying fish. He licked his lips.

“Oh!” his mom jumped, catching sight of him. “Sorry… you’re so quiet now. Must be a cat thing...”

“Sorry, mom.”

She just laughed and served him breakfast. “Do you want to jump on the chair and eat at the table or…?” Izuku answered by stepping up onto the sturdiest of the chairs and folding his tail over his paws. He felt so… exposed and awkward, wanting to wear clothes still but knowing that wouldn’t really work with his new body. Maybe his mother could help him find something so that he didn’t have to be so… naked. He’d ask after breakfast…

Or rather he’d ask after this bath. It turned out jaguars really liked baths… or Izuku the jaguar really liked baths. He lazed in the water, one paw over the side, occasionally flicking his tail and splashing bubbles all over the wall. “Why did we have this much pet shampoo in the first place?” Izuku wondered.

“I… was pet-sitting once, about a decade ago now and, well, I went a bit overboard,” his mom explained as she helped him turn on the shower and rinse the bubbles away.

“Do you think I could get some kind of clothes?” Izuku asked. “Even just like a dog coat or something?”

“I was planning to make something for you, use your old uniforms. You need something to indicate that you are a student, after all.” Izuku shook the water from his fur and hopped out of the tub, lying down on a heap of towels to dry. “You’re handling this so well, Izuku… so well it almost scares me.”

The jaguar cocked his head. “Why? Why should it scare you?”

“Because… it’s such an enormous change, and its permanent, and it’s not something I think you would ever want but you act as if it barely matters, just talking about practical things…”

That was… in all actuality a very good question. Why was he fine with this? “I don’t know. Maybe it hasn’t really sunk in yet?”

His mother sighed softly. “Well, I’ll go see what I can do about making you some kind of big cat appropriate uniform. Do you have an idea of what you want to do this morning?”

He had long since decided on his top priorities. “Find a way to write,” he said. “I might be able to dip a claw in ink and write like that.”

As it turned out, dipping a claw in ink and making recognizable characters was very difficult. Holding a pen between his “fingers” was even more difficult. Without a thumb it was--he just couldn’t do it. They didn’t really own any of the right ink for writing like this, but he managed to get some practice in with non-ink things (say, soy sauce).

By the time the first day of Izuku’s new life came to a close, he had a very long list of things to purchase or practice. His mother would take the next day to make a shopping trip while Izuku learned the most efficient way to type. He managed to improvise a system that was somewhat better than “hunt and peck...” but not much.

He hated not having fingers. That was just--he really wanted his fingers back. Why’d it have to be a jaguar? Why not something with conveniently dexterous toes? A hawk could probably use a pen, plus being able to fly would be really cool. A gorilla--that would have been fine. Why this? He didn’t have any choice, though. Same as he didn’t have any choice in being quirkless, he didn’t have any choice in being a cat. That was just… how things were going to be. And he’d have to make the best of them. Like always. He wasn’t allowed to complain. He wasn’t allowed to demand anything from the universe, or from his peers, or from his teachers. It, and they, had made that plenty clear.

“Hey, Kacchan,” Izuku said as he trotted into class after two days of absence, leaping up onto his chair and painstakingly getting his class notes and inkwell out of his messenger bag. His mother had sewed him a sort of long vest with a skirt of sorts for modesty’s sake that looked at least somewhat like the school uniform. Apparently there were anti-discrimination laws that would require accommodations for serious physical mutations, so he didn’t need to comply with all the usual rules. He physically could not tie a tie, so he would never be required to wear one--the fact that others would be able to tie it for him was irrelevant.

“Deku? The hell?” his old friend demanded, staring at him in shock. He was far from the only one staring. In fact, the only one not staring was the class clown, a blonde girl who was sleeping at her desk.

“I got caught in a villain attack,” Izuku explained, wrestling his notebook open and painstakingly flipping to the proper page.

“What, so you’re a god damn cat now?” Kacchan asked in disbelief.

“I’m a jaguar,” Izuku said. It came out a bit garbled though because he was currently using his teeth to unscrew the cap from his inkwell.

“Tch,” Kacchan huffed. “Serves you right for always getting too close to fights.” Izuku always stayed behind police barriers. Kacchan knew that. “How long’s it last?”

“Always,” Izuku replied, finally getting the cap off. Silence. “What?”

“It’s permanent?” the Explosion wielder demanded, face twisted in disbelief.

“...Yeah.”

“Huh. Always knew you were useless… this is a new low, though. You can’t even open doors for yourself anymore, can ya’?”

“I can open doors,” Izuku replied. He probably shouldn’t have said that.

“Do you have to slobber all over the knob like a toddler? Piece of garbage, Deku. Fits you.” No, he didn’t have to bite the door knobs, he just had to rear and use both front paws. But if he pointed that out… Kacchan would just find something else to mock.

Their instructor walked into the classroom and began teaching as usual. The man had known in advance what happened to Izuku, so he didn’t give the transformed student a single glance, which was nice. Izuku didn’t want to be the center of attention, didn’t want everyone looking at him and whispering, smirking like Kacchan… What had he even expected from his old friend? Some slack maybe, after what had just happened to him? No, not really. This was what he expected… not what he wanted, but what he expected.

He wasn’t hungry at lunch. Big predators didn’t need to eat as often as most people. Izuku just worked on his homework under a tree on school grounds, trying to keep his distance from everyone. It looked like most people were just going to keep ignoring him… he might be a cat now, but he was still quirkless. They would never forget that, no matter what he looked like. It was social suicide to speak to him when one didn’t have to. So, really… nothing had changed. That was reassuring. Izuku had changed, but the world wasn’t going to treat him differently. Everything… was as it should be.

“Excuse me, officer, why am I here?” Izuku asked officer Hirano as the man walked into the interrogation room. The child’s wrists--paws--were cuffed to the table, forcing him to stand-sit in an incredibly uncomfortable position.

Hirano looked perfectly normal, dark eyes, dark hair, no hint of a mutation, high brow, trim uniform. “You tell me,” the officer drawled.

“I have no idea, officer,” Izuku said, bewildered.

“I find that unlikely. What’s your name?”

“Midoriya Izuku.”

“Age?”

“Fourteen.”

“Quirk?”

“I am quirkless, sir.”

Officer Hirano looked him up and down. “Do you want to try that again, kid?”

“I am quirkless officer,” but this man wouldn’t realize that, of course. He should have explained immediately; the man probably thought he was being coy. “I was caught in a villain attack which resulted in this… permanent body modification.” He was pretty sure the police weren’t allowed to interview a minor without his parent there… “Could you call my mom, please?”

Hirano steepled his fingers. “Why don’t you tell me what you were doing at the park, Midoriya.”

There seemed little harm in that. “Climbing a tree.” He’d taken weeks to get used to his body to the point where he could do things like that, move like a real cat, leap and climb and balance. He’d found that climbing trees was easy and incredibly fun. He could jump several meters up then scamper even higher. There was such a great view up there. He sometimes liked to carry a book up in his messenger bag and do some studying. Part of it was big cat instincts bleeding through, he thought, but some of it was just remembering how much he liked climbing trees when he was in elementary school, rediscovering a lost childhood joy.

“Mhhm and why were you climbing a tree, Midoriya?”

“B-because it’s fun? I like to climb trees and then study on the higher branches… w-watch what’s going on in the park.” What was going on here? “Officer, what is this about? I haven’t done anything wrong and these cuffs are really uncomfortable...”

“Just studying hmmm? There’s a mother from the park who has a very different story.” Izuku cocked his head in bewilderment. “She says you were stalking her child.”

Izuku’s ears flattened against his head. “What? Y-you… you found me in the tree with a book. I wasn’t stalking anyone. I was reading.” There was no clock… it must be getting late by now. His mother would be frantic if he weren’t home soon. “I need to talk to my mother. She’ll be worried.”

“She will be notified.” The officer said, leaning back in his chair.

“I can give you her number,” Izuku offered.

“Sit tight, kid.” Hirano got to his feet and left the interrogation room.

The cuffs bit into the flesh beneath his fur. He couldn’t find a comfortable position to sit, muscles beginning to tremble with the strain. How long had Hirano been gone? They hadn’t charged him with anything. They’d just demanded he come down from the tree--which he’d done--demanded he lie down, cuffed him, physically dragged him into the back of a police car because he couldn’t walk, dragged him into the interrogation room and just… kept him here.

He’d seen things like this happening on the news sometimes, generally to people with menacing or “predator related” mutations… Just being arrested because they were in public making people uncomfortable. It hadn’t occurred to him that he had become a part of the “predator related mutation quirk” category, despite the fact that he was quirkless. In fact, the quirklessness probably didn’t help. They said it was dangerous to stand at the border of two stigmatized groups…

Officer Hirano came back with a plain clothes detective. The man was blonde and heavy built, but otherwise rather similar to Hirano in mannerisms… and smell for that matter. They smelled like old paper and mold. “Good evening, Midoriya,” the detective said. It really wasn’t a good evening. Izuku’s ears and whiskers lay flat against his body, his tail lashing back and forth. “I am detective Takeda. I would like to ask you a few questions.”

“I would like to be charged with a crime or released,” Izuku said despite himself, managing to keep his tone mostly level at least. “My mother will be frantic.”

“My apologies. I will be brief,” Takeda said, ignoring everything Izuku had just said. “You are a student of Aldera Junior High, correct.”

“Correct.”

“You’re a smart kid, aren’t you? Excellent grades,” the detective passed over a copy of Izuku’s report card. How had he even gotten his hands on that? Izuku nodded. “It didn’t occur to you that a predatory cat sitting in the tree in a public park frequented by small children would cause alarm among the parents? Did you not see that you were causing these people distress?”

No. No, he didn’t see that because that was ridiculous. People everywhere had mutations and it was not a crime for them to go out and enjoy themselves in public. He’d been mad when he saw news reports about this kind of behavior but it was just… unbelievably enraging to experience it first hand. The fury, the humiliation, he couldn’t help but bare his teeth. “I did nothing to threaten anyone except exist. It is not a crime for me to exist.”

“Even so, staring at those small children from a tree...”

“Are you filing charges or are you letting me go? My mother’s really good friends with a plaintiffs attorney! I don’t know if they would win a lawsuit about this,” given what he had seen on television last time something like this happened, they might, “but they will certainly cause you a lot of trouble!”

The officers exchanged glances. Detective Takeda leaned across the table. “Well, see here--” The door swung open. An officer with a cat mutation--not like Izuku’s body, a house cat mutation--stared at them. The newcomer’s ears flattened against his head as he regarded Izuku’s interrogators.

“You’re done,” the cat officer said, drawing a key to uncuff Izuku from the table. “Your things are at the front desk.”

Izuku jumped down from the chair, aching wrists protesting, and limped out of the room. Behind him, despite the fact that the cat-officer had slammed the door, he could hear the man bawling out Takeda and Hirano. “What is wrong with you two, arresting a child for reading a book in a public park? What, would you arrest me for looking at some fish wrong in the market? Oh, he’s a house cat, I’m sure he’s stealing the fish?” Izuku huffed, which was the equivalent of wry smile, and made his way to the front desk.

The jaguar reared on to his back paws, leaning on the counter in order to address the officer at a vaguely equal height. “Excuse me, sir? May I have my bag back, please?”

“Hmm? What’s your name?”

“Midoriya.”

“Here,” the officer hurled his things at him then returned to shouting into the phone.

Izuku ran all the way home. Cats were not really built for endurance, but, like all physical traits, that could be trained and the student had put some effort into it. He was fast, really fast, and if he conditioned his body to be fast over moderately long distances, then he could get to school and home so swiftly that Kacchan never had a chance of catching up with him. The Explosion wielder had been… pretty nasty since Izuku’s change. Avoiding him was a top priority.

Izuku had a key. He’d learned to use it, but just pounding on the door was much faster when his mother was home. His mom flung the door open, “never mind, Mitsuki. He’s home! I’ll call you back.” She hung up. “Where have you been Izuku?”

“They wouldn’t let me go,” Izuku said miserably, ears and whiskers still flat. It smelled vaguely of pork. He hadn’t eaten anything today… Usually he was only really hungry for one meal, dinner, but it was… nearly ten in the evening and he was starving.

“Who, baby?” his mom asked him softly, stroking his fur.

It was so hard to say. It was so humiliating to have to admit it. “I was reading in a tree in the park,” he explained, “and someone called the police saying I was stalking someone.” His mother’s eyes flew wide. “I wasn’t! I was just reading!”

“Of course you weren’t,” his mother said, voice cold as ice. “They didn’t call me?”

“I kept asking them to and they wouldn’t. They just kept asking me what I was doing in the park, and then said that I should have known better than to be reading in the tree because I would scare people...” Fine, maybe he was scary, but that… wasn’t an excuse to treat him this way. It wasn’t his fault he looked this way and it wasn’t his fault people were scared.

“Hmmm...” his mother’s eyes narrowed further. “Let’s have dinner, then we’ll talk.”

“What they did to you was illegal,” his mother told him as he licked his plate clean. “They can’t interrogate a minor without a parent present.”

“I thought so,” Izuku replied.

“But we probably wouldn’t win a lawsuit over it,” his mother continued. “When you see these kinds of things on the news… typically nothing happens unless there is public outrage, unless someone was injured.”

“Oh. That’s fine. I just want to forget about it anyway.” It wasn’t fine, but he’d pretend. If he pretended hard enough, would it make him feel better?

His mother leaned forward to stroke the fur underneath his left eye. “My poor baby… this isn’t your fault. You shouldn’t have to feel bad.”

“I know.” It changed nothing.

His mom told Mitsuki about what happened. So Kacchan knew. Which meant the whole school found out. “Delinquent” was his new nickname. If you believed the rumors, he’d tried to kill someone and got off on a technicality, and nothing he said, no attempt to set the record straight, made the slightest bit of difference. Now, every time Izuku walked past them, Aldera students gasped dramatically and jumped back, like he might lunge at them with claws bared, like he was dangerous.

He couldn’t stand that.

Their career interest forms were finally due. “You’re all aiming for hero courses, aren’t you?” their teacher asked casually. The class erupted into chaos. Izuku’s ears rang with the cacophony.

“Don’t count me in with these extras,” Kacchan gloated, “I’m going to UA!”

“Ah, yes,” their teacher read over their forms. “I see Midoriya is also aiming for UA.”

“Him? But he’s a villain in the making.”

“Him? But he’s quirkless!” Why did they have to do this to him? Sometimes it seemed like all the teachers intentionally sicced his classmates on him like a pack of hunting dogs.

“Deku! I’m the only one from this shitty school going to UA, you hear me?” Kacchan sparked his palms off, taking a step closer. Izuku moved his paws so that he could shield his notes--class--and notebook--quirk analysis--because singed fur was preferable to destroyed work--

“Now, now, settle down!” their teacher called. “No quirks in class! You know that.” Kacchan snorted and took a seat.

If Izuku had approached a classmate like that, with his teeth and claws bared, he would have been sent to the principal’s office. No, he would have been expelled. But somehow it was fine when Kacchan did it. Because he was human and human looking and blessed with a powerful quirk. Izuku… was none of those things.

School ended. Kacchan stood at the classroom door, arms crossed, waiting. Izuku had packed his things quickly, ready to bolt for the door… not quickly enough. The window was open. There was a tree out there. The jaguar darted to the window, judged the distance carefully, and lunged to the nearest branch. There was a furious shout, Kacchan leaning out the window, face contorted in rage. “Deku!” the student shouted. “I honestly thought you’d finally decided to off yourself, taking a dive out the window like that. Pity you didn’t! You might get a quirk in your next life! Then you’d be worth something at least.”

Had Kacchan… really just said that? Like he meant it? How could he…? Cats don’t cry. That had been, perhaps, the strangest change… no matter how much he wanted to cry, tears wouldn’t come to him anymore. Izuku scrambled down the tree, leaping the last three meters to the ground, and took off across the school yard.

He might not get into UA. But he had the right to try same as everyone else in the country… he was so tired of people acting like he shouldn’t have the same rights they did just because they didn’t like the way he looked. He might still be quirkless, but jaguars were incredibly powerful animals, capable of dragging large prey high into trees, jumping about three meters straight up, running at sixty kilometers per hour… and all that was seen from wild animals, those that did not intentionally train their bodies and did not always have a steady supply of food. Izuku would break those records when he grew up. He still seemed to age at the same rate as a human--in other words, he wasn’t full grown yet; an adult male jaguar could weigh one hundred kilograms and he was maybe sixty five.

Izuku halted mid stride, ears pricking. What was that? Someone talking? Moving? Underground. A manhole cover slid aside and a tendril of noxious smelling slime whipped towards him. Izuku jumped--accidentally performing a clumsy back flip--and took off down the street at a dead sprint. “Come back here, kitty!” an oily voice called. No. Never. Izuku dashed down an alleyway, leapt effortlessly onto the top of a dumpster, from there to the top of a brick wall, and then lunged down into the neighboring street.

Izuku didn’t stop running until he found himself skidding to a halt on the sidewalk of a crowded street. People gave him strange looks--like they always did. Whatever that… thing had been, it didn’t follow. “Is there a problem, my friend?” asked an older woman sweeping the sidewalk near her cafe.

“Something was chasing me. I think it was a villain,” he said, trying to regain some composure. “It seemed like it was made of mud? I got away but could you call the police and tell them that I saw it? I have trouble with phones.”

The woman nodded. “Of course, dear. Thank you for the warning.” She began to herd her outdoor patrons back inside the cafe.

Izuku set off for home at a quick lope, not wanting to take the chance of the villain catching up with him. The thing was just… so creepy… that voice, especially. Ugh. Izuku was oddly… pleased with himself, though. He had been attacked--if ever so briefly--by a villain and he had gotten away with his own power, no help from anyone. That was what civilians were supposed to do, exactly what they were supposed to do. As a civilian it was his duty to clear out of the heroes’ way when possible, make sure he couldn’t be used as a hostage. He’d done just that. “How do you like that, Kacchan?” he asked no one.

He prepared for the entrance exam alone. There was no one to help him train, no one to help him learn to fight. The only real “instruction” he had was watching the few existing online videos of big cats hunting or fighting. He would just have to make sure he was strong enough and fast enough to make up for the lack of formal instruction.

He ran to school every morning and back every afternoon. Cats were just not built for endurance, but he was going to earn some if it was the last thing he did. Five days a week, he took a trip down to Dagobah Beach and dragged huge pieces of garbage towards a dumpster, usually with his teeth, disgusting as everything tasted. He spent plenty of time pushing things with his paws, too, and jumping over progressively taller and broader obstacles. Those days always ended with a swim; it was a good way to wash away the stress.

No one bothered him at the beach. It might smell like an unholy sewage pit, but it became a refuge of sorts… a place where no one judged him, where nothing mattered.

He had applied for extra time on the academic portion of the UA entrance exams because of a “writing disability.” His request was granted. After all these months, all this practice with claw penmanship, he still couldn’t write nearly as fast as someone with a thumb. This meant that he arrived an hour before the main test started and joined a few dozen other students huddling in a small classroom. Izuku sat in his chair, tail across his paws, trying to ignore the butterflies beating against the lining of his stomach. He’d studied long and hard for this. It was going to be okay. He was going to pass. He could do this… oh he could not do this. Where was the proctor? If they didn’t start the test soon Izuku was going to loose his mind.

“Good mornin’ y’all,” Snipe greeted them. Oh… my… god… he was so cool! He was so cool--but Izuku was going to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t going to ramble. Nope. There would be no mumbling here--it was a formal testing environment--no mumbling. He was mumbling, wasn’t he? The girl to his right glowered at him. Snipe, however, only gave him a wry smile and signaled for quiet. Izuku sank into his seat, wishing he could disappear. The pro hero called their names one by one, checking IDs. “Alright. Y’all have four hours to finish the written exam. After that there’s the practical. Get to it!”

Izuku licked his single extended claw for grip and gingerly opened his test booklet. The anxiety melted away now that the test had started. He could do this. Alright. These weren’t even hard questions. Writing legible answers was more difficult than coming up with what to say.

He was just through checking his work when Snipe called time and began to collect test books. “All of you have your practical assignments? Good. The other applicants got their direction from Present Mic. You get them here. There’re four kinds of robots in the training ground--one, two, and three pointers are worth as many points as they’ve got in the name. Y’all have fifteen minutes to destroy as many of them as you can t’ get as many points as you can. Got it? The fourth robot is the zero pointer. It will smash y’all flat like a pancake. It’s an obstacle that you probably want to avoid. Any questions?” Nope. “See y’all later and good luck out there!”

Izuku loped down the unfamiliar hallways and across the grounds, following the long string of hopeful applicants. Somewhere at the head of this crowd of lemmings, hopefully someone knew where they were going.

Wow… this was insane. Izuku knew UA had unbelievable resources but this was beyond anything he’d imagined. It was a whole city… “Go!” What? “What are you waiting for?” Present Mic shouted. Oh. They were starting now? An applicant with engines on his legs sprinted through the archway into the streets of the battle ground. Izuku took off after him, leaving his nerves behind him--or trying to.

One of the robots trundled out into the street in front of him, whirling to aim with laser weapons flashing and steel glinting. Okay. He was ready for this. One powerful leap and he careened into the enemy, claws extended. This was a one point robot--clearly designed to be shoddy--and it shuddered and died as Izuku slammed it into the ground. He was strong enough. He could actually do this.

Wild jaguars hunt like no other cat. They ambush their prey and pierce the skull with their fangs, biting down into the brain. That strategy turned out to be quite effective against the two point robots which were not shoddy enough to fall apart when he pounced on them. He caught his first one as it prepared to fire a laser at a young boy who had curled up in a terrified heap behind a mailbox. There was a bit of an electric tingle in Izuku’s mouth as he crushed through the metal plates and pierced processors--but no shock. He’d been worried about electrocuting himself, but it seemed like the bots were designed not to do that. Excellent.

The boy Izuku had saved peeked out through his silver hair, caught sight of the jaguar triumphantly perched on top of a robot’s corpse, and curled back into a terrified heap. Izuku sighed. “You really need to get out of here! It’s not safe,” Izuku said, leaping down to the street and setting off after a gaggle of one pointers clustered at the end of a nearby alleyway. He took down two of them--the other three exploded. “Better luck next time, mon ami!” laughed another applicant.

Whatever. Izuku could hear more robots in the next alley over, and there were some extremely convenient ledges on this building. The jaguar leapt to the first, the second, the third, dropped down on top of a two pointer and sank his fangs into its head. There was a three pointer right next to it, though… and he didn’t actually know how to take that one down… It was much bigger than the two pointer, looked like it had heavier armor plates. He didn’t want to break his teeth. He’d leave this three pointer to someone else, find himself more twos and ones. He jumped over a fence, feeling a laser graze his tail, and set off at a sprint towards the nearest sound of grinding gears.

Twenty-two points… was that enough to get in? Probably not. Time was almost up and he could hear plenty of people with more… but he might still get a place in general education? That was better than nothing, wasn't it?

What was that noise? The jaguar whirled, eyes widening at the hulking, robotic behemoth rolling down the street straight towards him. The zero pointer… oh my god that was terrifying. He had to get out of here--someone was yelling for help, a girl pinned under a piece of rubble right in the path of the robot. Could Izuku move that rubble? Maybe. He could at least try.

“Where are you going?” demanded the student with engines--the one who had been the first into the testing grounds.

“We have to help her!” Izuku yelled, and the other applicant, catching sight of the girl, ran with him. Izuku was plenty fast at a dead-sprint. The other applicant was faster; he crouched down beside the pinned, brown haired girl and tried to push the piece of concrete off her with his leg. The jaguar joined in, wormed both his paws into the small gap beneath the slab that the other student had managed to create, headbutted the uneven edge, and threw all his strength into freeing the trapped contestant.

The engine-quirked student pulled the girl free and carried her at a sprint towards an adjacent alley. Izuku dropped the slab and followed. The zero pointer rolled past them in a cacophony of grinding gears. “That was way too close,” Izuku sighed deeply as the zero pointer screamed past them. “That’s just crazy. How can they let something like that into the test? That could kill people!”

“Time’s up, listeners!”

“Oh,” Izuku sighed, hanging his head. He hadn’t managed to get any more points… twenty-two definitely wasn’t enough.

“Thank you so much!” the girl they had rescued told them both, bowing and carefully keeping weight off her ankle.

“Of course! I would never leave another applicant in danger. That is not something a hero would do!”

“’Course not,” Izuku nodded.

“Those of you who are injured, stay where you are! The rest of you are free to go. You’ll get your results in the mail! See ya’ soon, listeners!”

“I’m Uraraka Ochako, by the way. What’re your names?” asked the recently rescued party.

“Iida Tenya.”

“Midoriya Izuku.”

“You have such a cool quirk, Midoriya,” Uraraka squealed. Maybe she was in shock? Nobody thought Izuku’s not-quirk was cool. “Can I pet you?”

“Uhhh...” On one level, boundaries were a thing… on another level Izuku liked having his fur stroked and this girl was pretty cute… “Sure?”

“Oh my gosh, you’re softer than I expected,” Uraraka said, running her fingers through the fur between his ears. “Do you purr?”

“Uhh… n-no. Jaguars don’t purr. Most big cats don’t. Snow leopards and pumas purr. I roar. Supposedly. I’ve never been able to figure out how to do that.” Or maybe he was just too shy. It was like singing in public, something he couldn’t see himself doing.

“Are any of you injured?” asked Recovery Girl. Oh, wow! That was so cool, meeting her in person.

“She has a broken ankle, ma’am,” Iida provided. “I am uninjured. Are you alright, Midoriya?”

Izuku nodded. “I got singed by a laser… and apparently my paws are scratched up from moving the rubble...” He hadn’t noticed through the haze of adrenaline.

Recovery Girl attended to Uraraka first, then gave Izuku a kiss right on his furry forehead. A brief wave of exhaustion rolled over him and Izuku yawned, showing off his teeth. “Nice fangs,” Uraraka said sleepily.

“Thanks?”

The trio made their way through the detritus strewn streets. “Do you think you got in?” Uraraka asked.

“No,” Izuku sighed. “I only got twenty-two points.”

“That’s not so much less than me,” Uraraka pointed out. “You might still get in!”

The optimism was a little bit infectious. “Maybe,” Izuku decided. Iida didn’t say anything about how many points he got… so he either had way fewer points or way more points. Izuku would lay a wager on the latter, if he ever laid any wagers.

“1-A… this is me, then,” Izuku mumbled, padding along the hallway towards the towering door. He pushed it open with a paw--and Iida was yelling at Kacchan about “disrespecting the carpenter” who made the desks. He'd thought he heard Iida. Izuku ducked down--grateful for once about how short jaguars were at the shoulder--and prowled towards a desk in the very back of the room, leaping up into the seat and curling his tail around his paws. It was just his luck to be in a class with his old friend. No matter what he did, he just couldn’t seem to get away from Kacchan.

“Hello, kero,” said a girl in the seat beside from him. “I’m Asui Tsuyu. Call me Tsu. And what’s your name?”

“Midoriya Izuku,” he replied as she scrutinized him.

“Are you a leopard or a jaguar, kero?”

“I’m a jaguar,” Midoriya provided.

The girl cocked her head. “Are you a jaguar with an intelligence quirk or a human with a cat mutation?”

“Uh… neither. I, well, I’m quirkless but I was caught in an attack by a villain whose quirk causes permanent animal transformations,” Izuku explained. Tsu seemed just… curious. Not judgmental, not pitying, just interested.

“I’m sorry. That sounds just… awful. It must be hard, not having thumbs.”

Someone finally understood. “Yes! Exactly! You all take your thumbs for granted. Everything is harder without them.”

“Ribbit. Let me know if it would ever be convenient for you to have some assistance from someone with thumbs.” She didn’t say “need help.” She didn’t treat him like an invalid. Maybe UA would really be different.

Movement. Izuku’s head whirled towards the door where someone was slithering into the classroom like a python. Tsu followed the jaguar’s eyes. “What is that?” she asked.

That got up and revealed itself to be a man with shaggy black hair. “It took you eight seconds to quiet down,” their teacher began, introducing himself and telling them to get changed into PE clothes and meet him outside. Izuku, who couldn’t really change his clothes in a reasonable amount of time and didn't exactly have a PE uniform, just kept his improvised uniform on and made his silent way through the echoing corridors to the training fields.

“We will be doing a quirk assessment test,” their teacher continued. “Bakugou? You were first in the entrance exam.” Of course he was. Izuku watched his old friend throw a ball hundreds of meters with his quirk. Izuku didn’t agree with Aizawa that PE classes should let students train their quirks. There was a good reason why they weren’t allowed to do that--namely that many quirks were dangerous, Kacchan’s especially, and young children managed to do enough damage--emotional and otherwise--to each other without using superpowers.

“And whoever comes in last in these assessments will be expelled,” Izuku was shocked out of his musings as their teacher grinned at them.

There was no way Izuku was losing his place here on the very first day. Not after he worked so hard, overcame so much to get in. He was top in the class for the standing long jump, tied with Tsu. He was top of the class in the sprints--not quite catching Iida and Kacchan but overtaking everyone else. When it came to the endurance run, he was middle of the class. Cats just weren’t built for that, but he had forced himself to become decent at it.

The ball throw… would be hopeless. He couldn’t throw anything in the conventional sense. He took the ball between his teeth, reared, tossed the cursed thing up in the air and smashed his paw into it with all the force he could manage. Only two people had worse throws: Mineta, who was not built for this, either, and Jirou, who was distracted at the last moment by a large beetle flying into her face but was not allowed to try again. Izuku would make up for this in other events.

The repeated sidestep… he looked utterly ridiculous trying to do that, but managed not to place dead last—he was fifteenth. Flexibility and grip strength… he could make up for the last two performances on these.

“I don’t think it’s fair to grade you on flexibility, Midoriya,” the teacher decided. “I’ll just use the average of your other scores for that.” Why? Tsu, whose mutation altered her build as well, was allowed to perform this test. She did amazing, and Izuku would have been nearly as good, top of the class. Why was he not allowed to take part in this when he was forced to do the ball throw which he clearly could not do? When that score told the teacher nothing about how capable or physically fit he was?

Grip strength, though, he could do. He could pierce bone and metal with his bite. He could make up for the earlier poor results here. “No teeth on that, Midoriya,” Aizawa said sharply. What? That just wasn’t fair.

“Shouji was allowed to use his additional limbs,” Izuku pointed out, the class silent as they watched the exchange. “And I am not physically capable of gripping something except with my teeth.”

“Do your best with your hands,” the teacher said, arms crossed.

Izuku didn’t have hands. He was by far the worst for that event. For arbitrary reasons. The injustice stung, made his ears and whiskers lie flat.

He wasn’t surprised to come in last. It wasn’t obvious, but the events had definitely been weighted to make sure that Izuku got the lowest score. “Midoriya, you’re expelled,” the teacher said tonelessly. Kacchan smirked at him and muttered something along the lines of “serves you” under his breath. No one else dared say a word, although Yaoyorozu shot their teacher a disbelieving and affronted look and Tsu looked downright furious. Most of the others regarded him with pity… and relief. “Get your things and go talk to the office staff.” The humiliation burned, every bit as bright as the evening he was arrested and held for hours because a lady at the park got frightened seeing him reading a book on a tree branch. “Yes, this is for everyone, but not for you, because I don’t like what you are.” Aizawa might as well have said that to him.

Izuku sniffed. Well, he was already expelled anyway, there was no point in not saying something. And he was furious. If he could cry, he would, but they would be tears of rage not sorrow. “I guess teachers really are all the same,” he said, turning his back on Aizawa and loping back towards their classroom.

The very first day. Kacchan was right, then, about Izuku being useless, but Kacchan was also wrong about UA because UA clearly wasn’t anything special. It was every bit the pit Aldera was, just with fancier quirks! Izuku made his way to the head offices, ears so flat against his head they ached. Where was he even going to go to school this year? It wasn’t as if he could just suddenly enroll somewhere else, not if he wanted that somewhere to have a decent program or reputation.

The office staff--the people who handled the bureaucracy of running UA and would now handle the bureaucracy of throwing Izuku out--resided in a big, open office right beside the principal’s. Nedzu’s door was open, the principal busily filling out paperwork. The other animal glanced up at Izuku, beady eyes glittering. There was at least one animal that made it as a hero. Why wasn’t Izuku even allowed to try?

“Good morning, Midoriya!” called the principal and the jaguar jumped. Nedzu knew his name? “Would you step into my office for a moment?” Now what? How much worse could this day get? Izuku huffed and did as he was told. Beautiful, stained cherry shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, overflowing with books. Similarly lovely, metal reinforced, locked cabinets likely held more sensitive files. The principal’s desk was a darker wood, ebony perhaps, covered in papers and computer monitors. The view out across UA’s grounds was gorgeous. What a nice day, too. A nice day to have all his aspirations crushed because a teacher just didn’t like him.

“Your ears inform me that you are extremely displeased. Mind telling me what has happened? Oh, and feel free to take a seat. I have a saucer here somewhere… would you like tea?”

“No tea, thank you sir,” Izuku forced his grating tone to sound civil. “And I don’t want to get fur on your nice upholstery.”

“Your fur?” Nedzu laughed. “Have you forgotten who you are talking to, Midoriya?”

Right. “Oh. Okay.” Izuku jumped up onto a large chair in front of Nedzu’s desk.

“Now, what has you looking like that?” Nedzu flicked his own ears back then forward again, as if saying “I know how it is with these.”

“I have been expelled,” Izuku said simply, voice somehow kept even.

“No you haven’t.”

“Uh… what?” A wry smile on his face, Nedzu picked up a piece of stationary, wrote, “No he isn’t, -Nedzu” and pushed it across the table. “What’s happening?” Izuku asked helplessly, completely confounded by the emotional whiplash.

“Teachers at UA have a great amount of authority to expel students and a great amount of leeway for their reasoning for doing so, but at the end of the day, I have veto rights. I presume Aizawa did his quirk assessment test this year? I am surprised you scored last.”

Nedzu was terrifyingly intelligent, wasn’t he? There was an edge in that tone that made Izuku quite certain the principal already knew exactly what had happened. There was an edge that demaneded Izuku tell the truth... all of it. “I was told I couldn’t take part in the flexibility test and was not allowed to use my teeth for the grip strength test. The ball throw, grip test, and sidestep test were weighted more heavily than the other events...”

“I thought as much,” Nedzu steepled his paws. “Now, any student may be expelled for failing to meet the standards of our programs, but I do not consider it permissible for a teacher to specifically manipulate circumstances to disfavor a particular student as an excuse for expulsion. That is, after all, a form of quirk discrimination,” Izuku was about to speak up, explain he was quirkless, “I am aware that you are quirkless and I am sure you know that the anti-discrimination laws do cover those who have been physically modified or otherwise gained or lost abilities due to the effect of another’s quirk. I do not approve expulsions that open UA to a lawsuit.”

“I would never win that lawsuit,” Izuku shook his head. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that? But Nedzu had to know that already, right?”

The principal waved a paw dismissively. “That will be my official reasoning. Unofficially…” his eyes glinted, “I know what it is like to be an animal in a program tailored to humans. I will see to it that you are given a fair chance to succeed at UA. If another incident such as this occurs, please come to me. I will have you transferred to class 1-B if necessary.”

“So… I’m really not expelled?” Izuku asked, still not quite able to believe it.

“No indeed. Take this and get back to class! You wouldn’t want to miss the first day.”

“T-thank you. Thank you, principal Nedzu.” The mammal nodded to him and Izuku darted back into the hall, tail high and ears pricked as he smugly sauntered back into the classroom, Nedzu’s note held lightly in his lips.

The entire class turned to stare at him. “What are you doing here?” Aizawa asked, glowering.

“Nedzu has a note for me,” Izuku said, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice.

Their teacher read it, glowered at Izuku again, and motioned the jaguar back towards his seat before continuing class as if nothing had happened at all.

Tsu joined him at lunch, along with Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, and Iida. Tsu was expected… the others not so much. “Midoriya? What actually happened?” asked Tsu, cocking her head.

Izuku winced. That was a bit on the nose… “Nedzu said Aizawa couldn’t expel me.” An assortment of raised eyebrows and quizzical expressions demanded clarification. “Because the test seemed to be intentionally rigged against me and it could result in a quirk discrimination lawsuit.”

“Ah,” Uraraka nodded.

“I noticed that,” Yaoyorozu muttered.

“No UA teacher would purposefully deny a student a fair chance to prove their talents,” Iida shook his head vigorously.

Izuku huffed, but didn’t say anything. Didn’t call Iida out for being too idealistic. “Do you typically eat at school, Midoriya?” Tsu asked.

The jaguar shook his head. “I usually only eat one meal a day—at home. I’m only in the cafeteria because the campus is confusing and I don’t want to get lost and be late to afternoon classes. That really could get me expelled.”

“I’m sure Lunch Rush could get you something,” Uraraka pointed out.

Izuku shook his head. “I’m really not hungry. Big cats don’t need to eat that often.”

Across the room, Bakugou sparked off his palms and yelled at someone, leaning over one of the tables to snarl in Kaminari’s face. “He’s intense, kero.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” muttered Yaoyorozu. “That’s just…”

“Why isn’t anyone saying anything to him?” wondered Iida.

“Because he’s human and human looking and has a great quirk,” Izuku heard himself say. He blinked. He always kept thoughts like that to himself. Tsu must be rubbing off on him already.

“Hey! Stop that right now!” Lunch Rush yelled, waving a ladle in Bakugou’s direction.

Izuku’s mouth fell open in shock. “Someone told him to stop,” he whispered, still not quite sure he believed it.

“It took them long enough,” Yaoyorozu commented, sinking her teeth into some kind of meat and vegetable sandwich. Izuku missed vegetables. His diet was quite boring sometimes… especially given how expensive most meats were. He usually had whatever was cheapest, day in and day out, although his mom did her best to prepare it in interesting ways.

“Why did you do that, Nedzu?” Aizawa demanded.

Nedzu raised an eyebrow. “I was going to ask you the same thing. Really, his performances in the practical and written exams were excellent. The fact that he is not human and does not have a quirk is irrelevant… or it should be. As an animal myself, I find it more than a bit disconcerting that you so blatantly stacked the deck against an intelligent, powerful and, judging by his rescue points, caring student…” Nedzu kept his expression neutral as he sipped his tea, but he was… quite angry. Yes, he was angry for personal reasons, but the fact that the reasons were personal did not mean they were not legitimate.

Aizawa gave Nedzu an exhausted glower. He wasn’t used to having his authority challenged. Nedzu had let him do exactly as he pleased for years. “I understand you might feel some kinship towards him--”

“Indeed I do. I, too, have feelings and can become personally invested in situations… especially situations in which someone in my employ blatantly discriminates against someone due to their membership in a group of which I am also a member.” Nedzu steepled his paws and reveled in the awkward silence he had just created. In a tone so cold it was almost a growl, Nedzu demanded, “explain yourself, Aizawa. I would like to believe there is some legitimate reasoning here, because I would like to think the best of you.”

Eraserhead sighed. “Lots of villains, the ones we tend to see the most, those that haven’t yet committed themselves to the career, will often hesitate to finish off an injured hero because taking a human life is… something even most “bad” people don’t want to do. Someone like Midoriya, though… he doesn’t have that defense. His life will be so much more dangerous than any other student’s. I…” Aizawa clenched his fist, “potential or not, I don’t want to be responsible for sending him to his death.”

Ah. Aizawa wasn’t necessarily wrong and Nedzu believed his explanation. This was the teacher's primary reasoning. Eraserhead had thought about this and not just acted at the whim of prejudice; though prejudice might well have been involved it had been involved subconsciously. “What do you think would have happened to him if you had thrown him out of here, Aizawa?”

“Goes to another school, hopefully not another hero school. Gets a job somewhere… There are definitely industries where being a big cat would be an advantage.” Not many.

“Someone like him… I am quite good at reading people, even from short encounters, and there is plenty of information in his file. He would likely have found a way to enroll at another hero school--a worse hero school because we are the best--where he would receive worse training than you can provide and would therefore be more likely to be killed in action. If he were unable to become a hero, I can see him becoming a vigilante, and you know all too well just how dangerous that lifestyle is. Or he might well have become a villain,” Aizawa raised an eyebrow, “the most frightening kind of villain: the kind with a legitimate grudge against society--the dark crusader working to avenge wrongs done to him by any means necessary, dragging the world kicking and screaming along for the ride.” Nedzu’s tea was cold now. This conversation had gone on long enough. “Now, tell me, Aizawa, are any of those three things appealing to you?”

The teacher shook his head. “Not in the slightest.”

“Excellent. If you would treat Midoriya fairly in the future… Midoriya, I, and the world at large would appreciate it.”