Archive of Our Own

“This one goes here, and this one… here,” one Hatsume Mei muttered to herself, putting together her first automaton.

It was made entirely out of the junkyard scrap that surrounded her in Dagobah beach. Unsanitary, but completely free for the taking. The robot would be about as tall as All Might if it stood upright, but that was about as far as it went with similarities to humans. To put it simply, it was a cluttered mess of loosely put together scrap metal held in place by just enough effort on Mei’s part.

Genius as she was, her parents had yet to teach her how to actually build a proper automaton. The only reference she had was when her parents allowed her to watch them build one in person. With just her memories and no practice at all, she managed to finally put together her own robot after having to sneak out of her family estate several times.

As the little genius of the Hatsume family, she expected this much from herself.

With a grin, she pulled out a silver sphere the size of an apple from the toolbox she brought with her. The logo of Hatsume Industries was carved onto the sphere by a laser and it was covered by complex and eye-catching patterns that were the Hatsume Code. She had only been taught the basics of it by her mother.

The device itself was her family’s signature ‘AI Core’, a contraption that simplified the construction of true automatons. All she had to do was create the robot’s exterior and put the wiring in the right places before attaching the core in the right spot.

Carefully, with the logo facing outwards, she pushed the sphere into the ‘Core Shell’ which she snuck with her along with the core itself. Numerous wires were plugged into the shell and once the core was in place, her work should be cut out for her.

Hearing a low click of the core fixing into place, she smiled triumphantly and backed off from her creation, watching as whirs of power reverberated through the robot’s interior.

Then it spasmed for a moment before it shut down. A cloud of smoke wafted from a random exhaust pipe she used in its creation.

Mei’s face fell.

“Noooo! Don’t tell me those sleepless nights for nothing?!” She cried out to the heavens, holding her head in her hands. She did not have all the time in the world, so there were some days she had to make time for herself during the night to work on her project.

Suddenly, with a jolt of electricity, its ‘eyes’ regained its luster and the machine sprung to life. Mei regained her enthusiasm in no time.

“Haha! So it just needed a little time, huh? Well that’s not supposed to happen so come to momma and let me check what problems you have!” She welcomed the automaton with open arms and a brightened expression.

A fist swept over where her head was.

Mei was able to duck at the nick of time as her baby malfunctioned, more smoke billowing out of its randomly placed exhaust pipes and sparks fizzling from wires she forgot to insulate. She backed off cautiously from the erratically moving robot. Akin to a drunk, it took wobbling steps that lacked balance towards her.

She paled slightly, then completely after the back of her foot hit the base of the trash heap behind her. The whirring of the robot’s engines became louder and louder and Mei lost her footing, falling onto the mound of scrap.

She hissed in pain before looking up to see her machine also about to topple over. On top of her.

Closing her eyes in fearful anticipation, she could only muster out one word: “Help!”

Zzthnk-kah!

A rapid series of sounds matching that of what a busy workshop would sound like rang above her, followed by weights falling into the sand and metal clinking against each other. Feeling the sting of sunlight hitting her skin, Mei opened her eyes.

There was a young man with a head full of dark green hair holding a wrench in one hand and the AI core in the other. He was inspecting the core with eyes of indifference. For some reason, Mei felt that he looked familiar somehow.

“Hm. I was wondering who made that poor thing,” he said aloud, referring to the scrap metal abomination that was just losing control. “So it was a Hatsume.”

But Mei wasn’t focused on his words. Her eyes landed on the AI core that she stole from her own home. She lunged at him, trying to reclaim what was (un)rightfully hers, “Hey, give it here! We won’t just let anyone touch what belongs to a Hatsume!”

Naturally, she was unsuccessful in her endeavor as she was being held off by the young man’s wrench-holding arm.

“Now who was it that came to your aid when you needed it?” He reminded her of her previous circumstances, not taking his eyes off the AI core. The girl paused in her tracks.

She finally took stock of the situation and scanned her immediate surroundings with wide eyes. Littered all over the sand were scrap metal and wires. Now usually that would be the most common sight in this trash dump of a beach, therein lay the problem where these scattered parts came from.

They were all used in building her first automaton. A machine that was nowhere to be seen, for it had been disassembled in its entirety within the period of time she had had her eyes shut.

An even more mind-boggling fact was that none of the components were actually forced apart. It was as if the entire robot just… lost support of itself and the individual parts fell to the ground.

Mei’s eyes gleamed with a certain intent.

She was then snapped out of her stupor by the man’s next words, “Not bad. It seems that his descendants were able to somewhat improve the AI core’s overall quality.”

Mei did not know what to make of those words and had no time to, as the core was tossed into her waiting hands.

The young man said to her somewhat chidingly, “You should not sneak out of your house for something like this. What if I wasn’t here? Go back home and tell your parents what happened.”

He turned away and walked a short distance before being stopped by an ever-enthusiastic Mei.

“Hold on there, super mechanic!” She stopped in front of him, “What was that move you pulled on my baby?! Was that your quirk? Instant disassembly?”

“I have no quirk,” he replied dismissively and brushed past her, ignoring Mei’s slack-jawed expression.

“W-wait!” She stopped him again, “Then can you teach me? If you don’t need a quirk to do that, then that means I can learn it too, right?”

The young man finally paid full attention to her, regarding the little genius of the Hatsume family seriously. He then slightly pursed his lip, “Most humans probably can’t attempt that no matter how hard they train.”

“Are you saying you’re not human?” Mei stared at him curiously. He merely smiled cryptically.

“Answer me this: You are indeed a Hatsume, yes?” The young man asked. Mei’s eyes shone with bright aspirations.

“That’s right! But not just any Hatsume, but Hatsume Mei! The one who is going to surpass Hatsume Tensai, my own great grandfather and the one who helmed the rise of the Support Industry worldwide!” She introduced herself and boldly stated her dream that was larger than life itself.

The young man pondered over those words before asking another question, “Who taught you to build an automaton? I’m a bit disappointed to be honest.”

“Ah…” She scratched her cheek in what appeared to be embarrassment. “I… wasn’t actually taught how to make one yet. My parents said that they would only consider me ready when I receive my UA acceptance letter.”

Slight surprise flashed through his green eyes. “Self-taught, is it? That settles it then. I accept you as a student.”

“Yahoo!” Mei raised a fist in excitement.

“But you’ll have to keep my existence a secret for now in return,” her teacher said with no room for argument.

“Okay!” She agreed easily, “What should I call you, sensei?”

“Midoriya Izuku,” he replied simply. “Come back to this beach whenever you’re free. I’ll be waiting.”

“Got it!” Mei was all smiles as she bid her farewell and was sent back home. She was then greeted by her estate’s robot maids and butlers at the main gate.

“Young mistress, please refrain from sneaking out with such a valuable item belonging to your parents. It could land in the wrong hands,” a butler lightly and mechanically admonished her.

Mei rolled her eyes with no real irritation behind them. “Yeah, yeah, I got it B1.”

‘B’ stood for butler and ‘1’ meant he was the first butler of this estate. An automaton personally hand-crafted by Hatsume Tensai himself. Even to this day, he still fulfilled his role as the head butler of the Hatsume Family estate.

“The master and miss are well aware of your rebellious habits after you were rejected being taught how to make automatons. But even they did not predict you would run off with an AI core,” the butler continued as he led her through the front door.

“Oh come on, I’m not that careless,” she whined, erasing the image of her teacher getting a hold of it. “Besides, the core didn’t go well with what I built anyway. I probably would have waited until mom and dad eventually taught me.”

“That would be for the best,” the voice from the woman of the house came from her left. “And do not be discouraged by your failure. The fact that you were confident enough of your creation to sneak out a core pleases me.”

The Hatsume matriarch approached her daughter with two guard automatons on her flanks. She regarded her little genius with gentle eyes and said, “Even my first robot wasn’t compatible enough to even walk with it until my third redesign.”

She took the AI core from Mei’s hands. “What’s more, this is a Type-5 core. Its margin of compatibility is the narrowest among its peers. We mostly use it just to train how well we can manage a machine’s energy consumption and distribution before we even attach a power source.”

Mei was taken aback. She clearly remembered how her baby made of scrap metal and frazzled wires was able to jump to life. Even though it malfunctioned, it still managed to move about and flail its limbs. It seemed it was not completely incompatible after all.

Her mother misunderstood her expression as being surprised by the difficulty of building an automaton, not that it was an entirely inaccurate judgement. She led her daughter by the hand to surprise her with an early lesson on robotics, which the girl so desired. Mei simply let herself get pulled towards her mother’s personal workshop. A place where she very rarely frequented since most of the action took place in the Hatsume Industries’ main building.

However, she froze in her tracks once her eyes landed on a certain sight. Her mother noticed and traced her gaze to see Mei staring at a large portrait mounted at the end of the hall.

It was a portrait of a charming young man with green hair and eyes. But make no mistake, it was actually a painted picture and not photographed, despite how realistic it looked.

Seeing her daughter being so entranced by the portrait, something clicked in her mind. She said, “So you’ve finally felt it.”

“Huh?” Mei was barely able to tear her eyes from the framed picture of her teacher.

“What do you feel when you look at that portrait on the wall?” Her mother asked seriously.

‘What do I feel?’ The little genius was confused. ‘I’m just surprised because that’s clearly Midoriya-sensei… wait.’

She scrutinized the portrait for a bit longer. Then… it seemed to come to life.

Not in the sense that the man in the picture moved, but the little details jumped at her. The back of her mind was active in receiving tiny crumbs of information by just looking at it. Somehow she knew.

The portrait was painted with overflowing passion… yet it was not painted by human hands. Her mind then descended into confusion again.

‘How is that possible? No, wait, how do I know in the first place?’ Her eyebrows scrunched up.

A calloused hand gripped gently on her shoulder, and Mei turned to see her mother looking at her with warmth. “So you do feel it… then I suppose I shall tell you a story of your great grandfather. The one people call the Lord of Machinery.”

Many years ago, a boy named Hatsume Tensai was taken as a student by a mysterious teacher whose identity remains an enigma even in the present day. He would one day bring the Hatsume name to glory whilst his teacher taught him in the background, out of the limelight.

His quirk was heightened perception, letting his eyes see the world as if it was slowed down, though the quirk did nothing to his physique. Even so, with his tools, boundless talent and determination, he was guided towards the path to greatness by his mentor.

Tensai was also a certified Pro-Hero and was able to balance his work as a Support engineer and a paragon of justice.

He built countless innovative machines and played a role as the spearhead of the still young and developing Support Industry. He won numerous awards in many nations. If the title was not already taken, he would be considered the ‘father of robotics’.

But even with all these achievements, Hatsume Tensai only considered one of them to be his greatest. A work of art which its existence was only known by his family.

After countless upgrades, numerous revamps, several reconstructions and a multitude of expansions, he was finally satisfied with it. His magnum opus.

Dubbed the ‘Izuku’.

Only he and his teacher knew where the name came from.

Judging by the amount of care and focus the Lord of Machinery put into this automation, it must truly be something grand, something magnificent, something groundbreaking, enough to put the whole world in an uproar!

But not quite.

If people knew what this machine did and how much time Tensai spent one it, they would find it extremely hard to believe. They would think they were dreaming. They would say it was a lie. Some may even call it a waste of the Lord of Machinery’s time.

Then everyone would wonder.

‘Just how much did his mentor mean to him?’

For the machine was intricately tied to the portrait in the hall. Izuku was created with only one purpose:

To paint a portrait of Tensai’s teacher and to imbue the man’s own passion into each stroke of the paintbrush held by the mechanical hand, despite him not being the one painting.

In essence, it was his Mona Lisa. He constructed a machine to paint what he considered to be perfection in engineering, although he himself was not a painter. The final product hung inconspicuously at the end of a hall, its true value only being fully realized by prodigies of engineering.

Even when the man was diagnosed with dementia, forcing him to retire, he did not ever forget his mentor’s teachings. Hatsume Tensai would wake up, look at the portrait to remind himself of what his teacher looked like, and proceed to polish his skills even with his old bones.

And until the day of his passing, he had never put himself on the same level as his teacher.

Thus ended the story of one of the greatest minds of that age.

There was also his ‘unparalleled Hatsume technique’ which was exclusive only to him, but that’s a story for another time.

Mei was absolutely amazed and captivated by the story. To think that the portrait she had subconsciously brushed off in her childhood could hold such history.

As she continued towards her mother’s workshop, a memory echoed in her mind.

“Most humans probably can’t attempt that no matter how hard they train.”

“Are you saying you’re not human?”

Mei had not forgotten her teacher’s promise. In just the next day, she sped through her morning routine, promised her parents to put in sufficient practice for the day and ran off to Dagobah beach.

To her surprise, Midoriya had more than just prepared himself to teach her. He had even set up an open-air workshop made entirely out of the scrap metal found here!

Midoriya seemed to have heard her arrival, as he turned to face her with a smile on his face.

“You must have been looking forward to the lesson, I see,” he started a bit of small talk. “Oh, and don’t worry about sanitization. This little one’s got it covered.”

A little robot on wheels not even reaching her hip whizzed through the workshop, spraying disinfectant everywhere. Mei’s expectations for the ensuing day grew.

“Did you make all of these from scratch in just a day?!” She asked energetically, walking to a table to test how stable its foundations were.

Midoriya spun his wrench on the tip of his finger idly and said, “Yup. Everything here, including this little cleaner here.”

‘The robot too?’ Her expectations rose ever higher.

“This might come as a surprise for you, but my teachings revolve around speed,” he stated. “How fast can you build a working machine flawlessly? How fast can you take it apart without breaking the parts? This training regime does not work for the average engineer. You must have the inventiveness of a genius and the ability to absorb any and all mechanical knowledge thrown at you. To put it bluntly, you can only follow this plan if you are monstrously talented enough.”

Hatsume Mei paid close attention to his words with a few questions in her mind. ‘Speed? I can understand not taking too long working on one thing but to put it as the main focus? And monstrous talent…’

She grinned. As the little genius of the Hatsume family, talent was something she had in droves. Ability to absorb knowledge? Being able to build a whole automaton with sufficient compatibility with an AI core was a testament to her ability to take in information.

This was going to be a new experience. But she would dive into it without hesitation to become the true successor of her great grandfather.

“Let us commence, shall we?” Midoriya turned to the usable materials all over the beach. “Tensai’s quirk allowed him to quickly adapt to speed-building, but you have no such advantages. Even so, I won’t be going easy on you.”

Mei paused, realizing that it truly was her teacher who taught the Lord of Machinery in the distant past. But she did not falter, knowing Midoriya-sensei would take her to great heights as he did her great grandfather.

“With the materials in the vicinity, show me what you can build in half an hour,” he assigned the task to her.

Most would feel daunted by the task of making something that can be called a machine using metal scraps found in a literal dump in such a short amount of time. But Mei simply smiled and started at once. Since her teacher gave her such a difficult assignment on the first day, she believed one day she would be able to accomplish it and Midoriya would cut down the maximum time.

Of course, this was only one of many trials planned in the regime. Hatsume Mei’s Hell training had officially started.

With swift movements as delicate as she could manage, she put together a jetpack of her own design without first transcribing the design onto a blueprint. Sweat dripped from her chin as her fingers felt tired from constant use. Her eyes darted all over the areas her hands flew over, checking if she had made any mistakes in creation.

She slammed the screwdriver onto the table and shouted, “Finished!”

“29 minutes and 12 seconds for a whole jetpack. Good job!” Midoriya-sensei praised. Mei regained her smile at that. “Let’s see if it works once we attach the power source.”

Her smile became strained.

Midoriya pulled out a battery from somewhere. She honestly didn’t know if he built it entirely out of materials from the beach. But her concerns lied elsewhere, that being the invention on her table.

Although she had paid as much attention as she could handle on every little detail, her teacher’s training forced her hands to move faster than her mind. She realized what he meant when he said that only the monstrously talented could follow this path. Only when one was born to be an engineer could their bodies build instinctively .

Midoriya inserted the battery into its designated port and waited. Before even turning on the thrusters, the machine’s internal sounds crescendoed and he snatched the battery away before the thing could explode.

Mei sighed for the umpteenth time seeing the same problem being repeated. She was getting faster, yes, but as if she was cursed, every one of her babies she created at her top speed would unfailingly contain a flaw that caused it to explode.

Truth be told, her progress was absolutely phenomenal. She was already at the point of reaching inhuman levels at engineering which could only be rivalled by specialized quirks for the job.

But as the little genius of the Hatsume family, was this enough to surpass her great grandfather? Mei did not think so.

Izuku cast a sideways glance at his student. He could see the complicated emotions in her eyes and her doubts towards herself.

As his student and future Mother of Machinery, that would not do.

He tapped her shoulder to get her attention. When her eyes were on him, he walked to a particularly unstable trash heap. He began, “The speed of Tensai’s mind was always in sync with his speed of assembly. Without his quirk of being able to perceive the world in slow motion, that path has been cut off when you awakened a different quirk.”

He stopped to let those words settle in his student’s thoughts. He turned around to face her before continuing.

“Yet I still took you in as my student, so I naturally have a method for you to reach him.” Midoriya struck the base of the pile with his heel. The entire thing shook from the power behind his kick.

Mei had just noticed the car rocking precariously atop the trash mound. However, her teacher was seemingly oblivious to it and continued, “If your mind can’t catch up with your body, so be it!”

The car finally tipped over. Mei gasped and cried in alarm, “Sensei, watch out!”

“Because I will teach you…” Midoriya turned his head slightly at an angle to catch the falling vehicle in his peripheral vision. “To turn engineering into an instinct!”

As the car was about to impact him, he twirled his body and swung his arm overhead towards the large machine.

All Mei could see at the point of contact were afterimages of her teacher’s arm, a wrench, screwdriver and a green swiss army knife. Both Midoriya’s upper body and the side of the car that hit him blurred. It sounded exactly the same as the day he saved her from her first automaton.

Like a busy workshop compressed into an instant.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye. When Mei heard the car hitting the sand, the scene fully hit her. Laid strewn on the ground were the barest components of the vehicle. Screws, plates, cushions, etc.

The whole right side of the car was just… disassembled . Like a repeat of that day.

“This much was what Tensai was capable of in his prime,” stated her teacher.

Her psyche was thrown into disarray. ‘What? How is that possible? You need a quirk to do that, right? Can I do that? Is it physically possible for me to do that?’

Mei’s breathing quickened. She held her head in her hands, feeling light-headed. ‘As… the little genius… of the Hatsume family… I…’

Her legs felt weak, prompting her to crouch down slowly. ‘I have yet to even touch the realm of the Lord of Machinery. Even if sensei believes in me…’

Izuku gazed at her hunched form expressionlessly. This could be considered a test in a way. A test if she believed in herself as much as he believed in her own talents. If not, then there was no point in continuing his tutelage.

Suddenly, her shoulders began shaking. A light flashed in his eyes. The corners of his lips curled upwards.

“Fu…” A sound escaped her mouth. “Heh, heh…”

In the next moment she stood up straight to laugh triumphantly to the heavens, “HAH-HAHAHA!”

Her quirked eyes zoomed in and out in excitement with blazing determination. She stuck a thumb to her chest and with a proud grin, she proclaimed to the world, “This much won’t scare me because I am Hatsume Mei! Throw all you want at me, sensei, and teach this little student how to disassemble it all! ”

“Then I will take you up on that offer, Mei,” Midoriya himself had a small grin. “And I will show you that stunt as many times as you wish until you’ve mastered it yourself.”

It was the day of UA’s entrance exams. After the written test came the practical.

It came as no surprise she aced it. It wasn’t blind confidence, either. In a quarter of the given time she was finished with the construction under the astounded stares of a number of examinees and even the proctors.

Despite the short amount of time taken, the final product was nothing to scoff at. Although if Mei was being honest, she held back quite a bit. No reason to attract too much attention after all.

She made a contraption that used lasers to carve a crude portrait of her teacher. It barely looked like him, but at least it could be made out to be a human face.

By the end of the day when Power Loader himself took the initiative to take apart the device to inspect it, he was thoroughly impressed.

“A Hatsume indeed,” he whistled, looking at the complex interior design.

Mei arrived at the beach in the afternoon of the same day to see her teacher relaxing on a leaning chair made of car tyres and cushions. There was another one to his left and in between was a small table made entirely by his hands. Midoriya was facing the ocean on that cloudy day as he beckoned his student to accompany him without turning around.

She sat herself down on the chair without saying a word, gazing at the tides of the ocean crashing and receding on the beach. The sight was rather therapeutic, as she felt what was left of her tense and nervous self return to calm.

Even she felt the exam jitters.

They relaxed for some time in each other’s company. Then, Izuku leaned to his right to pick up a bucket of scrap metal he placed beforehand. He proceeded to pour out its contents on one side of the table separating them both.

Mei turned to look curiously. Midoriya had fully turned his body towards the table sitting upright, his green swiss army knife in hand. He briefly twirled it between his fingers and before she knew it, there was a little metal figurine standing on the surface of the table.

“You and your great grandfather share a few similarities,” he said with a smile. “Always enthusiastic to learn more, and almost never daunted by whatever comes your way.”

With a familiar buzz of her teacher’s hands at work, a miniature workshop was set up on the table. “He was only 14 when we met in my temporary forest lab. He witnessed me building something, and there was that fire in his eyes, just like you.”

The figurine of Tensai was on his hands and knees, and across from it was the figurine of Izuku holding a tiny wrench. “He begged me to take him as my student. Who was I to send him away?”

He swept an arm over the table and everything vanished from her eyes, the scrap pile gaining a bit of height. Midoriya rested his arms on the table, seemingly looking right into Mei’s eyes, but that wasn’t the case. His eyes went right through her as he reminisced about times long passed.

“He swore that one day he would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me,” he said, tone slightly forlorn. “Of all the promises he made, this was the only one he broke.”

Mei was at a loss for words as they sat there in silence. It wasn’t long before she broke it, “Then… I guess as the little genius of the Hatsume family, I shouldn’t make promises I’m not sure I can keep.”

Izuku looked at her deeply. Then he smiled, knowing what was coming.

She suddenly stood upright, her quirk zeroing into his eyes as she unhesitatingly proclaimed, “I swear to you, Midoriya-sensei, that I will one day stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you!”

Just like that day, her blazing determination burned ever brighter. “Only by reaching your level can I confidently say I’ve accomplished my dreams of surpassing the Lord of Machinery!”

For she was who she was in her family.

“I’m proud to have called Tensai my student, and the same goes for you, Mei,” Izuku said genuinely. “And I want you to focus on your passion while you’re in UA.”

He stood up and placed an assuring hand on her head. Since his student had so readily promised something to him, it felt right to return the favor.

“Hatsume Mei, so long as you are under my tutelage, and so long as I have yet to consider you ready, I will protect you with all I have. From a mentor to his student, this I swear.”

“Listen up, class! The Sports Festival is coming up! Just because you’re not part of the Hero class doesn’t mean you can slack off in representing your class! If anything, your main goal should be to outshine the Hero course!” Power Loader hollered across the busy Support Lab.

“Yes, sensei!” A number of voices replied back.

Mei paid them no mind, as she had already long decided to give it her all to win the whole thing. Nothing less should be expected from the little-

Well you get the point.

She was actually warming up her hands before handling more strenuous construction plans. Midoriya introduced this routine of sorts to follow before undertaking larger projects at her level. By assembling and disassembling a complex but ultimately useless design over and over again to get the hang of her instinctive building.

If this was done by a normal person, they would only tire themselves out and strain their digits from constant overuse. But since Mei was anything but normal, this warmup served to ‘wake up’ every single muscle in her hands and make them considerably more flexible and agile when starting her next project.

Her teacher’s hell training also forced her to have near-bottomless stamina in her arms in preparation to one day attempt Izuku’s lightning fast technique.

Speaking of which…

‘I wonder what I should name it,’ she thought to herself.

He had given her the O.K. to give that technique a name, since apparently her great grandfather did not dare to name the art that originated from his mentor. She decided to take the initiative, knowing that Midoriya-sensei truly did not mind.

“What are you even doing? You do know that our teachers aren’t so shallow to show favoritism because you impressed them with some speed, right?” A classmate of hers mocked without restraint.

A few of her peers didn’t like the fact that a Hatsume had enrolled and stole their spotlight (not that it would ever land on them), but could only stew in annoyance in fear of invoking her wrath. One boy in particular had no such reservations and openly expressed his disdain to her family name.

There was actually a bit of history to why that was, but at the end of the day, he was being petty and Mei had already forgotten all about what's-his-name. All she knew was that there was a fly that liked buzzing around her when she worked but would eventually go away after some time.

Seeing that she ignored him this time around as well, the classmate scoffed and went to his station that was coincidentally next to hers. He was constructing a jetpack that should be theoretically powerful enough to get through each individual event before needing to recharge and refuel.

Mei had actually successfully built several of such jetpacks in her training with Izuku. She had also disassembled about as many. All in less than 30 minutes and out of discarded scrap metal to boot.

Then came the ominous whirring.

Followed by the rising steam from overheating.

The boy paled, stepping backwards wordlessly, forgetting to warn the other nearest person to the unstable machine. Power Loader could recognize those noises from anywhere.

He sprang into action towards the malfunctioning jetpack. In fear of not reaching there in time, he shouted at Mei, “Hatsume! Get down!”

Meanwhile, the girl herself was just slightly irritated. She was just finishing up her warmups when her focus was distracted by a machine that was about to explode. Mei was quite intimately familiar with that accursed whirring.

So putting her full attention on the jetpack, she picked up her tools and disassembled it in less than five seconds.

She did not want to waste time looking for the power source so she chose her next best option: Letting her instincts take over. When she was done, Mei muttered in disgruntlement, “Midoriya-sensei could have done it in less than half a second with one hand without even looking at it.”

She glanced at the overheated power source that was slowly cooling down before scanning the rest of the components. She then decided to take a few for herself.

This was all done under the stupefied gazes of everyone in the room.

“WHAT AN ABSOLUTELY INTENSE AND BREATHTAKING MATCH!” Present Mic roared into his microphone. “THIS YEAR’S SPORTS FESTIVAL WINNER…”

Mei took a deep breath in before letting it out. She opened her eyes, reaffirming the sight of the Hero course’s Bakugo Katsuki lying unconscious after many bouts. She detached the jetpack from her body and rolled her shoulders, before slowly loosening the other armaments on her person.

“IS THE SUPPORT COURSE’S HATSUME MEI!”

The audience went wild. Cheers that had subsided after the final exchange of blows came back with renewed vigor. It was to be expected after that spectacle of the final match. Many were able to recall when she detached and reassembled her shoulder and knee guards into enhancements for her already formidable gauntlets.

The applause did not die down one bit when she raised one arm with a wrench in hand. A grin came naturally to Mei’s face. The taste of victory settled in her stomach and she opened her mouth to let herself laugh in elation.

When the time came, she stood tall on the Number 1 platform. It was time to show what it meant for the world now that she was here .

“Young Hatsume! I give my highest congratulations to you for earning the Number 1 spot through the blood, sweat, and tears you must have shed creating your support items!” All Might himself approached her with a microphone in hand and a beaming smile on his face. “Do you have anything to share with everyone now that you’re here?”

As a matter of fact, she did. As her quirk zoomed in on the smiling visage of her teacher in the audience, she took the mic to announce to the world, “I am Hatsume Mei! Great granddaughter of the one who pushed the Support Industry into being a global superpower!”

“I will also be the one to surpass him, the Lord of Machinery Hatsume Tensai! So watch out, everyone! Because I will remind you all how it feels to have a Saint of Support in this generation!” She finished her grand proclamation, panting slightly from adrenaline.

The ensuing encore shook the stadium to its foundations.

Elsewhere, in an underground lab somewhere in Musutafu, a less than savoury individual watched the proceedings with a sneer on his face. “A Saint of Support in this generation? How laughable. Why don’t you make those claims once you’re capable of winning the entire competition with your inventions alone.”

A mechanical silver wasp the size of a rat landed on his shoulder. He seemed to like listening to his own voice. “But a Hatsume, hm? I suppose the name alone can only spell disaster for prodigies like I… so be it.”

The unknown inventor turned away from the screen attached to the wall and began to type something into a control panel of sorts in front of him.

On date XX-XX-21XX: Kidnap the Hatsume family’s only child.

Satisfied that there would be no overlap in his schedule, he proceeded to build and test his specialty machines for the rest of the day until he eventually retired into the night.

As he slept peacefully even with the knowledge he was going to take away a child from her dreams, an alarm blared beside his ear, forcing him awake and alert.

“What the blazes- wait, that alarm, someone’s infiltrated my lab!” He threw the blanket off of himself and rushed down to the basement stairs which led to a secret door to his lab.

‘No signs of forced entry… did they use a quirk to directly enter my lab?!’ He thought in fury. Once the door opened, he shouted into the dark room, “My Silver Entourage! Find and bring me the intruder!”

From the vents and the darkest corners of the room, came out swarms of silver wasps similar to the one that was just on his shoulder earlier in the day. They all buzzed into one collective body by the algorithm of their collective artificial minds.

“Not bad.” A voice from a blind spot of the room said indifferently. “But this much is only about a drop in the bucket compared to what Tensai released during the Spider Queen Incident in Australia.”

The villain hurried to switch the lights on, but the trespasser was still nowhere to be seen… until they stepped out from behind a wall of pipes.

“This is quite the blindspot in their senses, isn’t it?” The green haired intruder said in a tone that suggested disappointment. There was a wrench, screwdriver, and swiss army knife between the fingers of his right hand.

The inventor paid no more attention to the young man and commanded, “Get him, my army! Make him regret stepping foot here!”

The cloud of rat-sized wasps buzzed menacingly towards Midoriya, stingers full of paralyzing poison at the ready. His lips drew into a thin line and he took a step forward.

Scrap metal flew.

Upon touching a certain radius around him, the wasps would explode into their barest components and fall scattered noisily on the floor. The inventor didn’t even see him move.

Front, back, left, right, even above, none escaped such a clean yet twisted fate.

He retreated to the control panel on one side of the room and rapidly entered several inputs to bring his masterpiece to a battle-ready state. He then gripped his hands on both sides of the panel and pulled the entire thing off the stand to manually take control of his ultimate weapon.

“Silver Queen! Wake up and take out the enemy!” The inventor ordered. In the far recesses at the back of the room suspended a large insectoid automaton. Its back was currently affixed to the cold steel wall and countless wires were attached to its unplated areas.

Its appearance was akin to an upright hornet, with its head and stinger facing the same direction. The exterior was clad entirely in silver, and it was polished as well. Attached to its main two arms were ‘hands’ that ended with a flat surface of honeycomb-patterned holes. It had to be at least four times the height of the average person.

The robot’s eyes glowed an ominous purple as it smoothly lifted its right hand to aim at Izuku. He himself spared a glance at the inventor to see him putting on a gas mask from somewhere.

Toxic green fumes expelled itself from the holes of its honeycomb hands in huge quantities. Even still, Izuku continued unabated. The only change was that he decided to target Silver Queen.

Seeing that the intruder was somehow unaffected by the deadly poison, the villain only had one option left. His thumbs flew across the interface as if he were handling a Switch and not the controller for a giant terrorist robot, and promptly removed its ‘safety pin’, for the lack of better term.

Silver Queen’s left arm then raised to point at Izuku and he heard the faint noises of machinery emitted from inside the arm. He also heard a familiar light clinking of metal.

He frowned and dashed forward in a shocking burst of speed. He swung the arm that held his signature trio of tools towards the automaton.

Instant Workshop.

Or so it was called by Mei.

The entire left side of Silver Queen ceased to hold its form. It was disassembled in an instant . He was correct in his concern regarding its left arm.

Bullets, live ammunition, fell to the ground alongside the rest of its container. The machine’s power core slipped out of the opening on its left side and landed with a loud thud. Izuku already knew it could only be considered a more primitive version of Tensai’s AI Core.

He turned his focus to his first target, giving the villain the fright of his life. The silver wasps were all but scrap metal on the floor at this point.

“Who are you?!” The man demanded fearfully, backing up to a wall.

Izuku noticed a nearby table littered with spare parts. He walked up to it and slammed a palm at the table’s edge, toppling it at an angle and sending the spare parts flying in the villain’s direction. With another dash, he arrived by his target at the same time as the parts.

With a flourish, he put them into good use in a blink of an eye and created metal binds nailed to the wall, entrapping the villain’s limbs.

Izuku then walked right out of the basement and out the luxurious manor. His eyes glowed blue before he spoke aloud, “I would like to report villainous activity in this location. Specifically, the uncertified construction of automatons for harmful intent, and illegal incorporation of live ammunition in said automatons.”

He had just delivered that line to the police station in a perfectly androgynous voice. Then he hung up and followed up with sending the location and several pictures of the underground lab, including the Silver Entourage and Silver Queen in action before his eyes returned green.

Midoriya Izuku walked off into the night.

‘From a mentor to his student, this I swear.’

The news was out. It was supposed to be a historical event in which good prevailed against the darkest evil. The defeat of All for One and the subsequent retirement of All Might.

But there was one more detail made public, and turned into a media wildfire.

The ‘Nomus’ found in the location provided had something special to them. Not all of them were entirely fleshly beings.

Some were 40%-90% machine. Not only that, but the inner workings were near-identical to a once scrapped idea from Hatsume Tensai himself. The design only existed in the family’s old records, or so they thought.

Those cyborg Nomus even had Tensai’s personal seal of approval hidden somewhere in them. It seemed so obvious that he was being framed, but when the Hatsume family was interviewed to address the situation, they told the truth and confirmed that it was indeed Tensai’s own discontinued schematics. They adamantly denied having any connections to illegal activities, but the damage was done.

Since it originated from the Hatsumes, did that mean the Lord of Machinery once colluded with villains? If not, how could that man be so careless to leak the designs to such people? Then if not him, was it another family member down the line that leaked it?

Hatsume Family in cahoots with the enemy! Was the Lord of Machinery a fraud?

The newspaper was slammed down on the dining table in no small amount of fury. The man of the Hatsume Estate seethed, “Ridiculous! After all that my grandfather has achieved, these journalists still have the gall to put us on the side of villains! And the public response as well…!”

His wife listened to his tirade with downcast eyes. Not at his anger, but at the situation as a whole.

“They dared question where our loyalties lie! You give them an inch and they take a mile!” He started becoming more and more agitated. “And you know what?! That much I can take! If they want proof of our dedication to the Heroes and people in need, I’ll just do what I’ve always been doing and create Support Items to aid them! But what I absolutely, undoubtedly , irrefutably cannot take… ”

“IS THAT THEY ARE BRINGING OUR DAUGHTER INTO THIS!” The man roared, slamming a fist on the table and forming slight cracks on the marble.

“Dear… you are being too loud,” his wife gently reprimanded. “We need to be Mei’s pillars of support right now.”

The Hatsume patriarch took deep breaths to at least keep a somewhat clear mind. He then breathed in once more and said, “I know… I know. I’m just… overwhelmed. I can’t imagine what is going through our girl’s head right now.”

The woman moved to sit next to her husband. “I’m upset too, dear, but please keep it down. We don’t want Mei listening to her father lose his cool like this.:

He took another calming breath before nodding. “You’re right. She’s still young, and we need to be there for her. We’re competent adults. We can get through this rocky road without having to make a big fuss.”

Unbeknownst to both heads of the family, the little genius herself was not far from them. In fact, she had heard every single word in that exchange. Mei was a bit happy that her parents were still prioritizing her well being even in this entire fiasco, but the situation as a whole was just… too much.

Despite being forbidden from going outside due to the friction and hot water her family had landed in, she snuck out anyway with only one destination in mind.

Dagobah Beach.

Or more accurately, wherever her teacher was.

When she arrived, Midoriya-sensei was relaxing on the tyre leaning chair from months back. With forced excitement, she asked with a lump in her throat, “Hey sensei! Can we get to training? There’s nothing exciting to do at home, so I thought I’d come here!”

He turned his head slowly and looked at her with a deep and unreadable expression. He nodded after a while and got up from his seat.

They settled into a familiar rhythm, or so it seemed on the surface. Her reassembly was quite… messy. Her disassembly was also much slower than usual. Izuku tossed her a little trinket to work on.

It was a device impossible to take apart on her level. It was like a Rubik’s cube of a contraption. The components needed to be undone in a specific order to prevent the other parts from lodging into the next part’s opening sequence.

Presently, Izuku was the only person in existence capable of pulling off Instant Workshop on the baseball-sized trinket. He was testing his student’s current psyche.

As he predicted, her movements were becoming increasingly frantic as her brows scrunched up in displeasure. Twenty-three seconds after she started, Mei couldn’t control her strength carefully enough and with a barely audible crack , she broke an internal component.

Her face slowly shifted to one without expression as she stared at the broken trinket. Then she applied more pressure to her grip while clenching her jaw. More cracks sounded off from the complex toy as she stared at it with intense eyes.

Losing her temper, Mei threw the thing into the sand and scratched at her hair, frazzling her pink locks.

“Dammit! I can’t even… even…” She started in anger before halting her shaky breath upon seeing her teacher watching her lose her cool. “I…”

“I just can’t believe there’s such a complicated piece of work that exists! Were you holding back on me, sensei?” She amended her words with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Are you alright, Mei?” Her teacher said calmly and slowly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The lump in her throat grew. Her hands trembled very slightly. She took hitching breaths before she replied, “As the one who will overtake the Lord of Machinery, this much is n-nothing!”

She inwardly cursed herself for the quiver in her voice and the stutter. Her eyes were blurring with tears. ‘ Get it together, Mei! What they’re saying doesn’t matter!’

The whole debacle was just so mentally straining for her. More than that, it was suffocating . Why was this happening? Why was public opinion so easily swayed? Her family didn’t deserve this at all. Her great grandfather definitely could not have worked with villains. It was impossible! As the little genius… as the little genius…!

“Mei,” a clear voice cut through her troubled thoughts. She slowly looked up to see a soft expression on Midoriya’s face and his open arms.

As if her legs moved on their own, the next thing she knew, Mei was in his embrace and feeling what it was like to breathe again.

Gentle hands caressed her head and back as he said softly, “It’s okay, your sensei is here. Just let it all out.”

So she did. Bawling into her teacher’s chest, she complained about the injustice dealt to her family. About her own fears that were seizing at her heart. Of the unfairness of the world, she lamented, “My family, has, has al ways , hic , always strived to- to make the world a better place ! How dare they s-say that… they’re with the enemy ?!”

“It must have been hard for you,” Izuku whispered soothingly into her ear, feeling his student grasping at his shirt. “It’s going to be alright. I’m here.”

Mei continued to cry and sob whilst voicing out her frustration and fears to her teacher. Some time passed before she finally had no more words to say but the name of her source of comfort. She muttered, “Midoriya-sensei…”

“You’re right… Tensai definitely couldn’t have colluded with villains.” With her still in his arms, he spoke, “I would have stopped him if he did. That’s not to mention what a ball of nerves he is. I always had to reassure him before he walked out to do a public speech. That boy wouldn’t be caught dead participating in villainy.”

He heard Mei sniffle quietly under him. This really was too much for his precious student. Tensai had been under scrutiny of the world before, and Izuku helped him bear the weight of expectation. But in Mei’s case, it was that and more. She was only 15, for goodness sake. No teenager should be subjected to such treatment. He stroked her hair comfortingly.

“Did you know…” he began, “That the name Izuku, was made by Tensai after putting together certain sounds made by Instant Workshop? As for the supposed family name I gave myself, it’s just green. That’s it.”

There were very soft giggles coming from his student as her body shook lightly. The two stayed in that position until she was ready to speak again. “Sensei… UA is making dorms for the students… Do you think I should go?”

“The decision should be made by you and your parents who should know what’s best for you,” Izuku replied.

“But you are my sensei, and I trust you as much as I trust my parents. I know you’re also doing what’s best for me,” Mei said with a surprising firmness in her tone. She looked up into his eyes with a steely gaze.

He paused at that, before he conceded to that point with a hum. “Well, your Estate is in fact more secure than UA grounds, but their campus is massive. The security measures they are adopting for the main building and likely the dorms shouldn’t be much weaker than your own home’s. If you stay in your Estate, you’d have to expose yourself whenever you walk to UA.”

Mei thought about it. Where would be the best place for her? UA seemed to be the safest overall, but…

“I think I want to stay home. With my mom and dad,” she eventually said.

What was left unsaid was that she felt the most secure by her teacher’s side. Especially so in his arms.

She did eventually separate from him, albeit reluctantly. They conversed for a short while longer and before she left, Izuku placed a bronze cube the size of an average Rubik’s cube in her hands.

He had said to her, “Since that is what you have chosen, I have no right to stop you. That said, if you encounter something too dangerous to handle alone, have this cube with you and call out my name.”

And so she stood in her estate’s main living room to convey to her parents her decision to stay home instead of living in the dorms. The couple sitting on the couch turned to look at each other before nodding, appearing to come to a decision themselves.

A smile formed on the Hatsume matriarch’s face and she said, “Am I right to assume you’ve discussed this with your teacher before coming to this decision?”

Mei was taken aback. “How did you…”

Her father shook his head and interrupted with amusement in his voice, “Did you think none of us caught you using your great grandfather’s special technique of speed building? And we know it didn’t originate from him, as stated in our records. It was his teacher that taught him.”

“While it could potentially be a descendent of his teacher teaching you,” her mother inserted herself into the conversation. “Through reading between the lines did we realize their apparent longevity.”

Mei was temporarily speechless. She honestly should have expected that Midoriya-sensei did not put hiding his identity as the top priority the day he agreed to take her as his student. While she did promise not to reveal his existence in exchange to be under his tutelage, she had faith that he would not just stop teaching her because of this.

So she bowed her head down slightly to apologize, “Sorry for keeping it a secret, but sensei-”

“It’s quite alright, Mei,” the man of the house raised a hand to stop her. “You don’t have to explain. Again from the records, the old man was only allowed to share with the Hatsume Family the knowledge of his teacher’s existence after he received the title Lord of Machinery and became a family man. Even then, the name of his teacher still eludes us!”

Again, Mei was at a loss for words. So it seemed… her sensei was a bit more secretive than she thought? Her parents got up from the couch and went separate paths.

“I’m busy right now, so you take our daughter down to see it,” the man said to his wife, confusing said daughter.

“See what, mom?” Mei asked with a tilt of her head. The woman only smiled as she beckoned the girl to follow with her hand.

“It pleases us to see that whoever taught the Lord of Machinery is teaching you as well,” she started, moving towards an unnecessarily decorated wall. “Open sesame.”

To Mei’s astonishment, there was actually a reaction from the wall. A number pad revealed itself and her mother proceeded to enter a passcode of sorts into it. Following that, the wall opened up to reveal a rustic elevator.

They both entered the elevator without a fuss and she felt herself moving downwards with surprising stability on the elevator’s part. The doors finally opened after a short and silent ride to reveal a breathtaking spectacle.

The huge room they walked into housed an enormous machine that took up most of the space. Numerous pipes and wires were connected to its pale gray exterior, transporting Lord knows what in and out of the mechanical behemoth.

Mei’s mother turned to the left and the girl followed. Reaching that end of the room, she saw something that stunned her to her core.

Attached to the end of the machine was a robotic arm. Held between its fingers was a small paintbrush. Right within its reach in front of it was a blank canvas, and to its side was a table upon which a clean palette attached to its surface and a stationary holder full of paintbrushes sat.

“Say hello to your great grandfather’s greatest invention, the Izuku,” the woman finally spoke before she pressed a big red button outside the arm’s reach.

The Izuku came to life, with lights turning on and its structure vibrating minutely. A low and constant hum came out of the structure, as if a sign of it being alive .

Small drones flew out of a trapdoor opened by the machine, hovering via the propellers spinning atop their heads. Different colors of paint poured out of openings on their bottoms to fill the palette. A compartment slid out like an open drawer to reveal water inside to wet the paint and brushes.

The robotic arm put back its original brush to choose another much larger one. After the process of mixing colors, the arm reached out to the canvas to begin painting.

No word could describe the sheer fluidity the hand expressed with each stroke. But if she had to say something, it would be… transcendent . It no longer seemed like a machine at work, but a real human painter with decades of experience under their belt.

Mei could not imagine how complex the Izuku’s inner workings were. Not that her mind was elsewhere in the first place. She was completely mesmerized by the portrait that was slowly but surely taking form.

Only after a few hours when it was finally finished with its painting did she snap out of it. Her teacher’s face on the canvas was more lifelike than ever.

“Come here, Mei,” her mother beckoned her to follow behind once more. She was able to catch a glimpse of metal vices sprouting out of the structure to pull on the table. Likely to take it in for cleaning. “The Izuku is being maintained completely by self-replicating repair drones without the need for human interference. As you are the official successor of Hatsume Tensai, and you are even being taught by the same mentor, I believe you are ready…”

The woman pulled out a strangely intricate key from her pocket and inserted it to a keyhole Mei just realized was there. With a click, the metal surface opened like a door that led inside the Izuku.

And that very same key was now in Mei’s hands. “The key now belongs to you. Your father and I have agreed to let you study the Izuku’s interior for your benefit. Show the world what you’re made of, my little genius.”

That was always the plan, but with this… it simply further cemented her future as the Mother of Machinery.

The school festival was nearing, and Mei found herself doing her warmups at a ludicrous speed. She was still being avoided by most of her classmates, but whether that was because of the Nomu scandal or her inhuman actions she did not know, nor cared.

A classmate of hers, a girl, somewhat hesitatingly approached Mei with an objective in mind. Power Loader was busy assisting another student, so the Hatsume seemed to be the next best alternative for her invention’s issues.

“Hatsume, can you… help me find the problem with my walkie-talkie?” She found the courage to ask. The girl had personally put together two transceivers for herself and a friend for an event in the school festival, so she was quite proud of it. Unfortunately, an issue popped up and one of them couldn’t be used anymore.

Mei paused her warmups to glance at her way. She told her classmate, “Put it on the table.”

She did. Mei disassembled half of it right then and there, identifying the problem immediately. “Those two screws over there are way too loose. Something went wrong there. This particular wire too. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Ah, y-yes, some adjustments do need to be made… I was careless,” the girl replied timidly, still having trouble getting used to the successor’s monstrous skill.

Mei let a smile come to her face. “Well, as long as you understand what went wrong…”

She reassembled it, fixing the issue in the process. Mei handed the device back to its rightful owner and said, “There you go! As good as new, free of charge!”

Her classmate nodded joyously, “Tha-Thank you, Hatsume!”

“No problem!” Mei grinned at her before finally focusing on her big project for the school festival.

In one corner of the classroom, there were two stooges that stood, plotting something.

“So you put this on and pretend it’s malfunctioning to ‘accidentally’ break whatever the Hatsume is making,” the one who spoke was the same boy who was not afraid of antagonizing Mei for no good reason. Although she herself had never taken the bait.

He was holding a mechanical gauntlet that would wrap around the forearm when put on. A piece of work made in collaboration with the other boy with him. He was very proud of their achievement, but thinking about what the Hatsume made during the exams only served to pour cold water on his pride.

His friend seemed to be second-guessing himself as he eyed the gauntlet, “Okay I know that I agreed to help you humiliate her, but now that I think about it, isn’t this a terrible idea for both sides?”

The bully scoffed, “Don’t back down now, pussy. We just need to show her that being a Hatsume doesn’t mean being a Support engineer is smooth sailing. Not after what happened in the news.”

“You don’t seriously believe that, do you? Hatsume Industries has always-” the more reasonable one of the two was cut off by the petty one by having the gauntlet shoved in his grasp.

“I don’t care. Just follow the plan,” he ordered. His ‘friend’ grumbled momentarily before shuffling closer to Mei’s station. Sliding the gauntlet on carefully, he gave a hesitant ‘O.K’ to the boy with the remote controller.

How the gauntlet worked was that there were little pressure points in its interior to press down and stimulate the muscles on the forearm to increase workout gain, and even give a short but painful boost in strength if needed. In addition, there was a feature that could be activated on the remote to control grip strength.

The gauntlet was turned on from the remote. The device slowly clamped down on the friend’s forearm to ensure it would fit just right and not be loosened by any erratic movements.

So it squeezed tighter. And tighter. And tighter. Until he gasped in pain, realizing there was something wrong with the gauntlet. It was crushing his forearm. Then came the muscle stimulants pressing up and down on it, making him reflexively contract and release his muscles to counteract the discomfort. All this led to him waving his arm wildly like a madman.

“Ow, ow, OW ! Matsu! Turn it off, turn it off! MATSU!” He yelled in distress at the now named Matsu, who was panicking as well.

“I-it’s not responding! What the hell is wrong with it?!” Matsu really shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to design the interface in a rush.

His struggling friend just so happened to stumble towards Mei’s table with the malfunctioning machine in tow. She frowned at the commotion and without lifting her head up to look, she grabbed a wrench and two different screwdrivers with one hand.

Instant Workshop.

Just as the robot arm invaded her personal space, it was instantly disassembled , following vague afterimages of spinning tools. Scrap metal impacted the floor and the surface of her station. Mei dropped the tools onto the table as well, suppressing a grimace. Disassembling at that speed cramped some muscles in her hand.

With a sigh, she pulled up a chair from the side and sat down on it, massaging at the soreness. The victim of the brutalized gauntlet stared with wide eyes at his saviour. Eventually, he managed the croak out, “S-sorry and thank you!”

Then an unnaturally large hand gripped tightly on his shoulder. The chillingly familiar voice of Power Loader spoke up from behind, “You two again, huh… I wonder if it would be ethical to expel two students this deep into the school year?”

He knew that tone of voice.

“The testing dummy was right there, you numbskulls! What were you two thinking?!” Whimpering, the boy let himself get dragged away by his teacher in hopes that receiving a tongue lashing without protest would reduce the chances of him getting expelled.

Power Loader stopped in his tracks to glance at Mei and asked, “Hatsume, do you need to go to the nurse’s office?”

She responded with a shake of her head and said, “It’s fine, I can take this as a much needed break from work.”

A break from making babies? Her mentor has truly influenced her a great deal. She cracked a smile at that.

A finger tapped on her shoulder and Mei turned around to see an actual line of her classmates queuing up to… ask her something?

“We’re here to ask if you help find any flaws in our inventions, Hatsume… if you don’t mind of course! We can come back later if you want…” the one who tapped her shoulder trailed off. Mei saw the first girl she helped looking apologetically at her.

Her smile turned into her signature grin. With her uninjured hand, she picked up a wrench and gestured at them, “Alright, come one come all! I still have one good arm to disassemble all of your problems!”

She thoroughly enjoyed the time she spent working on the inventions of so many different personalities. There was almost always a little detail in each device that tipped her about the sort of person their creator was. It was a very enlightening experience, different from constantly working on Midoriya-sensei’s own machines.

Before she knew it, the day of the school festival rolled around. The atmosphere was bright, and the festivities went underway at full swing. For Mei, she was not actually participating in any activities. While she did help build some stuff for her class to use for their planned event, she had permission to wander around campus to fully experience the festival to her heart’s content.

So what was the main project she was working on?

The automaton, which its shoulder she was sitting atop of. The Deku. She chose that name because it sounded like a clumsier version of Izuku. It also bore the logo of Hatsume Industries on it. Somewhere in its interior was a carved out personal sigil of approval made by Mei herself.

It was a large and bulky robot, a little taller and wider than her first automaton back on the beach. Mei had created an AI Core of her own design and used it on the Deku. Since it was much more simplistic than her great grandfather’s cores, the Deku could only lumber forth slowly, but sufficiently stably for her to take it on a ride. It was also able to change directions at her command, at the very least.

If there was one thing to comment about it, it would be…

The nightmarish asymmetry.

To pay homage to her junkyard baby that tragically passed due to the hands of her teacher, the design of Deku was made to look horrifically distorted and skewed. The average person would look the other way. A perfectionist might feel the urge to dismantle it to get this abomination out of their sights. If someone with OCD laid their eyes on it, then only God could help them.

Perched on the shoulder of this bestial arrangement of steel, Mei headed out to have her fun.

Near the edge of school grounds, in a forest, a notorious pair of ‘villains’ were sneaking about. With their scent masked with the fragrance of earth, Gentle Criminal and La Brava moved into the range where they could disable UA’s security.

Truth be told, there was no 100% guarantee that La Brava would be able to succeed in hacking into UA’s internal network. She could be considered a prodigal hacker, but who knew what the school had employed to guard its system. But they were in too deep to back out now.

“This should be close enough,” Gentle Criminal muttered, receiving a nod in reply from his beloved. She set up her computer to finally begin the most important stage of their plan.

But it was not meant to be.

Instant Workshop.

The pair only felt a gust of wind before the computer burst into countless bare components. They heard footfalls to their left and instinctively turned to stare at the newcomer’s back profile with gaping expressions.

Izuku turned around, three tools in hand and a face devoid of emotion. He stated coldly, “I will not let you take away my student’s much deserved break.”

La Brava retreated behind Gentle as the man readied his quirk for combat. Unfortunately, he was not as composed as he wished to be when he demanded, “Who are you?! A student? You dare stop us when we’re this close to our objective?!”

Before he used his quirk, heavy stomps made their way towards their position. In no time at all, a shadow was cast over the villainous couple. Fearfully, they both turned their heads at the same time to look behind them.

Color drained from their faces at the sight of a veritable goliath looming over them.

Some time later, Hound Dog and a few of Ectoplasm’s clones stumbled upon the clearing where the conflict had taken place, but found nothing. In the end, Hound Dog never found out the source of that metallic scent.

Elsewhere, Midoriya Izuku dropped off the two villains in an alleyway far from campus. He told them straightforwardly, “You two are not bad people. It’s just that you make bad decisions. The little miss here has talent in hacking, whilst you are very proficient in using your quirk. Think over the words I said on the way here. It’s up to you to decide what will be your next step.”

With that, he boarded back into the somehow currently invisible vessel of his and took off without another word.

The pair was silent for a long moment.

“...La Brava,” Gentle Criminal finally spoke, eyes still focused on the distant sky, where his former captor took off to.

“Yes, Gentle?” She replied immediately, her full attention on her loved one.

“I… think it’s time we looked for a different career option. Something that could put both our strengths to good use without separating us. What do you think?” He said somewhat testingly, not knowing how La Brava would react to his opinion. “I know this is quite abrupt, but considering what just happened-”

She giggled, stopping his speech. She looked into his eyes and said without a shred of doubt, “I will follow you wherever you go, Gentle. Don’t you remember the promise we made?”

He was momentarily surprised before he softened his features. With a faint smile, he said, “Of course I do. We shall not face the challenges ahead of us alone, but together forever. Now let us be off, La Brava!”

“Right next to you, Gentle!”

Mei inspected the interior of the Izuku, both fascinated and intrigued by the enormous work of art. She mentally took notes of how each nook was connected to each cranny before alarms blared all over her Estate, even underground.

She hurriedly ran along the walkway inside the machine to the exit, but as she caught the sight of the automaton maid accompanying her reaching towards her from outside, a black mist obscured her vision and her sense of direction was lost.

When her vision returned, she analyzed her surroundings to conclude that she had been taken to what was very clearly a supervillain’s lair. Indicated as much by the myriad pipes on the ground, walls and ceiling, and the large cylindrical tanks that held purple-skinned creatures in stasis.

‘ Nomus’ , her memory supplied, and a snarl came to her face.

The faithful servant of All for One, mad doctor Garaki Kyudai stared down at the girl’s furious visage with an unimpressed look. Crawling beside his lofty chair was Hood, one of the many cyborg High-Ends he had awoken in preparation for this day.

“So you are the one who will succeed Tensai? You don’t seem like much,” the doctor commented. “Thank you for bringing our guest here, Kurogiri.”

Before he could receive a reply, Mei tossed a smoke bomb which exploded upon contact with the floor. She then pulled down her goggles to configure its vision settings and set off immediately. She had also shattered a tiny contraption that sent emergency signals home and to licensed agencies and police stations in a 200+ kilometer radius when broken.

Mei made a dash for it through the dark corridors, but Hood caught up in no time at all. Fortunately, the gloves she was wearing were no normal gloves. The tiny mechanisms inside had long activated and the metal linings tracing the bones in her hands thrummed with untamable might.

She turned to throw a punch. The knuckle guard impacted the High-End, and with a boom , all the force that was somehow stockpiled into the gauntlet was released at once. Hood was flung back and Mei hissed in pain, holding the shoulder of the arm she punched with. Without her teacher’s training, it would have been broken.

But she could not put her focus into that now. The Nomu was able to get up without much trouble and rush towards her. As her death seemed ever-approaching, she recalled a warm memory of the recent past.

‘If you encounter something too dangerous to handle alone, have this cube with you and call out my name.’

“Izuku!” Mei cried out, closing her eyes in fearful anticipation.

Zzthnk-kah!

A rapid series of sounds matching that of what a busy workshop would sound like rang in front of her, followed by weights falling onto the steel floor and metal clinking against each other. Feeling the familiar sense of safety wash over her, Mei opened her eyes.

There Midoriya-sensei stood, in the middle of fallen scrap metal, facing Hood that had gone catatonic at the loss of its mechanical half. The image of his imposing back was like a sturdy wall separating her from danger.

Mei felt deja vu from the first time they met.

Feeling a loss of weight from her belt, she looked to see that the cube gifted to her had gone missing. Did Midoriya come from that cube somehow?

“As expected, you really came to your student’s rescue,” Garaki’s eyes seemed to brighten at the appearance of Izuku. He had just entered the corridor followed by several High-Ends, both the cyborg and completely fleshly variety. “Izuku, was it? This was a long time coming. Get them, my children!”

Two Nomus had snuck up on them from behind and pounced upon hearing the command, but they could never touch the two. The ceiling had collapsed above them in announcement of a certain vessel’s arrival. Said vessel crashed heavily atop the two Nomus, before it released a high voltage shock of electricity from beneath its feet to electrocute the creatures out of commission.

The initial impact had sent Mei off the ground, but Izuku had saved her from the ensuing fall with his arms. Paying no mind to being carried by her teacher, Mei took a gander at the new arrival.

It was both a mecha and an automaton. The cockpit was at the very top, being guarded by thick and likely bulletproof glass, yet it could work autonomously without a pilot. It could not be considered humanoid, for its head and body was one. The mech was as tall as it was wide. It had very short but thick and powerful legs to maintain balance with such weight pressing down on them. Its bulky arms ran down its sides until the knuckles almost touched the ground.

Its color scheme was most peculiar. A mix of pink and green. The same color scheme Mei used on her Deku.

“Good timing, Ajax,” Izuku acknowledged the mecha. It let out a low rumble in response. Mei, feeling completely at ease in her teacher’s arms, gazed upon the robot in wonder.

Ajax stretched out a hand for its master to step onto. Once he did, the robot raised the hand to the cockpit, letting the glass slide back enough for him to fit. A Nomu tried to interrupt them, but it was struck by a cannonball that shot out from the center of its abdomen. While there was no explosion, the sheer speed and weight behind the ball sent the Nomu to one end of the corridor and through more than one wall, if the continued sounds of destruction were any indication.

“Ajax, I am trusting you to protect the great granddaughter of your creator,” Izuku said solemnly as he deposited Mei on the pilot’s seat. The robot’s hand formed a thumbs up. He patted his student’s head fondly. “Wait here while I take care of this, okay?”

With that, he exited the cockpit before the glass hatch shut down tightly. Held between the fingers of one of his hands was a wrench, screwdriver, and swiss army knife.

Scores of High-Ends lunged forth, myriad quirks activating and destroying the corridor. Weaving past the fleshly Nomus, he only laid his hands on the cyborg variants.

Instant Workshop.

Instead of complete disassembly, it was reassembly and reconfiguration. In a flash of afterimages, the mechanical Nomus now only served him. The purely biological ones that rushed past him were slammed into the walls by Ajax’s massive arms. Long ranged quirks that even All Might’s muscular form could feel left nary a scratch on the behemoth.

Izuku left it to his new minions to deal with the fleshly Nomus.

“Your first mistake was incorporating machinery into your experiments,” he stated plainly, advancing towards the increasingly terrified doctor. “Your second mistake was targeting my student.”

“Wo-Woman!” He shrieked in fear. Izuku felt liquid beneath his feet and looked down to see that he was stepping on a dark puddle. Before the turned Nomu could react, the liquid took form and morphed into a feminine Nomu who laid a hand on his face. With her quirk ‘Rupture’, the hand detonated, blowing his head into pieces.

Instead of the expected blood and brain matter spilling out, countless nanomachines that were once Izuku’s head shot towards Woman’s brain in a blink of an eye. Without any time to react, the female Nomu’s mind was fried and scrambled beyond recovery. She fell to the ground, unresponsive.

The nanomachines returned and reformed Izuku’s head to show a slightly disgruntled expression on his face. He groused, “As an extension to your first mistake, you clearly stole the designs from Tensai.”

The doctor was already off, running back to the main room.

Mei watched in rapt attention how her teacher dealt with the creatures. What happened with the female Nomu left her in stunned realization. She always knew her teacher must have been some sort of automaton even if she never asked and he never told, but to think that he was a collection of nanomachines. That answered the question how he somehow materialized from the cube to come to her aid.

Her instincts flared up in warning of a danger behind her.

Instant Workshop.

Kurogiri, who had just warped into the cockpit of the mecha to take Mei hostage, had his metal collar abruptly taken apart. He could not even open a portal to intercept her arm. In fact, he didn’t even see her arm swing at him in the first place. This made the villain lose grip on his quirk in befuddlement.

Swiftly, the glass hatch opened and a giant mechanical palm faced the interior. The super magnet inside the hand activated, and the pieces of Kurogiri were pulled into it in an instant. Mei’s goggles, gloves, and tools were not spared. Her belt and shoes were, at least. The magnetism could somehow be concentrated into a beam.

The villain seemed to be disorientated to the point of unconsciousness.

Izuku followed Garaki into the main room to wreak havoc. As Ajax moved forward to catch up, Mei could hear the doctor’s pleas for her teacher to stop whatever he was doing. The mecha squeezed through the entranceway and she bore witness to the aftermath of Izuku’s disassembling spree.

Gone were the pipes and that covered nearly every flat surface. The white walls and even ceiling were bare to see. The floor was absolutely littered in an assortment of materials. The tanks holding sleeping Nomus were stripped down to its foundations and the lighting from inside was absent.

The bound Garaki watched with hollow eyes as his life’s achievements were taken apart in front of him. Briefly, memories flashed through his mind of better days.

“Mr. Hatsume, Mr. Hatsume! Do you need any assistance? I’ve completed all of my tasks, and I’m itching for more!”

“Hahah, is that so? Are you sure you didn’t just come here to see me at work?”

…

“Mr. Hatsume! You have achieved something as great as founding the floating research city I-Island! Why don’t you make it your own independent nation to rule over?”

“Rule over? What’s the point in that? I am an inventor, not a ruler! Great minds should be free to explore the unexplored! I have no desire to be seen as anything else.”

…

“Mr. Hatsume! Have you considered constructing a personal army to deal with potential foes? With your genius and status, it should be no problem at all to get started!”

“Personal army? You are being too radical, my junior. That would make people fear me, and that would be counterproductive! I want the world to remember the positive impact I made in Support technology!”

…

“Mr. Hatsume! I’ve finally found the method to implement machines into flesh to enhance one’s quirk and bodily strength!”

“Putting your degree in medicine to good use, hm? Alright, tell me about it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hatsume. Now, while the drawbacks are quite serious…”

…

“Garaki. You have ignored my previous warnings to not proceed with creating those poor things you consider cyborgs. I must admit, you truly have a brilliant mind. And while I wish for nothing more than to let brilliance shine free, you have crossed the line as an inventor and doctor. My only regret was being unable to notice the signs and bring you back to the light. The authorities will arrest you once you walk out of this building to send you to Europe’s most secure prison. Now get out of my sight.”

“Mr. Hatsume… why was it that All for One acknowledged my brilliance but you were so repulsed? Are my children really living in perpetual agony like you said?” The doctor muttered brokenly to himself. “Do no harm… but how? How can one reach your greatness without doing harm?”

Meanwhile, Izuku disassembled the rest of the Nomus that served him. He would rather not keep them.

He then formally introduced his mecha to Mei, “You are sitting in Ajax, a gift given to me by Tensai after he was given the title Lord of Machinery. I have made sure to maintain it at its prime even after all its years of inactivity.”

It was actually the same vessel he took on a joy ride with Gentle Criminal and La Brava. The hatch opened and Mei jumped onto the waiting hand to be taken to her teacher.

“The occasion could be better, but I have a gift for you,” he placed a metallic pink swiss army knife in her hands and wrapped her fingers around it. “It is something I made, and can last a lifetime. Take care not to lose it and master it, will you?”

Feeling the precious tool in her hands, she felt a little emotional. With tears prickling the corners of her eyes, she gleefully went in for a hug, which Izuku returned. “I will, Izuku-sensei! I promise!”

Numerous Pro-Heroes arrived at the source of the distress signal, along with guard automatons from the Estate and Hatsume Industries headquarters. Before they could get a closer look at the hole in the ground, a gigantic robot jumped out of the hole and landed not far away.

The Heroes prepared for combat, but the automatons recognized the mech and bowed in subservience. Just as questions were about to be asked, the glass dome opened to reveal an unharmed Mei stepping onto the edge of the cockpit and showing a victorious grin.

“It’s all good now, guys! My grandpa’s mecha saved the day!” She shouted at the crowd. Ajax opened a hand to reveal the still unconscious Kurogiri, who was promptly apprehended with quirk-suppressing technology.

The underground lab was searched and they arrested Garaki Kyudai, confiscating any and all research papers. Apparently his plan had been to get rid of Izuku before the Heroes arrived, and then have the High-Ends deal with them in one fell swoop once they gathered in one spot. Unfortunately, he underestimated the Lord of Machinery’s mentor too much.

The entire compound was put on lockdown by the authorities and the entire area was being swept in full. Whilst giving her testimony, Mei admitted that her teacher was the one who saved her, but adamantly refused to give a name. She assured detective Tsukauchi himself that her teacher was not a villain.

Afterwards, she was actually given permission to ride the mecha home as long as she was being escorted by the guard automatons. She took the opportunity and laughed all the way home as she took to the skies.

Many years had passed since that day.

Hatsume Mei walked the streets towards the Hatsume Industries main building. She had grown to be quite the lady inventor. She was being followed by an upgraded Deku from her first School Festival. While it was still blindingly asymmetrical, many people thought that it gave a feeling of looking at abstract art.

On the way, there were a few aspiring inventors that approached her for an autograph. She signed them all with a smile on her face.

Right before stepping through the entrance a voice yelled out to her, “Successor to the Lord of Machinery! Do you dare face me?!”

Mei turned around to see an interesting sight. A random villain was riding atop a huge mechanical T-Rex. Two angel statues in front of the entrance sprung to life and arrived by Mei’s side to protect her from any incoming threat.

She ordered the angel robots to stand down as she approached the villain. Digging through the small toolbox attached to her belt, she replied jokingly, “Who said I didn’t dare? Now come on! I’m a busy woman, you know?”

“Lil’ Tyrant, eat her!” The villain commanded his steed. The steel dinosaur stomped forth and unhinged its jaws. As it reached down to chomp on Mei, she pulled out three tools.

Instant Workshop.

Its entire head was disassembled in a flash, revealing the grinning Hatsume Mei flourishing her tools. “You put them together too loosely.”

“T-too loosely?” Gobsmacked, the villain fell off the dinosaur as it crashed onto the ground. He was then apprehended by the patrolling automatons in the area.

Mei finally entered the building with Deku in tow. She then took an elevator to arrive at her private workshop to see her own magnum opus. One a bit more ambitious but perhaps not as artistic as the Izuku.

Punching in the right passcode, the door to her lab opened. Sitting on a chair was a boy. Not a human boy, but an automaton. Or rather…

An android.

It looked like a younger Izuku, but with black hair. She called him Deku Junior, a future sentient and emotional automaton with free will.

It wasn’t safe enough to turn on just yet, as much still needed to be done. She felt a weight leave her belt and smiled knowingly. The cube grew into a mass of nanomachines which were shaped into her teacher’s form.

When the process was done, she greeted him with a brief hug. “Izuku-sensei!”

He patted her back a few times before they separated. Izuku laid his eyes appraisingly on Deku Jr. He nodded and spoke, “Impressive. You’ve truly gone far, haven’t you?”

She grinned brightly, “Of course, as Hatsume Mei of the Hatsume Family, this much is only expected.”

Pulling up a chair to work on the android’s interior from the panel on its back, Mei decided to chat with her teacher for a bit, “Hey sensei, isn’t it weird I haven’t asked who created you after all this time?”

“Hm, I suppose it is,” came the casual reply.

“So…” she turned around, curiosity burning in her eyes. “Where did you come from, sensei?”

Izuku adopted a thinking pose, pondering about one thing or another. He said, “To be honest, I don’t know. I awoke on Earth during the dawn of quirks and one day decided to pass the time by taking in a student.”

His features showed fondness. “It was a very enlightening experience for me. One day, Tensai had asked the same question as you and I said that I had no answer. He then theorized that I may be the product of aliens, or an actual alien itself. He wanted to rekindle the space race even in this age of heroes and villains.”

He sighed forlornly, “But he never managed to do so, as his immediate priority was on the Support Industry. By the time he planted the industry into the status of being a global superpower, his mind was already too old and frail to partake in this plan.”

Izuku opened his eyes to be met with Mei’s own, shining with that familiar blaze behind her goggles.

“I think I know what my next big project will be after Deku Junior. Will you witness it with me, Izuku-sensei?” She asked seriously.

Her teacher didn’t know what expression he should make before he settled with a smile.

“Of course, my student.”