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“Hey, Power Loader? Sensei?”
Right about now, Maijima was ready to ignore whoever or whatever it was trying to get his attention. He had settled down in his seat, in a part of the audience that was supposed to be a long way away from his machiavellian students, ready to watch the carnage unfold in front of him. It was Sports Festival time, day one, ready for the first-years to make their debut, and he couldn’t wait. The newbies were about to take on the obstacle course he had designed, after all.
This was the course with the giant pit of doom (Nezu had insisted, and for once Maijma had been completely on board), and the final stretch that skirted the line between a test of mettle and a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention. Maijima had pointed out that he had designed the course with a number of less controversial final options, and that mines were still banned under several international treaties, and Nezu had laughed. The decision had been made.
Still, after some of the first-year support classes that he had had the displeasure of teaching recently… Maijima grinned, underneath his trademark helmet. Some of them had it coming.
“... Senseiiiiii.”
There was still several minutes to go before Kayama would kick the whole thing off, with Aizawa and Yamada providing their unique brand of commentary and apathy from on high. There was a flurry of activity below, much to Maijima’s surprise coming from all quarters. The Hero Course students always used the Festival as their springboard, and it was generally accepted that those on other courses would find the limelight elsewhere, but this year seemed a little different. Maybe the USJ incident had done more to motivate others, as a few General Studies students bustled around with purpose (did Aizawa have a son nobody knew about?), Management Course students seemed to huddle and strategise, and… well. Maijima frowned. Maybe he needed to be more careful about what he was approving his students to use, given some of the devices he could see being tinkered with.
“.... Bestie?”
Oh, gods. Maijima tried his best not to groan, finally recognising the voice of the person he was speaking to. Satsuyo Serisawa. The second-most chaotic member of Class 1-H, and the second-greatest burden on his stress levels and sanity, a mad mess of blonde hair and white noise. What had he done to deserve this?
“I know you can hear me, BFF!”
Serisawa had all the hallmarks of being a great student; he had a fantastic Wood Manipulation Quirk which made for some really interesting Support items, and he was clearly very creative. He was also blessed with a foghorn voice, absolutely no concept of boundaries (Maijima didn’t know what was worse, constantly calling him ‘bestie’ or constantly shaking other students by the shoulders when he got animated about a topic), and a complete inability to deal with silence of more than ten minutes without shouting something random.
No wonder he and Hatsume got on so well.
Maijima dredged up some courage from somewhere, and looked up at his student from his chair. “Serizawa… what did we say about calling me that?”
“But… like…” Serizawa briefly looked like he was about to engage, before his train of thought moved on wildly. One day, Maijima vowed he would get through to him. “I need to talk to you! About the lab! Yeah!”
“What… why?” Maijima sat up straight, and cricked his back. “What’s the issue?”
“Something’s making a weird noise-”
“We talked about this. That’s my Geiger counter.” Maijima shuddered. “You and everyone else got told about what we’re not allowed to build, after that one time Hatsume-”
“It’s not that, bestie!” Serizawa ignored Maijima's anguished cry at the way he referred to him. “It’s, like… it’s a clock thing! It’s beeping! And it’s counting down on your desk from, like, a few thousand?”
Maijima hesitated, his blood running cold about something like that cropping up. So soon after USJ, on the first day of the Festival, with all those Heroes gathered and the eyes of the world on the school? It couldn’t be, right? “Serizawa, did you see anything else? Anything attached to it?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so?” Serizawa pulled a face, and looked down at the ground. “I, uh, I asked Mei about that and she just laughed. Said I shouldn’t worry-”
Maijima’s fears were answered by that one sentence. So that’s what it was. That was easy enough to fix. “Right, that makes so much more sense. That girl… she’s competing, she shouldn’t be leaving her gadgets back in the lab like this. I’ll go talk to Hatsume.”
“Yay! What do I do?”
“Uhhh…” Maijima saw an opportunity to get free for at least ten minutes. “Go back to the lab, Serizawa. See if it has an off-switch. Or a plug you can pull out. Can you do that for me?”
“On it!”
As Serizawa sped away, expelling loud and meaningless cries without a care in the world, Maijima began the short trek down the stairs to the changing room and the answer to most of his problems. She was a genius, yes, and given how serious she was about making a name for herself, he knew that Hatsume was getting ready to deliver the best performance of any Sports Festival student in history. He was just proud enough of her to know that she would blow them all away.
He just knew Hatsume well enough to know that if he didn’t supervise her, she really would blow them all away.
“Hatsume!” Making his way towards the door of 1-H’s changing room, he waited for the all-clear from the boys on the door, and made his way in; given Hatsume’s famous lack of awareness, he didn’t want to be scarred again. “Hatsume, you’re here, great-”
“Sensei! Did you come to wish me luck?” The pink-haired gremlin spun with giddy glee to face him, something shining in her remarkable yellow eyes. “There’s so many agency representatives out there! So many sales reps!”
“Down, girl. You can show off your stuff later. Right now, though…” Maijima’s eyes narrowed. “We need to talk. About you leaving timers out where people run into them.”
“Timers…” Hatsume paused for just a second, before realisation quickly hit her. “Oh! The one that keeps beeping really loud, huh?”
“That’s it.” Her immediate recognition made Maijima feel ten times more calm about the situation. Of course it was one of hers. “What’s it, uh, what’s it for?”
“Well, it was for a surprise, but since you asked…” Hatsume hefted something up in her arms, and for a moment Maijima took a step back, panicking that his prized student was pointing a blunderbuss at him. “Presenting baby number 63, the All-Celebrations Compact Cannon!”
“Compact… cannon.” Maijima stared at his grinning student. “... You’re not using that in the Festival, are you?”
“Nope!” Hatsume confirmed cheerfully. “There’s ten of these babies around the stage, ready for Nemuri to make her entrance at the start-”
“That’s Ms Kayama, or Ms Midnight, to you. Geez, you’re all as bad as each other with these boundaries.” Maijima tried not to let the relief on his face show, as he lifted his helmet and wiped sweat off his forehead. “So that’s all it is? A timer for what, fireworks?”
“Not even that! Just some confetti and silly string!” Hatsume flashed him what she must have believed was a reassuring smile. God, it was terrifying. “No explosives involved, promise!”
“... Alright.” Maijima allowed himself a chuckle as he turned towards the door. “Just… don’t go leaving timers like that lying around in future, okay? You might scare people.”
“Oh, whoopsie!” Hatsume didn’t sound apologetic at all. “Sorry, Power Loader! I won’t leave that on my seat next time!”
“On… your seat.” Maijima paused, and turned around. “In the lab?”
“No, in the stands, silly! Right up the top, where you set us all up with a view next to the CEO’s booths, remember?”
“It’s… the timer’s in the stadium.”
“Well, yeah! Where else would I put it?”
Maijima froze. “... So what’s the one in the support la-“
KABOOM.
The world went whi-
(***)
“Y’know…” An injured Tomura Shigaraki, one hand still bandaged from his wounds at the USJ, hissed as he stared at the TV screen above Kurogiri’s bar, showing the smoking crarer that was all that remained of UA. “After that failed quest at the USJ… this feels anti-climatic, Sensei.”
“ You’re too young to appreciate, Tomura Shigaraki .” The rich, smooth and very smug voice of All For One emerged from the screen at the back of the room, clearly impressed with his handiwork. “ Villainy has changed with the development of Quirks, true, but it’s also true what the old school Villains said… when all is said and done, nothing is more effective than a good old-fashioned pipe bomb. ”
“I still call bullshit,” Shigaraki groused, nursing his hand as he sat forward. “The cheat code might be good, but it takes all the fun out of it.”
“ Only you could be so ungrateful at watching All Might die without having to lift a finger. ” All For One chuckled, briefly. “ So, broker… you said you had a few more of those devices? ”
“One or two…” Giran took a swig of his whisky, and flashed a gold-toothed smile at the TV. “I take it you’ve got a few more parties you wanna throw?”
“... I’ll take the lot .”
“Pleasure doin’ business with ya.”
(***)
In the end, they had to cancel the Sports Festival.